Against The Odds

Latest Episodes:

The Big Burn | Fight Fire with Fire | 4 Oct 21, 2025

Show notes

The Buffalo Soldiers evacuate women and children from Avery, Idaho by train, but they don’t get far before the fire catches up to them. Emma Pulaski receives terrible news about her husband. With the fire closing in, rangers and soldiers take radical measures to save Avery.

Order your copy of the new Against the Odds book, How to Survive Against the Odds: Tales & Tips for Animal Attacks and Natural Disasters, for stories of everyday people confronted by life-or-death situations, showing you how they survived—and how you can too. Learn more at SurvivalGuidebook.com.

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The Big Burn | Evacuations | 3 Oct 14, 2025

Show notes

As teams of firefighters and forest rangers find themselves trapped by the megafire and unable to help, residents of Wallace and Avery prepare to evacuate. While Ed Pulaski and his crew take shelter in an old mining tunnel, Ed’s wife Emma decides to flee with their daughter Elsie to an old mining dump on the outskirts of town, hoping she’s made the right decision.

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The Big Burn | The Blow-Up | 2 Oct 07, 2025

Show notes

As the fires spread, ranger Ed Pulaski tries to lead his men on a last-ditch effort to save the town of Wallace. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Soldiers race to build firebreaks around Avery, and head ranger Bill Weigle realizes he’s made a terrible mistake.

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The Big Burn | The Driest Summer | 1 Sep 30, 2025

Show notes

In the summer of 1910, a severe drought turned Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene National Forest into a tinderbox. Spot fires cropped up around the mining towns of Wallace and Avery and it was the job of forest rangers like Ed Pulaski to put them out. But when a massive windstorm swept through in August, those smaller fires converged into the largest megablaze in American history.

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Siula Grande: Over the Edge | Making Peace With It, With Simon Yates | 4 Sep 23, 2025

Show notes

In 1985, high on Peru’s Siula Grande, everything went wrong, and two climbers made choices that became mountaineering lore. Simon Yates joins host Cassie De Pecol to talk about risk, survival, and being known as “the guy who cut the rope.”

If you’d like to learn more about Simon's adventures in mountaineering, check out his books: Against the Wall, The Flame of Adventure, and The Wild Within - available wherever you get your books.

Order your copy of the new Against the Odds book, How to Survive Against the Odds: Tales & Tips for Animal Attacks and Natural Disasters, for stories of everyday people confronted by life-or-death situations, showing you how they survived—and how you can too. Learn more at SurvivalGuidebook.com.

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Siula Grande: Over the Edge | Keep Moving | 3 Sep 16, 2025

Show notes

Simon Yates begins his lonely return to base camp, convinced that his partner Joe Simpson is dead. He wrestles with guilt and grief, unsure how he’ll ever explain what happened to those back home. Meanwhile, Joe manages to haul himself out of the crevasse. But with a shattered leg and six miles of brutal terrain ahead, his fight to stay alive is just beginning.

Our story consultant for this series is Simon Yates. If you’d like to learn more about his adventures in mountaineering, check out his books: Against the Wall, The Flame of Adventure, and The Wild Within - available wherever you get your books.

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Siula Grande: Over the Edge | Long Way Down | 2 Sep 09, 2025

Show notes

After Joe Simpson fractures his leg, his climbing partner Simon Yates begins lowering him down the mountain, 300 feet at a time. But near the bottom, Simon unknowingly lowers Joe over the edge of a sheer cliff. Joe is left dangling in midair, unable to take his weight off the rope. And Simon, anchored above, can’t pull him back up. They trapped in a deadly stalemate.

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Siula Grande: Over the Edge | First Ascent | 1 Sep 02, 2025

Show notes

It’s June 1985. Two young British climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to conquer the unclimbed west face of Siula Grande, a towering 21,000-foot peak in the Peruvian Andes. But high on the mountain, Joe suffers a catastrophic injury, forcing Simon to make an agonizing decision: risk his own life to try and save his partner… or leave him behind to die.

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FAN FAVORITE: Trapped on Mt. Hood | Discovery | 4 Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

As the search for the missing climbers enters its second day, rescuers redouble their efforts to find the lost students and their adult guides. But the vastness of the search area presents major challenges. Rescue workers and parents face the awful reality that the missing climbers' chances for survival are dwindling rapidly. But then, a crucial discovery gives them hope, and profoundly alters the nature of the search.

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FAN FAVORITE: Teddy Roosevelt's Amazon Expedition | River's End | 4 Aug 26, 2025

Show notes

After weeks on the River of Doubt, Theodore Roosevelt’s expedition is on the verge of collapse. But hope emerges when they find clues that Brazilian frontiersmen may be living and working in the wilderness nearby. As Roosevelt’s health deteriorates, drastic measures must be taken to fight the infection in his leg. The men must race to return the former president to civilization before illness and starvation claim his life.

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