A recovery trip after my previous hike, this was to be a 4 day, 3 night easy circumnavigation of the caldera rim at Newberry Volcanic Monument, inside Deschutes National Forest in Oregon. Long story short, we arrived a day late and left a day early, but we still had a fun time. The snow levels […]

The Bob Marshall Wilderness Open is a yearly unofficial gathering of like minded backpackers who attempt an expedient crossing of the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana in spring conditions. I’ve spent years building up my skills, equipment, and physical fitness to be able to do this event justice.  This year’s start would be Swift Reservoir, on […]

The Bob Marshall Wilderness Open is 8 weeks away, so it’s time to start the specific period of my training regimen. This includes lots of mileage and elevation gain with a heavy pack to mimic the conditions I’ll be placing myself into over Memorial Day Weekend. I have time for 3 high mileage training trips, […]

Tired from the odyssey of almost 40 hours of travel from Indianapolis, we parked the car at Big Sandy trailhead and hiked in a mile or two to pitch our shelters in the meadow. Seeing them pitched against that backdrop made me almost forget about the shitshow that had been our lives for the last […]

After carrying too much weight (55lb) in my Porter backpack a few days before in the Maroon Bells, I came up lame at a hotel somewhere in Wyoming. Or was it Montana? I can’t even remember now. But I clearly remember not being able to sit, or stand, without excruciating back pain. Like a T-Rex, […]

The first of three planned backpacking trips on our eighteen day western road trip, this one was the highlight of our vacation. It would be an easy four day loop in the Maroon Bells – Snowmass Wilderness, in central Colorado near Aspen. Sharing some terrain with the popular “Four Pass Loop,” I chose this route […]

June 19th-21st, 2018        Sam and I needed a training trip to get ready for our wild west road trip of 2018, coming soon. We had 3 days, so I figured we should hit up the Manistee River Trail and packraft back down the Manistee. It ended up being completely worth the 6 […]

     April 10-13, 2018      This trip was to be a training trip, stretching my backpacking and packrafting capabilities in a new-to-me, beautiful area. 53 miles of hiking and 38 miles of packrafting down the beautiful Big South Fork of the Cumberland River in Kentucky and Tennessee. Just 4 full days and I […]

 March 23-25, 2018      Mark’s car was wrecked. It had just been parked on the street, minding it’s own business, when someone drove right into it. No injuries, but now Mark had to sit out this trip in order to deal with the aftermath. Sorry, Mark.      Rookie spent most of the drive […]

October 19-22, 2017      I’ve been backpacking in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore area twice before, both times in February. But I’d never been there in more temperate weather. My wife and I had to cancel a planned traverse a couple years ago, when I tore my meniscus fighting a fire just the day […]