Going to Extremes with Mark Jenkins

All I wanted for Christmas. There is probably no young boy in the world who doesn't dream about getting a motorcycle. I did, and this is what happened.

Last of the first skiers in the Altai Mountains of far western China, where the snow is deep and the cold is deadly. Live a people who invented skis and still used them every day.

Hiccup on Mount Hood. The most common mistake in mountaineering is to underestimate the mountain. This is a story about doing just that.

To build a fire. Today's story is about making mistakes. We all make them. We just hope we don't have to pay too high a price.

Bhutan

Lost and Found

Deportation

Right In Your Own Backyard

El Vedauwoo (Part 1 and 2) - Today is the 18th anniversary of Todd Skinner’s death. Todd was the most famous climber Wyoming ever produced. He and I attended the University of Wyoming at the same time and we both learned how to climb hard in Vedauwoo. Thereafter, I became an alpinist and Todd became one of the world’s greatest sport climbers. We teamed up for a wild, hilarious expedition to Mexico before he tragically died in Yosemite.

Rwenzori

The Bike Messenger (Part 1 and 2) - I had failed on another Himalayan expedition and felt lost. I took a bus from Lhasa north into the heart of Tibet. I wanted to get a pony but ended up getting a bicycle. I pedaled into the Nyainqêntanglha Mountains, my pack strapped to the bicycle. I intended to solo a peak. Instead, I ended up becoming a messenger for an old Buddhist woman. What you expect is never what you get.

This is Going to Extremes. Stories of adventure. I'm Mark Jenkins, lifelong resident of Wyoming and former international correspondent for National Geographic magazine.Today's story is about the first descent of the largest cave in the world. Hong Kong dong, located deep inside Vietnam.The story continues in a moment. You've been listening to Going to Extremes. Stories of adventure with me, Mark Jenkins. Hear more episodes online at Wyoming Public Media.

A world-renowned explorer, critically acclaimed author, and international journalist, for the last decade Jenkins has covered the globe. As a foreign correspondent for the past 30 years, Mark Jenkins has explored the most remote, difficult, and dangerous places on the planet.

Burke and Wills were 19th-century explorers in Australia. Like Lewis and Clark, their dream was to cross their continent. That is where the similarity ends. Burke and Wills had over a thousand miles of horrifying desert to cross. They made it, but this story does not end well.

We all have a place we dream about. We have visited it without ever having set foot there. For me that place was the Mountains of the Moon, the Rwenzoris, in western Uganda. I dreamed about it for years: the massive glaciers on the equator, the hypertrophic plants, the constant rain and impenetrable mist. But it was only after I’d learned that global warming was radically altering these mountains, that I bought a plane ticket I went there.

One man made me a rock climber: Layne Kopishka. He was my high school swim coach and a P.E. instructor who taught young athletes how to climb on the granite walls of Vedauwoo, in southeastern Wyoming. He pushed us to become more than we were, and in the process, made us what we are today.