Like many of my peers, I’ve spent most of November feeling disheartened and maybe a little panicked. I’ve been trying to make time for self-care in order to stay (relatively) sane, but each time I lace up my running shoes or pack a backpack, I feel a little guilty, like my time would be better spent on activism than on the entirely self-serving pursuit of personal fitness. Continue reading “The reluctant enthusiast, the part-time crusader, the half-hearted fanatic”
Around this time last year, I started a new job. In an office. I’d spent most of the previous five years working mostly outside: as a backpacking instructor, conducting field research in grad school, a brief stint as a whitewater raft guide. The closest thing I’d had to an office job still allowed me to ski, on the clock, a few times a month. This was a big shift. Continue reading “Red Hot lovin’”
The National Park Service turns 100 years old in 2016, and dirtbags nationwide are finding creative ways to commemorate the NPS Centennial. (My favorite so far is the Dirtbag Diaries’ Milepost series.) I, on the other hand, lack artistic sensibilities, and am thus marking the occasion in the same way I celebrate everything else: by eating. Without further ado, then, I present the next installment in this series about things I’ve eaten in national parks—or, in this sort-of-a-stretch-on-the-theme case, things I flew all the way to Hawaii to see/eat. Continue reading “Find Your Snack: All You Need is Lava”
I’ve normally considered this blog to be a space safe from nasty election cycle rhetoric (if not from nasty women). I mostly write about places I’ve been and people I’ve met and things I like to do outside, because usually, someone else is articulating the way I feel about the world better than I can. But this is not “politics,” and the values we, outdoorspeople, hold nearest and dearest are under direct threat by a newly-elected president who believes climate change is a hoax. Continue reading “We have a lot of work to do”
Aren’t you ready to be done hearing election news? Take heart, my friends: just one more week. In the meantime, allow me to request your vote on something less polarizing. Here, I’ll explain:
Colorado is a pretty rad place. Hey, it’s the Centennial State! We get somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 days of sunshine every year. We have 54 peaks over 14,000 feet, plus countless others. Our governor wants to ensure that, within a generation, there’s a green space within 10 minutes of every Coloradan. We have pretty much All of the Microbreweries. Our capital is literally exactly a mile above sea level. Highest paved road in North America! Mike the Headless Chicken Days! I could go on. Basically, we’ve got it going on. Continue reading “A vote you can feel good about”
my alaskan odyssey 