France Birthday & Trying to Find Balance

Written on my ATL - CDG flight on September 11, 2023 It's just about killing me that I'm in France during climbing season and am not climbing. I'm not even trekking. I'm city-living for a whole two and a half weeks. The French Alps have been ascending my climbing bucket list for years, especially the …

Full Circle New Zealand

Mueller Hut, December 2015 Mueller Hut, December 2022 Full circle. I've always loved finding connections of sorts throughout different life experiences, and especially while traveling over the years. Meeting up with a friend in a new country, happening to do something on an anniversary date of a past event, revisiting a country after a period …

December 2022 Recap

2022 just ended.  My last full year of full-time travel.  Ironically, I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, pretty much right where I was when I wrote my first blog post on here just over seven years ago.  And even MORE ironically (well, maybe maybe not), I just reread that first blog …

Leaving Latin America

Written on November 28, 2022 Five months to the day of arriving in Lima, Peru, I just boarded a flight out of the Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport in Mexico City to return back to the US for a brief stint, and I am absolutely gutted to be leaving Latin America after all of this …

November 2022 Recap

Coated in sunscreen and yet still extremely sunburnt, I kicked off November on San Andrés Island in Colombia with one of my best friends, Andrea.  The day before, we had rented a scooter and I drove us up into town and then most of the way around the island until Andrea worked up the courage …

October 2022 Recap

I woke up on October 1st parallel parked in front of a church in Cajon del Maipo, a town east of Santiago, Chile with some pretty great crags for sport climbing.  Ryan and I made our way to the closest crag, cooked breakfast in the van and then spent way too long trying to send …

September 2022 Recap

Bright and early on September 1st, my night bus from Cusco pulled up to the Peru/Bolivia border control building and everybody filed in with their luggage in hand.  As a US citizen, I had all of my paperwork printed out for the pricey $160 Bolivia tourist visa, and confidently handed the border agent my passport …

August 2022 Recap

When I think about August and look back at my Google Calendar, the first word that comes to mind is “exhaustion”.  The good thing is that I recognized that, and then tried to address it, which is a lot of progress from what I’m used to doing, which is pushing through and continuing to live …

Chopicalqui | 6354m

When I climbed Aconcagua in January, I gave myself a "why" - some deeper look into why I was doing this, apart from just to summit another mountain. They say that you need a deeper reason once you get into bigger and harder objectives, to keep that motivation going, and mine was to meet the …

July 2022 Recap | Part II

With Julia’s departure back to the states, the rest of my time in Huaraz was unknown.  Reconnecting with Mickey and his girlfriend Sam was comforting, because they were going to be here until the end of the month, but I didn’t know what sort of climbing I would be able to get into next, nor …