Odorifous: Gear Junkie
Posted by Troy | Filed under Odorifous
While on my recent backpacking trip to the Porcupine Mountains, one of the guys brought a crap-pile of awesome swag to share donated by a friend he called “Gear Junkie.”
It turns out I’d visited Stephen Regenold’s (aka Gear Junkie) site before… read his writing in other various publications (NYTimes, Outside Magazine, etc.)… and of course I’d heard about him when this very same camping partner had traveled across Patagonia with Stephen and his team for the 2010 Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race—a 400 mile journey bay way of foot, kayak, bike, rope, or whatever—which the Gear Junkie team finished in 147 hours, 31 minutes (good enough for 5th place!)
From GearJunkie.com:
As founder of GearJunkie.com and a world-traveling adventurer and journalist, Regenold has climbed, skied, biked and raced from the jungles of interior Belize to fjords in Norway, including mountaineering expeditions, marathons, the Ironman, and an ultra-endurance race that stretched 400 miles across a desert. From 2005 to 2008, Regenold traveled, reported, wrote and published more than 50 stories in the New York Times. He lives in Minneapolis, Minn., with his wife, Tara, three young children, and a 90-pound Weimaraner named Rodney.
Despite all the adventure, Stephen seems to be a pretty down-to-earth guy. Instead of erecting statues of himself and planting Gear Junkie flags in every corner of Minneapolis, he says the coolest thing he’s doing right now is working on his website. (A little humorous considering he just returned from mountaineering Iceland’s highest point and an Everest expedition)
Stephen has the courage to do things that most of us only dream about, yet (in some way) all of us are created for. Maybe we’re not all called to endurance racing, but the pursuit of adventure (even something as small as leaving my desk for lunch) is something that is inside each of us.
Let’s follow Stephen’s example and find a little adventure today.
Tell us one of your favorite odors.
Sun-baked (dead) pine needles
What is it about that particular smell?
They signal that I am in the great outdoors, in a rocky, coniferous forest (which I love) and it’s a nice day outside (sunshine).
What experience makes you feel alive?
Pushing my mental and physical limits on long-distance wilderness races.
What fears do you have?
Big whitewater kind of scares me. And large bugs.
What have you learned about yourself over the past year?
I gotta chill out more.
Are you working on anything cool right now?
The continual evolution of GearJunkie.com!
Do you find your creative work a spiritual experience? In what way?
All life has tinges of the spiritual.
What tunes have you been hooked on lately?
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
More Gear Junkie
- Q&A with Stephen Regenold on the Patagonia Race
- Gear Junkie on Facebook
- Gear Junkie on Twitter
- Watch Wenger 2010 Patagonia Race Video
- Tons of photos from Patagonia and other Gear Junkie adventures on photographer T.C. Worley’s blog
Tags: gear junkie, interview
