Dec 30th, 2024. A lovely day spent driving with Mom across the northern part of Yellowstone National Park. We came just after a new snow, so everything was white and peaceful.
Got lucky with a few animal sightings, and eventually ended up in Cooke City, where you either get on a snowmobile or turn around and go back the way you came.
It’s difficult to describe how tired I was. For some people exposure isn’t a big deal, but maybe because I hadn’t been in this type of situation in a while, for me, it was rugged.
The third day didn’t involve technical roped climbing, so I decided the night before (without hesitation or remorse) that I would hike down to the car.
I didn’t waste any time and was back in the parking lot by early afternoon, and sleeping in my bed in Missoula by the end of the day.
I am grateful for the opportunity to do something hard. It had been a little while.
Grand Traverse Day 2: You wake up on a steep-ass hillside and know you need to get up and down the Grand Teton and the same for the Middle Teton.
So much damn unroped scrambling with a big pack. And you’re tired (I certainly was at least).
I didn’t lead anything. I marched my fat butt up those mountains through some of my favorite scenery on the planet.
We started hiking from the parking lot at Lupine Meadows at 2am. I probably had slept like 2 hours total. The start was about 4 hours of walking, mostly up a seriously steep hill, through the woods in the darkness. Then the scary stuff began.
This was in August of last year.
My friend Tom wanted to do something in the Tetons called “The Grand Traverse”, a route over the summit of a handful of major peaks in the Teton range. He had tried it twice before.
I didn’t know too much about it other than I felt scared and out of shape.
The first step is to get to the Tetons.
From Saint Nazaire it was south along the Atlantic Ocean to Bordeaux, I think that was about 300 miles of biking. There were a lot of people loving the beaches.
From Bordeaux we took a train to Paris, spend a night in some park, then took a train down to Lyon to follow the Rhône River to the Mediterranean. Eventually got to Marseille, and were a bit appalled at its urbanized industrial feel and fled on a train to Nice. It’s nice there. Lovely blue water.
We stayed at a hostel a few nights, biked over to Monaco at one point, then eventually took a train back to Paris, went to some museums, and went home.
Anyone that wants to plan a bike trip around France in the future, lmk.
This is way-old, but I remember it as one of my favorite “road” biking tours we did. Never made it to the blog, so here ’tis (a shadowy version clouded with time).
We flew into Paris without a real plan. A woman at the air-bnb we stayed at recommended following the Loire river, so we did that. (After taking a train out of Paris). These pictures are from that westerly movement, eventually to the Atlantic Ocean at the town of Saint-Nazaire. A few days of biking.
So much history along this river. I was blown away. Mostly separated biking paths (my memory at least). Easy camping. Good bread. I love France.
I love smashing into people. These videos were taken by me, with some difficulty.
Once the rain stopped and the rock dried out, rock climbing happened. I am trying to build stoke for the trip this year.
Another night. another dream. but always you.
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How can you be better than me? Shuttup.
A photo dump of the start of spring break last year. The first few days had more rain than i’d ever experienced down there. Still beautiful. Still fun thanks to the people and the scenery.
2025 marks the 19th year of this place. Wild. I have lost some weight since these pictures and figured out how to get a haircut.
I have thought about that word a decent amount over the years. Its meaning was so obvious when I was younger.
Home seemed to be a bit of a theme with ol’ Thomas. One day I’ll actually read a damn book of his.
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and fame, back home to exile…back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”
Counterpoint:
“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy.”
Playing catch up. Building the brand. Holding onto memories.
These are from a trip to the Salt Lake area for Christmas last year.
Much shredding while Mom was hospitalized for heart issues. Very scary at the time but it was needed medical attention and a year later she’s doing great.
This is my first post about snowboarding since 2011. wtf.
This was a Thanksgiving trip. Spent two days with Juddson and Isaias biking 100 miles through some of my favorite scenery on earth. Canyonlands NP.
