Category: The Inner Workings

Short, potentially scary, insights as to what goes on in my brain.

December 29, 2018 / / Risk and Responsibility

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…

December 25, 2018 / / The Inner Workings

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…

October 31, 2018 / / The Inner Workings

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…

September 25, 2018 / / Alpine Notes

“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…

August 30, 2018 / / Climbing

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…

June 23, 2018 / / Alpine Notes

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,…

May 27, 2018 / / The Inner Workings

“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…

February 10, 2018 / / Climbing

“What does one have to do to get in your blog?” John asks as we rope up below the Red Rock classic, Black Magic. I think for a moment.  “I…

November 23, 2017 / / East Africa

It is easy to write about white sand beaches that stretch on for miles, empty of people, dotted with thatched roof bungalows and beach front bars.  Turquoise waters stretch outward…

August 23, 2017 / / Climbing

I can feel the vertical crease between my eyebrows getting deeper the longer I squint upward.  My partially closed eyes are not due to me ooking into the sun, but…

June 29, 2017 / / Climbing
May 21, 2017 / / Place

Blades of purple peaks, like the backs of lumbering dinosaurs, break the horizon, giving perspective to an immense flatness. Wind barrels across the nothingness, faster than the cars that are…

April 30, 2017 / / Family

I used to think I wanted to be an artist. To me an artist had always been one who painted, drew, or sculpted. In those younger years I was unaware…

November 9, 2016 / / The Inner Workings

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of belief,…

November 7, 2016 / / Family

1 December 2015–It is my time. Over the years it has always been the same.  Never secretive, but usually alone.  It just feels better that way.  In the same way…