Six AM, rise and shine. It may be a rough one getting out of bed, but once you make it passed strapping kayaks on the car you’re golden. Never a better time to get chatty than on a windy two hour car ride to the put in.
Brain freezes on the Klamath and massive undetectable holes in wave trains. You’ll come up dizzy and disoriented with your head in that water too long.
Every kayak Sunday is a favorite Sunday.
You thought you could glaze me over. But, pretending the truth isn’t what it is only makes it even more bitter.
Dear Saturday, Where have you been?
Get your combat roll, because she’s taking you to battle. Good night Africa, Bikini Kill, Bitch Slap and the christening of some newly acquired rapid names that will have you guessing. Shivering buddies on riversides and pit stops in the balmy sun.
You know good pals when you find them running along highways in their underwear, and packing boats up drop offs. Nothing beats a bottle of warm pee courtesy of “The Big G” to take the shivers away. That’s right. Hypothermic? Not today!
A solid Sunday.
It takes some guts to step out of your comfort zone. To say “hell yes!” when your instincts are saying “hell no!”. But where would we be if we ditched out every time things got a little sketchy? We might not end up coughing up river water, getting dragged across a train station in Czech, or crawling up a burned mountain side in search of drinkable water. But how much fun would our lives be without these adventures? Isn’t the fun part not knowing what will come next?
Just take the hits as they come and roll with it. Your instincts will thank you later.
I still think of you. I wonder why I walked away, leaving you standing there in the snow, sockets full of quiet tears and shaky lips asking me to stay. I didn’t imagine it would be the last time I’d see you, but I think you did. 
A bit of a shit show morning with empty beds and drunk tank boys. Raging water and love songs on the river. Rain, rain, rain and more to come. Let’s play in the Trinity and freeze our fingers off, then wrap them around toasty cups of sweet in Willow Creek. Oh how I needed a Sunday paddle to bring me back to life.
I miss you. Why did you let me leave? Why did you let me walk away? Why didn’t you stop me? I would have stayed…for you. 
It doesn’t always go as planned. Sometimes you hit a bump in the trail, you misjudge, or encounter the unexpected. Sometimes you don’t find what you initially set out for.
But it’s not really an adventure if it all goes perfectly, is it? It becomes an adventure when something goes “wrong”, when you find something you didn’t expect to, when your experience is different than you thought it might be. It’s an adventure when the outcome is unknown.
You know that feeling that a crush gives you? The one that that makes your heart feel like a dubstep beat, flushes your cheeks, and gives you fluttering butterfly wings in your stomach. The feeling that keeps you up at night hours after you’ve tucked yourself in, has you day dreaming away to just about any song that drifts into your ears. The feeling that fills you with hope, excitement and some of that adrenaline.
Is it possible to have these feelings for a place? Yes! It’s official, I’m crushing … hard on Jackson.
Skinny skis and yurt living, treacherous down hills that will have you dragging your poles. Cheese cake out of a pan lid and a wood stove that gets you toasty after late night trail exploration.
Glory Bowl, a Jackson classic. Complete with a dead car battery and far too many good looking backcountry boys.
You’ll never find them.
“You could spit to Yellowstone from here.”-KT
What’s a trip to Jackson without some crust skiing at the Moulton Barn and front row seats at the Tetons?
An eve of ski waxing, sparkling lights, fireworks, a shaky pup and packing packing. Resolutions, fresh starts and a big, brand new year beginning with a new adventure. Jackson Hole, WY here I come!!!
Untouched POW that will have you soaring on a SUGAR high.
More please.
Six pairs of pants and some Grundens will make you forget it’s even cold outside.
Speedy Madshus and a skimming flock of Ptarmigan to take your breath away.
Welcome to the snowiest “city” in America.
May marathon, I’m coming for you.
Forget the rain, forget the deadlines, forget him..
When did life get so stressful? Remember when all that mattered was getting your play on? Whatever it was, two story fort building, trampoline flips, mastering the perfect lean so your downhill boots held you up the whole way down the mountain.
Now we have things like responsibility, commitments. Classes we need to pass, money we need to make, careers we need to jump start. But, are we forgetting the most important part of this whole thing? Enjoy the process. Enjoy the journey. Why put so much emphasis on things in our lives that give us so much worry, anxiety, and put serious strain on our state of happiness?
Sure there are things that we just have to do. Suck it up, and just bang it out. But, when it comes down to it, our lives shouldn’t be centered around these things and if they are, we’re doing something wrong. They should be centered around what we love to do, what our passion is, what fires us up, what gets us stoked, what makes us smile, what makes us laugh. Climb, Run, Ski, Kayak, Bike, Travel, Photograph, Adventure, Paint, Write, Bake, Play.
Whatever it is… IT should be a priority and all that energy we manifest in fretting, worry and tenseness should be put towards stoking the fire. So, hello, ditch the stress, smile and go tear it up, because in the end it’s all that really matters.
Run with me in the dark, through giant redwoods and mammoth ferns, dodging monster banana slugs. We’ll find hidden mossy bridges, jump from stump to stump and fall down slopes of orange and green. Come play with me. We’ll go get lost and leave behind the world outside this labyrinth. 
Wander in the groves of aspen, and then enjoy a free bottle of wine from the guy at the real estate place… I’ll be back to buy a house, I swear..as soon as I make my millions.
Rise and shine, 4:30 AM. Repeat. Dream of Arcteryx sponsorships and grad nd filters. It’s time to go for it. It’s time to rally. 
Mimosas in the morning, Boys that eat with tongs and boys that do dishes, Sunday brunch complete with rhyming games and cornhole.
Pretty limestone and wasp stings. I want to go back.
Lemon trees, skinny hammocks and an afternoon of painting on the porch. Dank couscous salad and obnoxiously loud conversations that always seem to involve secrets, surely overheard by the neighbors. The shack is where it’s happening. Where you eat giant sandwiches on the floor and the veggies grow and grow out the back door. It’s a hidden gem, just how we like it.
Drive a few miles east and you leave the fog, the text books, and all responsibility behind. You enter a world that is ruled by the river. Whether you’re getting tossed out of your boat on “hell hole”, swallowing mad amounts of pretty green water or you’re spending hours swimming naked upstream against the current trying to reach that secluded beach in the distance, the river owns your heart.
Sandy yoga, endless rock diving, showcasing ancient sychro moves, browning of those places that rarely see the sun.
The drive never seems too long, filled with endless chatting, blasting of banging music, and sunshine spilling through the sunroof. You can spend days out here, getting worked by the rapids, or relaxing in the glassy water off the banks, taking in the beauty, letting it seep deep into your skin.
Bring some of that sun back to last you through the week. River love. I’m falling.
A day of roasting on the water, 95 degree creek boating will make you want to swim the rapids, Lighting corn on fire, Veggie burgers and light painting, Beautiful friends, old and new. “Dating questions” by headlamp and a boat named dipstick, It all makes up for a feverish boy by night, star lit excursions through pokey blackberry bushes at 3:30 in the morning and a sandy scalp. 
Home is cozy, Home makes me laugh, Home is where the dog wears socks in the house, strawberries grow out the front window and the wood floor gets pulled up and put down like it’s no big thang, Home is where you eat king crab for dinner and get to have birthday cake a month and a half early just because, Home is where you go on morning bike rides to see the sun rise and watch it spill over the canyon walls, Home is where you do nothing but puppy cuddle on a rainy day, Home is sweet and comforting, even when you don’t know when you’ll be back again, Because you know that home will always be there. 
I like the ocean, I like how you can lose yourself in the swells, I love the unpredictability of the surf, I love the rocking motion that puts you to sleep and the distance from the rest of the world that you can achieve when out to sea.
What sets castles in the sky apart from tangible realities? What inside of us leads us to believe that these dreams and fantasies are simply false hopes?
These “pipe dreams” differ for everyone. Maybe it’s our desire to be a professional athlete, a brew master, a wandering nomad, an underwater pioneer, or own an organic ice cream business ; ). Or maybe our pie in the sky is the best version of ourselves imaginable. What is stopping that vision from playing out? Could it be the expectations of society, of friends and family? Could it be self-doubt?
The truth is that the strength, the determination to reach that goal, to turn that pipe dream into a reality is in no one’s hands but our own. Who is stopping us?
We can be our own biggest critics and our own biggest road blocks. And it is cowardice to blame someone else for the fading of hopes and dreams from attainable goals to simple illusions. It is a total cop out.
So, what to do about it? Keep dreaming big. Go BIG. Get ambitious. After all what do you have to lose? … Only the greatest high of all. You tell me what that is.
Mt. Marathon, you make my feet ache, The steepness of your slope tears fibers in my legs, Your rocks slice cuts in my fingertips and put gashes on my knees, And the deepness of your shale makes my descent fluid and relentless, I hit the gut and fumble through the creek, You are the best 4th of July party around, And that’s why I climb up to your peak and keep coming on down.
