South Africa

South Africa

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Peru

Peru

West Papua, Indonesia

West Papua, Indonesia

Quotes That Keep Me Going....

"There are only three sports: Bull fighting, motor racing and mountaineering; the rest are merely games." Ernest Hemingway

"Adventure is a path. Real adventure--self-determined, self-motivated, often risky--forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the ear and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind--and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white."
--Mark Jenkin

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."
--Samuel Johnson

"Tourists don't know where they've been. Travelers don't know where they're going."
--Paul Theroux

"Not all those who wander are lost."
--J.R.R Token

"On a summit the entire world is beneath us, horizons are expanded, and clarity envelops our senses. It is this feeling that the mountaineer seeks, and perhaps it is the feeling that we all seek as we search for love and purpose in our own measured lives. In reaching for the summits of the heart and holding on to them, love and hope transcend the tragedy of our ultimate end." Jennifer Lowe-Anker

Alaska

Alaska

Devils Tower

Devils Tower

Nepal

Nepal

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Home Sweet Home!

Greetings from NYC!

So after about a week of lounging in Whitefish, Montana, Cody and I drove south towards Wyoming in hopes of peaking the Grand Teton (13,775 ft) before winter arrived. Upon arrival, we were thrilled to find that luck was on our side. Me and Cody were granted exactly two days of 75 degree weather before endless weeks of winter storms. It was too good to be true!

We hiked into Garnett Canyon and set-up base camp at The Caves. The following day, we woke up at 5am, quickly indulged in some oatmeal, and headed out at about 5:30am. Our goal was to climb the Upper Exum Ridge and return to our base camp within 8 hours or so. To our dismay, we somehow got off route, which extended our climb to the summit by nearly 6 hours. After a countless number of pitches and hours of scrambling, we summited the rugged Grand Teton. The climb to the top was exhausting and frustrating, but the view and the weather on the peak were simply uplifting.

Needless to say, neither of us wanted to head down. We were tired, our fingers were bloody and our bodies were bruised. To top it off, by the time we reached the saddle, we were quickly beginning to lose the sun's gracious light and were thus, forced to return to our caves under an unforgiving moonless sky with one headlamp. We reached camp at 9:30pm....starving. Needless to say, it was a truly epic 16 hour day.

The following morning, we slept in and somehow managed to peel our sore bodies from our sleeping bags so that we could pack up and hike out in nasty rainy conditions. Although tired, wet, and cold, Cody and I made an effort to wine and dine in Jackson Hole to celebrate our
first technical ascent up a mountain.

The next morning, we made our way towards Devils Tower, Wyoming for some more rock climbing. Devils Tower (5,112 ft) is a monolithic igneous intrusion, or in other words, it is the core of a volcano exposed from erosion that rises 1,267 feet above the surrounding terrain. Interestingly enough, Devils Tower was the first declared United States National Monument, established on September 24, 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Anyway, the thing was sheer vertical rock.

After a bit of research, we decided to climb the famous Durrance Route. I was rather numb during the 6 pitches to the top and two long rapels down. Apparently the Grand Teton really did a number on me.

I began to feel somewhat more alive after a million celebratory Coronas at the base of Devils Tower. Therefore, we took this opportunity to congratulate ourselves on all of our accomplishments these past few weeks and decided that Devils Tower was the perfect finale to our adventure together.

We headed out for a long, sleepless drive to NYC the next day, only stopping to get gas, consume chicken fried steak, snap cheesy pictures of us in front of Mt. Rushmore and grab beers in Chicago with an old friend, Reid. Sleep deprived , Cody and I haggardly crawled into my
NYC apartment and slept for a few days. It took several hours to detangle the 5-week-old knots in my hair, scrub the dirt from my skin, and bandage my gruesome scars, but I am now clean, rested, and ready for my next adventure!