“Late in August the lure of the mountains becomes irresistible. Seared by the everlasting sunfire, I want to see running water again, embrace a pine tree, cut my initials in the bark of an aspen, get bit by a mosquito, see a mountain bluebird, find a big blue columbine, get lost in the firs, hike…
The Mountains
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 6 – The North Coast of Scotland
“I was born on a storm-swept rock and hate the soft growth of sun-baked lands where there is no frost in men’s bones.” ~Liam O Flaithearta Since the aftermath of Tropical Storm Aileen was pummeling the Isle of Skye and the rest of the Hebrides, I headed to the northeast corner of Scotland where sunnier…
Cross-Country Skiing Grand Teton National Park
Considering the lackluster snow conditions in Utah, we fled north to the land of near normal snow pack, Jackson, Wyoming, for Martin Luther King weekend. Winter is my absolute favorite time to visit Grand Teton National Park, odds are you won’t run into any other visitors, the wildlife is much more active, and the Tetons…
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 5 – Isle of Skye, Scotland
While spending a week in Scotland, I kept getting whopped over the head with these eerie senses of deja vu. Either I had spent too much time looking through photos of these places or there is some sort of collective memory stored in my blood. Scotland was like coming home! The day before arrive in…
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 4 – Malcesine/Lake Garda, Italy
Malcesine, a small cobblestone village on the eastern short of Lake Garda, was the perfect finale to our 2017 Italian Avventura. We went from freezing, snowy mountains to freezing, rainy palm trees and beaches. We rolled into Malcesine just in time for sunset and wandered the charming cobblestone streets choosing the world’s worst pizzeria for…
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 3 – Chamonix, France
Although it broke my heart to leave the Dolomites after only 4 days, I wanted to show Fritz Chamonix, which so captured my heart five years earlier. My reward for recovering from my first FAI surgery was a 2-week trip to Chamonix to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc. It was my first solo trip…
The MunRoos: Hiking Utah’s 10,000+ Foot Peaks
On my recent trip to Scotland, I became fascinated with the Scot’s quest for bagging Munros. A Munro is a mountain in Scotland measuring over 3,000 feet above sea level and there are 282 of them. The Munro’s are named after Sir Hugh Munro who first compiled the list in 1891, however he never completed the list himself….
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 2 – Val Gardena, Italy
I had been staring at photos of the Val Gardena area for the past year, so to be there felt absolutely surreal. My first two trips to the Dolomites centered around exploring Cortina, Alta Badia, and Tre Cime de Laverado, but HOLY WOW, who knew the real jewel was Val Gardena?!? Day 1 Val Gardena…
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 1 – San Cassiano, Italy
Our 2017 Dolomiti adventure got off to a grand start. We arrived in Venice and beelined it straight to Dolomiti only slightly heartbroken that we didn’t end up with a Fiat 500 at the car rental counter. Starving, we stopped at an Autogrill off the Autostrada where I bit into a focaccia and immediately broke a…
The Great American Eclipse – Lander, Wyoming Style
That’s a long way to go for 60 seconds everyone said, well it was line one zillion seconds of AMAZEMENT we said! I couldn’t believe the amount of people vocally raining down on my Eclipse parade. Warning of gasoline shortages, empty Supermarket shelves, apocalypse style traffic, and well the chance of clouds! Neil deGrasse Tyson…