Mark Jenkins, a longtime Outside contributor, is planning a triumphant return to Majadita when the wind dies down.
Two bold men, one reckless plan: to watch the sun go dark atop a huge snow-covered peak in South America. You won't believe what happened next.
The deadly 2019 climbing season prompted a worldwide demand to reform management of the world's highest peak. Is change really possible? Mark Jenkins, a veteran alpinist who reached the summit in 2012, lays down an emphatic yes.
During 40 years of adventure, hard-charging writer and climber Mark Jenkins has asked a lot of his wife and kids. After his fourth attempt on a dicey Chinese peak, he examines the risks and rewards of a risk-defying career.
A professional adventurer has to break a few eggs along the way—and, apparently, several bones and a skull. Mark Jenkins tallies up the most memorable injuries and mishaps from a life lived on the edge.
One thing you shouldn’t leave behind with your foolhardy youth: the great American dirtbag road trip. Mark Jenkins explains how to do it right.
As Mark Jenkins knows, wilderness first aid can hurt. (Just ask his patients.) So he finally did what everyone should do: he took a class from real experts.
Norway's forbidding Hardangervidda Plateau nearly killed Roald Amundsen when he attempted a ski traverse in the winter of 1896. But the failure set him on a path of training, study, and exploration that led to his historic conquest of the South Pole. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of that feat, Mark Jenkins and his brother Steve skied the route, an epic challenge that even now can prove deadly.
Outside sat down with Dos Equis spokesman Jonathan Goldsmith
Before the event, the doc gave me a six-day course of steroids for my back and threw in a bottle of Vicodin. “At your age,” he said, “after this race, you’re going to need it.”
In adventure and in life, Mike was my best friend—my stronger, wiser, wilder half. And in the end, when the last climb was over, that's all that really mattered.
Is it possible to guide safely on Everest? Or will the mountain always demand its pound of flesh? MARK JENKINS talks to a dream team of veterans—between them, they've reached the summit 17 times—in a frank look at the risks, rewards, and nightmares of taking clients to the top.
What happens when a Type A relaxation-phobe takes his first vacation in years? Life gets good again.