The Dirtbag Diaries

There’s no such thing as a perfect job. What if there was a magical place where you could get paid to climb? At the center of this kingdom is a mountain, and all you have to do is climb it. Find out what happens when a bunch of climbers are left unsupervised with the keys to the Magic Kingdom. 

Today on the Dirtbag Diaries, we’re traveling from the halls of a New England boarding school where two boys forged an unlikely friendship to the wind-swept wilderness deep inside the Cascade Mountains, where a trio of climbers have been hard at work solving one of the Northwest’s greatest free climbing projects. 

In 1996, photographer John Burcham and three friends completed the first foot traverse of the 650-mile long Alaska Range. Burcham decided to leave the group at the very end of the trip in order to make it to his sister's wedding. He was alone in the continent's last great wilderness with a sobering realization -- crevasses, hungry wildlife and hypothermia can kill you, but loneliness can drive you crazy.  

This week the Dirtbag Diaries presents the Anatomy of an Accident. What do you take away from a near-death experience? Is there meaning in it? If so, what does it say about our relationships with these mountains, these rivers and these oceans.

This week we're headed for Laos to recount the story of two friends and one spectacularly bad idea.  Join us as we follow Jacob Bain, Colin Brynn and a bamboo raft down a river at the edge of the world. 

There is no textbook on adventure journalism, but if there were one, it would contain one single, steadfast rule -- you can't photograph adventure from a safe distance. This week, adventure photographer Corey Rich gives us photos and the untold stories behind them. 

Many of us associate our vehicles with freedom, independence and youth. But can a hunk of metal have a soul? Fitz presents the sometimes-true tale of a 1974 Mitsubishi Sigma, a boy on the cusp of adulthood and a life changing journey across Australia. 

On a remote cliff in northern Arizona, we join rock climbers Albert Newman and James Q Martin as they attempt the first free ascent of Tooth Rock. 

Gaper. Touron. Weekend warrior.  As mountain people, we can be a cold, hard lot adhering to an "Us and Them" mentality, but at the root, what makes a dirtbag a dirtbag? Is it a look? The clothes we wear or the skis we ride? Or is there something deeper to out culture? Can anyone be a dirtbag?