Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Counting Down the Daze
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Getting out there
Day one: Transformation
I can feel Alaska pulling me back. I find my internet time occupied by surfing pictures of Nome and our coming return. I also find myself going outside more, wandering off trail. "You'll get ticks out there!" Seems to be the call I receive everytime. Have I become this tame? I must leave the trail to make my own.
I find being out awakens my inner child, sounds and sights get taken hold of by imagination and out here I am not afraid to let it run wild.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Fear and doubt
A climb! Finally a climb! Multi-pitch, beautiful views, great company, and the presence of doubt. In fact a lot of doubt. Internal struggle, "Am I fit enough to do this, do I even have the ability...I'm not this good." I have always know the outdoors to expose meridian who I really am. Most go to church to find that they are broken incomplete beings. I know this because if the doubt I experience when I am exposed...literally. I questioned myself so much during this process of climbing, of being outdoors. I think that is why so many of us head out there, to test ourselves. I wonder how much of this doubt I have let get the better of me over the past couple months. Doubt about income, decisions, life. How much life have I missed because of that doubt. It was a good day.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Prospects of Adventure
Looking. Searching for a way to bring the adventure that was my everyday in Alaska. Tame. The wildness has been taken away. Not from just me but everyone in this part of the country. I have been told it is just perspective, that the mountains of the east coast have all the adventure that anyone could want. I smile, lower my eyes, and nod. How could I explain the feeling of walking through an old growth cedar meadow, brushing my finger tips along the knee high grass among the blackeye susans and forget me nots. A creek runs through this meadow and I know drinking is safe as few have set foot here.
This meadow leads to mountains. Real mountains that reach to meet the sky and if I am lucky enough on this day to reach the top, I can touch it too. I can breath in the scent of wet dirt, evergreens, and hear nothing but my own breath and the wind. I look back to the stream. I know the fish are safe to eat untouched by manufacturing and if I cast my fly I would experience a fight with fish no stocker could ever provide. This fish would earn my respect in this exchange.
I know the feeling of stepping out of my tent in the morning and coming face to face with a brown bear. Both of us at peace in the easy light and both of us go about our day. We both know how harsh this land can be but after you submit, It will provide for us both, man and bear. We share this with the beaver in the pond outside the hunting cabin on the tundra of Western Alaska, the moose and caribou as we share the fields of blue berries, and we all respect the land we inhabit we have learned to submit to only It. It is wild, they are wild, I have touched this wildness.
This person, they are blind to this. Thier ignorance has shielded thier vision from the cage they live in. They are happy with thier multiple accents up 5000 foot peaks during thier day hike, the white fleshed stocked trout ing thier streams, and the ambient noise of a hurried society as the back drop to their wilderness experience.
I feel pitty for this person. I know what they are missing, what they do not understand.
I look for adventure, I was once untamed.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Back in action!
It's been a long time but since this is so easy to do now ı might as well do. Updates: Have a first assent posted in the 2011 American Alpine Journal. Getting back into the climbing scene with some indoor bouldering, spring prep. More to come, including link to AAJ write up.
