Garden Key is a 16 acre island inside Dry Tortugas National Park, a few hours by ferry west from Key West. It is the home of Fort Jefferson, a huge unfinished Civil War era masonry structure waiting to be explored by the hundred or more tourists ferried there daily for a five hour stay on this idyllic Caribbean island. There are multiple […]

When Sam asked if we could get away on a last minute packrafting trip over the 4th of July, we decided to pull out a route that I’ve had in my back pocket for a couple years. It’s nice that I’ve been doing this long enough to have route ideas just sitting around, waiting to […]

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 […]