Throughout his life, Portland rock climber Bob Grunau has struggled with the lingering clouds of depression. Until he discovered climbing, the only way to weather the darker cycles was to retreat inward into his mind. That approach worked until he became a part of a family. High, lonesome places can provide respite and joy. We can love them deeply, but ice and rock will not love us back.

Rangi Smart was riding a small spur of his favorite single-track trail when he stumbled upon a perfectly designed mountain bike jump. The 33-year-old math teacher thought to himself, “What kind of nut-job rides off something like that?” Then Rangi imagined that he was that nut-job. We bring you the hopes, dreams and goals of professional athletes, regular joes, parents, soldiers and students. Here’s to the dirtbags. Here’s to Mr. Smart.

Taco Bell. Pizza Hut. Climber and writer, Kelly Cordes had one hell of resume by the time he applied for a position baking bread. It was an ideal job for a dirtbag who lived and breathed climbing, and once resided in a 77-square-foot shack. Then Cordes ran into Bosszilla.

With his career stalling and idealism flat lining, Ryan Nickum looked into his past to search for the seed of the travel affliction. There was only one person to blame -- his father. What makes the traveler's feet restless? Is it nature or nurture? Writer Ryan Nickum presents Bedtime Stories for Wanderers.

For the last five years, I have been stingier than Scrooge when it comes to a Yule Tree. In 2008, I’m a changed man. Armed with a handsaw and empowered by a National Forest permit, I wandered out into the Cascades to search for the perfect Christmas tree.

“’You should get a bike. It will change your life,’ my friend Nick said. I heard this over and over again like a nagging brake pad rubbing on the one wobbly spot on a dented wheel,” writes Colorado-based writer Brendan Leonard. Leonard wasn’t a believer until his friend showed up his doorstep with a gift – a 1989 red Trek bicycle. As he began riding, Leonard found his life falling into the smooth order of a finely tuned bike.

To celebrate Halloween, we bring you two tales of terror. Contest winner Chris Peters explains why it pays to listen to the safety talk and a very special guest remembers a family vacation to the Alaskan wilderness gone wrong.

The Bohrer clan isn’t your average Idaho Falls family. Juggling goals in the mountain with parenting is no simple task. Sometimes balancing competing passions requires combining them into a lifestyle. After all, whether you’re old or young, everyone likes to play hooky if there is snow on the hill.

Recreating without a car might seem impossible, but this summer I set out to test the preconceived notion. What happens when you find yourself trapped in the Urban Jungle? You blaze your way out.

After loosing his leg in a climbing accident, Craig DeMartino had to retrain his body and learn his craft all over again. DeMartino takes us to Vail and the Teva Mountain Games. Behind the bright lights, big names and massive crowds, climbing’s everyman gets his moment in the sun.

A mythical, semi-secret, surf spot on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – that’s as descriptive as Australian Duncan McNee would get. This secret break, a quick bike ride from McNee’s day job as a high school teacher, requires the perfect synchronicity of swell, tide and windless days. On average, the variables come together once every two years. At long last, we bring you a surfing story.

Today, we bring you the Crusade, the story of two stockbrokers, an engineer and a nuclear physicist who, with a little help from the Internet, helped shaped American ski mountaineering without ever leaving their backyard.

In the Year of Big Ideas, my childhood friend Brad laid it out – he was going to climb El Cap in 2008. We planned and tried to convince others to join us, but in the end, Brad and I were on our own to wrestle with one very big – arguably bad – idea. A third of the way through 2008, where are you in your year of big ideas? We’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment and a little inspiration. What have you ticked off the list? What’s left?

Through the years, I’ve tried to escape words and journalism, but the writing life always has a funny way of creeping back into my world. This time it came in the form of a 230-pound cameraman with a fear of heights, a fast talking New York producer and a 30-year-old broadcaster trying to return to her childhood. It turns out you have to earn your 15 seconds of fame.

Seventeen years ago, Sean O’Neill – artist athlete and big brother to pro climber Timmy O’Neill – lost the use of his legs. After the accident, Timmy dreamed about helping his older brother climb El Capitan. In 2005, the brothers decided it was time to act. James Mills brings us a story about two brothers, one very big cliff face and a 17-year-old dream.

When listener Andy Guinigundo’s email appeared in the inbox on a rainy spring day, I read through it, read it again and thought “Damn, I wish I could have been there.? That’s because no matter where you ski, a powder day is a magical thing. I’d been wanting to create some smaller shorts between feature episodes, so Andy joined us in the Dirtbag Diaries Midwest Studios and gave us his own farewell to an unforgettable winter season.

In spring of 1991, Tom Broxson survived a 200-foot fall off the top of Yosemite Valley’s Washington Column. To this day, Tom, his climbing partner Pat and the rescuers who saved his life aren’t exactly sure what happened. Today we bring you Tom’s story of survival, recovery and will.

Today, Becca Cahall brings us All These Things – a story about getting older and skiing faster. We’re headed for British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains – an incredible range of open alpine faces, perfect tree skiing and tight chutes that every backcountry skier dreams of visiting.

In the summer of 2007, kayaker and blogger Shane Robinson found himself paddling down Peru’s isolated Apurimac River with Andrew Oberhardt and Bryan Smith. They had no map, no aerial photos and enough food for five days. Fifteen years of kayaking had led to this moment.

Today we bring you the “Year of Big Ideas? – a show all about goals, some big, some small. We’ve interviewed friends, professional athletes, random people on chairlifts, anyone we could rope into contributing. Here’s to dreaming big and going bigger in the New Year.

Today, we bring you the tale of Ryan Utz and Micah Helser -- both climbers, both soldiers -- and their quest to create a lifeline back from the frontlines to the things that matter the most – friends, family and that freedom found only in open spaces. We are headed to the world’s most improbable climbing wall. This is Camp Taji. Welcome to Iraq.

In 2005, photographer, writer and avid cyclist Blake Gordon joined the Logsdon brothers in the midst of pedaling 15,000 miles and raising money for the National Brain Tumor Foundation. Today, we present The Reckoning – a story plucked from the pages of a young photographer’s notebook. You can ride your bike to the edge of a continent, but when the road ends it doesn’t always lead to neat resolutions.

There’s no such thing as a perfect job. What if there was a magical place where you could get paid to climb? At the center of this kingdom is a mountain, and all you have to do is climb it. Find out what happens when a bunch of climbers are left unsupervised with the keys to the Magic Kingdom.

Today on the Dirtbag Diaries, we’re traveling from the halls of a New England boarding school where two boys forged an unlikely friendship to the wind-swept wilderness deep inside the Cascade Mountains, where a trio of climbers have been hard at work solving one of the Northwest’s greatest free climbing projects.

In 1996, photographer John Burcham and three friends completed the first foot traverse of the 650-mile long Alaska Range. Burcham decided to leave the group at the very end of the trip in order to make it to his sister's wedding. He was alone in the continent's last great wilderness with a sobering realization -- crevasses, hungry wildlife and hypothermia can kill you, but loneliness can drive you crazy.