Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Blister podcast on the Blister Podcast Network.

I'm Jonathan Ellsworth, and you can check out everything we're doing and reviewing over

at blisterreview.com.

Our guest today is Rick Ridgway, who might be best described as a fictional character that's come to life.

Rick has lived right at the center of the modern outdoor industry, and it feels pretty accurate to think of him as one of its founding fathers.

Rick was a part of the first American ascent of K2.

He has gone on countless adventures with his friends,

Patagonia founder Yvonne Schenard, and the North Face founder, Doug Tompkins, and

filmmaker Jimmy Chin.

And he has also been right there working to protect wild places

with them and with Christine Tompkins and others. There is simply far too much that could be said

and deserves to be said about any introduction of Rick Ridgeway, so maybe instead, let me just say this. First, please pay close

attention to this conversation. And second, please read Rick's new book, Life Lived Wild. Because the

combination of our conversation here and Rick's exceptionally good book

function as a kind of mentorship program for all of us, I think.

And on a personal note, I enjoyed Rick's book and our conversation here so much that after

we stopped recording, I told Rick that I had a lot of other things

that I wanted to ask him about and get his perspective on. So I told him that I wanted to come

see him in California if he'd let me come to see him. And he actually said yes. But he also said that maybe he'd come see me in Crested

Butte. So I don't know where we're going to meet up, California or Crested Butte. I just know that

I'd want to meet up. Anyway, if you would like to come check out Crested Butte, we have put together

a guide that we think is a really helpful resource for helping you figure out how to get here and there's also a lot of other useful information in it.

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