Finishing a course is usually a mixed blessing for me. Life is decidedly simpler in the mountains or out at the crag. The simpleness of living and working is one…
Category: Livin the dream
“Hey Dane do you mind if Kyle and I climb a few pitches?” I ask as Dane descends from the Morning Glory Wall with a gaggle of students. The sun…
It was on Scott’s list. It was his goal but I didn’t really mind doing it either. Standing at the base looking up at the first pitch of beautiful, low…
“What’s your gut say?” Patrick asks me as we stand on the west edge of the Upper Fremont Glacier; dark clouds billow over Fremont and Jackson, blocking out the deep…
“The tent pole bag is over there” I gesture toward the side of the tent in the frosty, predawn darkness. Patrick gives me a blank look, then reaches down and…
Being a field instructor for the NOLS is like being in Never Never Land. Most of us work hard to get here. We build our resumes, pay for courses, usually…
Students always ask me for my favorite type of climbing. These days that is a tricky question. Years ago the answer would have been snow and ice covered mountains. More…
“Can I make an appointment for an oil change?” “Sure I got something available tomorrow afternoon.” “Mmmm, that won’t work, I need the 8th of August.” “Oh, that is a…
Twenty eight hours and ten minutes. Damn that little red notebook that innocently and quietly recorded my dreams and goals, even then it continued to haunt me. I think that…
This is a rough draft of a chapter from the forthcoming guidebook that is to be published by Fixed Pin Publishing. Eph Hanks Tower Eph Hanks Tower is named for…
“Whoa, look. People. With shovels!” I exclaim as the band of brothers that is a Wind River Mountaineering course and I wander along an absurdly snowy creek ten miles into…
We spent the overcast and wet day practicing skills. Placing snow protection, clipping through fixed pro, traveling on a rope team, ice axe use and self arresting. We were at…
I wake up. Sometimes it is in the back of my truck, sometimes in a tent. It is usually in a sleeping bag. I usually mutter something like “oh fuck”…
My 33rd birthday came and went without much fanfare. I climbed a bunch of fun face routes up on the Zappa Wall in Cochise Stronghold. I decided that I wanted…