About

I am a peak-bagger, trail-runner, and climber (in that order) living on the cheap in the western United States. In recent years I have extended my travels beyond the Mountain West, visiting the Alps and Pyrenees in 2018 and 2022, Peru in 2019 (scroll down a bit), and the High Andes in 2020. I am especially interested in advancing fast-and-light mountaineering in the Mountain West, perhaps best demonstrated by my 2017 Northern Pickets traverse. I stepped off the beaten path after finishing graduate school in 2009, and have been traveling and climbing about 6 months out of the year ever since. In addition to plenty of long dayhikes, I have established a few Fastest Known Times (FKTs) on more and less technical mountains. Most of them have since been beaten, but as of 2023, I still hold the records for climbing California’s 14ers, Wyoming’s 13ers without support, and California’s Evolution traverse.

If you want to hear a bit more about my background, I was interviewed on Buzz Burrell’s FKT podcast in October 2020.

You can browse posts geographically using the map, by state and activity using the categories in the right-hand sidebar, or chronologically via the archives. I have also written yearly reviews for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

If you have a question about parts of a route I have done, please don’t hesitate to email me. I take more pictures than I post, and remember more details than I have the time to relate in writing.