There are many moments in our lives that shape who we are and how we look at the world around us. These threshold moments can alter the course of your life and open up doors that you never knew existed.

When Kevin Fedarko stepped through the door of the O.A.R.S. boathouse in Flagstaff, AZ, he didn’t realize he had crossed a figurative threshold as well as a literal one. Kevin had planned on rafting the Grand Canyon for a wilderness medicine course. Then, he planned to go back to his life as a successful freelance writer. But what he saw in that warehouse and in that first week on the Colorado River left him desperate to find a way to keep coming back. Kevin spent the next smelly, humiliating, beautiful and life-altering decade of his life developing a relationship with the Grand Canyon, writing about the Grand Canyon, and, ultimately, fighting to protect it.

To learn more about the current threats to the Grand Canyon and how you can help, visit Save the Confluence and Grand Canyon Trust.

You can purchase Kevin’s book, The Emerald Mile, here.

This episode reposted by permission from our friends at The Dirtbag Diaries. For more great episodes, visit them at dirtbagdiaries.com.