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New ‘Outdoor Nevada’ to showcase desert’s wonders on Vegas PBS

Twice now, southwest Las Vegas has served as a launching point for the return of the Vegas PBS program “Outdoor Nevada.”

The first segment of the first episode, which was slated to premiere Jan. 27, featured show host John Burke, a two-time Emmy award-winning host and actor, taking off with Vegas Balloon Rides.

At a series launch screening party with Vegas PBS supporters hosted by Land Rover Las Vegas, 5255 W. Sahara Ave., on Jan. 14, Burke said his flight was memorable. As the balloon climbed over the southwest, his pilot repeatedly reminded him to stay in the basket. The pilot said he had to add the warning after a group of Cirque du Soleil performers nearly scared him to death by using the edge of the basket as a tightrope.

Southwest Las Vegas is only the beginning for the series that, so far, has taken Burke and his production crew all over the state.

Vegas PBS General Manager Tom Axtell said the 32 people who have worked on the project have already traveled more than 5,000 miles, met hundreds of amazing Nevadans and have 660 hours of recorded video in the can. He said by the time the initial 26 episodes are completed, people will have spent 1,200 hours in the edit suite.

“Telling this kind of story over this vast a landscape takes extraordinary efforts, and our crew members have embraced this story,” Axtell said.

Axtell told the crowd he is proud to bring “Outdoor Nevada” — a program that originally aired from 1995 to 1999 — back.

“Las Vegas is an improbable city in the harsh Mojave desert,” he said. “We live in a challenging environment, and many of the new residents of our city were unaware of the desert’s beauty and biological diversity. (They) often move here and stay cocooned in the comfort and air conditioning of their residence. But Nevada is not just a desert. We have snow-capped mountains, alpine meadows, limestone caves, extinct fossils, ghost towns and unbelievable geysers. And you don’t have to travel very far to see them, but most people don’t know about them.”

Axtell said Vegas PBS members invested a lot of effort in finding the right person to host the show. They looked at more than 1,500 audition tapes, searching for someone who showed knowledge and enthusiasm about the outdoors, was comfortable behind the camera and instinctively asked the kinds of questions viewers would ask.

“And they needed to have a sense of humor for long days and nights on the road, and they needed the athleticism to take the punishment of very physically challenging activities,” Axtell said.

Burke said he welcomed the punishment even in a recently filmed bull riding segment.

“Before I could get out of this, they put the chaps on me and the belt and the boots and the gloves and a hockey helmet. And I get on this bull, and I start to say, ‘What did you name him?’ And they said, ‘Well, you don’t name bulls, but we call him bone crusher.’ Then the guy says, ‘Are you ready?’ And I say, ‘How do I know? I’ve never done this before.’ And they opened up the gate, and that bull went this way,” he said, pointing forward, “and I went that way,” he said, gesturing up. “I landed on my back, and the owner came out and said, ‘We have never had anyone ride that bull for 2 seconds before.’ I said, ‘How did I do?’ He said, ‘1.5. We’re still looking.’ “

Despite the crushing, Burke said he loves the job.

“It doesn’t happen very often, maybe twice in a career — you see a dream job, you see it coming, and you say, that one is for me,” he said. “I see the gifts in it. That one is something I’m going to fight for. ‘Outdoor Nevada’ was my dream job.”

Upcoming episodes are set to feature wild horse photography; fossil hunting in Tule Springs; flyboards over Lake Las Vegas; snowshoes in the Ruby Mountains; a visit to the Nevada State Railroad Museum; rappelling in Valley of Fire State Park; a visit to the Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park; the bee habitat at the Galena Creek Visitors Center; the California National Historic Trail; kayaking on Lake Tahoe; motorcycling and skydiving in the Las Vegas Valley; off-roading in search of ghost towns; investigating butterflies in the Spring Mountains; and exploring the gardens of the Springs Preserve.

Brandi Eide, botanical garden supervisor at the Springs Preserve, 333 S. Valley View Blvd., said it was a pleasure to work with Burke.

“We had a really good time, and everyone had a fantastic time working with him,” she said.

Burke said as he was approaching the job, someone told him Nevadans have the cowboy spirit that pushes the state’s residents to “do what’s right when it’s gotta be done without complaint or need for gratitude.”

“And I thought, man, that’s it. We’re going to take that on every step of our journey. And that’s exactly what we tried to do,” he said. “It has been an honor to look under the hood and see what Nevada is about, and to show people that it’s not just about the highway between Vegas and Los Angeles, that there’s a whole lot more. I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping empty my bucket list personally and for getting to know you and getting to know the most underrated state in the country.”

The program is scheduled to broadcast at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays with repeat airings at 4 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. Sundays. Visit vegaspbs.org.

— Contact View contributing reporter Ginger Meurer at gmeurer@viewnews.com. Find her on Twitter: @gingermmm

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