Throughout 2018, I worked with the Arizona Trail Association to organize "AZT in a Day." The goal of the event was large and unprecedented on a national scenic trail: Recruit hundreds of runners, hikers, bikers, and equestrians to complete every inch of the 800-mile Arizona Trail in one 24-hour period. We divided the trail up into 99 sections, and chose a date: Saturday, October 6th---the same week as the 50th anniversary of the National Trail System Act. After hundreds of hours o...

On our way from Tucson to Colorado we stopped to visit Petrified Forest National Park. Karrie worked here briefly in 2017 as part of her position with the National Park Service. We started by exploring a now defunct trail through the park enjoying sweeping views of the badlands and occasional piles of petrified wood.

The old route eventually led us to a paved loop trail. This was where Karrie had assisted with building a dry stack retaining wall. We revisited stories from her time here and a...

Humphreys Peak had been on my bucket list for a number of years. Considering how much time we have spent hiking around Arizona, it perplexed me that I hadn't found an opportunity to climb the highest point in the state. So when the Arizona Trail Association asked Karrie to work an event at the North Rim, she knew I would be thrilled to tag along if we could stop at Humphreys on the way. 

Mid-May is about as early as you can hike in the San Francisco Peaks without encountering snow...

During the fall of 2017, we traveled to Iceland to see beautiful sights, listen to spectacular music, and hang out with stellar friends. Above is a compilation video of the trip that my friend Phelan put together. The music is by the Icelandic duo Between Mountains. Below is stories from our trip as well as some additional photos.

October 30 - Reykjavik

We arrived in Reykjavik at around 6:30am Iceland time. The airport felt more like an Ikea furnished shopping mall. After asking for directions to...

 Taum Sauk Mountain is the highest point in Missouri. You can drive up to the marker, but we there are trails to hike in the area too so we took some time to explore.

Mount Sunflower is the highest point in Kansas. We stopped on our drive back east during the fall of 2017.

 Not much to around.

These last two photos are from the Kansas state park where we stayed that night. It is one of our favorite places to camp when crossing the great plains.

Every year we get together to climb a 14er with a few of our good friends from our Rocky Mountain Youth Corps days. This year we decided to take on Mt. Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado. A dusting of snow had fallen the night before, which made for some particularly epic photos.

 In August of 2017 we took three days to hike Mount of the Holy Cross with our friend Phelan.

 Playing Farkle at camp.

 Collegiate Wilderness

 Approaching Belford for the first time.

 The saddle between Belford and Oxford

 Oxford Summit

 Karrie removing a rock from her shoe, and evidence that she steals Jake's socks...

Summiting Belford a second time on the return trip. 

Every time we drive across the country we try to hit at least one new state high point along the way. Needless to say, some are more glorious than others... This time we were driving through Indiana on our way to Tucson, so we stopped to visit Hoosier Hill. 

While this state high point left something to be desired, a more interesting and unrelated story did transpire over the next few days....

On January 3rd we were continuing our drive west toward Taum Sauk Mountain, when Karrie received a phone...