Day 1- After leaving KeriKeri, it took me all day and about 20 different rides to get to the beginning of the Te Araroa at Cape Reinga. I met an 80 year old man born and raised in KeriKeri, another Te Araroa hiker sectioning from KeriKeri to Cape Reinga, a woman from Te Whau who brought me back to her house for bread, cheese, coffee, and stories of Papua New Guinea in the 1970’s, a woman originally from Hungary who has been in New Zealand now for many years, an English couple on holiday, a half dozen older white men who asked me what I thought of Donald Trump then told me I was wrong, a mom with her 2 kids in the back who told me about how sand pines were planted on the Aupori Peninsula to allow for agricultural development and how the swamps are sometimes drained for the harvest of Kauri logs, a young Maori girl who brought me a short way to Te Kao and dropped me off at her mom’s store, and finally (after being warned that now that it was after 8pm I wasn’t going to get picked up and I should look for camp) I got picked up by a French couple that brought me all the way to Cape Reinga in their rental van.… Read more
Te Araroa Day 1-4: Cape Reinga to Ahipara
Te Araroa Day Zero
Today is day 4 in new zealand, but after the airline I flew on left my backpack in Brisbane, Australia I had to spend an extra day and a half in Auckland before I could start hitching out of the city. Auckland was a pretty neat city and I got there at a neat time. On day 2, there was a gigantic parade right by the hostel for Santa claus. so with the massive crowds of people flocking in every direction, I found an alley with good acoustics and played my guitar with a cup at my feet for a while.… Read more
Canyonlands National Park, Island in the Sky District- White Rim
In the first week of November in 2016, my buddy Raisin Rob and I hiked the White Rim Road in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park from the Shafer Trail to the Upheaval Dome parking lot. In total, it was about 88 miles hiked in 5 days. A map of our route is posted below, as are excerpts from my journal. Check out all the photos from this adventure here.
Day 1: 11-4-16
Rob and I hiked 17 miles today from the Visitors Center at Island in the Sky to the rocky pass just before the Lathrop Canyon entrance, going south.… Read more
Hikes Around Moab
Here’s a map of almost all the places I hiked this summer while living in Moab, Utah. All the blue lines are hiking routes, the green lines are boating routes. In total, I hiked around 600 miles and rafted about 1300 miles! Not a bad way to spend my time when not thru-hiking.
Whitewater Raft Guiding on the Colorado River
Learning the Ropes
In the summer of 2016, I worked in Moab, Utah for Navtec Expeditions as a whitewater raft guide on the Colorado River. I arrived in Moab in April, but spent the first few weeks hiking to and through the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. By the middle of May, I was being trained to run the river. During the first two weeks of training, I went out on the river almost every day with one of Navtec’s veteran guides, Aubrey. The first few trips, she would row the boat, giving me tips on how to maneuver around in the water and how to run a great trip (like providing wilderness interpretation and being personable with the guests), and let me hop on the oars in flat water to get a feel for the dynamics of rowing a boat.… Read more
Canyonlands NP, Needles District
In mid-April of 2016, I left my job as a retail salesman at Big Sky Ski Resort in Southwest Montana to move to Moab, Utah for the summer to work as a whitewater raft guide on the Colorado River. But my rafting gig didn’t start until May 15th, giving me time to explore before I hit the river. I decided to spend some of that time hiking to and through the Needle District of Canyonlands National Park. In total, I hiked 140 miles from Moab, down the Kane Creek Road, and along the trails within the Needles District. Here are some snippets from my journal entries and some of the pictures from my adventure!… Read more
Appalachian Trail Summary
So I didn’t blog while on the Appalachian Trail. Call me a hipster but everyone does it, and I was sort of sick of blogging and distracted by living in the moment. Every day was so much fun, and I didn’t want to leave that fun for even a second, even to retreat for a quick journal entry or blog post. SO, if you’d like to know about my personal adventure, you’ll have to be content with the photos and videos I have uploaded.
For those of you looking for advice on hiking the Appalachian Trail, gear reviews, or actual blog posts, I recommend some of the following blogs and websites, some of which I used in preparation for my hike, and some of which are blogs of people I hiked with along the AT.… Read more
Florida Trail (Extended): Days 40-71
It’s been more than a year since I finished the Florida Trail, and I still dream about it often. The palmettos, the sand pines, air plants, mangroves, palm trees, azaleas, and mossy oaks; the armadillos, wild hogs, fox squirrels, and raccoons; alligators, green and brown anoles, fence lizards, water moccasins, garter snakes, pigmy rattlers, leopard frogs, fowlers toads, box turtles; the anhingas, pelicans, wood storks, sandhill cranes, Florida scrub jays, limpkins, spoonbills, barred owls, bald eagles, turkeys, snowy egrets, blue and white herons, and red bellied woodpeckers… just to name a few. The diversity and abundance of life on the Florida Trail is just incredible.… Read more
Florida Trail (Extended): Days 26-40 (Part 2)
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” –Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray .
Today, I will discuss a few specific interactions I had with people here on the Florida Trail that have changed the way I view my own hopes and fears, and may in turn do the same for you. Their personalities and lifestyles could not be any more different from one another, but the wisdom they left me with was the same. To gain context for how the timing of these interactions played out as I hiked farther North each day, consider reading Part 1 of this post.… Read more
Florida Trail (Extended): Days 26-40 (Part 1)
What a wild series of adventures the past two weeks have been. I have traversed through dozens of wilderness areas of varying terrain and ecology, met people from all different places and backgrounds and got to connect deeply with a handful of them, and spent hours every day reflecting on and analyzing the many things I had learned in such a brief period of time. In order to recall my experiences and transcribe my thoughts fully, I have decided to split this post into two parts. The first part, which I will delve into today, will provide a look into what it was like to hike over 250 miles in 2 weeks, including the entire Eastern Corrider of the Florida Trail.… Read more