The Wilder Path is about adventure, environment, and people expanding human potential. I publish twice per month. Some of my posts are essays, some are researched and reported. Some are the story behind a story that I published elsewhere.
All posts are free for 24 hours. A paid subscription gets you full access to the archives. It also supports my work to write and tell stories, a craft that’s less and less financially valued (especially in the changing and volatile world of journalism and publishing), and I’m grateful for every cent.
On Making It Column
This monthly column is made up of intimate conversations with athletes and outdoor figures. From the outside, it can look like the people who’ve “made it” are the lucky ones: successful, financially secure, well-known, or always off on the next amazing adventure. They’re living their dreams.
But that outside perspective rarely shows the path these admired women took to get to these peak moments, or might be currently walking to stay at that perceived peak. Often those paths weren’t easy—still aren’t—or were barricaded in setbacks. Often it’s the setbacks themselves that motivated the journey in the first place.
On Making It is the inside story on how these people made it in their fields, the barriers they had to overcome, and their advice to us in walking our own paths.
About Me
I live in Montana. I’m the author of the new survival epic Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali; and The Hard Parts with Oksana Masters, that won the National Library Association Award, the Christopher Award, and was named one of the best sports books of the year by The Times.
My stories have appeared in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, New York Times, TIME, Politico, Atavist, Outside, and Men’s Journal, among others, and I’m an adventure travel columnist on Forbes. My work has been awarded the Lowell Thomas Gold Medal in Adventure Writing, short-listed for the True Story Award, and included in The Year’s Best Sports Writing series.
