Aaron Teasdale

About

I create in-depth stories—both adventure narratives and deep investigations of important topics—for a variety of publications and scientific and creative projects. My spirited travel and adventure tales earned me the Lowell Thomas 2016 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Society of American Travel Writers, considered the Pulitzer of travel writing. When I grow restive with the constraints of Western civilization, I abandon it. One winter that meant working as a skiing carnivore tracker in a remote corner of Montana, living with my wife and two young boys in a homestead cabin without electricity, phone, or running water. Years later we hooked up a trailer bike to a tandem mountain bike, the Teasdale Train, and rode through the wilds with our boys and camping gear for six weeks to Banff. Most recently, we took the kids out of school for a year and decamped to the wildest corners of Central America. Four little-known Aaron facts: 1) As a former music writer, I'm known for eclectic tastes and an encyclopedic knowledge of 80's and 90's hip-hop. 2) I was a key player in the birth of modern bikepacking, promoting ultralight backcountry bike travel while the rest of the industry obsessed over racing and freeriding. My annual photo galleries of the Tour Divide were the first national coverage the underground event received. My bikepacking features in Bike and Mountain Bike were the first ever to appear in national magazines. 3) I'm an avid birder and never backcountry ski, mountain bike, or saunter aimlessly through the woods without a pair of binoculars. 4) I was raised an urban Buddhist, with lots of time in Zendos during the formative years of American Buddhism. I left the city long ago, but will always strive to live simply and compassionately.