Trip Report Featured The Tooth in Winter Paul and I climbed the South Face of The Tooth 330ft 5.4 on a beautiful day last Saturday. Unlike mine and Ari's previous time, we were the only ones up there in a while, so got to break trail up the steep snow. I won't
Trip Report Franklin Falls Ice Climbing On Monday January 15th 2024, my ice climbing friend Tyler and I climbed at Franklin Falls at the end of a cold spell in Washington. To access the falls, we parked in the lower lot at Summit West, walked under the highway and down Forest Road (FR) 5800 until the
Outside Trad Climbing & Multipitch Rescue Lessons I took a two day crash-course on trad climbing and multipitch rescue with local guide Zack Wentz in August.
Outside Splitboarding Packing List It's time to start dreaming about splitboarding again! Snow has already dusted the mountain tops here in Washington, so here's my packing list so that we don't forget anything.
Trip Report Splitboarding Season 2023 Recap Here's some highlights from my second season of splitboarding. I got out a lot more this year than last season, attempted / did some really interesting and classic routes, and had a ton of fun! Most of the route names are from Matt Schonwald's Backcountry Skiing Snoqualmie
Outside The Ultimate Sport Climbing Packing List After the success of my "The Ultimate Backpacking Packing List" post, which I've used to prevent myself and our friends from forgetting things on backpacking trips, and with some recent sport climbing trips where I've forgotten some gear, it's time to make
Outside Featured How to Sport Climb Outdoors Let's say you've climbed a bit in the gym or been taken outdoors by a more experienced climber and you want to learn how to climb outdoors. I'll connect together the techniques and tips, that with practice and some supervision should allow you to
Outside Black Diamond Avalanche Beacons Issue Black Diamond released a not-a-recall "safety check" for many of their avalanche beacons.
Trip Report Mount Washington, WA No not that Mt. Washington. I mean the one off I90 in Washington state!
Life A Nightime Poem from Outside 8:43 pm, the edge of Downtown A whoosh from above among the city sounds. A sheet of black polyester unfurls against the dark moonless sky. A few minutes later Again! But higher up. BASE jumpers in Seattle!!
Outside The Alpinist I don't have much to say about The Alpinist that hasn't been said. Marc-Andre Leclerc was an inspiration to me before the movie came out and the movie gave me a closer look into his life and legacy. He was an interesting figure, just so very
Outside The Green Outings Goal I think it would be epic to get to and from an outdoors destination on green energy alone. There's lots of ways to do this, like biking or hiking to the destination, but to make it interesting I'm considering car travel, since that's the
Outside One Line Gear Reviews Short and sweet gear reviews, just one line of text long. I'm a gear nerd and this is what I like and don't like. Altra Lone Peak 4.5s: for blister-free hiking on smooth trails only. Prana Mojo II Shorts: the perfect stretchy waistband on light
Outside Rainy Days in Seattle I've learned that rainy days in Seattle are the best times to go outside! We get the most happiness when outdoors without a lot of other people around, and Seattle is a city full of outdoorsy people, so we use a bunch of tricks to avoid crowds at
Life 2+ Months In Seattle We're more than two months into living in Seattle, and it's been enough for us to settle in, develop some routines, and get to know the place a little. Mostly though, we got a dog! Max is our goofy 11 month old Plott Hound mix rescue
Life Farewell Troy, Hello Seattle! We've spent four and a half years in Troy, and now it's time to leave. We're going somewhere unthinkable, somewhere unknowable, somewhere that no ROC alumni has gone before... Seattle! I'm a little bit sad to leave Troy, it's been
Trip Report Local Biking I've been exploring the local bike paths around Troy, since it seems wrong to put my bike in the car to go biking somewhere else. Unless that else has see-saws, jumps, and berms! One of my favorite trails so far is the Uncle Sam Bike Path, since it
Recipes Vegan Burgers Easy recipes are good recipes for me. We like Beyond Meat burgers, especially on the grill. Maybe it’s dumb to write down a simple burger recipe, but hey, maybe this will be useful in the future when we can’t decide how to cook. The nice thing about burgers
Trip Report Dickinson Hill Fire Tower I've been to Dickinson Hill Fire Tower near Grafton State Park twice recently after work. It's a nice place to go to watch the sunset, look at the changing leaves, and get a 360 degree view of Rensselaer county and the surrounding area. You can even
Outside Recovery Both of us have been injured, so now we're learning more about recovery. Ari got sesamoiditis in her left big toe from overuse carrying a heavy pack on a thru-hike, and I crushed part of my meniscus where it attaches to the capsule near my MCL in my
Trip Report Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve I went out for another solo hike to Russian Ridge OSP on a midday Saturday. I was feeling cooped up in the house, but didn't want to drive far. It was so nice to get out and hike! I parked at the lot on the corner of Alpine
Trip Report Stay-at-Home Hike I went to Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve on Saturday for my first real hike since Stay-at-Home orders have started. It was really beautiful and I felt very grateful to get outside, but I am so out of shape! Time seems to move differently in quarantine, since everything
Outside Bears Are Happy Outside I'm still locked down here in California with my injured knee, so I don't have any adventures to report. My mom sent me this video of a black bear cub in her backyard though!
My Carbon Footprint I've been researching ways to lower my carbon footprint. I took carbon emission questionnaires to estimate my impact. The results from one quiz are shown in the title photo compared to an average American's. I took questionnaires from footprintcalculator.org, the WWF, and Project Wren. The
Disaster-Proof Home This pandemic has made me think more about what a home can provide its residents, and what challenges they might have to face in the extreme. I sourced a lot of these ideas from ready.gov. House Disasters: * Fire * Hurricane * Earthquake * Tornado * Flood * Drought * Winter Storm * Heat Wave * Lightning * Volcano
