So, You Want to Go on an Adventure

So, you want to go on an adventure, but you're not quite sure where to start. Well, my friend, I have good news for you; you have already started. The first step to going on an adventure is realizing you have the insatiable desire to go, do, see, smell, whatever tickles your fancy. So step one: check. Let's move on.

For step two you'll probably want to figure out where you're going. For this you will need a guide, either an actual guide book, a map, a friend who has been where you want to be, or a any of the other various wealth's of information out there. Maybe all you need to guide you is an idea. I wonder if I could make it to Minnesota and back before work tomorrow. And away you go.

I am currently working part-time in a used book store, and someone recently donated a Fodor's complete European travel guide. It was a beautiful and alluringly thick book, but it was from 2008, and essentially worthless to the bookstore. I wrote "FREE: TAKE ME AND GO" on the cover and left it leaning against a shelf. The next time I came into the shop it was gone. I like to think the book and it's new travel companion are already sipping chianti on a moped in Tuscany. Sometime the littlest push can set into motion the grandest adventures.

So you know where you're going. Great! What are you going to do when you get there? Snooze on the beach? Write the next great American novel? Instagram? Whatever you do, it will be an adventure, but if you want to really kick it up a notch, try something you've never done before. I'm not saying jump off a bridge into a rocky gorge, although I wouldn't rule it out, either. Eat dinner alone. Spend half a day walking east, and the other half walking west. Introduce yourself to a stranger. Draw your new view. Let go of fear. Sleep outside with nothing except the grass as your pillow and the soft night sky as a blanket. Get bitten by a ton of mosquitos. Those bites will fade; the memories will not.

Ok, here comes the tricky part. How? How are you getting there? Affording this? Saying goodbye to this comfortable life you have built around yourself? Tough love: it's not going to be easy. Only you know what you truly can or can't live without. I can live with not showering for a week (or so). I can't live without wild places. I would like to always be within walking distance of a cappuccino, but I can live without them. Some of the things you think you can't live without in your current life will be worthless to you on an adventure.

One last question. Why go on an adventure? Again, only you can answer that. Personally, I go because this life is vaster and more variable than any one person can ever truly understand, and I am constantly overwhelmed with how many experiences I desire in this short life of mine. However, when I'm scrambling up a cliff, paddling a swift river, or reaching the summit of a mountain, I find myself in a perfect state of contentment. The ringing in my ears turns into a quiet sigh of contentment. I look around and realize how lucky I am to live at all, and to experience beauty and wonder. Maybe you feel this way too, maybe you have entirely different reasons. Either way, I'll see you out there.



But then again, a wise man once said, "adventure is what you get when you don't get what you want." So forget all this. Go already.

Bog blog!

It just so happened that Kelly was in my neck of the woods this Sunday. Hip hip hooray! Lucky me. After a morning trail race full of shoe-sucking mud, puddles up to my knees, and endless rolling hills, I went off to the other side of town in search of Kelly. And I found her!

The plan was to go for a walk in one of the reservations in town, and we headed to my favorite, which has a winding boardwalk through a bog. I know you're probably reading this and thinking why would anyone ever want to go somewhere muddy, soggy, and potentially buggy. Well, it turns out bogs are beautiful, even in the rain.

Grow, little fern, grow!

Pure Imagination

I haven't posted about the Unpredictable's last full day in Kentucky because we encountered something for which words and photos don't do the experience justice. In order to truly understand, you will have to pack a car full of awesome people, drive to Kentucky, get lost for half a day in the back country, and then finally emerge in the midst of a breath-taking world of rock, known in the Red River Gorge as the Motherlode Region.

A very unorthodox Easter

The Presidential Range and surrounding area as seen from the summit of Kearsarge North. 

In the past, my family has done the traditional Easter morning brunch with one side of our extended family. Don't get me wrong, I love it. The crazy aunts, the bickering siblings, the hoarding of the Easter candy, the egg war, and, of course, the food. But every once in a while, my family decides on something completely different. One year it was hiking and skiing Tuckerman Ravine; another year we hiked Moosilauke. This year we headed up to our cabin on a lake in Maine, and planned out a hike for Easter Sunday.

Open Season: Jelly Beans

A while back my family got bored of easter egg hunts and decided we needed more of a challenge, and so the jelly bean hunt was born. My mom hides them all around our yard, and she is nothing short of diabolical about it. Yellow jelly beans in the daffodils diabolical. This year was no exception. 

Muir Valley

Our first day of climbing was spent exploring Muir Valley, a privately owned and operated climber's paradise. It is owned by the Weber family, and none other than Liz Weber herself helped us park our car when we arrived. We headed for the Bruise Brother's Wall, but the crowd there drove us further down to Sunnyside, which wide open. We dashed giddily up our first couple of routes, ecstatic to finally be pulling on the beautiful red rock. The Kentucky sun crept out of the woods to keep us warm, and we climbed and climbed.

Kokopeli's Dream

When we exhausted Sunnyside we moved back to Bruise Brothers, where I encountered one of my trip highlights. A flakey 5.10 next to a thin trickling waterfall, and even though I was shaking the whole way up the only coherent thought I could form was, "man, this is fun."

Machete

You can't clip into a Master's Degree

The last route of the day was, of course, Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky. We sent Grey up in the last moments of daylight, and Meg hopped on an adjacent route. Meg ended up descending in darkness, using a headlamp to clear her anchor. By the time we hiked out, dirty, sweaty, exhausted, and thrilled, our car was the last left in the lot, always the sign of a great day. 

Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky, 5.10b

Climbing the Red River Gorge: Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky

Sometimes in life, if you are lucky, you encounter something that ignites your soul. It can be a person, a place, or even a really great ginger ale. This April I had the privilege of enjoying all three of these wonderful things, all together in an intricate mix of joy.

            Let’s start with the people, because when you get down to the core of it that’s what really matters. I could have taken a tour of pungent New Jersey landfills with this group and had the time of my life. The group formed when Meg—remember Meg? —and I decided to take a trip to the infamous Red River Gorge in Kentucky as a send off for her impending cross-country road trip. We invited along two of our fellow gym rats, Grey and Xavier, and the Unpredictables were formed. For weeks we spent our nights planning, alternatively at REI and the bar, making lists of gear, ordering ropes, drooling over guidebooks.  We even got custom-made shirts for the trip. The Unpredictables were to be rounded off with a final member, a friend of Meg’s who was meeting us in Kentucky. The rest of us had never met Ray, but Meg told us he climbs trad and is cool, and so Ray was in.

Team Shirts - the guys who made them loved them so much they kept some for themselves!

I'm going to seperate each day of climbing out into it's own post, enjoy!

Weekend Wanderings: Pomps Pond

This past weekend, after a day of errands and shopping, my Mom and I headed out to explore one of the many small reservations in my hometown. I am lucky to live in a town that is full of green space, especially considering the suburban sprawl that carpets the outskirts of Boston.

Pomps Pond.

We walked down to a small pond, which during the summer serves as the community's beach, but today only a few teenagers were there sitting in the sun on the sandy beach. Technically, the beach isn't open 'til mid-June, but clearly some people had taken advantage of the gorgeous 60 degree weather, and had taken a quick dip. Following the edge of the pond, we left the sunbathers and headed down the sandy path. Quickly we came across evidence of some serious beaver activity; it seemed every other tree within 20 feet of the pond's shore had been gnawed on, or gnawed down. A bit further down the trail at a clearing, we could spot the beaver dam off of a wooded peninsula near the far end of the pond.

The beavers have been busy!

'Tis the season for trail running

No more snow and ice. Winter is over and mud season has arrived.

Catching My Breath

The past few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of adventure composed of great friends, walkie-talkies, sunburn, and two dips below the Mason-Dixon Line, culminating in my final test to become a licensed New York State Guide. Now I finally have some time to relax on the patio of a favorite cafe in New Paltz and set some things down.

Or...

This is me not getting anything done at all