Growing up in the mountains of Utah, Cory was constantly surrounded by the outdoors. His father, a high school teacher and ski patroller, spent years teaching Cory and his brother how to ski, climb, mountaineer, and survive in the wild. Despite a seemingly idyllic childhood, the Richards home was fraught with violence, grief, and mental illness. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and dropping out of high school, Cory subsumed himself in the worlds of photography and climbing, seeking out the farthest reaches of the world to escape the darkness. Suddenly though, in the midst of a wildly successful career in adventure photography, a catastrophic avalanche changed everything, forcing Cory to confront the trauma of his past, evaluate his own mental health and learn to rewrite his own story. Richards excavates the psychological roots and effects of trauma and shares what it took for him to climb out.