jaredspaulding.com Posts

March 31, 2023 / / Place

iFrames are not supported on this page. Explore the map above or click here to go to the ArcGIS Online hosted version. In December of 2010, I launched jaredspaulding.com. Memories…

June 4, 2020 / / Pandemic Dialogues

NOLS courses are hard. My jaw thrusts downward and outward while my hands cup the sides of my mouth. “Rrreeddd tent, close your vestibule” I yell from my tent door…

April 14, 2013 / / Climbs
October 31, 2023 / / NOLS
September 30, 2023 / / Climbing

Climbing vernacular is pretty ubiquitous at the crags. Most climbers are aware of it from the first several times they go climbing and then begin to develop a working knowledge…

August 31, 2023 / / Livin the dream

“Mother thinks the road is long and lonely; Little brother thinks the road is straight and fine; Little darling thinks the road is soft and lovely; And I’m thankful that old…

July 31, 2023 / / Horses

Editor’s Note: I wrote this in the spring of 2020 while at Three Peaks. The writing prompt was a 360º write up of the landscape. Not quite the same, both…

June 30, 2023 / / Climbing

Editor’s note: I haven’t done a lot of recreational writing as of late. This past winter most of my writing has been technical, professional, writing. In the process a co-creator…

May 29, 2023 / / Horses

It’s all the same, only the names will change. . .*  Under towering cumulus congestus a game of cat and mouse, horse and (want to be) rider, catch me if…

February 14, 2023 / / Climbing
January 25, 2023 / / Climbing

The sun spills into the small dining/sitting area as it rises above the distant mesa. The sky is void of clouds and blends seamlessly from grays to periwinkles and salmons…

December 25, 2022 / / Climbing

“I’m skeeerd” I say. A twinge of over the top whininess tries to mask the actual fear behind my humor. I don’t climb a lot of overhangs, so, in addition…

November 7, 2022 / / Family

My neighbors got a “new” truck last summer. The white, extended cab, Ram 2500 with an eight foot bed sits and idles its diesel engine on the street; there is…

October 23, 2022 / / Uncategorized

Home is where you find it and where you make it; that is what I try to tell myself. I sit in a curvy, plush Victorian-esque rocker, worn on the…

September 19, 2022 / / Uncategorized

I could hear Anna cussing even though I was twenty yards behind.  “There are two parties ahead of us.”  It was exasperated and whispered, but the words drifted down through…

July 31, 2022 / / 616

Years of outdoor education have helped build a habit of referencing things by cardinal directions and their ordinal “in-betweens”. “Use the entrance on the south door” I might say to…

June 30, 2022 / / The Engine of Survival

Editor’s Note: This piece evolved from some prompts I had in a writing class I took two years ago from author Katherine Standefer. Pieces of the current news coverage have…