Brad Orsted - Take It Outside

Six weeks after surgery, Doc is ready to run. The hard part is convincing him to wait — and then the Jardine house sells, giving Brad thirty days to find a new home in the middle of a Montana winter.

Leaving means more than packing boxes. It means walking away from the writing cabin where Brad got sober, started tracking mountain lions instead of reaching for the bottle, and first put words to everything he'd lost. They land in Big Timber — small, quiet, the kind of town where people wave at stop signs. And then Through the Wilderness launches.

In this episode: the place that held the worst and best of Brad, the town Brad didn't know he was looking for, and why Brad ignored the publishing industry's advice and bought an RV to take Doc out on the road.

Less than 15 minutes! Listen now!

Doc bolted after a herd of mule deer into the dark timber and came back not using his right front leg.

I made a vet appointment the next morning.

She ordered X-rays. When she came back in the room she told me Doc had severe bilateral dysplasia in both elbows and it was starting in both hips. One of the worst cases she'd seen in a dog his age.

I told her I'd noticed the limp but had never once heard him whimper.

She looked at me and said, "Brad. That's because pain is all Doc knows and has ever known."

We both started crying. Two people who'd met an hour ago, in tears over a German Shepherd neither one of us was willing to let down.

Episode Four of Take It Outside is out now. Born To Suffer. Six weeks on the floor. Chicken tenders through Paradise Valley. A five dollar GoFundMe donor who needed to do something good in the world that day. And a sleeping dog who showed me something I'd been missing for years.

December 2022. The temperature outside Jardine, Montana dropped to minus sixty. Brad and Doc sealed themselves in with Star Wars, chili, and cheese off the block and waited it out. When the cold broke and the snow settled waist-deep across the landscape, they finally got back outside — and Doc spotted a herd of mule deer heading toward the Yellowstone border, mountain lion country, wolf country, and took off after them while Brad's head was in his phone.

What happened next Brad has never talked about publicly. Until now.

Less than fifteen minutes — about as long as it takes to run to the store. Take It Outside, Season Five, Episode Three is LIVE!

Before Doc arrived, Brad had a dream. Doc and Brad were in the woods together, and Doc was limping on his right front leg. He filed it away and tried to forget it. Weeks later, he couldn't. This episode: the dream that wouldn't let go, Doc's first night and the lonesome howl that broke Brad's heart, and a hike to a sacred spot in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness where a German Shepherd laid down in a grizzly bear's daybed — and something long frozen inside Brad began to thaw. Healing, like love, needs a witness.

Brad's back. He's been at an animal shelter, writing a book, and figuring out what a German Shepherd named Doc has to teach him about healing. Turns out, quite a lot.

Season Five is about dogs, recovery, and what happens when two broken things find each other and just decide to keep going.

Welcome back to Take It Outside.

Welcome to season 4 episode 1 of Take It Outside! Please join us on this episode to find out about the Through the Wilderness book launch and tour. We've had an amazing journey and met some very kindred spirits along the way. Doc and I are excited to share what we've learned on the road from all of you, with all of you. Until soon,

Doc and Brad

To purchase Through the Wilderness, please visit: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/through-the-wilderness/ This episode wraps up season three with an exclusive reading from Through the Wilderness. Find out how a flock of cedar waxwings flew off with a painful memory, and how we perform emotional surgery after tragedy. Thank you! - Brad

To preorder Through the Wilderness, please click here: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/through-the-wilderness/

What do late nights, huckleberry scones, and orphaned grizzly bears have in common? My life! Join us on this episode titled, Orphaned in the Wild, where I talk about my time baking and watching grizzly bear cubs, and read from my upcoming memoir, 'Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild' about my early days of grizzly bear conservation at the feet of the master, Doug Peacock. Heyduke Lives!!!

In this episode of Take It Outside, titled, Lean on Me, I'll talk about my time tracking a mountain lion family with my good friend, Casey Anderson, and how steep climbs and frozen snot were exactly what I needed to start to deal with my trauma. I'll read from my memoir, Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild, an early segment covering some of my time with Casey and the mountain lion kittens that reminded me so much of Marley. To pre-order a copy of Through the Wilderness for you, or someone who may need it, please visit: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/through-the-wilderness/

Thank you and enjoy the show!

Brad and Doc

Take It Outside is BACK with all new episodes! In this episode, I'll explain my radio hiatus, and read to you from my NEW memoir, Through the Wilderness: My Journey of Redemption and Healing in the American Wild due out with St. Martins Press on 6/27/23!!! Join us for how I met one of my heroes, Casey Anderson, and together followed and filmed a mountain lion family, learning as much about ourselves as cougars along the way. To pre-order Through the Wilderness, please visit: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/through-the-wilderness/ Thank you!

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 1 of Take It Outside! On this episode titled, Healing in Yellowstone, I'm finally off the soul-numbing prescriptions and starting to find my wild way to healing in Yellowstone. While days guiding in Yellowstone provided for grizzly bears, marriage proposals and forgotten underwear hikes, there was also the everyday painful reminder in all that beauty that Marley was gone from my life forever. The intense pain was suspended by the awe of Yellowstone by day, but always seemed to find me again in the mountains after the sun went down. Please join us on this episode of Take It Outside!

Join me on this episode as I recall my battle with prescription medicine and how a good Doctor saw something wild in me early.

Please join me on Take It Outside for Part 2 of 'The Crow Sweat Hot', where I enter a centuries old purification to try and deal with the loss of our daughter, Marley. In the heat, I hear words of wisdom in an ancient language that guide me through my first sweat lodge. There are visions of Marley as the Earth falls away and parting lessons that took years for me to fully realize. See you there!!

Huge thanks and shout out to Dr. Shane Doyle and Jason Baldes for the song! A'ho!

Please join me on Season 2 Episode 2 of, Take It Outside! A podcast about healing in nature after tragedy. On this episode, I seek healing in the centuries old ceremony of sweat lodge, and find myself being welcomed by the Crow people of Montana. Things are about to get very real as I see my first sweat lodge, and the Crow holy man who will run the ceremony. It was the first time I wasn't proud to say I lived in Yellowstone. Please join me on this journey of healing. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🏔 HUGE thank you to Dr. Shane Doyle and Jason Baldes for the song. A'ho!

On this episode, Brad reads, The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, as his birthday present to Yellowstone. Happy Birthday Yellowstone National Park - you're 149 - and looking fine!

Please join me for a brand NEW Season 2 of Take It Outside! A podcast about healing in nature. On this first episode of Season 2, I'll explore one of my first experiences in the wild, where wolves captivated my attention long enough to keep the misery de jour at bay. Sharing the landscape with one of Yellowstone's top predators, held me in the moment, and provided my first break on a long, and arduous journey of despair, after losing Marley. But where was that seam in the wild that had allowed me to escape my pain momentarily? And could I go back?

Join me on part two of 'A Grizzly Conferment' as a chance encounter with an apex predator has me wondering if maybe I don't want to die at all - I just don't know how to live.

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Hear how a close encounter in the Wild, helped me realize I didn't want to die - I just didn't know how to live. When face to face with an apex predator that could oblige my suicidal fantasies, how will I act? Join me on another episode of Take IT Outside!

On this first full episode of, Take It Outside, we arrive at our new home in Yellowstone National Park, with wolves howling somewhere in the distance. While my days are spent tracking and photographing the wolves of Yellowstone, including the infamous '06 female (832f), at night the sadness and alcohol creep back in to fill the void from losing our daughter, Marley. While there is beauty and wildness all around, I just couldn't shake the misery that haunted me both day and night. A flashing chance is snatched away, and things are coming to a head in the world's first national park.

In this 18 minute episode, I'll complete the 3-part series of how profound tragedy struck our family in the summer of 2010, and how my mom's role in our daughter's death sent me into a very dark place of depression, addiction, and suicidal fantasies. Just as the gathering darkness seemed inescapable, we move to one of the wildest places on the planet - Yellowstone. Thank you for joining me here on, "Take It Outside"