Q-and-A with The Gear Junkie

Last month Rail Riders interviewed me for the “Adventure Seekers” section of its website, which highlights outdoors achievers who also happen to be fans of the company’s line of clothing. (I fit the mold on both fronts.)

Questions in the interview, which can been seen in full here, range from discussions on gear to my opinion on ways to treat waterborne parasites.

Here’s a sample question from the story:

Q: What’s the scariest thing that has ever happened to you on one of your adventures?

Stephen Regenold (The Gear Junkie): I skied out an avalanche in the Jackson Hole backcountry once, riding the tumbling fluff like an ocean wave. My heart was racing for sure. I’ve taken 40- or 50-foot leader falls on traditional rock climbs, a memorable one on Devils Tower in Wyoming. The scariest thing, though, was when one of my skiing buddies rag-dolled over rocky talus on a huge chute outside Bozeman, Montana—The Great Northern Couloir—about 10 years ago. He missed a hop-turn on the steep slope and shot off into an adjacent gully, flipping over rocks. It was horrible. I saw his ski boots flying up over his head, and then he came to a stop on the edge of a cliff. Amazingly, he only dislocated an elbow and had a minor concussion. (He was wearing a climbing helmet, thank God.) I slung his bum arm up with an extra pair of pants from my pack, securing it close to his body, and helped him side-slip the 2,000 vertical down to the forest below. Then, we got lost in the rain hiking out.