By Maggie Neal Doherty
Brendan Leonard is running to our interview. No, he’s not running late but rather, we’re meeting at the Missoula Public Library, and it’s on his route after descending Mt. Sentinel, the trail he runs twice a week. In only a handful of miles, the path ascends 2,000 vertical feet from the University of Montana’s iconic “M” to the summit.
But it’s not nostalgia for his college years that draws him back, run after run. Leonard, an Iowa native, first came to Missoula in 2004 to attend graduate school for journalism. These days, the pull of Mt. Sentinel is less academic and more personal.
After shedding his running vest, Leonard said he just loves the climb, especially the small forest near the top. He estimates he’s done it 170 times, though Strava, the fitness tracking app, could likely provide a more accurate tally. He’s not boasting; the number is simply a testament to his connection with this landscape. Leonard returned to Missoula with his wife in 2020, and they now have a 3-year-old son. Trail runs around the valley have become part of his rhythm and routine.
Besides, bragging in any form—whether about athletic feats or his accomplishments as an author, illustrator, and award-winning filmmaker— isn’t his style. It doesn’t fit with the ethos of Semi-Rad, the website he launched in 2011 that celebrates everyday adventures and creativity. The site is for people like him: people who enjoy running or skiing or camping but aren’t professional athletes or the type who take their Strava accounts too seriously.
The first spark of Semi-Rad was born from his frustrations working as a freelance journalist after graduate school. He found a lot of the assignments in adventure and outdoor magazines lacking and the work inconsistent. Much of the glossy adventure magazine world tends to hinge upon a familiar trifecta: triumph, tragedy, or buy this new (expensive) gear. But Leonard wanted something different. He was drawn to the intersection of adventure, maximum enthusiasm (his phrase), and meaningful self-inquiry, the latter of which was the basis of his first two books, The New American Road Trip Mixtape and Sixty Meters to Anywhere. In fact, he probably has a Venn diagram somewhere depicting this exploration.
He was also inspired by his friend Fitz Cahall, who launched the Dirt Bag Diaries in 2007— a mountain culture storytelling podcast—and eventually turned it into a full-time job. If someone like Cahall who recorded stories in his closet could transform his passion project into a career, then Leonard figured he could make stuff all on his own, too.
“I just wanted to do funny stuff and people [magazine editors] didn’t want funny stuff so I was going to do it on my own website,” he said.
Semi-Rad started as a place to share his blog posts and illustrations that had become popular such as “Do You Have Obsessive Campfire Adjustment Syndrome?” and “Hopefully This Beer Is Thanks Enough: A Gratitude Scale for Outdoors Folk,” and his work expanded into social media, including Instagram and YouTube. His weekly newsletter has 15,000 subscribers, and he’s been published in some of the magazines he always aspired to write for, including Alpinist, National Geographic Adventure, Adventure Journal, and Outside, where he was a columnist for six years.
Steve Casimiro, the founder of Adventure Journal, calls Leonard this generation’s leading voice of outdoor writers. In the foreword to Leonard’s Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems, he writes, “Today in this post-millennial, rapidly changing, pre-who-knows-what era, there is Brendan Leonard—self-deprecating, open-hearted, considerate, and respectful, the voice of humility and optimism and stoke.”
Leonard has written a dozen books, including quirky and inspiring guidebooks on adventure, outdoor survival, creativity, and running. Some are collections of essays from his website. Others are slim tomes including 15-Second Recipes: A Cookbook for Busy People which includes delicacies like “Deconstructed Cereal” and “10-Second Cheese Sandwich.” His most recent book, Ultra-Something, published in 2024, is an exploration into the quirks of human nature and its expressions of endurance: from distance runners like himself to football teams and factory workers. Like most of his books, it includes his illustrations, a clever take on charts and graphs. The range of his creative work and output is staggering, particularly for a person who routinely runs ultramarathons, climbs mountains, and has a family. He also teaches courses on essay writing through his website and with Missoula’s Freeflow Institute.
Yet Leonard, doesn’t view his multi-channel storytelling work as prescient for an industry that now requires writers to have a diverse platform and legions of followers, though he’s long garnered both. “I’m just somebody trying a bunch of stuff and trying to avoid having to get a real job,” he said.
“I’m just somebody trying a bunch of stuff and trying to avoid having to get a real job.”
Now 47, he has given himself permission to create what he wants and has a lot of fun doing it. Although outdoor adventures have taken him all over the world, including competing in the Motatapu 52K Ultra in New Zealand last March, he also likes standing on peaks closer to home.
Two years ago, he created his own choose-your-own-adventure project, a riff on the Seven Summits endeavor to climb the highest mountains on all seven continents. That type of expedition, created by mountaineer Dick Bass in 1986, requires a lot of time away from home and comes with a price tag of hundreds of thousands of dollars. As a middle-aged dad, Leonard didn’t have the cash or the time, and recalled his fondness for the choose-your-own-adventure books he read as a child. Instead of traveling across the world, he formulated his own version of the Seven Summits: The Seven Summits of My Neighborhood, which he documented in a short film in 2023. He selected the seven mountains within a 20-mile radius of Missoula and climbed them, sometimes with his mom, Kathy, sometimes solo, or with a friend. It was an entirely human powered mission, biking to trailheads if the approach took longer than his regular neighborhood dog walk.
The project is also Leonard’s way of reminding people that adventure doesn’t need to be intense, expensive or global. “You should be able to do things closer to home and still have fun with it,” he explained. “Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up and giving yourself excuses. There are literally thousands of mountains in the world. Just go pick one. I guarantee you’re going to have a good time.”
Through his writing, illustrations, and films, Leonard offers an expansive and approachable concept of adventure—one that’s relatable, refreshing and grounded in humility and humor. His work encourages people to create their own version of The Seven Summits of My Neighborhood or pursue another creative endeavor.
Embedded in Leonard’s storytelling and his own endeavors is a simple perspective: “Most of us are just f*****g around in the woods and that’s great.” As a father, his approach to adventure has shifted. “My working definition of adventure, at this point, is any self-directed undertaking with an unknown outcome, which includes bike rides around the neighborhood with my 3-year-old.”
“My working definition of adventure, at this point, is any self-directed undertaking with an unknown outcome, which includes bike rides around the neighborhood with my 3-year-old.”
Whether he’s creating a cartoon video on how an average runner can survive an ultramarathon or having his mom introduce his new books on his YouTube channel, Leonard continues to deliver an inviting, accessible, and motivating message about adventure and the outdoors, applicable to regular folks and elite athletes alike.
He shared a final tenet of Semi-Radism, before running home, “Let’s just do the fun part.”
Maggie Neal Doherty is a freelance journalist, opinion columnist, and book critic, and lives with her family in Kalispell, Montana. She teaches writing at Flathead Valley Community College. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Washington Post, LA Times, SKI, and more.
