![]() ![]() One of Palisades most well known memorials is to Jeremy's friend, professional skier, base jumper, and beloved goofball, Shane McConkey. ![]() For some, it has also been their final resting place. Maren: Jeremy's home resort, Palisades Tahoe is located in California's Olympic Valley and it has been the launch pad for many professional skiers and riders over the years. I mean, there is, you know, sadly, death all over. I can look at the back of the cars and see the stickers that memorialize friends that have been lost. So I was just looking out, and it's like, I can look at the mountain and see a handful of different spots just at the mountain where I've lost friends. I was just at my home mountain and, uh, Palisades Tahoe, sitting in my car. Jeremy: I'm a husband, father, professional snowboarder, business owner of Jones Snowboards and founder of Protect Our Winners. Jeremy Jones: Unfortunately I have a lot of experience of losing friends in the outdoors. If you're not in a place to hear about that right now, this is your chance to skip this one. And some of the surprising and powerful ways that we choose to honor the hard-charging people in our lives when they're gone. For today's episode, we're going to talk about why they make that choice. In grief, they turn towards adventure, not away from it. It's the latter group that often celebrates their loved ones by doing what they loved to do. When an outdoor adventurer dies doing what they love, there's usually a split between those who argue they were taking unnecessary and irresponsible risks and those who insist that a bit of risk is what makes life worth living. It might not sound like a conventional way to grieve, but it seems to me that if your legacy is a marathon slash eating competition that brings together hundreds of people for a good cause, that hints at a life well lived. Just weeks after he went missing, people started to reach out to his twin brother Connor to ask if he'd want to reenact the Dick's-A-Thon, a challenge the brothers had undertaken together years before, in Ian's memory. The Dick's-A-Thon is put on by the friends and family of Ian Cox, a climber, mountaineer, skier, and occasional runner who went missing in Washington's north Cascades in August of 2022. It sounds a bit like the quirky unofficial races we discussed in last week's episode, but it's also an unexpected and frankly kind of beautiful memorial to an outdoor athlete gone too soon. The organizers say it will test your physical, mental, and gastrointestinal strength. Participants have to eat five menu items throughout the course of the race, including three different burgers, fries, and a milkshake. It's a 26.3 mile run around the city, connecting five locations of a local burger chain called Dick's Drive In. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a news article about a group of Seattleites who put on this event called Dick's-A-Thon. Maren Larsen: From Outside Magazine, this is the Outside Podcast. ![]()
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