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Mark Jenkins chose to skip a risky adventure with his friends. Twenty-five years later, he’s still haunted by what happened in his absence.
Two bold men, one reckless plan: to watch the sun go dark atop a huge snow-covered peak in South America. You won't believe what happened next.
The deadly 2019 climbing season prompted a worldwide demand to reform management of the world's highest peak. Is change really possible? Mark Jenkins, a veteran alpinist who reached the summit in 2012, lays down an emphatic yes.
During 40 years of adventure, hard-charging writer and climber Mark Jenkins has asked a lot of his wife and kids. After his fourth attempt on a dicey Chinese peak, he examines the risks and rewards of a risk-defying career.
A professional adventurer has to break a few eggs along the way—and, apparently, several bones and a skull. Mark Jenkins tallies up the most memorable injuries and mishaps from a life lived on the edge.
One thing you shouldn’t leave behind with your foolhardy youth: the great American dirtbag road trip. Mark Jenkins explains how to do it right.
As Mark Jenkins knows, wilderness first aid can hurt. (Just ask his patients.) So he finally did what everyone should do: he took a class from real experts.
Norway's forbidding Hardangervidda Plateau nearly killed Roald Amundsen when he attempted a ski traverse in the winter of 1896. But the failure set him on a path of training, study, and exploration that led to his historic conquest of the South Pole. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of that feat, Mark Jenkins and his brother Steve skied the route, an epic challenge that even now can prove deadly.
Before the event, the doc gave me a six-day course of steroids for my back and threw in a bottle of Vicodin. “At your age,” he said, “after this race, you’re going to need it.”
In adventure and in life, Mike was my best friend—my stronger, wiser, wilder half. And in the end, when the last climb was over, that's all that really mattered.
The disappearance of two of North America's best alpinists left a grave question: What happens when the only way out is up?
Is it possible to guide safely on Everest? Or will the mountain always demand its pound of flesh? MARK JENKINS talks to a dream team of veterans—between them, they've reached the summit 17 times—in a frank look at the risks, rewards, and nightmares of taking clients to the top.
Why climb America's most spectacular—and controversial—natural landmark? For the same reason you shouldn't.
Get the most out of long summer days with featherweight performance gear for running, riding, climbing, and hiking
What happens when a Type A relaxation-phobe takes his first vacation in years? Life gets good again.
For a compulsive adventurer who can't stay put, sometimes there's only one cure: Get Zen. If only it were that easy.
Naysayers claim the age of adventure is over. On an unclimbed peak in Tibet, our man declares that it has just begun.
It's every adventurer's dilemma: Nothing's more exciting than the next trip—but nothing's harder than leaving home
For decades, no one had traversed the entire length of the Wakhan, following the old Silk Road from the northward bend of the Panj River. We had no idea if it could be done.
In the brave new world of Eastern Europe, a bond forged in adventure�then nearly forgotten�is reborn. Just in time.
It's time for a radical reform of high-altitude mountaineering�and a fresh debate over what it means to climb right
Modern adventure is safer than you think—once you know the difference between legitimate danger and irrational fear
On the trail of lost creatures, mythic rivers, and vanishing giants in Tasmania's wild—and final—frontier
For the relentlessly adventurous, learning the deeper lessons of injury starts with a tough rule: You break it, you own it.
Two guys, ten days, 500 miles by bike through gorgeous Norway. The only rule? No suffering.
A long-imagined journey to the spires of Africa marks the end of a dream—and the start of something new
How do you go native on an island made of ice? Scale glaciers, strip down, and steam it off.
Do you lie awake at night worrying that everything you know is wrong? You need what this guy is selling!
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry spent his life defying and outflying death. Then it caught up.
Is time traveler Tim Severin the greatest living explorer? Probably—but you'll never get him to admit it.
Pilot an ultralight and what do you get? A bird's-eye view of the world and a dose of the maverick spirit of flying.
A journey to the cradle of climbing reveals a strange new alpine environment, where glaciers are melting, mountains are falling, and nothing is as it was
Winding a thousand miles from India to China, the Burma Road was built to defend China in World War II, but the atomic bomb made it irrelevant and the jungle reclaimed it. Mark Jenkins vowed to do what no one had done for nearly 60 years—travel the entire Burma Road—and discovered the madness of present-day Myanmar.
What happens when a solitary day hike turns into the ultimate test of survival?
Australia's first great adventure was part Lewis and Clark, part Donner Party—searing proof that fame is a four-letter word
In 24-hour mountain-bike races, riders bond over singletrack and sleep deprivation. What's not to like?
In Bhutan's pristine alpine sanctuary, even a heathen climber can see the light
Canoeing the jungles of South America, where freedom is a family affair
The process is the point. But just try telling that to your younger, untutored, world-conquering self.
Every adventurer knows those magical moments when it all flows—and those wretched times when it won't
For two credulous seekers, dreaming of the lost big-wall treasure of the Sierra Madre Occidental is better than the real thing
Camp overnight or camp all week. We've got the gear to let you go fast and light under blue skies or gray.
When the weather turns ugly and conditions get rough, every mountaineer must make the ultimate choice: storm the summit, or call it quits.
Who knows best the cost of rowing solo across the Atlantic? She who finishes last.
The marines' mountain warfare training center is the ultimate test for some of the world's toughest troops: a make-it-or-leave regimen of backcountry ski combat, torturous night maneuvers, and deadly cold. Any volunteers?
Injury, pain, the psychology of recovery, and getting back on the trail
A half-mad dash to Hkakabo Razi seemed like a good idea at the time. And hey, how tough can it be to sneak past the Chinese Army?
Time was, you could crisscross America with nothing but a rucksack and a thumb. You still can, if you know how.
An ice-climbing trip to Scotland—land of rain, sleet, and mad outdoorsmen—brings new respect for the sport's big-hearted pioneers
He was packing for a trek through roughest Afghanistan when the world shook. Sometimes adventure has to wait.
Going core with Yvon Chouinard—leery capitalist, walking contradiction
Why travel to remote places? Why bother with the hassle, the expense, the danger? Because it's actually cheap, intoxicating, and easy.
Some peaceful recreation on a journey from Gallipoli to Troy, where the echoes of war never die
A cold mountain, a mismatched pair, and a meditation on the strange chemistry of partnership
If you want to get high, there's still a price to be paid for invading the towering ranges—despite some newfangled shortcuts
Has this tired old world been explored-out? Not Down Under, where uncharted, bottomless slot canyons hide just west of Sydney.
Once a year, the adventurous Jenkins boys will be boys, reforging the bonds of brotherly affection by nearly killing themselves
An outsized wilderness lives on in mythic dreams and salvaged hope
Take three travelers, a nation of Buddhists, and one unfortunate rodent. Add a forbidden journey and a dark childhood secret, and you could have the time of your lives.
So, feeling like a plunge down a Himalayan river, a race up the face of a Patagonian spire, or a ski expedition to the North (or South—that's O.K. too) Pole? Feeling a little scared? That's why we call them Tough Trips.
The treacherous history of the Matterhorn can be read in books and snowy graveyards, but to write it you've got to survive it
From beginning to middle to end and back again, one adventure leads to another. So hold tight—it's a long ride
Does wilderness therapy help troubled kids? After a gang of teenagers staged a violent mutiny in the badlands of Utah, we joined the search for answers.
A partner drops out, one thing leads to another, and suddenly our hero finds that peer pressure has him fighting for his life
What gets the equivalent of 1,000 miles per gallon, doesn't pollute, will save the world, and transports you in breezy style? Your bike.
The rules (there are only three of them) remain the same for a lifetime, and they come from the mouths of babes
The come-on: Grab two hours of challenging fun and fast adventure. But when a dark wall of water swept away lives and reputations, the question became: Why?