Of course I looked at every other teenage kid.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

When I was sixteen years old, I took off and drove across the country to Wyoming.

Went into the Wind River Range and discovered mountains.

In 1973, Yvonne Chinard founded Patagonia.

I never wanted to be a businessman.

All I wanted to do was do my craft and climb mountains.

And then I had to figure out a way to where I was going to be a businessman, but I was

going to do it completely on my own terms.

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, inspire and implement solutions to the

environmental crisis.

Join us at Patagonia.com.

We're listening to The Dirt Pack Diaries, a production of Duck Tape Than Beer, with additional

support from New Belgium Brewing and Kuat Racks.

On summer road trips with my mom and younger sister, I became the de facto navigator as

we explored the highway banes of California.

The first time my mom tossed a map at nine-year-old me, I felt overwhelmed.

I struggled to figure out where we were on the map, never mind how to span the space between

here and there.

I quickly learned to look at a map before my mom called upon my nascent skills.

I traced our path looking at the different ways we could go.

And as I got older, mom let me pick some of the offshoot places that we went to.

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