In 2002 Conrad Anker, Galen Rowell, Jimmy Chin and I made a self-supported trek across an uninhabited corner of Tibet’s Chang Tang Plateau, to follow the seasonal migration of the endangered antelope-like chiru, to discover their calving grounds before poachers could get there first. We knew it was going to be a nearly 300-mile trek and we would have to carry everything ourselves. That came to over 250 pounds per person, for a month. You can’t do that with backpacks. I was trying to figure that one out when one day I was sitting in the lobby at the Marriott in downtown Salt Lake City, waiting for a meeting. I looked across the room, and there was this bronze statue of a 19th Century Mormon family pulling all their stuff across the Great Plains in a hand cart. That was it! We would pull rickshaws across Tibet. I sold the idea to National Geographic, and a year later we were on our way, and a month later we discovered the calving grounds. Last month I was back in SLC promoting my book Life Lived Wild that has the story of this trip. I had the desk attendant take a shot of me next to the statue. First Photo: @jimmychin. @PatagoniaBooks. #LifeLivedWildBook