NOSTALGIA
Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if mountains were not a part of it -- if we inhabited a planet that contained none -- just flatness wherever one traveled. I believe the reason some of us are lured to the mountains -- sometimes with overwhelming resolve -- is just as Sir Edmund Hillary once said; "because they are there." The implications of this in my life has been a constant pursuit of the finest experiences the mountains can provide. One of my best climbing partners and long time friend once said, "it's not what you have, it's what you've experienced." I try to live with this in mind, though sometimes it is easier said than done.
I've made tough decisions in the past about how to allocate time and money to balance the desire to gain knowledge, have a career and own land, with the relatively selfish desire of exploring the world and its natural wonders. Therefore, I may never be particularly good or talented regarding any of those things, yet they are all important to me. I suppose all one can do is seek whatever balance feels right, and realize that trying to achieve some type of perfection in anything is basically a waste of time. But that doesn't mean what you do end up achieving isn't important to you, and at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
When I look back two decades, the memories are sometimes comedic and sometimes intense. For as long as I can remember, I've believed that institutional frameworks and their associated safety nets often detract from the potency of a particular experience. In the Boyscouts, for example, I had little interest in obtaining badges, yet was chomping at the bit to go on as many trips as possible. Later, I began scheming with friends to detach ourselves from supervision and learn by mistake -- and we made plenty of those. I became interested in less organized, less predictable, and more random adventures. Below is a depiction of some of them: climbing my first multi-pitch route (in Yosemite at age 12) with my friend and his father, climbing El Capitan for the first time at 20 with a guy I met the same day we started the route, and a self-portrait at 28 while crossing the Himalayas to climb an obscure 23,750 foot peak.
I've made tough decisions in the past about how to allocate time and money to balance the desire to gain knowledge, have a career and own land, with the relatively selfish desire of exploring the world and its natural wonders. Therefore, I may never be particularly good or talented regarding any of those things, yet they are all important to me. I suppose all one can do is seek whatever balance feels right, and realize that trying to achieve some type of perfection in anything is basically a waste of time. But that doesn't mean what you do end up achieving isn't important to you, and at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
When I look back two decades, the memories are sometimes comedic and sometimes intense. For as long as I can remember, I've believed that institutional frameworks and their associated safety nets often detract from the potency of a particular experience. In the Boyscouts, for example, I had little interest in obtaining badges, yet was chomping at the bit to go on as many trips as possible. Later, I began scheming with friends to detach ourselves from supervision and learn by mistake -- and we made plenty of those. I became interested in less organized, less predictable, and more random adventures. Below is a depiction of some of them: climbing my first multi-pitch route (in Yosemite at age 12) with my friend and his father, climbing El Capitan for the first time at 20 with a guy I met the same day we started the route, and a self-portrait at 28 while crossing the Himalayas to climb an obscure 23,750 foot peak.
What follows here is like a scrapbook for anyone who might get a kick out of it. I'll let the images do most of the talking.
Below 1993-1996: early days as punk skater/snowboarder who sewed his own clothes and got hurt a lot.
Below 1993-1996: early days as punk skater/snowboarder who sewed his own clothes and got hurt a lot.
Below: in high school, I sought friends who were more interested in doing things than being popular, and met excellent people I consider lifelong friends. The mountains around Reno, NV, became a magnet; I remember once taking a loaded backpack to classes so I could head to Mt. Rose for a weekend backpacking trip that much faster after the bell rang, even though I lived a half mile away. Building things was also fun: skateboard ramps and even boats.
Below: in 1998 I had the chance to buy a complete assortment of climbing and mountaineering gear in exchange for 6 months of savings and a bunch of lawn mowing sessions. I called my good friend Blue to say, quite simply, that it was on. We ended up using the gear in any way could until we figured out how to apply it to actual mountains. Sometimes we weren't too bright about this approach.
Below: by freshman year in college at the University of Nevada, Reno, I was hurling myself into projects that were guranteed to be the largest adventures I'd ever known: big walls. By then I'd only been multi pitch climbing a few times but tried my best to read about the techniques, go out and practice them, and try a big wall. We had some gnarly adventures; like bailing off pitch 21 of The Shield on El Cap after running out of water.
As the big walling was brewing up, so was the mountaineering, and I headed to Denali in 2000. And there was college too, at the University of Nevada, Reno. Kinda like high school but bigger I guess, and I got to "study" journalism and photography, later working at Climbing Magazine and the Reno daily paper.
Below: in 2003, I bought a fifth wheel and moved into an RV park near campus to keep costs down. My girlfriend and I had a plan: to take it on a super long road trip after it was paid off. I also got a sweet job working for a non profit group on a national forest campaign. (details here, and here), and also parked cars at a casino to fund the next expedition.
In 2005 I hit the road solo in a smaller trailer, eager to reflect on the heavy experiences in Baffin Island. After months of traveling, I moved to Ely, Nevada, to continue working with Friends of Nevada Wilderness, which resulted in this. Those years exploring and snowboarding eastern, central, and northern Nevada were great. I began caving in places like this, and putting up new routes.
Below: in 2003, I bought a fifth wheel and moved into an RV park near campus to keep costs down. My girlfriend and I had a plan: to take it on a super long road trip after it was paid off. I also got a sweet job working for a non profit group on a national forest campaign. (details here, and here), and also parked cars at a casino to fund the next expedition.
In 2005 I hit the road solo in a smaller trailer, eager to reflect on the heavy experiences in Baffin Island. After months of traveling, I moved to Ely, Nevada, to continue working with Friends of Nevada Wilderness, which resulted in this. Those years exploring and snowboarding eastern, central, and northern Nevada were great. I began caving in places like this, and putting up new routes.
In 2007 the Maiden Voyage with the fifth wheel was back on track (photos are here and here, and here for the Liberty Ridge climb on Rainier). Rebecca and I took four months to cover the northern Sierras, the Cascades, the Canadian Rockies, and the northern US rockies until running out of money in Crested Butte, Colorado (below), where I began planning a Himalayan expedition (photos, report). Afterwards we visited Thailand. I also continued searching for land -- this time in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. In late 2008 we packed up the kit again and drove down the highway totally unsure where we would move next. We ended up in Bozeman, Montana, five days later, with no regrets.
In Bozeman, we just did what we could to scrape enough money together to continue enjoying the beauty of Montana. I spent a lot of time in the Beartooth Mountains, Hyalite Canyon, the Madison, Bridger, and Gallatin Ranges, and squeezed another one month solo road trip (below) in the spring of 2009.
I continued my search for a piece of land that felt right. I felt it was time to lay roots on a parcel and create a long term plan for it, and I couldn't think of a better place than the eastern front of the Beartooth Mountains. On the exact same day I signed a contract to purchase a 21 acre parcel, I accepted a job to start up a new environmental group in Las Vegas. But before starting, I finished my quest to traverse the entire Sierra Crest. Most trips from 2009 are here. Las Vegas certainly has its perks, namely Red Rocks and the Sping Mountains, and the climbing was phenomenal.
As the campaign in Las Vegas wound down, I applied to run a mining-related program at the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, and my dream of living in the last frontier came come true. I took a month to get there: pictures are here, here, and here. Below are some of the last trips in the lower 48, the move north, and the first sights of my new homeland. From top left: Leviathan Cave, NV, the Kiener's Route on Long's Peak, CO, Englestad Canyon in Zion National Park, UT, my rig at Jasper National Park, Canada, arrival in Alaska, first glimpses of the Eastern Alaska Range, ice caving inside the Castner Glacier, ice climbing in the Delta Range, and caribou on the Chena Dome Trail.
As my third winter in Alaska was approaching, I paid off my land in Montana and headed south to build a big barn and get settled in on the property (photos here). I guess that's the topic of an entirely different conversation, but briefly, it is the main thing that keeps me grounded these days; simply knowing that I have an inspiring place to hang my hat for whatever craziness is about to happen out there -- because the times are-a-changin', and that's probably a serious understatement. So, the following spring (2013) I returned to the Rockies for the foreseeable future, taking a job with Earthworks based in Ridgway, Colorado, to work on oil and gas and mining issues throughout the Southwest. It's pretty awesome; between the canyon country of Utah, the San Juan Mountains, and the desert destinations of Arizona and New Mexico, there's a lot of new sights to see and places to explore, and I hope my work will help keep these places intact and unpolluted.
Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what prompted me to tell this story. Maybe it's because when I built this entire site initially, I was knocked out from nasal surgery, full of pain meds and bed ridden for a week, so what else can one do? Maybe it's because my twenties are gone, and I'm getting all sentimental in my old age. Maybe it's because Facebook doesn't really allow for this sort of thing. Whatever the case, it's been fun, and I hope you enjoyed it. I can't wait to hear your story.
A few random things:
A few random things:
- the musical group Dead Can Dance will change your life
- hot tubs -- preferably ones outside -- are a gift from God, regardless of how you define him/her/it.
- good trance music is divine, bad trance music is worse than Milli-Vanilli
- fixing old stuff is better than buying new stuff
- owning land and water is all the security one ever needs
- time in the wilderness alone can be better than with people, or can be worse
- the next 20 years are going to be A LOT different than the last 20 years
Random Slide Shows:
Institute Peak, Eastern Alaska Range
Venetie and the White Mountains, Alaska
Mt. Russell, High Sierras, California
Nabesna Ice Climbing, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska
Tangle Lakes Solo Ski Tour, Eastern Alaska Range
Zion Canyoneering: Englestead to Narrows
Alaska Ice Caving, Castner Glacier
Honduras SCUBA diving
Liberty Ridge, Mt. Rainier, Washington
Thailand Climbing and Touring
Team Sopping Saddles
Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska
Delta Range Peak Bagging and Clearwater Canoe Trip, Alaska
Ambler: the Arctic in winter
Goshute Cave, Eastern Nevada
Eastern Nevada Choss Climbers Association
Leviathan Cave, Eastern Nevada
Trips of 2009
Road Trip 2007 batch 1.........batch 2
Lava Tube Caving in central Oregon
Brooks Range, Alaska, 2012
Year of the Barn
More:
Friends and family
My life and ugly mug
Full peak and route list
Miscellaneous and abstracts
Favorite Websites:
James Howard Kunstler
Resilience.org
Post Carbon Institute
The C-Realm Podcast
The New York Times