Wendy Corr:
Hey there, folks, welcome to The Roundup. I'm your host, Wendy Corr. And today's guest - there are no words for how far this gentleman has gone to get a great story, and to bring those stories to the rest of us.
Mark Jenkins is a foreign correspondent for National Geographic, he goes and educates people about - and based on - some of the experiences that he has had in literally all the corners of the earth.
And so, I just I don't want to wait any longer to introduce everyone who has not heard of Mark Jenkins - Wyoming, native! Wyoming native, bringing, truly, Wyoming to the world and the other way around.
Hello, Mark. So, so pleased to have you on The Roundup here. Mark, this is this is really a treat, because you have truly lived the life that we can only dream of, really, and read about in books. And you have had adventures that you've narrowly escaped from.
And I just kind of want to get started this morning, because when you and I first started chatting, we talked about where you live - you are a Laramie guy, born and raised - tell us about growing up in Wyoming.
Mark Jenkins:
Growing up in Wyoming, I really believe that was the basis for my career as a journalist. You know, you live in the High Plains, and you learn how to be quite independent, at least in my family that was.
You know, you'd ride your bike all the time out in the prairie. And then when we got a little bit older, we started skiing into the mountains, the Snowy Range, and camping in the winter, trying to prepare ourselves, then we climb Vedauwoo, go to Yellowstone.
I mean, it was a very kind of Huck Finn childhood in this state for me. And I was allowed to make mistakes, and allowed to suffer the consequences of those getting too cold, or getting too hot, or getting too tired. That was part of our family ethic. I'm the oldest of six kids.
So yeah, growing up in Wyoming kind of set me up for my career, because I kind of developed a method for containing your fear. It's quite easy to get freaked out, if you're ice climbing, or if you're very high, if you're on Everest or something like that. And growing up in Wyoming, I learned how to control that.
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my goodness, I bet, especially if you were allowed to go do those things. And you were encouraged and supported to go and have these adventures?
Mark Jenkins:
It seems like to me, I mean, now, parents are very worried about their kids. And so they're always kind of saving them from these difficult situations. My parents were quite different. They figured I needed to learn those things on my own.
So it was a time when you could go out in the wilds and you come close to killing yourself. But when you don't, it makes you stronger.
Wendy Corr:
Of course, then it's an adventure, right?
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, that's an adventure. And that's what I ended up doing. But I got to, I went to college here at the University of Wyoming, I got a degree in philosophy. I think I was the last one to get a degree in philosophy and not be able to make a living. You know, Aristotle made a living at being a philosopher.
So then I thought I could be a writer, but I failed. I worked as a tinner for two years in construction, that's a person who puts in heating ducts, then decided to go back to UW.
I'd studied humanities and then went back and decided, “Okay, I'm going to study science.” So I got a degree in geography. So, basically, a degree in thinking and writing, and then a master's degree in science.
So that actually did end up setting me up for working for National Geographic many years later, but that's not where I started. I started my writing with the Casper Star Tribune.
Wendy Corr:
Did you really?
Mark Jenkins:
That's where I started writing. Yep. There used to be an insert magazine. That's when the Casper Star Tribune was huge. Publishing was very successful. And I did multiple stories for them, sent those stories on to other publications, and started getting work.
And pretty soon I was, I mean, I don't know, I first worked in Africa in 1987, working for Time magazine.
Wendy Corr:
That's a big jump from the Casper Star to Time Magazine.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a big deal. Actually, I interviewed with the Associated Press in Denver, and they told me that working in a small place like Wyoming wasn't a good enough experience.
So I left that interview, bought a plane ticket, flew to Nairobi, living in a flophouse for dollar a night, and I immediately got work with the Associated Press. And they're the ones who told me that I'd have to work for 10 years in Wyoming to get enough experience.
And then at Time Magazine, Oscar Wilde was my editor. And he was actually the great-great-great grandson of Oscar Wilde.
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my goodness, the people that you have met along the way. That's phenomenal.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, it's been great.
Wendy Corr:
So when did you decide that adventuring, and becoming a writer of adventures, was going to be the path that you wanted to be on?
Mark Jenkins:
That's a good question. Because I've looked back on it. And I think it was just largely a matter of my expertise.
Because when I got out of college, I started writing. I didn't sell much. And I realized that I knew things that other writers didn't, by the mere fact of growing up in Wyoming.
A lot of writers, you know, if you grew up in a large city, your concerns are cultural or your urban or politics. I grew up in Wyoming. So I grew up hunting elk, antelope, and deer, putting meat on the table. And so I had a lot of adventures by the time I was - I mean, I went to Denali, the highest peak.
And in 1980, I was 21 years old, so I'd already had a lot of adventure. And I started realizing that publications were excited about my knowledge. And, again, that comes from Wyoming.
And so that means I was selling stories - I would pitch a story and say, I want to go - let's say, I want to go the Himalayas and climb. And I pitched the story. And somebody did say that - this was back when they had a lot of money, magazines were, you know, successful newspapers. So they'd say, “We’ll pay your expenses, and we'll pay for your trips.” So I started doing that, and it actually took off. And it's worked ever since.
Before I worked for National Geographic, I worked for 10 years as a columnist for Outside Magazine. And that was a great gig - again, living in Laramie, but essentially working as a foreign correspondent.
Outside Magazine, the editor at that time was Hal Espen, he had just left the New Yorker. And he read portions of my first two books, and he called me up and he said, “I don't know what you're doing, but I'll double your salary. You can go anywhere in the world you want every month, and we'll pay for expenses, you just have to write a column.”
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my word. So you fell into a situation where you can go have adventures, and other people would pay for them. And all you had to do was write a story.
Mark Jenkins:
All I had to do is write - although I've got to say that writing is, for me - adventure comes second nature, writing is much more difficult for me that then adventuring.
You know, people say, “Well, how hard is Everest?” Well, actually, it's much harder to write about Everest than it is to climb Everest. And that's true with most of my trips, to the writing of them.
I've done four books, writing those books was far more difficult than the adventures I'm actually talking about. Because then you've got to process it. It's just not a physical thing. You've got to figure out why you were there. What was the point?
And so, through writing, you kind of become to understand why you're there and and in a larger way, to understand who you are.
Wendy Corr:
That's phenomenal. Tell me about the books that you've written. What was your first book, and what was your motivation to get it written?
Mark Jenkins:
Great. My first book is called “Off the Map.” And it's about the first crossing of the Soviet Union by bicycle. We bicycled from - it was a Russian American team back when we got along with Russia, and we bicycled from the Huka which is right near Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, all the way to St. Petersburg. 1000 Miles, 11 time zones, six months.
We had one section of bicycling, we went through Siberia the whole way, we had one section where there were no roads. We were just on game trails for about 700 miles. So it was a big - I had an agent in New York, and I still do. I got a great contract from William Morrow. And that was my first book, “Off the Map.”
Second book, I did the first descent of the Niger River in West Africa. That was, again, same publisher, William Morell, same editor. I had a great editor. He was Saul Bellows. He was just a good guy, an old school editor.
And that was, we did the first ascent - I was with a bunch of Wyoming boys - we did the first ascent of the Niger River, carried our boats all the way up to the source of the river. And in Sierra Leone, where they were in the middle of a civil war, and then paddled all the way down.
Those are two very large adventures, and I kept doing that. I started doing more work in difficult areas. I worked in Afghanistan, embedded there, I was embedded with the Marines in Alaska.
Then I started working on landmine issues, because that's a specialty of mine. So I did a big story for National Geographic about landmines in Cambodia. Then the Red Cross hired me to cover landmines in Mozambique and Angola. So yeah, the adventure has always been the base. That's 80% of what I do. And about 20% of it is conflict.
Wendy Corr:
How do you become an expert in landmines? I mean, how do you become the go-to guy to write about landmines, exactly?
Mark Jenkins:
Well, first of all, I was working in Afghanistan, covering the war in 2003. And I found myself in landmine fields that I didn't know I was in, and that rocks are painted - it's white on one side, it's red on the other. So you've got to make sure you're always on the white side of all the little rocks.
And I ended up interviewing families, mostly shepherds whose sons or daughters had been blown up by landmines. So that's when I started learning about different landmines.
I went to Cambodia, there are probably 100 different landmine designs, from little tiny ones to big ones. The US, by the way, is one of the leaders in landmine removal. We haven't made or distributed landmines for over 20 years. So we're one of the winners in this story.
Wendy Corr:
That's fantastic. So you have also - one of the things that I'm just fascinated by, is that you have escaped, and you have, really by the skin of your teeth, been involved in some very, very dangerous situations. You've been arrested in hostile, hostile territory. Tell us about those experiences, because I can't even imagine what that would be like.
Mark Jenkins:
Well, yeah, I have been arrested. It's often because I'm a journalist, and I'm in someplace that I'm not supposed to be. Something's going on.
For instance, I was in northern Burma. And as everyone knows, Burma is a very complicated messed up place. And I was interviewing girls who are child slave labor for the military. And then I was captured and held and interrogated and stripped and drugged and all this stuff. Anyway.
Another case where I was in the Congo covering mountain gorillas. And the region that the mountain gorillas were living in, in the Congo, and Rwanda National Park, was controlled by the rebels. And for me to actually see if the gorilla is alive, I had to go in there. And going in there, we got captured by the rebels, the Hutu rebels, and were held for several days in a dirt bunker. And managed to get out.
Those situations are tough, and you just have to stay cool.
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my gosh, I guess. I don't know that there's anybody that I've ever spoken with that has had as many harrowing experiences as you have. But you have these experiences, because you go to these places, and you have been to some of the most remote places on the planet. Right?
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah.
Wendy Corr:
One of the things that you and I talked about before we started the conversation today is the idea that there just aren't that many remote places left. And I read that in in your bio, and I just thought boy, that's really a quite a remarkable thing to think about. But Wyoming is one of those places.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, I mean, you can hire a chopper now to fly to the North Pole - they even have a service now, you can sit down and be at the North Pole, and they will have waiters, and then you can drink champagne.
But I have to say, just when we talk about remoteness, I did a story called the most remote. And it was for Backpacker Magazine years ago. And so, my job was to determine the most remote place in the lower 48. And using GPS and a bunch of stuff, the most remote in that context was meant, what's the furthest you can be from a road, from a car? Right? So that's what remote meant.
Turns out it's in Wyoming. No surprise. Yes. It's in the south eastern corner of Yellowstone National Park. And I walked from almost the South Fork, you know, by Cody, walked from the South Fork all the way into Yellowstone, up the Thorofare, then all the way across to the south entrance, with a biologist.
We spent a lot of time with wolves. It was fantastic. But that turns out to be the most remote place in the US. You're 23 miles from a road. That's not much, usually, you have mountain ranges in between.
But for instance, if you're in the East Coast or anywhere east of the Mississippi, let me say, you can never be more than 10 miles from a road. It's not possible. That's how dense the road system is in America.
And people who don't have the opportunity to travel often tend to have kind of these fantastical visions of other parts of the world. For instance, Africa - people tend to think that, you know, it's full of game. What's full of game is Wyoming.
There are 1.5 billion people in Africa, many of them are very hungry. All the big parks there have this enormous population pressure - the Serengeti, for instance, or any of the parks there, basically are surrounded by people.
So Wyoming is one of the last open spaces that's left on this planet, where we don't have urban centers everywhere. And I think at this point, I've been to every town in Wyoming, and been to every mountain range, that's for sure. I've been to every wilderness area, and writing about all of this.
And I think what people fail to recognize in Wyoming is, we have this incredible asset, we have open space, and most places don't. And if you travel a lot, for instance, in Asia, I mean, China or India, two places I've done many expeditions, including climbing Everest from the Tibet side, and then climbing Everest and the Nepal side.
There are 1.3 billion people in China, and 1.4 billion people in India. And so these are not places to have open spaces. So I'm still living here because of that. I still love the Wyoming landscape.
Wendy Corr:
Well, one of the things I think that is difficult for us who live here, who live in this bubble, this bubble that is Wyoming, I don't know that we truly understand and appreciate what we have here.
But one of the things that that you've said is that we need to protect this, we need to protect these wide open spaces that we have, because they are disappearing.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, wilderness needs to be protected. We're lucky to have some wilderness areas - with a capital W - that are designated by the federal government. We're lucky.
I mean, many people complain that half the state is owned by the Feds or by the state. But what that's meant is that it's protected - this public land, we have huge national forests, we have the first national park in the country, that's Yellowstone. We had the first national park in the world. And that was in Wyoming.
We had the first national monument, Devils Tower, that was the first one in the world. We have the first national grassland, the Powder River Basin. So we have these precious resources that no other state and no other place... That's the other thing. It's not just about the US. No other place in the world has this kind of expansive landscape.
And I mean, I love driving across Wyoming. We just were up in Ten Sleep climbing last week, you know, and you drive up across Shirley Basin - I love that landscape. It's so open. There are some windmills and then there antelope. Then you drive north up through Kaycee, and went through Crazy Woman Canyon. I mean, this is a beautiful state. Absolutely beautiful.
Wendy Corr:
Yes, it is. And if there's anybody that's going to know that, it's going to be you, because you've seen everyplace else.
One of the things that I think is fascinating is that you have been to Everest a couple of times - I was just watching and reading an article about how Everest, it used to be that remote place that people would go to, but now it's like, terribly crowded, isn't it?
Mark Jenkins:
It is. Yeah, I first went to Everest as a part of the 1986 American Northface expedition. That's back when expeditions, only climbers went to the Himalayas, first of all. You're a climber, and you had to send in a resume to get on the team. That was the deal.
So I'd already climbed a bunch of rock climbing, the Himalayas. So I was a member of a team. Everyone on the team was an experienced mountain climber. We were attempting to new route on the north face. And we didn't summit - we got very close. But we didn't get to the top. And it was 75 days on the north face of Everest.
And after that trip, I thought, I don't know. I think I can do a lot more peaks, lower elevation, from Wyoming down to South America and spend a lot less time. So I didn't really have a big interest going back to Everest.
But then in 2012, National Geographic asked me to be the writer for the 50th anniversary expedition to Everest, so I climbed Everest from the Nepal side.
And yeah, Everest has kind of a mixed reputation. Because when I first went in the 80s, the only people on the mountain were climbers. Now, most of the people on the mountain are clients. Nothing against clients, but they don't have, they typically don't have the experience. That's why they're hiring guides.
They've been very successful in some of their walks of life, typically, they may be an attorney or a doctor or a real estate agent. And they're driven people, but they don't have mountaineering experience. So wisely, they choose to hire a guide.
Although, you know, for instance, on the second trip, I had to step over like five bodies going to the summit. And I interviewed the Sherpas who were with all those, and all five of them killed themselves, because they refused to turn around. It was essentially arrogance or hubris that killed them.
So people talk about how dangerous Everest is, but I'll tell you what, I've been in so many military situations, the most dangerous thing on the planet is not a mountain - mountains are relatively predictable, if you spent a lot of time in the mountains.
The most dangerous thing on the planet is a 15 year old Congolese boy, hopped up on something, with a machine gun, and has no reason and no ability to think about consequences. Humans are far more dangerous than mountains.
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my goodness, that's something that, again, I don't think we think about. I know we don't think about here in Wyoming. We're pretty darn safe.
Mark Jenkins:
I often get these questions about, “Wow, how did you, you know, survive Everest? How did you survive Denali? How did you survive kayaking through Africa?” You know, those are much less dangerous than any of the stuff I've done, where there's a military involved, in Burma, or in China, in Afghanistan, in Mozambique, in the Congo, a lot of military situations. People are very stressed, and they make very bad decisions.
Wendy Corr:
So when you get done with these terrible situations in these terribly stressful situations, you come home to Wyoming and you think, thank you, God.
Mark Jenkins:
I do. I love coming back to Laramie. I go up to the Snowy Range, and take walks through the mountains. I go up to Vedauwoo and do some rock climbing, and get myself centered back - the beauty of the landscape, that kind of brings me back.
So yeah, I think Wyoming is a special place. I think a lot of people in Wyoming actually know that. A lot of people in Wyoming, they're here by choice. You know, they may have grown up here, but they're here because they want to be here.
There aren't any great jobs in this state. You know, a few people might have them. But most people - that's the other thing. I think we live in a middle class state, with the exception of Jackson Hole, which is kind of an odd case, because billionaires have moved there because we don't have state income tax.
But if you just take, you know, your average American, Wyoming – Lander, Sheridan, Ten Sleep, Laramie - the people living in those towns, they want to be there. They could probably get a better job someplace else, they could probably go to Denver or Chicago and make twice the amount of money.
I could have done that, I got offered jobs, especially when I was doing film work, to move to New York City, move to LA, double my salary, and it wouldn’t have my quality of life. So that's why I still live here.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely. I think that's phenomenal. I want to just talk about - not just the really dangerous places you've been, but the really fun stories you've covered. I read your story about skiing in China, wasn't it? And about how they've been on skis for 10,000 years, and that's how they hunted elk. I thought that was a phenomenal story. Could you tell us that story? Because that's just a fantastic story.
Mark Jenkins:
You know, that was a really fun story, really fun to report - although it was 40 below where we were every day. But you know, if you've climbed a lot of mountains, you're kind of used to it.
But most people think that skiing comes from the Scandinavian countries, from Norway, from Sweden. And then I was doing some research, anthropological research, and found this petroglyph in China of a skier, a little man on a set of tall skis.
And so I started doing research, and found out that there is a community right on the border of Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China. It's in the Altai Mountains. So you are in far, far western China right up, bordering Kazakhstan, the Altai mountains there. They rise to about 15,000 feet, and there's a culture there where they still live on skis. And I said, I've got to do a story about this for National Geographic.
So I went there and spent a month with a Norwegian photographer, actually, who was a good skier. And this culture is so cold all the time. It's high latitude and it's high elevation. And it gets snow just like Wyoming, this really soft powder, but it's there for 10 months a year.
So they make their own skis. In fact, when I was there, they made me a pair of skis. I've got them on my wall here in my office. But they cut down a tree and they make skis out of it. They bend them by putting the wood in a boiling pot and tie it back so that they have the big curve. And then on the bottom of the skis, they take what's called the cannon, but it's the front part of a horse's shin.
And they ate horses. That's their primary food source. Fantastic horse meat. That's what you have in every meal - breakfast, lunch and dinner.
But they take that, and they sew it together too - they have this strip of horsehair. And then they nail it onto the ski. So it slides forward perfectly, but then it catches. So that's how they go up and down hill. And they ski with one pole.
And we went elk hunting. And they don't - they're not allowed to have guns. It's China. So they can't have a personal gun, unlike here. So what they do is, they lasso the elk.
So they're skiing down - imagine this - you take a cross country skier, and then you know, half of this is cross country skiing, the other half is being a Wrangler. They're skiing down the slope, and the elk’s running through the snow. Luckily, the snow is quite deep, so the elk can't just disperse. But they get weak, and they lasso the elk, and then they all get on this thing and hold it down.
And then they end up coming, getting close to it - and it's kicking - and it takes hours, hours and hours, and eventually they cut the jugular, and then you've got yourself an elk.
It’s very different than my experience growing up, where I go into the Sierra Madres or the Savage Run wilderness, and I've got a high powered rifle, and I walk around until I see something and shoot it. There it's a lot more work.
We went out - the men would typically go out for almost a week on skis, winter camping the whole time. And they just have skins that they lay down on the snow, and then they build a huge fire. It sinks right through the snow. Everybody's freezing. Everybody's loving it. And that's what - and then they have sleds made out of horsehair that slide really well. They just fold them up like a little cradle and bring all the meat back to the village.
So that was a really fun assignment. Yeah, and I don't want to be too focused on some of the more difficult assignments, because I've done such fun, fun stuff.
Wendy Corr:
Well, that was my next question - the idea that, when you go to do these fun stories, these feature stories, what's your reception when you, as an American, come to a little tiny village in the middle of nowhere in China? Kazakhstan?
Mark Jenkins:
Right.
Wendy Corr:
What do they say when they see you? “Yeah, come on in?” They don't even speak the language.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, well, you know, with National Geographic, typically, we'd hire an interpreter sometimes, employ interpreters, because, like, we had an interpreter there who spoke Chinese and English, but didn't speak, what they speak - there it’s Kazhak, not Chinese. So we had to have a Kazhak-to-Chinese interpreter, and then a Chinese to English interpreter.
You know, people always say, “Isn't it difficult to interview people?” But I think, and you've experienced this yourself, most of the time when you're there to learn about what they're an expert at, they want to share this knowledge. They feel special, and they are special. They know something that no one else on the planet knows. And I'm there to say, “Tell me about it. Take me out, I want to experience this life that you have.”
So I've never found that a real problem. Most of the time people are excited to meet you. They take you into their homes. I mean, humans are humans anywhere you go.
I remember one time we bicycled across the US, and everyone had said, “Wait till you get to the state of New York, people are so rough there.” We got there. And we spent four nights, and we never spent a night in our tent. Every single night in the state of New York, somebody invited us into their home.
And we also bicycled across the Soviet Union. And we were in people's homes. Every night we were in a village, they wouldn't let us sleep in a tent. They would bring us into their small log cabin, and we’d spend the night.
So people - it's easy, when you follow politics, it's easy to get kind of wrapped up in this notion that humans are less than they should be. But when you go to small towns, and this is true from Ten Sleep to Timbuktu, you go to small towns and those people, they're ordinary folks. They want to take care of you.
They want to - and the other thing is, it's kind of an exchange. It’s just not only me taking their story, but they always, always want to know my story. Like, where have you been, and then I'll tell them some story about - and it's this narrative, this exchange. So it - almost always.
I've had very few negative experiences. And all of them have been in a military situation, where people are in too much stress, and there's too much violence. Anytime you're kind of with ordinary folks, whether you're climbing a mountain in South America - my wife and I've done a lot of that, and you know, the locals, you come into a small village, your pack is huge. Somebody says, “Hey, you know, if you pay me $5 you can put your pack on my mule, and we'll just go to the mountain.”
So humans I think are generally good by nature. It's just when you have violence that things start to twist people's minds.
Wendy Corr:
You have absolutely seen the best and the worst of humanity - and I just love the fact that you've documented that for us. And you've taken that experience and then you go and you tell people that. You have been, you are a paid speaker for lots of organizations. You were telling me about one that you just did recently?
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, yeah, I just gave a big show to the FBI, the Counterintelligence Division in New York City. I spent a lot of time in East Africa, and they had East African agents. I've been arrested in East Africa. So they wanted to basically just show a presentation about how to make good decisions in very bad situations. How to stay calm, how to be a leader, when things could, you know…
Mountaineering is kind of like this. It's worse than a military situation. So basically, in most other endeavors, whether you're playing basketball or goofing around, if you make the wrong decision, there's few consequences. I mean, even if you're playing the roughest game of basketball, what are you going to do, sprained your knee, right?
In mountaineering, as in the military, it's a mortal endeavor. If you make the wrong move, you're gonna die. You make the right move, you'll probably squeak by. So learning how to handle that kind of pressure is the kind of show I was giving to the FBI.
I've got another one with the FBI here in Denver coming up next month. So yeah, I give speaking, I also speak, do corporate speaking, you know, that sort of thing. But I'm best at helping people understand how to make life or death decisions.
Wendy Corr:
Well, I know that this has been a fabulous, fabulous, fascinating conversation for me. And I know that our listeners and our viewers are going to feel the same way. Mark, just to kind of wrap things up here, what's next? I know that you and your wife have some adventures coming up, too - who's from Sheridan, by the way! You guys are definitely a Wyoming couple.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, her dad was an attorney in Sheridan. And, yeah, we're Wyoming born and bred. Let's see, going into Gannett peak, it's the highest peak in the state of Wyoming. It also turns out to be the most remote peak in the lower 48. It's 25 miles in, whether you come from the Dubois side, the east side, 25 miles in.
And we're going to attempt to do the north face. I always say “attempt,” not like we're going to climb it, because weather can knock you out on mountains.
Mountains decide whether you get to the top or not. You've got to be driven. But you can be in situations where the smartest thing to do is to turn around. So we're gonna go and try to climb Gannett. I think that'll go well, I've climbed it quite a number of times.
And then we're got an assignment to bicycle through the Balkans, the Balkans, they’re Dinaric Alps. And they are Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia. Montenegro - we're going to do a six week bicycle tour through villages on very small roads, farm roads, or just mud tracks, and do a bicycle tour through there.
After that, I think we're going to Ecuador, but you know, it depends on how things play out. But most of these are assignments. And it's been a great life.
Wendy Corr:
I would ask how you stay in shape to have the endurance to do all these things, but I think just doing all these things gives you the endurance.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, that's true. But I also, I run a lot of stadium stairs. That's, you know, almost everybody lives someplace next to a stadium. And if you want to get in shape for mountain climbing, just go and do stairs for half an hour or an hour every day, you will be fit.
People talk about all these special regimens. They talk about the special food they're eating. I eat anything I want to eat, okay, but I also exercise an hour or two a day, when I'm in town. And when I'm not actually climbing, I'll go run stairs, I'll do pull ups.
It's not that special. It's all a matter of self discipline. You just go do it. Especially when you know - that's the thing about mountaineering, is you know that you're going to need that strength. And if you don't have it, you will fail.
Wendy Corr:
Your life depends on how strong you are and how much endurance you have.
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, and you have to use your head. And, you know, they say that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment in mountaineering. So a lot of time out in the field is useful. If you live through it, you can hopefully make the right decisions.
Wendy Corr:
If you live through it - well, you have lived through a lot. Mark Jenkins, this has been a fascinating, fascinating conversation. I'm so glad to meet you, and to be able to have this conversation with you. And folks, I hope that you will check out Mark's books! Mark, I'm sure they're all - are they on Amazon? Where are they at?
Mark Jenkins:
Yeah, mostly actually a place that I go is abe.com. It's Advanced Book Exchange. It's an Amazon for used books. You can find all my books there. You can also go to my website, markjenkins.net. It looks like I'll probably be having a program on Wyoming public radio called Going To Extremes. We're talking about that. And I have a sub stack called Mark Jenkins. So you can find me if you want.
Easiest way to see my work is just to go to my website. And people are welcome. They're welcome to call me, talk to me, my phone’s right here. You can call me up and talk to me. It's not a problem.
Wendy Corr:
I mean, we're, you know, that small town with really long streets, right?
Mark Jenkins:
Yes.
Wendy Corr:
Mark, thank you so much for your time today. And folks, thank you for tuning in to this really special program of The Roundup. We're just so glad that you joined us today, and glad that we could have this time with Mark.
And be sure to tune in to our other other podcasts that we're going to have coming up, and that we've had in the past. I think this is episode 32 that we have done - and we're just grateful to be able to have these conversations with remarkable Wyoming personalities.
So Mark, thank you! Folks, thank you. Have a wonderful, wonderful week.
