Wild West

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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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