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.
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.
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.
I drove from Denver to Missoula and stopped just south of Jackson to break it up into two days.
My parents drove out from North Carolina to Denver in August. We ended up spending 3 nights in Estes Park. Activities included playing 2 rounds of golf, looking at Rocky Mountain National Park scenery, and walking around many lakes. Thanks Mom and Dad for coming to visit!
This took place last May. The original plan was to do the Muir Wall. We ended up spending 4 days climbing the lower part of the Muir Wall and then swung over to the Nose under the Great Roof. “The Triple Indirect”. We had some excellent weather and didn’t have to deal with any other climbers basically the whole time. A grand occasion.
A few days in a otherworldly part of southern California last November. Thank you Valerie for arranging the accommodations and to your sister for allowing us to stay at her Airbnb spot.
Well hello there. It has been a while. Hope everything is good in your part of the world.
Playing a bit of catchup here.
This is from an evening hike in late October of last year. Canyonlands might just be my favorite National Park.
A 4 day stretch including 2 days of rock climbing at Indian Creek and Wall Street. We did something like 13 routes in those 2 days, mostly in the upper 5.10 range and climbs I had never done before. I didn’t weight the rope once. I was pretty pleased with myself.
