Behind World-Class Leadership, Southwestern University’s Outdoor Adventure Program Provides Opportunities for Global Exploration
From the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to the depths of the Grand Canyon, Southwestern students can explore Earth’s natural wonders through the Outdoor Adventure program.
Planet Earth’s juxtapositions have always fascinated Branndon Bargo. In 2018, four years before becoming Southwestern University’s Assistant Director of Outdoor Adventure, Bargo set out on perhaps his most memorable excursion — summiting Toubkal, the highest point in Morocco at over 13,600 feet, in zero-degree temperatures before descending the mountain to sandboard across the Sahara Desert.
“I like trips where you get to experience a juxtaposition, from sand dunes to glaciers,” the adventurer said. “I have a lot of those kinds of trips that I’ve done, but that Morocco trip was pretty extreme.”
As a member of the ultra-exclusive Explorers Club and a proud highpoint enthusiast, Bargo has traversed to the top of many of the Earth’s highest peaks. Today, he shares his knowledge, experiences, and advice with the next generation of explorers through Southwestern’s Outdoor Adventure program.
From Athletics to Adventures
Bargo’s thrill for adventure and love of the outdoors began at an early age. A gifted athlete, Bargo played collegiate rugby while earning degrees in journalism and anthropology at Texas State University. After graduation, he had the opportunity to compete internationally, suiting up for a rugby team in Ireland and an American football team in Germany.
A gifted athlete, Branndon Bargo played collegiate rugby at Texas State University before competing internationally. (Photo courtesy Branndon Bargo)Throughout his time in Europe, Bargo turned to adventuring as a way to stay fit between athletic pursuits. It was during a backpacking trip in Scotland when Bargo realized he didn’t quite know all the ins and outs of adventuring. This thought sparked a journey that ultimately led him to the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Washington. While at NOLS, one of the top schools in the world for learning outdoor trades, Bargo studied not only hard skills like mountaineering, knotsmanship, and glacier climbing, but also soft skills like how to lead groups and how to perform safely in dangerous environments.
“Because I played sports and was used to working with, and often captaining, teams, I started taking specific jobs with outdoor, adventure, and leadership components,” he recalled. “That transitioned into leadership and team-building programs with students, athletes, and corporate groups.”
Bargo began turning his passion and skill set into his career, launching a variety of outdoor businesses. As he accumulated more and more international adventure experiences, he kept thinking back to a childhood dream of his: to have his own television show.
“I thought, ‘I just need to learn how to do cool stuff, then do a bunch of cool stuff and that might help me get my own TV show,’” Bargo said. “That was why I started doing all of this. I accumulated all these adventures, traveled a ton, and gained all this outdoor experience. Little by little, as I would go do cool stuff, I kept meeting cool people.”
As he rubbed shoulders with actors, filmmakers, and producers, Bargo began absorbing as much information about the production industry as possible. He attended movie premiers and studied production techniques, learning about the creative side of storytelling.
“I try to tell our students as often as I can, every time you lead a trip, you tell a story,” he said. “Whenever we go on a trip, there’s a beginning, there’s a middle, and there’s a conclusion. Every time I go on a trip, whether it’s an international expedition or just going to a local state park, I try to think about what story we’re trying to tell.”
Earning an Exclusive Invitation
In 2007, while working on a documentary, Bargo had the opportunity to attend the Banff Film Festival in Canada. There, he met members of the Explorers Club, an international, multidisciplinary society “dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration, and resource conservation.” The organization is made up of the top 3,000 explorers in the world, from astronauts to deep-sea divers and plenty of scientists in between.
Throughout its history as the leading hub for world exploration, the Explorers Club has boasted members such as Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mount Everest, Don Walsh, the first person to travel to Marianas Trench, and Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon. Today, members include Amazon Founder and space exploration advocate Jeff Bezos, acclaimed filmmaker and deep-sea explorer James Cameron, and renowned oceanographer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle.
“To get in, you have to have a long, lengthy resume and two current members that essentially sponsor you,” Bargo said. “But your resume can’t just be strictly adventure. I can’t just climb a mountain and get in. There has to be some form of science, history, or media involved. They want to know how you are promoting exploration and science.”
It took the duo nearly three weeks to climb Denali, North America’s highest summit at 20,310 feet above sea level. The Bargos were caught in a white-out of blowing snow near the peak, where they dug a snow cave and waited out the storm. After eventually defeating Denali, the two hopped on bicycles, traveling 4,000 miles down the western seaboard, from Alaska, through Canada, across the United States, and eventually to Mexico, where they capped off the expedition by swimming with great white sharks.
The Explorers Club was convinced. Bargo earned membership in the exclusive organization in 2009. From there, he continued to travel the world in search of the next adventure. Over the last two decades, Bargo has logged expeditions in over 60 countries, including Chile, Ecuador, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Peru, Tanzania, and Uganda, just to name a few. He has also continued his athletic pursuits, competing in some of the world’s most difficult endurance events, from canoeing to mountain biking to ultramarathons.
A New Adventure
Bargo’s culmination of interests and skills ultimately led him to Georgetown, where he helped contribute to the first season of The Daytripper, a PBS travel series hosted by Chet Garner that explores the food, culture, and history of cities and towns throughout Texas. Serving as the self-proclaimed “adventure camera guy” for the series, Bargo was introduced to the world of PBS. With Garner’s encouragement and an understanding of the network, Bargo pitched PBS an idea for his own television show, The Highpointers.
PBS jumped at the opportunity. First airing in 2020, The Highpointers follows Branndon and Greg across the country as the duo climbs the highest point in each U.S. state. The series is also available on Amazon Prime.
In 2022, Bargo set out on a new adventure, this one as Southwestern’s new Assistant Director of Outdoor Adventure.
Since joining the staff at SU, Bargo has taken the Outdoor Adventure program to new heights, quite literally. During the 2023-2024 winter break, he led a group of students on the trip of a lifetime to Tanzania, where they rang in the new year by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest summit in Africa. During Spring Break 2025, Bargo led another group of students on a backpacking trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This past spring, the Outdoor Adventure program hosted a Spring Break excursion to Hawai’i, where students backpacked Mauna Kea, visited Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, and snorkeled with manta rays in the Pacific Ocean.
“When we go places, we try to really connect and try to create a space where students can connect. It’s real. It’s authentic,” Bargo said. “When you go on an adventure and you go outdoors, you experience all emotions. Sometimes we’re laughing and having fun, and other times, it’s hard and you’re pushing yourself to new limits. You have a wide range of emotions because you’re in a place that’s beautiful. You really do get to make a deep, deep level connection.”
Expanding Southwestern Outdoor Adventure
The exploding popularity of Southwestern’s Outdoor Adventure program led Bargo to hire Shelby Langdon as Outdoor Adventure Coordinator, allowing even more opportunities for students to explore nature’s wonders both at home and abroad. Like Bargo, Langdon’s love for the outdoors was born out of athletics. After competing as a swimmer in high school, Landgon set out to do something completely different during her undergraduate journey at Stephen F. Austin University (SFA).
“It was during the time that I was working at the university’s climbing wall that I realized that recreation and outdoors could be an actual career,” Langdon said. “That was always in the back of my head. I graduated with my degree in kinesiology and was working in the field of physical therapy but decided that I wanted to go the recreation route.”
Langdon went back to school, earning her master’s degree in recreation management from Texas State. While pursuing her master’s, she served as the graduate assistant for the university’s recreation program, earning invaluable experience planning, organizing, and leading excursions of all types. After graduation, she spent two years as the program manager for Texas Tech University’s Outdoor Pursuits program.
With experience at three state universities under her belt, Langdon was the perfect candidate to join the expanding Southwestern Outdoor Adventure program. The new position provided Langdon with the opportunity not only to move closer to family in Central Texas, but also to learn from Bargo.
“Southwestern was one of those universities that all the other state schools looked at, so I knew it was a unique program and would offer unique opportunities and learning experiences,” she said. “The program is really unique compared to a lot of other outdoor programs at different universities. I knew Branndon had a really extensive background and a lot of unique experiences. I’m always doing things that either make me uncomfortable or scare me. I knew that this would challenge me and that I would learn a lot.”
Just this past year, Outdoor Adventure hosted students for an excursion to explore the annual Whooping Crane Festival in Port Aransas and the World Rock Stacking Championship in Llano, as well as a hike to one of Texas’ most beautiful natural landmarks, Enchanted Rock.
“A lot of people think they have to get out of Texas to adventure, but there is so much in this state,” Langdon said. “Thinking about the whole state, East Texas is all forest and the Piney Woods. You have a coast with a whole beach ecosystem. Here in Central Texas, we have rivers, limestone, and aquifers. When you go west, the panhandle has the second largest canyon in the United States and Big Bend. There are so many opportunities for outdoor adventures.”
Celebrating 50 Years Across 50 States
This summer, to celebrate his 50th birthday and the 20th anniversary of the Summit 2 Sea Expedition, Bargo is embarking on an expedition to visit the highest point in all 50 U.S. states in record time, a journey he dubbed “Seek Your Summit.” The current fastest known time to summit all 50 U.S. state highpoints is 20 days, 14 hours, and 4 minutes.
“Most of my ideas, they kind of germinate somewhere and roll around in my head,” Bargo joked. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and during that time, the record keeps getting faster. I’m turning 50 this year, which is crazy because I still feel like I’m 25. Turning 50 and climbing all 50 high points, that’s why I want to do this.”
Bargo will start his adventure in a fitting spot, Alaska’s Denali. His clock will begin when he reaches Denali’s peak and will stop when he reaches his final summit, Wyoming’s Gannett Peak. Breaking this particular world record comes along with a mountain of logistics to organize. Permits are required to climb several highpoints, like Denali and California’s Mount Whitney. Roughly 20% of U.S. highpoints are located on private property, such as Ohio’s Campbell Hill and Illinois’ Charles Mound.
“It’s overwhelming, really,” he said. “I think to even consider it, in my opinion, you have to already have done this stuff. I have an extensive background in logistics, trip planning, and hosting complex expeditions. To do a record like this in particular, I think you have to have experience climbing all the high points. I have done all of them, some three or four or five times.”
Bargo is expected to summit Denali on Monday, June 22, officially beginning his world record journey. The expedition will then take him back to Mauna Kea in Hawai’i, where he recently hiked with students through the Outdoor Adventure program. Bargo will begin his mainland journey in Washington, snaking down the west coast before hitting the southwest and southeast, then journeying up the Appalachians and into New England.
After zig-zagging through the midwest, the Seek Your Summit expedition will conclude with five straight high points over 12,500 feet above sea level across Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. As he traverses the nation, Bargo is inviting communities across the country to spend time outdoors, hiking in their own neighborhoods, and even reaching a high point of their own.
“I like doing things where people can be involved,” he said. “Seek Your Summit allows people to find the right challenge for them. Informally, as we’re posting, if people want to show up and find a high point that they want to do in their own backyard or in their home state, we welcome that.”
The Southwestern community will have the exclusive opportunity to take part in the Seek Your Summit expedition as Langdon will be hosting a hike up Texas’ Guadalupe Peak in late June through Outdoor Adventure. If all goes according to plan, Bargo is set to race up the mountain as Langdon’s group is summiting.
“I’m looking forward to being a part of it – really the whole project and experience,” Langdon said. “I am excited to see the people who come out and to hear from them about what made them interested in participating, their connection to Southwestern, and to climbing. I’m excited to interact and make connections and memories.”
Live updates on Bargo’s progress will be shared via Southwestern University’s Instagram page, @southwesternu, and online at southwestern.edu/seekyoursummit. The community is encouraged to follow along as Bargo represents Southwestern in pursuit of an impressive world record.
As he nears the beginning of Seek Your Summit, Bargo hopes the experience can help inspire everyone to spend time outdoors and appreciate all that mother nature has to offer, a pillar of Southwestern’s Outdoor Adventure program.
“There are so many life lessons that can be learned outdoors,” Bargo said. “There are so many challenging and difficult things that you go through when you’re climbing a mountain – physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. From grit and perseverance to obvious life lessons that are not always so obvious in the classroom. The outdoors and exploring helps us make those connections. It’s Paideia.”
Southwestern University published this content on June 08, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on June 08, 2026 at 21:44 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]
