Meandering through life beyond the pavement.
I am not ending 2019 where I started it, and I am very grateful for that. 2018 was a year of turbulence, opportunities, growth, and change, so I entered 2019 prioritizing stability, consistency, and balance. And what a year it was!
What is the perfect gift for the new or aspiring hiker in your life? Before we dive into gift ideas, let me describe a bit of gift giving (and receiving) ethos. I'm a huge fan of gifts that achieve three key functions: (1) the gift is something I probably wouldn't get for myself, (2) the … Continue reading Holiday Gifts for the Aspiring or New Hiker
Picking the right socks can be an art because he socks you chose to wear on a hiking or backpacking trip can make or break your experience. Socks have the magical power to gently swaddle and comfort your feet as you pound along on the trail for days on end, or to rub, chafe, blister, and generally allow you to devolve into foot-pain driven madness in a matter of hours. If you think I am joking about foot-pain driven madness, you have clearly been lucky enough to avoid such a fiasco, and I applaud you. I, however, have not been so fortunate.
Winter is fast approaching, weather windows for hiking are rapidly diminishing (if not completely vanishing), and it gets dark waaaaay too early now. I'm sure some of you will be layering on the waterproof jacket and venturing out into the west coast rain, trading in your hiking boots for snowshoes and skies, or even heading south for sunnier, drier conditions. And some of you may be thinking 'well, I guess those trails can wait until next year...'
Barefoot in the Backwoods 