Ep. 859: Crossing Denali - Revisited - Michael Fenner
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2022
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mountaineering: Mike Fenner on Mid-Life Denali Expedition – Climbing North America's Highest Peak at 20,310 ft, Changing from Dreamer to Adventurer.
Originally aired on April 28, 2016
Mike Fenner joins Travis to describe what it's like to be a member of an expedition to climb up and over Denali. At 20,310 ft above sea level, Denali (Mt. McKinley) is the highest peak in North America. Listen in as Mike tells about finding himself mid-life wondering why he didn't turn out to be the adventurer he'd dreamed of being. His story is about changing who he was and exploring the world of mountaineering.
Check out the Book: Crossing Denali: An Ordinary Man's Adventure Atop North America
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, folks, welcome to the adventure sports podcast. I'm your host, Mason Gravely. Today is actually, |
| 0:25.3 | I'm not hosting. This is a throwback Thursday episode. Travis was hosting this episode, and he's talking to |
| 0:30.5 | Mike Finner. Mike in the mirror one day looked and saw a person he didn't like. He was not the |
| 0:36.1 | adventure he wanted to be and he wanted to do |
| 0:38.1 | something about it. So as he was kind of halfway through life, a midlife crisis, he decided to make |
| 0:44.1 | a really big challenge that was, you know, maybe the pinnacle of that challenge was halfway |
| 0:48.0 | through, which was crossing Denali. So usually you climb Denali, that's the summit. You know, |
| 0:53.5 | it's great. You get there and then you come back down the same route. Well, he was going across. So imagine just doing a route, you know, 20, 30 miles. And then Denali is just the summit is somewhere in there. So at some point along that route is Denali. And that's kind of the adventure. I think it ties in beautifully with what he was going |
| 1:11.9 | through in life. And if you're older or you don't think, you know, you've done enough in your |
| 1:16.9 | life, well, guess what? It's never too late. We've had so many people on this show who haven't |
| 1:21.2 | started their adventures careers till they were, gosh, in their 60s and 70s, and their adventures |
| 1:26.7 | that any one of us would be happy |
| 1:28.7 | to do and totally jealous that they got to do that. So please get some inspiration from Mike |
| 1:35.0 | and make sure you're planning your next adventure, no matter how big or small that is. |
| 1:39.2 | Do whatever challenges you and makes you feel proud to be here on earth, living your life to the fullest. |
| 1:45.2 | All right, let's jump in. |
| 1:59.2 | Hi, and welcome back to another adventure sports podcast episode. |
| 2:01.6 | This is your host, Travis. |
| 2:03.4 | Now, a few of you have written into us and said, |
| 2:05.7 | hey, we want to hear from some more mountain climbers, some high altitude climbers. |
| 2:09.8 | So I got a good guest on for you today. |
| 2:13.8 | His name is Mike Fenner, and Mike has a a really good inspiring story about finding himself, |
... |
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