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The Dirtbag Diaries

The Threshold Moment

The Dirtbag Diaries

Duct Tape Then Beer

Wilderness, Sports

4.72.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2015

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Kevin Fedarko stepped through the door of the O.A.R.S. boathouse in Flagstaff, AZ, he didn't realize he had crossed a figurative threshold as well as a literal one. Kevin had planned on rafting the Grand Canyon for a wilderness medicine course. Then, he planned to go back to his life as a successful freelance writer. But what he saw in that first week on the Colorado River left him desperate to find a way to keep coming back. Kevin spent the next smelly, humiliating, beautiful and life-altering decade of his life developing a relationship with the Grand Canyon, writing about the Grand Canyon, and, ultimately, figting to protect it.  To learn more about the current threats to the Grand Canyon and how you can help, visit Save the Confluence and Grand Canyon Trust. You can purchase Kevin's book, The Emerald Mile, here. Brendan Leonard wrote and narrated this episode. You can find more of his work at Semi-Rad.com.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Of course, I'd get any other teens, because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

0:06.8

When I was 16 years old, I took off and drove across the country to Wyoming, went into

0:12.0

the Wind River Range and discovered mountains.

0:15.6

In 1973, Yvonne Chinard founded Patagonia.

0:18.8

I never wanted to be a businessman.

0:23.4

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

0:29.8

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

0:36.5

to do it completely on my own terms.

0:40.0

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

0:46.7

crisis.

0:48.2

Join us at Patagonia.com.

0:59.8

I'm 36 years old.

1:06.8

Looking back, I think that there are three moments to the years where my life took an unexpected

1:10.7

turn.

1:12.4

Moment 1.

1:13.4

I'm 15 years old.

1:15.6

My childhood friend was in the beginning throws a mental illness, something that would

1:18.9

ultimately lead to his death.

1:21.0

And his parents, they were completely desperate to get their kid to grab onto something positive,

1:26.0

anything.

1:27.0

And so they planned this trip to Colorado and asked my parents if I could come along and

1:31.0

join them on their family trip.

...

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