

	Back-country babe cornered by two beginning scouts.

paisley rekdal

READ Mark Jenkins' on-line Outside column, The Hard Way.

Mark Jenkins is the ultimate back-country babe. He's Wyoming's proudest wild man. As Paisley likes to say, he climbs, he hikes, he hunts, he fishes, he even writes for Outside Magazine. In fact, this is how they describe him:

"'There is little point of setting out for a place that one is certain to reach,'" wrote the British mountaineer H. W. Tilman. It's an approach to adventure that resonates in the life and work of writer Mark Jenkins. A nearly lifelong resident of Wyoming — his father was a professor of mathematics at the state university in Laramie — Jenkins has made a habit of avoiding the easy or the obvious path: He earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a masters in geography (his thesis, titled Chemical Composition of Fresh Snow on Mount Everest, is based on samples he collected on the North Face in 1986); he biked across Russia in 1989 (the trip was the subject of his first book, Off the Map; and in 1993 he participated in the first descent of Africa's Niger River, an experience recounted in To Timbuktu, which the Los Angeles Times named one of the best books of 1997. He has also climbed the three highest peaks above the Arctic Circle, and has wandered extensively across Europe, South America, Southern Africa, and Asia. His base remains Laramie, where he lives with his wife, Sue, and their two daughters."

So if you think you can keep up with Mark -- check out his Outside Magazine column, The Hard Way, and have yourself a merry time in the wilderness. Don't forget to write!