EP 097 A lifetime of exploring Alaska’s natural world with Roman Dial

In this one, Cody talks with Roman Dial, an academic and a long-time explorer of Alaska’s natural world. Since the 1970s, he’s been out there—in the backcountry and in the wilderness—in search of that next thrill or moment in nature. He actually says that there’s a difference between the backcountry and the wilderness. While the backcountry has trails and is near a road or a town, the wilderness has no trails except for those made by animals and is three days or more from civilization. In the wilderness, you’re surrounded by nature unaffected by humans and you can drink from freshwater streams. This is the world that Roman has always been attracted to. One that is still wild and full of possibilities—there’s always another mountain to climb or a valley to explore. He’s 60 now and that excitement and passion for the outdoors hasn’t subsided.

In 2014, Roman’s son, Cody-Roman, was on an exploration in Costa Rica when he went missing. Over the course of the next two years, Roman traveled to Costa Rica in search of his son. He says that he felt it was his duty and that he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he hadn’t. Then, in 2016, Cody-Roman’s body was found and it was determined that he had been killed after a tree had fallen on his campsite. In the aftermath of all this, Roman had a realization: That all the adventuring he’d been doing was selfish. That he’d been doing dangerous things because he got a thrill out of it. So, he started to back away from the activity of scaring himself. Today, when he goes to nature, he’s more conscious of his mortality and how his death might affect his loved ones, and there isn’t a day that goes by where he doesn’t think of his son.

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