Category: Trip Reports
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A Glacial Confluence – Glacier National Park
I was hoping to have a job by July or August, but despite my job hunting efforts, I was still drifting through the summer. Maggie and I talked on the phone almost every night. As it became clear that my job prospects were still months out, Maggie convinced me to fly up to Montana for…
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A Brief Stint as a River Rat (Featuring Motion Pictures!)
I don’t exclusively climb mountains. As skiing is to winter, rafting is to summer. How cool is it that you get to float on the very water you skied on?! While I don’t actively seek out water sports, I have a few friends that have worked as raft guides. When an invite comes my way,…
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Fourteener Frenzy – Colorado
I spent a majority of my summer in Salida, CO, a place where several fourteen thousand foot peaks dominate the skyline. The draw to climb them is inescapable…. With temperatures routinely soaring into the mid-nineties, I often felt trapped indoors. Without Maggie or any appreciable community in town, I also felt quite lonely. The job…
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Throw Them Peaks in the Bag – CO & NM High Country
In between the dreadful days of job hunting this past summer, I got out peak bagging in the Rocky Mountains. As the snow finally melted out above treeline in mid-June, I set my sights high. There is something wonderful about the alpine that I can’t put into words. The clear air, the wide open views,…
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Dune Cool Stuff With Cool People – Great Sand Dunes National Park
1 June 2023 It’s hard to express the bond formed between thru hikers. Even though Maggie and I rarely spent more than a handful of days with the friends we made on the PCT, there is something special about the shared experience. When I got a text from Noodle that he was passing through Salida,…
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Strike While the Flatiron is Hot – Boulder, CO
27 May 2023 To round out my road trip from Montana to New Mexico, I stopped in Boulder to visit my friends, Evan and Erica. Having recently purchased a truck and hefty fifth wheel, they were starting their own transition from normal working life to living on the road. I was stoked to catch them…
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The Gravity of Canyonlands
In our down time this past spring, Maggie and I decided to sign up for a Wilderness First Responder (WFR, or “woofer“) course. Maggie needed to renew her WFR certification ahead of starting a ranger position with the National Park Service, and I had been thinking about taking the course for quite some time. When…