a trail to self discovery...

How exciting is it to  have such a unique event happen in your lifetime? This one lined up just perfectly. The weather conditions were just right, the timing worked out to be perfect for me to get off work and hit the trail, and the company who invited me along was just as great as always! A couple weeks prior Trish had reached out to me and had asked if I wanted to join her and the girls on a night hike to see the Lunar, Harvest, and full moon. I had said absolutely. We chose a summit above tree-line and a time to meet. We decided to stick with Eisenhower and Pierce loop. We honestly could not have gotten better weather. I invited Josh to come along with us. Once I was out of work I made a quick stop at Rite Aid where I found the "Moon Pies" Trish had been looking for. I headed home to quickly pack my pack and we hit the road towards Crawford Notch. We met Trish, Alex, & Sage in the parking lot of Crawford Path, left one car there as a spot and Josh and I hopped...

It's official. I have completed my New Hampshire 48 Four-Thousand Footers. What list am I going to do next? Answer is:  No list. I am officially done having a list as my goal. It was a great thing to start with as a beginner hiker because it kept me pushing on ward to do something I enjoyed doing so much. However, the "list" thing got old quickly as soon as the millions of hiker friends I had were done with theirs. Don't get me wrong it was still very much enjoyable it just annoyed me for the following question I had throughout the 4 years working on my "list". Have you completed the 4k's yet ? For 4 years I worked on completing this so called list. However, have I completed them yet ? What do you mean by yet? No, obviously not. I am clearly celebrating on the summit of each one. Don't judge my experience as a hiker based on how many rounds of the 48 I have done. This was one of my biggest annoyances with this list. I found that a lot of peop...

I have been waiting all summer to try out my annual Presidential Traverse. My birthday was coming up and the weather was looking quite beautiful here in the White Mountains. I had 2 options for this day. One was to finish my 48th mountain for the Four Thousand Footers, or a traverse. Josh had never attempted a traverse before and had been asking me to do one with him all summer. Our timing just always had been off. Well, he took the day off to spend with me and we both agreed to a traverse. Appalachia Trailhead 5:00am I am quite familiar with how my hiking pace is and over a long amount of miles with lots of elevation gain. I also was very familiar with what kind of challenge this is. Waking up super early in the morning after a horrible nights sleep because you're either too excited to sleep or nervous. Hiking in the dark for 4-5 miles and letting your body trying to wake up at the same time. Hitting almost 8000 vertical miles in the first half of your trek and then pushin...