Black Mesa, Oklahoma

February 8, 2021

No Man’s Land

My day began around 4:30 am in La Junta, Colorado. The next two hours involved driving down increasingly spare roadways through the far southeastern plains of the Centennial State. Just 20 miles shy of the border with Oklahoma, I pulled off onto a dirt county road. It started straight but grew winding. It crossed drainage ditches and creeks. I had no cell service. I pleaded with the Universe not to give me a flat tire.

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Mount Rainier (PNW)

August 14, 2018, Paradise WA

“The Mountain”

In summer 2018 I signed up for a guided mountaineering seminar on Mount Rainier, in the gorgeous Cascade Range.  Four years earlier I visited a friend getting her Ph.D. from UW in nearby Seattle.  It was my first time in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. While roaming around town, I caught my first glance of Rainier, towering over the landscape.  It was unlike any mountain I had seen before, clearly taller and more isolated than anything in the Rockies, let alone the Northeast.  I asked my friend if we could hike it.  She looked at me like I had three heads and said “What?! No!  You need to like, train for that.  And acclimate.  It’s like a real mountain.”  I decided then and there that the next time I was in Washington, I was climbing Mount Rainier.

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Marcy, Skylight, Haystack, and Gray

July 21, 2017, Adirondak Loj

Out of my comfort zone

My very first Adirondack 46er adventure began around 7:00 am, in the parking lot at Heart Lake.  It would be a weekend of many firsts. Most obviously, it was my first pair of high peaks: Skylight and Marcy.  But beyond that, it would be my first time backpacking and backcountry camping. In fact, it would be my first time pitching a tent in the woods.  I’d been “car camping” exactly once before.

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