"The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters." – Conrad Anker
As I've gotten more into hiking and mountaineering, my inner video gamer is drawn to arbitrarily defined sets of objectives. I recently read Ed Viesturs' book No Shortcuts to the Top about climbing all 14 mountains in the world with peaks more than 8,000 meters above sea level (a feat I have no plans to accomplish), …
Continue reading ADK 46: Giant Mountain and Rocky Peak Ridge
On September 2, Albert Benson and I climbed for the first time in Smugglers' Notch. We started on The Diagonal, a two-pitch climb, then did three of the four pitches on the classic Quartz Crack. We’ve both been climbing for eight months — much of that together — and practicing all of the skills we …
This was our second attempt of the summer making the gap-to-gap hike along the Long Trail. We made the hike in about 7 hours, stopping for lunch on the stoop of a ski patrol lodge at Mount Ellen. Our first attempt was an overnight, but we retreated in the morning because we weren’t up for …
After work on the first Friday in June, my fiancée Tori and I put on our backpacks in Lincoln Gap hiked north toward Mount Abraham and, about 10 miles beyond, the Appalachian Gap. We planned to hike to Battell Shelter, less than 2 miles up the Long Trail, and set up camp for the night, …
This January I hiked to the summit of Camel's Hump in the snow with my fiancee Tori. We'd hiked the mountain together before, but it was a first winter summit for both of us. We dressed warm, in 3+ layers each on top. Long underwear and snow pants with wool socks on the bottom, …
Finding Greater Heights 