1KHO 830: Is the Adventure Worth It? | Devon O'Neil, The Way Out

The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

Ginny Yurich

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2026

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A father and a teenage boy headed out for a short ski near a backcountry hut and vanished into a Colorado snowstorm. What followed became one of the most gripping survival stories I've read in years. In this conversation, Devon O'Neil shares the true story behind The Way Out and the years of reporting that went into uncovering what happened. We talk about adventure, risk, fatherhood, preparation, community, and the difficult reality that a meaningful life can never be made completely safe. This episode will make you think differently about the outdoors, the people you love, and what it means to truly be alive. Get your copy of The Way Out here Learn more about Devon and read his articles here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:23.4	Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast.
0:25.8	My name is Ginny Arts and the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I have just read a page
0:29.7	turner of a book and also been exposed to a different kind of writing that I wasn't, I didn't
0:36.6	really know existed, which is about adventure
0:39.0	and sometimes when adventure goes wrong and in the heightened emotions and these incredible
0:45.4	athletes and how they survive. And so it's just been a fantastic read. This book I read is called
0:51.3	The Way Out, A True Story of Surv survival in the heart of the Rockies.
0:55.2	It is up for an award, the Reading the West award. This is a true story of survival in the heart
1:00.3	of the Rockies. Author of this book and then incredible amount of articles, Devin O'Neill, welcome.
1:07.2	Thanks so much for having me, Ginny. It's a pleasure. Okay, so you're going to have to give us a story here on how you got interested in writing all of these types of articles.
1:14.8	So the book is a survival story, a survival story about backcountry skiing, which I didn't know much about.
1:21.6	And I learned about in your book in Colorado, but like a town, like everyone's known of a herd of Vale, but this is in a town called Salida. And then you- Salida. Okay, I knew I was going to say it wrong. So Salida, but then you have all sorts of articles that you've written over the years. Like I read one about a girl named, I think, Danielle. Danelle Ballengee, yeah. Danelle. So so I read that one that was on your website
1:45.3	devon o'neill.com how did you get interested in writing about these types of
1:51.4	situations you know kind of by happenstance is always how it occurs but I had
1:58.1	gone to college in Vermont and played a couple of sports in college and got out here with my twin brother.
2:04.2	We stopped in Breckenridge, Colorado, for one night in 2002.
2:08.1	And it's now been 24 years.
2:10.5	I've never left.
	...

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