I started off with two strikes against me. Water is not my element and Spanish is not my language. Luckily Maija and Fiona were kind enough to take spots nearby…
Category: The Inner Workings
Short, potentially scary, insights as to what goes on in my brain.
“How do you process thoughts and ideas?” is a question I often ask in the course of doing my job. The quiet, internally processing instructor can be enigmatic, confusing, or…
For twenty-three and a half years I have done what I wanted to do. I have made my choices and chose, for the most part, wisely (matters of the heart…
“I’m willing to bet that the drive and the walk will take more time than the climbing will, even with three of us.” Above us lay 200 feet of granite…
“You can just leave it in my office.” It happens again and again. “Wait, do you even have an office?” or “where IS your office?” People ask, even if we are…
“Well, this moment sure seems to have the makings of a blog post” I think, quite distractedly, to myself as I fumble with the rope, trying to get it…
Cowboys ain’t easy to love and they are harder to hold. A number of years ago I gave a small presentation at the International Climber’s Festival about the similarities between…
For those of you who pay attention to detail, you may have noticed that I changed the tagline on my blog. Thanks Leonard Cohen. I think there is a lot…
Standing in my living room, looking at a growing daylight spreading across the mountains, I seek the truths of who I am. I like climbing. I like working for NOLS…
It is that dark hour before the dawn where, with tackiness in my eyes, I try to focus on the light that slides past the drawn shade. The wall captures…
“Lets run the Petzoldt”, I joke as we regroup from our last down. Anna is the quarterback and in this pick-up game of football, that makes the rest of wide…
We hunker. The ambient air temperature is 45 degrees and last night’s dusting of snow cloaks Gannet and its cohorts. A cold wind whips down from the Dinwoody Glacier, pushing…
Is it possible to de-assess myself? Stress is weighing on me, heavier than the sixty pounds of gear and food I am shouldering up this long, steep gully. Kick, kick,…
“What the fuck are you doing?” “God damn it.” “Fucking A Spaulding…” Those words roll off my tongue with an alacrity I didn’t know I had. I didn’t know that…