Wild West

Lake Tahoe skier Hazel Birnbaum has traveled the globe on the freeskiing circuit for most of a decade, but this winter she decided to officially retire from the sport. What does that look like for a 33-year-old? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pete Whittaker stops by to talk about his unique approach to rock climbing, why he loves suffering and his new book, Crack Climbing, out in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White Wolf would be Northern California's first private ski area -- like a gated community for skiing in Lake Tahoe. Owner Troy Caldwell sits down to run through how the whole thing would work and how his project represents the future of skiing in Lake Tahoe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco surfer Grant Washburn comes on to talk surfing culture in the city. We cover the uncertainty around the future of the famous Mavericks surfing contest, the closing of SF's 50-year-old surfing shop Wise, and the emergence of the City Surf Project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BASE jumper Daniel Ristow is on a mission to pioneer legal BASE jumping spots in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. (Click here for our feature story on his mission.) We discuss the state's secretive BASE community, Daniel's first jump and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adventure photographer Corey Rich stopped by to talk about shooting rock climbers on El Capitan, South Lake Tahoe's exciting future, and his new book, "Stories Behind the Images." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Randall Reeves has been at sea for 12 months and counting and is days away from completing a solo circumnavigation of Antarctica and the Americas. He traveled the Northwest Passage, the fierce Southern Ocean and contended with gales and icebergs. We talk challenges of the trip and Randall’s next challenge of reintegrating into society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ocean swimmer Ben Lecomte recently swam from Hawaii to San Francisco, making sure to pass through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. What he found is pretty depressing: plastic trash everywhere. We talk about what he saw, what he learned, and how he psyched himself up each morning to hop back into an ocean of trash. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Economist Jason Scorse runs the Center for the Blue Economy, a think tank dedicated to finding a healthy, sustainable equilibrium between society and the ocean. We cover the outlook for living on the coast, commercial fishing and other fun, thorny subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the first person to ski off the highest peaks on all 7 continents, Kit DesLauriers has explored some of Earth's wildest places. We talk about finding freedom in the mountains, exploration in the 21st century, and her efforts to preserve a wildlife refuge in Alaska. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Patri Friedman is the founder of the Seasteading Institute in San Francisco and the festival called Ephemerisle in the Sacramento River Delta, which is kind of like Burning Man on water. He consults with countries around the world that want to create new experimental governments at sea. We cover his work, his vision, and whether we'll all be living on corporate islands at sea in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new report says the valley beneath Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite would be worth $100 billion if we were to drain the reservoir and let the valley return to its natural state. Chronicle reporter Kurtis Alexander and I chop up the pros, cons and feasibility of the idea, which has been percolating for more than a century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco surfing legend Doc Renneker doesn't mince words when giving his opinions on surfing culture. Surf memoirs? Cliche. Surfing in the Olympics? "Oh, God no!" We talk surfing literature and movies, the Mavericks big-wave contest, and how surfing is like jazz music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Burkard got his start as a surfing photographer and has parlayed that into a full-blown media brand. He’s published a best-selling surf photography book and a bestselling children’s book; his documentary on cold-water surfing in Iceland (called Under An Arctic Sky) is on Netflix; he’s given a TED Talk; he has three and a half million followers in Instagram. We talk about his love of Iceland, his fraught relationship with Instagram, and how he came to own and love a pair of pet alpacas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pro climber and mountain guide Steve House and Olympic ski coach Scott Johnston just co-authored their second book, “Training for the Uphill Athlete.” In our conversation, they cut through the B.S. of all the fitness fads out there and talk about the bad and good of our cultural obsession with exercise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vogel is the nutrition and performance research director at Gu Energy Labs and recently completed a rapid ascent of Mount Everest. We cover the how she prepared to take on the world's highest mountain, what lucky charms she brought with her, and why Everest gets a bad rap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alfero is the founder of Wolf Connection, a wolf sanctuary in the mountains above L.A. where he offers "wolf therapy" to troubled teens, Hollywood big wigs, and anyone else looking to open their minds to the ancient bond between humans and wolves. His theory: wolves unlock a primal perspective within us that helps us socialize with the people around us and gain clarity about ourselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dierdre Wolownick's new memoir, "The Sharp End of Life," chronicles her life as the mother of world-class rock climber Alex Honnold as well as her journey to overcome fear and push her personal limits by learning to climb herself. At age 66, she became the oldest woman to climb El Capitan, the 3,000-foot wall in Yosemite Valley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When he's not filming the world's top adventure athletes in action, Pablo Durana is shooting documentaries around the world, from Greenland to Chile. We discuss shooting in extreme environments, his award-winning films, and his latest passion project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With climate change threatening to make our winters shorter and warmer, writer Porter Fox looks to ski areas around California to understand how higher temperatures are already changing how resorts operate. What he learns may change the way you think about winter forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt Sharkey is the global sports marketing director for The North Face, which means he helps decide who gets on the company's roster of sponsored athletes, what is expected of them, and how to expand the company brand. Here we talk about Matt's job, how athletes get funding for their expeditions, and what the success of "Free Solo" means for brands like The North Face going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rue Mapp is the founder and CEO of Oakland's Outdoor Afro, a group that encourages African-Americans to get out and explore the outdoors. It's not as simple a task as you might expect. As Rue points out, there are all kinds of historic, cultural and socio-economic barriers to entry for people of color to do something as seemingly simple as visiting a national park or going on a hike in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mountaineer Conrad Anker has summited Everest several times, set first ascents on peaks around the world, mentored Alex Honnold, and been a pro mountaineer for more than 30 years. Here, he talks about what's great about coffee, not great about social media, and what it means to be nearing the sunset phase of his long career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a pre-eminent winter weather forecaster for OpenSnow, Bryan Allegretto knows more about how snowstorms hit Lake Tahoe than anyone. He has encyclopedic knowledge of weather patterns around the Tahoe Basin and puts out daily forecasts that draw tens of thousands of readers. Here, Allegretto talks about his daily routine and methods, dealing with nasty online commenters, the anxiety of ski crowds at big resorts, and what makes people so passionate about snow.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ron Elliott has had more encounters with great white sharks that perhaps anyone on the planet -- and he was recently attacked by one while filming sharks off the coast of San Francisco. Ron and filmmaker Josh Berry discuss their new short film, "Near Miss," which chronicles one of Ron's close encounters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pro skier Cody Townsend reflects on his career so far, his conflicted thoughts on social media, performing "marketing turns," and his latest project to ski 50 iconic lines across North America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ultramarathon pioneer and best-selling author talks about getting older, how the sport of ultrarunning has grown and changed, and his big project to run in every country on Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco big-wave surfer Bianca Valenti has been leading the fight for pay equity in professional surfing. Earlier this year, she and her organization pushed the World Surf League to pay male and female surf contest winners the same, which is a huge deal. Now she’s gearing up for the Mavericks Surf Contest and what promises to be an epic winter surfing season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cedar Wright is a fixture of rock climbing, having grown up scaling walls in Yosemite, and has recently established himself as a crafty filmmaker as well. His new film, "Queen Maud Land," follows a group of elite climbers, including Alex Honnold and Jimmy Chin, as they scale unclimbed peaks in Antarctica in sub-zero temperatures.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bay Area rower Lia Ditton is mentally preparing for 5 months at sea alone by immersing herself in sensory deprivation chambers and ice baths, among other things. We talk about contending with freighters in the open ocean, the benefits of rowing totally naked for days on end (which she’s been known to do), and how to survive a typhoon in a rowboat by yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Big-mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones talks about how naturalist John Muir inspired his new documentary, 'Ode to Muir,' and what's at stake if we let climate change go unchecked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington are one of the pre-eminent power couples in outdoor sports. He’s a mountain guide who has summited Mount Everest eight times, once without the aid of oxygen tanks; she’s a professional rock climber with five national sport climbing titles under her belt. Together, they live with their dog, named Cat, in Squaw Valley, where they spend their days backcountry skiing, climbing, trail-running, and planning their next international expeditions. In a wide-ranging discussion, they cover the cutting edge of mountain climbing, the environmental costs of global travel, rock climbing’s inclusion in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and their favorite places to play in California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alex Honnold, Jimmy Chin, Chai Vasarhelyi and Sanni McCandless answer audience questions about the making of the new documentary film 'Free Solo.' The filmmakers, Chin and Vasarhelyi, and stars Honnold and McCandless attended a late-night screening of the film in San Francisco for a Q&A.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this podcast, I met Alex in Yosemite Valley in the midst of his whirlwind media tour to hype his new film, 'Free Solo.' We took a walk through El Capitan Meadow to sit in the dirt under his favorite tree and talk while watching groups of climbers on El Cap inching their way up the wall in the distance. In addition to discussing how 'Free Solo' came together, we also cover the magic of #vanlife, the inherent danger of rockfall in Yosemite, and the future of free soloing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The US Supreme Court this week declined to take up the case of tech billionaire Vinod Khosla's attempt to privatize a popular beach near Half Moon Bay, California. Locals rejoiced with a gathering at the beach this week, but the fight isn't over and Khosla is sure to regroup. To explain what's going on at Martins Beach and what could happen next, I called up Chad Nelsen, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, the group that sued Khosla over public access to Martins Beach and won, We cover the whole case and discuss similar examples across California of other private groups trying to keep the public from accessing the coast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Open water swimmer Kim Chambers has endured just about the most frightening things the ocean has to offer: great white sharks, jellyfish stings, hypothermia, brutal currents and fierce winds. She has conquered the Oceans Seven, a series of marathon swims in channels around the world, and is the only woman to complete the 32-mile swim between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Farallon Islands. The documentary film of that swim, "Kim Swims," comes out Oct. 2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the highly anticipated release of "The Dawn Wall" documentary this month, we speak to climber Kevin Jorgeson about his drive to accomplish one of the hardest rock climbing feats in history. Jorgeson was one half of the duo that free climbed the Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite in 2015, an achievement that made national headlines and is enshrined in climbing lore for all time. We cover his concerns about the climb (5:27), his motivations (10:03), dealing with the huge media scrum (16:38), and his latest endeavor to bring climbing gyms to underserved communities around the U.S. (18:50).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices