Wild Ideas Worth Living

By REI Co-op

Society & Culture Places & Travel

What's Wild Ideas Worth Living about?

High-impact interviews for those who love adventure and the outdoors. Host and journalist Shelby Stanger interviews world-class explorers, athletes, authors, scientists, health experts and entrepreneurs about how they’ve taken their own wild ideas and made them a reality, so you can too. Some of the wildest ideas can lead to the most rewarding adventures.

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Uncovering Climate Mysterie...

09.19.2023

Renowned paleoclimatologist Dr. Lonnie Thompson has been on over 60 expeditions to collect ice core samples from glaciers around the world. These samples hold precious clues to understand human-caused climate change.

Wild Ideas Worth Living episodes:

09.19.2023 Uncovering Climate Mysteries with Lonnie Thompson Renowned paleoclimatologist Dr. Lonnie Thompson has been on over 60 expeditions to collect ice core samples from glaciers around the world. These samples hold precious clues to understand human-caused climate change.
09.12.2023 All Faces and All Running Paces with Ashley Davies Ashley Davies is a lifelong runner who's building community her own way. In 2017, she co-founded Club Seattle Run Division with the intention to make the club as inclusive as possible, focusing on community rather than performance. CSRD's motto is ...
09.05.2023 Life Lessons from Big Wave Surfing with Shane Dorian Shane Dorian is a legendary surfer, winning his first surf contest when he was just 11 years old. At 21, he joined the World Surf League and traveled the globe to compete with other athletes. Shane has won countless competitions ...
08.29.2023 Submerging Into the Deep Ocean with Susan Casey Susan Casey is an accomplished journalist who's spent years writing about the ocean, and most recently, the deep sea. The deep sea generally starts around 600 feet below the surface where you could no longer see the light from above, ...
08.22.2023 Cultivating an Adventurous Relationship with Emily Harrington & Adrian Ballinger Professional climber Emily Harrington met her husband, pro mountaineer Adrian Ballinger, on an expedition 11 years ago. While their paths to become pro athletes were different, the couple has figured out how to balance their partnership and build a family ...
08.15.2023 100 Peaks in 50 Days with Jason Hardrath Jason Hardrath is a runner and mountaineer based in southern Oregon. In 2021, he broke the record for the fastest known time (FTK) to summit the 100 tallest peaks in Washington State known as the Bulger List— and he did ...
08.08.2023 Thru-Paddling the Mississippi River with Cory Maria Dack Cory Maria Dack is an outdoor adventure guide and she recently completed a thru-paddle of the entire Mississippi River. It took her 134 days to canoe from the headwaters of the river in Minnesota all the way to the Gulf ...
08.01.2023 The Freedom of Free Surfing with the Gudauskas Brothers Dane, Patrick and Tanner Gudauskus have spent a lot of their lives in the water riding some of the most epic waves. They've traveled the world for competitive surfing and taken the leap into free surfing all alongside each other. ...
07.25.2023 Innovating Adaptive Adventure with Vasu Sojitra In 2021, Vasu Sojitra became one of the first adaptive athletes to ski down Denali, and he's made groundbreaking descents in the Grand Tetons and the Bear Tooth Mountain Range. As the first adaptive athlete to be represented by the ...
07.18.2023 From Track Star to Trailblazer with Alysia Montaño Alysia Montano is a professional runner who's competed at the highest possible level. She's a two-time world champion and an Olympian. She's breaking the barriers that limit a woman’s choice to pursue and thrive in both career and motherhood.
07.11.2023 Filming The Climb with Chris Sharma & Cat Runner At a young age, Chris Sharma was considered a climbing prodigy and won multiple competitions. He established some of the most challenging routes around the world, and pushed the sport forward technically and culturally. Recently, Chris and his longtime friend, ...
07.05.2023 Freediving for Inner Peace with BJ Griffin BJ Griffin is a musician and freediver from Virginia Beach. Freediving is where you hold your breath and dive deep underwater to explore the ocean. For BJ, freediving has drastically impacted his life. It's improved his health and lung capacity. ...
06.27.2023 Journeying Through the National Parks with Emily Pennington In 2020, Emily Pennington set off on the trip of a lifetime. Her goal was to visit every national park in the United States in one year. She wasn't sure what she'd find out there in the wilderness, but the ...
06.20.2023 Running Across the U.S for Trans Rights with Cal Dobbs In 2022, Cal Dobbs became the first known transgender person to triple crown, which means he hiked all of the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail. Cal's next wild idea involves running across the U.S to raise ...
06.13.2023 Manifesting Big Waves with Garrett & Nicole McNamara Garrett McNamara is one of the best big wave surfers on the planet. In 2011, Garrett broke a world record when he rode a 78-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal. Nicole McNamara is Garrett's manager, his spotter, and his wife. The ...
06.06.2023 The Will to Wild with Shelby Stanger Wild Ideas Worth Living's host Shelby Stanger gives us a behind the scenes look at her wild journey to becoming an adventure journalist, host of an REI Co-op podcast, and now author of her brand new book, Will to Wild.
05.30.2023 Raising Kids Wildly In honor of those who are raising the next generation of wild ones. Host Shelby Stanger shares insights from past guests on how to raise adventurous kids, and tips about how you can make it easier to get outside with ...
05.23.2023 Creating Hipcamp with Alyssa Ravasio Alyssa Ravasio is the founder and CEO of the online campsite booking platform, Hipcamp. Many people think of technology and the outdoors as complete opposites, but for Alyssa, the two have always gone together. With Hipcamp Alyssa's found a way ...
05.16.2023 Rowing Across the Pacific with the Latitude 35 Team In the summer of 2022, four women, Sophia Denison-Johnston, Brooke Downes, Libby Costello and Adrienne Smith, set a new record for the fastest all female team to row from San Francisco to Hawaii. They completed the journey in 34 days, ...
05.09.2023 150 Marathons in 150 Days with Erchana Murray-Bartlett In January, 2023, Erchana Murray-Bartlett set the Guinness World record for running the most consecutive marathons. She ran 150 marathons in 150 days and raised money for Australian wildlife along the way. Erchana started at Cape York, which is in ...
05.02.2023 Riding Free with Izzy Sederbaum Izzy Sederbaum is a trans-masculine cyclist and policy scholar who survived a rare cougar attack on a ride outside of Seattle in early 2018. Izzy was hospitalized with severe facial trauma while hateful anti-trans rhetoric filled comment sections of news ...
04.25.2023 Greening Our Cities with Cecil Konijnendijk Cecil Konijnendijk came up with a rule he calls 3-30-300 which has become popular among climate change activists and urban tree canopy specialists. The rule encourages seeing at least 3 trees from your window, having 30% canopy coverage in your ...
04.18.2023 Gender Inclusive Racing with Cal Calamia Cal Calamia has been a runner their entire life, but in 2018, their relationship with the sport changed when Cal came out as trans non-binary. Most races in the US only have two gender categories, men and women, and Cal ...
04.11.2023 Culinary Farming and Backyard Gardening with Courtney Guerra Courtney Guerra is a culinary farmer who loves the intimacy of planting seeds, watching them sprout, and harvesting rich, colorful produce. She's grown food for some of America's top restaurants.
04.04.2023 Surfing, Hollywood, and Dwarfism with Christophe Zajac-Denek Christophe Zajac-Denek was just a couple of days old when he was diagnosed with a rare form of dwarfism called cartilage-hair hypoplasia. Doctors told his parents that he might never be able to ride a bike or go for a ...
03.28.2023 Hooked on Fishing with Myishia Haynes Myishia Haynes is one of the most cheerful, exuberant fisherwoman you'll ever meet. She practices catch and release fishing, and has a pretty good track record, especially when it comes to fishing for bass. Myishia has made it her mission ...
03.21.2023 Parkour and Embracing Identity with Sara Mudallal Sara Mudallal was 20 years old when she decided to try parkour. She also decided to start wearing a hijab as an expression of her Muslim identity. Over the years, plenty of people told her to stop practicing parkour because ...
03.14.2023 Life on a Highline with Faith Dickey Faith Dickey is one of the greatest highliners in the world. In 2012, Faith broke the record for the longest free solo, that's highlining without a safety harness. Then in 2014, she became the first woman to cross a highline ...
03.07.2023 Ice Swimming with Melissa Kegler Melissa Kegler is an elite open-water swimmer who specializes in cold water, long distance swims. She recently broke the U.S. national distance record for IISA’s Ice Mile event. Her goal goes beyond excelling in this extreme sport. Melissa is committed ...
02.28.2023 Climbing and Conducting with Deanna Tham In the fall of 2022, the Oregon Symphony hired Deanna Tham as their new associate conductor. Deanna is incredibly talented and she's an expert at drawing out rich sounds from large orchestras. When she needs to let loose Deanna goes ...
02.21.2023 Soy Sauce Nation with Nirvana Ortanez Nirvana Ortanez is a former pro park rider and the co-founder of Soy Sauce Nation, a community for Asian snowboarders.
02.14.2023 Culture and Ultra Running with Brandon Dugi Brandon Dugi is a competitive ultra runner who grew up in LeChee, Arizona, a small community in the Navajo nation. He runs several miles a day and competes in ultra races around the southwest. By becoming part of this larger ...
02.07.2023 Veteran turned Everest Climber with Dom Mullins In May of 2022, a group of 11 climbers became the first all-Black expedition to summit Mount Everest. The team was called Full Circle Everest, and their climb was written about by journalists all over the world. Full Circle was ...
01.31.2023 Exploring Tree Canopies with Nalini Nadkarni Nalini Nadkarni is an ecologist who helped revolutionize the study of forest canopies. In 1980, Nalini started using mountain climbing techniques to ascend to the treetops in the Costa Rican rainforest. When Nalini isn't traversing tree canopies, she's advocating for ...
01.24.2023 The Wisdom of Expeditions with Conrad Anker Conrad Anker is a legendary mountaineer and one of the most prolific explorers alive today. He has successfully ascended and completed dozens of major mountain expeditions, including summiting Mount Everest three times. In today’s episode, Conrad shares with us the ...
01.17.2023 Climbing K2 with Lisa Thompson Lisa Thompson has climbed 14 mountains in the last 14 years. She has reached the seven highest summits on each continent, scaled many mountains in the Himalayas, and in 2018 she became the second American woman to climb the treacherous ...
01.10.2023 Running Across America with Greg Nance Greg Nance ran across America, from New York to Washington State, in 84 days. For Greg, this cross country run wasn't just about checking the experience off his bucket list. Greg was running to raise funds for his youth mental ...
01.03.2023 BONUS EPISODE with The Trail Ahead Podcast BONUS EPISODE featuring The Trail Ahead podcast hosted by Faith E. Briggs and Addie Thompson. On the show, Addie and Faith bring together guests from all walks of life. They interview activists, artists, athletes, climate scientists and outdoor industry leaders ...
12.27.2022 Looking Back at 2022 2022 was a pretty amazing year for Wild Ideas Worth Living. We released fifty episodes this year and interviewed some pretty awe-inspiring guests. Our guests taught us that age is nothing but a number, that there is activism in pursuing ...
12.20.2022 Movement Diet with Katy Bowman Katy Bowman is a body movement specialist who has written several books, including the bestseller, Move Your DNA. For decades, Katy has studied the science behind how our bodies react to living a sedentary life. All of her research has ...
12.13.2022 Para Cycling with Meg Fisher Meg Fisher is one of the greatest para cyclists in the world. Twenty years ago, Meg was in a car accident that changed her life. She discovered cycling thanks to an energetic service dog, and quickly began competing, gaining sponsors ...
12.06.2022 Streets to Peaks with Ryan Hudson Ryan Hudson's journey from #streets2peaks is an inspiring, and unlikely story. Growing up in poverty with little access to outdoor adventure sports, Ryan never imagined he’d be snowboarding in big-time competitions and exploring the mountains of Alaska.
11.29.2022 Rafting for Peace with Mauricio Artiñano Mauricio Artiñano, a former mission planning officer with the United Nations, has worked to bridge the gap between former combatants and civilians with a pretty wild idea - white-water rafting.
11.22.2022 Hike Clerb with Evelynn Escobar Evelynn Escobar is a changemaker in the outdoor industry who’s building her movement a little differently. She has taken an intentional approach to building a fun, stylish and inclusive community- encouraging Black, Indigenous, and women of color across North America ...
11.15.2022 Motorcycles and Mindfulness with Monica Ramos In 2021, yoga instructor Monica Ramos packed up her home and went on a cross-country motorcycle adventure with her husband and their eight-year-old daughter. On the trip, Monica learned to incorporate lessons from her yoga practice - like awareness of ...
11.08.2022 Building Green Space with Stacy Bare Executive Director of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, Stacy Bare, shares why it's important to build and improve green spaces in our local communities and how he and his team are doing just that in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
11.01.2022 Winter Treks with Emily Ford Emily Ford loves winter. In March of 2021, Emily became the first woman and the first Black person on record to complete the Ice Age Trail, a 1,200 mile trek that winds through the state of Wisconsin. In March of ...
10.25.2022 Camp Monster Stories with Weston Davis As it gets dark earlier and leaves start to fall, our minds can run wild with visions of unknown creatures hiding in lakes or slithering across trails. Weston Davis- host of REI's Camp Monster podcast - tells the stories of ...
10.18.2022 Wild at Heart with Stacy Gold Outdoor romance novelist Stacy Gold gave up her day job at a mountain biking nonprofit to chase her dream of writing steamy romance novels. Writing novels that take place in the great outdoors gives Stacy a lot of material to ...
10.11.2022 Bridging the Continental Divide with Teresa Martinez Teresa Martinez has spent the last 30 years working on some of the longest and most well-known trails across the country. Her latest project is to connect the Continental Divide Trail so that thru-hikers can follow the 1,200 mile path ...

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