Mild Adventures

Musings from the Tree

2012-01-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

I've been living in a beautiful tree in Moab, suspended by miles of worn webbing and climbing ropes woven into a colorful cocoon. Each morning is unique and special, which inspired me to write this and share with those of you whom I have given my heart:

Every morning, as the glowing orb rises

The finches dance in our tree.

Hopping from branch to branch

swaying in the southern wind.

The people move about on their way,

eyeing their watches but not their hearts.

The finches sing and float above me;

I sit in our tree and watch.

The wind plays ancient notes

resonating through reeds and leaves.

I listen as the ceremonious waking

of the earth and sun scoops me up

in warm, motherly arms.

The finches come and go from our tree,

flashing yellow over the noisy highway.

They search for insects and twigs

with their smiling beaks.

Half an hour I sit and watch and listen,

sharing a smile.

The finches are gone in a flash,

leaving behind songs of joyous love.

Can’t we all be so happy?

Desert Reflections.

2011-12-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

Behold - the vast desert around me, falling away in every direction. The sand molds between my bare toes while the rock holds me back from sinking into the sky. Wisps of white follow the circling birds of the vast blue, converging into shapes not yet discovered.

The stones I touch transmit the knowledge of the universe, a timeless seat of eternal observation; victim to the slowest of movement, master of concentration. The naturalness abounds, only I am out of place. Maybe a millennium past I would be accepted. Now my kind doesn’t sit and accept itself as a part of nature; instead we find creative ways to control it. Can I interact with my beautiful surroundings in a truly appreciative and natural way?

I remove my clothes and let the sun warm my body. I am joined also by the lizards, the desert fox, and his rabbit also naked and beautiful. I am joined by everyone who stood in this spot and looked towards the sky with a smile; I am joined by everyone who will do so in the future. Without my clothes I shed the inhibitions and illusions of my society. I empathize with the piñon and sagebrush, grounded in the earth yet wild with the wind.

Running barefoot through the sand I reach the edge of a vast cliff. Below me, the valley holds water and life and grasps the remaining light of day. Am I privileged enough to dance with the fearless nocturnal creatures? They emerge happily, curiously, oblivious to my troubled mind. The tempest of my thoughts touches ground at this very spot, eternally and impeccably quiet. A fire shoots sparks upwards, mingling with distant stars and planets; the calm atmosphere settles upon the southwest. My breath lingers, trembling.

I awake to the miraculous emergence of the sun, the trumpets of finches and crows declaring its arrival. Walking from my solitude towards the world I know, my head drops. I put on my clothes and return to my home, full of love for that beautiful place I know; full of sorrow for the eyes oblivious to this beauty, focused instead on a flawed and corrosive world of our own design.

Wild Adventures

2011-12-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back in action and it's time to get the blog going again. I have lots of photos and philosophical musings to share, and random thoughts to get off my mind. Although I'm currently "unemployed" in the typical sense of the word, my life is full with action and I am living every day as a challenge, and a chance to improve myself in some way. I hope that the following entries, although perhaps a bit obscure on occasion, will help my friends and family become inspired to do the same. Our life is short and precious, but not that short, and we are capable of some amazing things. The key is to find your passion, and to devote yourself completely to it.

Without action, we are not true to our nature as animals. Without loving passion, we are not true to our nature as humans. Follow your heart with a smile :-)

With love to the universe and all my wonderful friends and family,
-Scott

The Smile of Buddha, and the Wheel of Dharma

2011-05-16T00:36:00.000-06:00

Last week was Buddha's 2555th birthday celebration, and here in Korea it was quite a party! Heather and I were able to visit Jogyesa in Seoul, surely one of the brightest Buddhist temples in the country. Shimmering in the hazy light pollution of the city, the lanterns cast a colorful reminder of spring, of beauty, and of the fact that we should never forget to smile.

Taking that lovely advice to heart, I smile, and am reminded of all the wonderful things in our world. They are far too easy to overlook. Bringing out my camera for the first time in several months, I am inspired to look through the eyes of a buddha, with a wild admiration for everything living and non; to see the joy that has ever touched any place, and the joy that ever will touch any place. What do I see? Nothing that a lens can truly capture, nor the cropped and dusty sensor inside my camera. The images that I create are simply rudimentary depictions of the action of happiness. The painter has her colors and brushes, I have my nikon; but these are just tools, and the products just combinations of color. The real beauty of these things lies within the actions which brings them about. The memories which inspire those actions. The people that help create those memories. The chain reaction of inspiration spreads through an interminable distance; everything I am doing now has an infinite number of causes, and likely an equivalent number of effects. By this I only mean that for each picture that I take, it is really the whole world taking this picture, everything that has ever existed. If we employ a method as simple as causality, this makes a little sense. But I know it is a little more complicated than cause and effect...

As I see Buddha's smile in everything around me, my internal wheels of happiness start to spin. I begin to feel uplifted and joyful. Simply by taking time to look around and truly focus on things around me, patterns, contrasts, the foils of the living and the inanimate, a smile arises, manifested by something I don't understand, but there none-the-less.

I am happy to be here,

I am happy to be,

I am happy.

: )

Photos

2011-05-02T19:52:00.001-06:00

I have decided to put up some more of my photos online, to share them with others in an easier way. You can see them at the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildadventures/

I hope all my friends and family in other corners of the world are able to enjoy the same sunsets I am, just at different times :-)

Flowers

2011-04-24T00:02:00.002-06:00

We have been in Korea for 8 months now, and things are going great! Teaching is so much fun, though I feel like I'm learning more as a teacher than I ever did as a student.

The dreary cold winter has ended, and April has brought bursts of color from the trees and the soil. The flowers are really spectacular this time of year. I haven't been taking too many photos, but inspired by the beauty around me, I thought I'd take out my camera. During the last few weeks, I've made some of these shots:

The New Korea Blog!

2010-11-08T23:26:00.000-07:00

The Adventures of Kimchi and Soju

Heather and I started a new blog together where we can jointly contribute content and display the progress of our adventure in Korea. So far it has been really interesting. We are working hard, learning how to teach, learning a new language, learning the nuances of a new culture, and then trying to find time to learn about life as much as we can along the way. I am really happy to be here in Korea, and I hope you are able to take a look at our new blog if you can.

I will also probably try to keep this one full of new content now and again as well. I have been writing a lot, and my meditations on life continue to grow thanks to the help of my friends. We are all in this adventure together, and I am excited to share things with you!.

Much love,

-Scott

Korea!

2010-08-30T22:03:00.001-06:00

I am finally in Korea! Over the last several months, Heather and I have been planning and preparing to go to South Korea to teach English as a Foreign Language. It took a while to get all the necessary paperwork together, and the embassies and recruiter were kind of difficult to work with, but after putting in all the work, it is nice to finally be here knowing that it was all worth it.

Korea is a very interesting place. I didn't have many ideas of what Korea would be like prior to getting here, probably because there isn't a strong presence of Korean culture in Colorado. California has a bit more, but there is a great difference between the presence of American culture in Korea and the presence of Korean culture in America. Once I got here, I realized that they have adopted so much of American culture here, that it is almost the same. I like to think of it with the following allegory: Korea is like someone took a small but very populated part of America, turned it over, shook out all of the people, sprinkled some nicer, more pleasant people, replaced all the signs with signs in the Korean language, and then called it Korea. Seoul is literally like a big New York City, with more nice people, with less crime, and with greater cleanliness and population. It was very fun to explore Seoul for a week before coming to my new hometown, Hongcheon.

Hongcheon is a small town of about 50,000 people right on a river in the Gangwon province (Gangwon is like the Colorado of Korea: highest percentage of mountains and national parks with the lowest percentage of people). It is great here. Just last night Heather discovered an awesome network of trails behind her apartment that go up into the mountains. We are very excited to explore there. There is also a lot of local paragliding and rock climbing, so we are right at home!

My daily routine is pretty simple so far. I just bought a bicycle for 50,000 won (about 40 dollars) so the commute is a bit shorter, but if I don't have a ride to school from one of the other teachers (carpooling is really popular here), I can ride my bike to the bus station and take the bus for between 20-50 minutes to get to one of the schools I teach at. Because it is so rural here, instead of having one central school with lots of students (in which some would have to travel a long ways to get to), instead there are several smaller schools with fewer students. As such, I teach at 4 different schools throughout the week. Hwachon Middle School (my main school) for 2 days per week (there are 34 students here), Naechon Middle School for one day per week, Pallyeol Middle School and Pallyeol High School for 2 days per week. If I had a car, it would only be a 25 minute drive to the furthest one, Pallyeol High School, but taking the bus is a little slower. I am certainly excited to be working at all of these schools though, as the students are all so different and in some they are very eager to learn English!

Teaching English as a foreign language is a little difficult to do effectively, but it is a very necessary thing in the schools in Korea. Recently (in the last 10-20 years) there has been an epidemic of English Fever, which is very detrimental to the stability of Korean society. As Korea has grown from a very 3rd world country (it had an economy the same size as Ghana right after World War II) to what it is today (13th largest economy in the world, and bigger economy than all of Africa, excluding South Africa), the demand for English skills has increased tremendously. It is so important in Korea, that if you are Korean fluent in English, you will generally earn $20,000 more per year than you would if you were not fluent.

Families who are well off can afford to send their students to private English academies to learn English for 4 hours a day, and these students excel quickly. But as it is a foreign language to them, the students are not fully immersed in a native English setting. Some parents are able to send their children to the US or Canada to study for a year or two, and the students come back being very very proficient in English, as it turned from English as a foreign language to English as a second language, or as I call it, English as a survival language. This has created a large gap in the English levels of children in rich families and poor families (most of the families in my province are poor, compared to the families in Seoul and the other big cities). These students can't go to private academies, or travel to Canada to study for a year. But they still need that native English instruction in order for them to have the same opportunities as those in the upper class.

The Korean government has put great emphasis in this, and is funding all these English programs, such as EPIK, the English Program in Korea, under which I am a teacher. We teach in the public schools and give the public school students the same or close to the same opportunities to learn English and prepare them for their professional lives. It is good that the government recognizes this problem and has done something to act on it, because from what I have observed so far, Korea has become so successful by collaboration, not competition. It seems that this competition to learn English is starting to tear parts of the country apart, and who knows what might happen because of it.

Anyway, my job is very important, but also very difficult. When I was learning Spanish in High School, I actually retained very little from the class. In a whole year I learned only a fraction of the language and its application. However, when I was finally able to travel to Spanish-speaking countries, I learned at light-speed. Being in Ecuador this year I definitely saw incredible growth in my Spanish skills. For my students, they probably won't have an opportunity in the near future to travel to an English speaking country, so they will probably have the low retention level that we all have when learning a foreign language. If I am able to give the students a more realistic "Second Language" experience, then maybe they will be able to learn faster and retain more. But that is the goal for now, time will tell if it is attainable at all in the next year.

Thanks for reading!

-Scott

Easter in Washington DC

2010-04-14T13:10:00.001-06:00

Some Photos:

The rooftops of Denver

2010-03-10T18:36:00.001-07:00

An album of adventure:

Exploring some History

2010-03-10T08:20:00.001-07:00

A trip underground...

Visiting the Family

2010-02-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

Went to DC to visit my Dad, and we went to visit his dad and some other family at the Arlington Cemetery. It is a beautiful place.

Catching up with the blog, but mostly with myself.

2009-12-14T23:19:00.003-07:00

I realize it has been a while since my last blog updates, to those of my persistent and very supportive blog followers (I'm talking to you Mom and Dad) I am sorry. I know you're excited to see the evidence of my latest adventures and escapades, and it's not that I've been too busy to post. In fact, I've got most of the posts up here just not published yet. I've just been trying to find the right reasons to justify me doing these things that I have been doing. BASE jumping, highlining, even climbing have inherent dangers. But worse than these dangers are the effect they each have on my own mental establishment. I know you're worried about me dying or getting injured or whatever, but I'm still too naive to actually care about that. What I am most worried about, however, is my mental attitude in approaching these activities. Lately I've come to some stark realizations about my personality that have more or less disgusted me.

When I was really young I was always excited to learn, and this followed with me into middle and high school. By that time I had established a stigma that I intended to keep: the smart kid. I was eager to learn, and eager to succeed in school. But somewhere along the way my motivation for learning made a shift from genuine interest in the subject matter, to interest in the enhancement of my ego. While it surely didn't shift so drastically as to be 100% in either category, the obvious balance was noticeably skewed. Why it did this I am not sure, but it has certainly had a resounding affect on my personality today.

This ego-inflation has always repulsed me, and as you know I've been prone to shy away from it, but the more I think about it, the more I realize exactly how ego-driven I've been in the last few years. I've been asking the question "why" about nearly everything epistemicaly possible. Why I'm here, why I interact with the world that way that I do, but more recently I've been answering even more complicated questions: why do I highline, why do I BASE jump (or so I thought I was answering the questions). In asking these questions, I would often follow up with an answer somewhere along the lines of "because I find some sort of philosophical peace and overarching truth in these activities", or perhaps I declare a "moment of clarity found in nothing else". However I've recently begun to realize how far this actually is from the truth.

The only true reason "why" is because it fills some sort of gap that requires personal affirmation. My soul has a fundamental desire for the appreciation of others. And what better way to be viewed in a positive light as to do something extreme with my life, that nobody else does? While, again, I realize that it isn't this black and white, but the general trend has been in this direction. I'm not proud of it, but ignoring it certainly can't help. Recently I've been trying to discover the real truth behind my actions, and this is why there has been an obvious lack in blog postings.

I suppose looking for a reason for something isn't necessarily the right way to approach this problem, but it is a pragmatic way. It helps me begin to understand, in my own little way, and gives me small amounts of comfort. I suppose the most harsh reality is that my actions have been so driven by my ego that I have not had the chance to enjoy them. Highlining has lost its appeal in my quest to be one of the best in the world. BASE jumping fills me with emptiness, but not the good emptiness they talk about in Buddhism class, the emptiness that feels like a hole in my chest, makes it hard to breathe, a sinking feeling like you realize that your girlfriend is about to break up with you. That kind of feeling. Why could something so potentially liberating have such a negative demeanor attached to it? Mainly because I have been doing these things for the wrong reasons.

Flaunting my accomplishments on facebook posts and status updates, rambling about my supposed "self-awakening" on this blog, putting up trip reports on forums. All these things are ways that I have been consciously inflating my ego, and further burrowing that hole into my chest. I am left with a sadness and pain that baffles me.

I've started to realize how unhealthy this process is, even on a subconscious level. Even without posting the media that I collect, I still am drawn to watch videos of my jumps over and over again. Without fail, every Monday after a fun weekend of adventuring I am so distracted with my accomplishments that I let other important things fall by the wayside. I am unavoidably infatuated with my own experiences that I fall victim to the role of "living vicariously through myself". This isn't a joke. I've realized how dangerous this is. I am so caught up in watching the videos and looking at the photographs that I lose track of what is really important. Therein lies the real crisis. Right now as I am typing these words, I have absolutely no idea what is important in this life. That is a serious dilemma. Further, my entire life in the last few years has centered around the cultivation of these activities. I am at a loss.

Because of a thirst for acceptance and a drive for greatness that was instilled within me from an early age (no blame Mom and Dad, I'm sure it was entirely coincidental), I have pursued these extreme sports with vigor. And while I do get a great deal of personal enjoyment out of them, if you would ask me right now why I do these things, I could not give an honest answer. I have no clue (except for the fact that my ego needs a boost every day, just like someone else would need their coffee).

My studies of Buddhism have helped me to discover this, and have aided me in opening my eyes into my own life. I don't have a curiously wonderful life of adventures, free of worry. It is certainly far from that. It is wrought with the suffering that ensues from my ego-driven conscious trying to kid myself that what I am doing is for a good cause, such as mental cultivation or meditative training. It is really only so that others will look at me and say, "hey that Scott is pretty cool, I wish my life were like his". I realize this with disgust. My motivations are reprehensible.

Based on these findings, you can understand why I have been hesitant to post any information whatsoever online. I'm realizing how the life as I have lived it has relatively little importance. It is something that I have done purely out of the selfishness in my heart. Sure, it may inspire others, but by living my life for the wrong reasons I am consequently inspiring others in the wrong way. I need the chance to step back and rework my mind, I need the chance to start approaching life from a more beneficial perspective. I know that you both love me more than can be stated on paper, and the feelings are absolutely mutual. Right now that is one of the only tangible things in my life. This love, combined with my ability to reflect are the only tools I have with which to rework my life, so I'm making some sort of game plan.

I am no longer going to post photographs on any social networking sites. They are too driven by my egocentric greed. It has gotten to the point where I can't even be doing something without thinking about what I'll post about for my next facebook status update. I can't even take photos without thinking about what my friends will comment about, which ones they will like the best, how they will think that I am a good photographer. This whole process, once a passion of mine, has only become a hindrance.

I will, however, post photographs on the blog, mainly because almost nobody looks at this thing, and those that do I share that tangible love for, so I know no harm can come from it.

I have also decided to cease BASE jumping and highlining until I can discover beneficial reasons for partaking in these activities. I obviously would not have pursued them with such an eager spirit if there wasn't an inherent beauty about these activities. However, I am going to turn that childish determination from a necessity to be the best, and use that energy to determine how to enjoy these things as much as possible, and for the right reasons. I know this will come at a relief to you because of my decreased risk of danger, but don't get used to it. There will always be something that I do that will consistently bother you.

I also hope that you take this opportunity to be honest with yourselves, and look into your own lives with this objective analysis. None of us are perfect, and I feel that it will do you each a great service to think about your life, maybe only seriously for 20 minutes each day. Think about the motivations you have for living your life the way you do. Think about the impacts this has on your loved ones. Think about the important things in your life, not necessarily family, but other things too. Your passions, your outlets, things that you hate about your life as well. What can you do to change them? Our minds are neuroplastic entities that are in dynamic balance with our bodies and our surroundings. We never observe the same thing twice because we are always changing from our experiences and our reflections on those experiences. We need to be living this life in the best way possible. Maybe this is a generalization, I suppose the only truth that I know is that I myself am compelled to live my life in the best way possible. I challenge you, because of the love that we share, to do the same. It will be uncomfortable, but I hope that it will be liberating.

Thanks for reading, and know that of everything in my life, the one thing that I appreciate most is you, my family. My love for you is unexplainable, but it is the most real thing that I have, and through constant internal struggle in my life, this always brings me back to a comfortable mental place, so Thank You.

Some photos from the last month

2009-11-30T22:34:00.001-07:00

Below are some photos from the last month, a few adventures here and there.

Ecuador Commercial

2009-10-20T00:32:00.002-06:00

I appeared in a commercial that aired in Ecuador. It can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSBDvDOWWeU

Shelf Road

2009-10-20T00:30:00.006-06:00

Went on a beautiful climbing trip to Shelf Road one of these last weekends. Shelf is near Canyon City, CO and has hundreds of routes on beautiful limestone. I have been there a few times before, but this time we visited a few new areas. Here are some photos from the trip:

Andy's Balloon BASE Jump

2009-10-20T00:30:00.004-06:00

Andy's birthday occurred recently, so we threw him out of the hot air balloon with my BASE rig. He had a great time, had a great jump, and we got some fun video of the experience. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nnsPCw5iMA&feature=channel

Another trip to Moab

2009-09-30T09:24:00.004-06:00

I went out to Moab this last weekend to do some skydiving at the boogie, and hang out with Heather. It was a beautiful trip. Here are some photos:

Highlining at the new Highlands Bowl (a 60 foot long line, about 70 feet high)

Enjoying the sunrise at Delicate Arch

Slacklining at sunset in Fruita, CO

Flying my wingsuit above Moab, UT

A Stroll above Boulder

2009-09-30T09:16:00.002-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B312u4CNtjQ

Above is a cool video of Andy and I walking some highlines above Boulder this week. Beautiful spot that I have rigged off before.

Here is a photo of all the lines together (photo by Nick K.)

Trying to answer "Why"

2009-09-29T11:00:00.002-06:00

As I continue to push my own boundaries, I am constantly reminded by others that what I do with my life is not normal. Jumping out of planes and walking high slacklines isn't the common recipe for success in most people's lives. They ask me why; unfortunately I don't have an answer.

I can try to give adequate reasons, but the further I look into my reasons, the further I realize how hidden those reasons are. Perhaps they are asking the wrong question. "Why not?" seems more appropriate, or "When can I try?" or "What do the mountains look like from up there?" We seem to have the idea, either as humans or citizens of the western world, that everything has an explanation, and if it doesn't have one, it needs one. This manifests itself to a great extent in the western pursuit of science. The scientific method, as a whole is based on the idea of causality, and that for every effect, there is some sort of cause. We can determine that cause through experiment or rational thought. But maybe there are spontaneous things! Maybe thoughts, actions, experiences that we have require no explanation, they are just there...

Recently, I had a conversation with a good friend about limits, about how we define what we are comfortable with, what we are not comfortable with, and the fragile ground in between. The problem with the analysis of limits in this way lies in the evolution and relativity of comfort levels. As we experience new things, and difficult things, our comfort levels in these activities increase. Doing something with repetition develops a sense of comfort in that activity. When I first learned to drive a car, I was terrified. Over time it has become second-nature to me, and no longer entails any fear. The same is the case for me with skydiving. At first I was absolutely terrified: the entire plane ride, the entire gear preparation, during the jump. It was certainly a scary experience, yet as I have continued to pursue this sport, it too has become second nature to me. Comfort levels change dynamically as we continue with the passions in our lives. We can become more or less comfortable with something over time, based purely on the frequency with which we pursue it. Limits, then, cannot be defined with this concept of a "comfort level". How do we know what we are capable of?

I am still struggling with the concept of limits, but I do know that despite the fact that I am sometimes uncomfortable in certain situations, I still enjoy the experience. Even if I am completely inundated by fear during the entirety of an action (which is rare these days), I still get something out of it. This brings me back to the idea of "why". While the question is flawed, there may still be an equally flawed answer. I suppose the problems that we have with limits and comfort levels stem from this overarching idea of the self. In Buddhism, one of the main teachings is that there is no self such as we identify with. In order to achieve enlightenment, one must let go of the idea of self, and come to peace with the present. While I know almost nothing about meditation or enlightenment, and am a novice in these activities, I do observe the implications of these teachings in my life. On the topic of limits, for example, the fact that we perceive any limits at all is due to the attachment we have to this idea of a self. We think that our minds and our bodies have these limitations which prevent us from doing certain things. We make excuses based on these perceived limitations in order to not violate any of the limits that we have set for ourselves: "No, I'm afraid of heights" or "No, I have horrible balance" are the most common that I observe. There are excuses for all sorts of activities that extend past the comfort levels we have. But these limits are detrimental to our growth! Because they stem from the attachment to an idea that doesn't really exist, namely the self, they hold us back from experiencing the love and compassion of the world. We cling to this body and to this mind with such fervor that we forget to let it free and embrace the potential of our lives.

So in order to answer the question, "why?" I answer: "there is no why, there is only happiness." It takes a lot of energy to tear down one's limits and comfort levels, but in order to do so, one is free of this detrimental attachment of the self. Unfortunately, this can be misconstrued as a reckless waste of the body. People look with discomfort as they watch me jump off a bridge or walk a highline, claiming that I have a "death wish." They call me reckless and stupid and irresponsible. But once you learn that your body is already impermanent, you can pursue the things that make you most happy. This concept is best explained by a story of a Thai monk named Achaan Chaa. When asked how we can become detached from our cravings, and from our ideas of self, this is his reply:

Achaan Chaa looked down and smiled faintly. He picked up the glass of drinking water to his left. Holding it up to us he spoke in the chirpy Lao dialect that was his native tongue: “You see this goblet? For me, this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say ‘ Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious”

What I get out of this story is that our lives are like the glass. This idea of self that we have is flawed because we are holding on so dearly to something that we know will be non-existent in the near future. To extend the metaphor of the glass: if we keep the glass in the cupboard to look at and admire it's beauty occasionally, we are not using the glass to its purpose. If we use the glass, but use it sparingly, we don't get the maximum utility out of having the glass. If we use the glass as much as possible, in as many ways as possible, not worrying about the fact that it could break, because we know it will break eventually, then we use the glass in the best possible way. The same is true with our lives. We can live conservatively, creating false limits for ourselves, or we can live fully, embracing every moment that we have as a blessing and a challenge. Either way, our fate is already determined as mortal beings.

So this is my answer to the question "why?" When we realize that the self that we claim to own, the mind and body that we possess are hopelessly impermanent, we can set ourselves free of the idea that we need to limit that self as much as possible. Instead of trying to maximize the amount of time we are on this earth, we should instead be focused on maximizing the amount of happiness we have on this earth. For me, happiness manifests from flying my body though the air, and walking on highlines in the clouds. My happiness stems from the seeds of adrenaline and the water of meditation. In the process of these actions, I come the closest I can to eradicating this idea of self and living purely to live. In disposing of this attachment, all that remains is compassion and bliss, and I can't help but look to the sky and smile.

Flight

2009-09-20T20:29:00.003-06:00

For a few minutes, when I'm flying through the sky, all the problems in the world, everything that I'm confused about or don't know the answer to, it all melts away. For those brief moments, everything just makes sense.

You have your Football, We have our Wingsuits from Scott Rogers on Vimeo.

My wingsuit is inadvertently colored black and gold. People always ask me if I got it to show my CU school spirit. I couldn't give a crap about CU or it's football team. I got it to fly. My Alma Mater is the Sky...

Golden Spire

2009-09-20T20:28:00.001-06:00

With the awesome GoPro that I got for my birthday, I've been finding all sorts of different ways to document my adventures. Enjoy this video:

Fun at the Golden Spire from Scott Rogers on Vimeo.

Birthday Week

2009-09-16T21:48:00.002-06:00

Some adventures with Heather up at the Cabin, and some fun with the Hot Air Balloon. I made it to 22!

Birthday Ballon Fun

2009-09-16T09:34:00.002-06:00

A little jump I did for my birthday yesterday. Thanks to Heather for the awesome Helmet Camera! You're the best!

Birthday Balloon Jump from Scott Rogers on Vimeo.

Dreamline

2009-09-12T21:45:00.002-06:00

A fun little highline that Andy set up for a video shoot with Timmy O'Neil. Here are the photos:

The Now is the Past

2009-08-31T10:13:00.000-06:00

The Now is the Past, once you realize that it is the now...

For A Moment... from Calvin Hecker on Vimeo.

Everything that we do helps to create the future that we dream of. Here in Hecker's video are are few clips of my first BASE jumps, and some highlining at the GO FAST games, back in 2008.

Non-Linear Passage of Time

2009-08-28T16:40:00.003-06:00

There is no time, there are only the experiences that we have. You can be old, you can be young, it all depends on what you have done. Sitting in place also means sitting in time. Moving in space means moving in time. Wandering through the world with intent for adventure passes time quickly. If you look for a second, you can see the earth slow down again, before you move on to the next big thing.

(Hecker and I watching the time pass, remembering another era)

The Importance of Spontaneity

2009-08-25T09:17:00.003-06:00

As I was about to fall asleep on Saturday night, tired from a long day of skydiving (8 jumps in less than 10 hours) I received a call from my friend Kevin, seeing if I wanted to jump out of his hot air balloon in the morning. After thinking about the hassle that would go into going to my car, grabbing my unpacked BASE parachute, bringing it upstairs, laying it out, and spending an hour packing it ever so meticulously, I agreed without hesitation. It would mean that I would have to meet him at 5:30am the next morning to help set up the balloon for his passengers, but that was okay with me, the experience was worth the trouble.

I set down the canopy, and started picking out all the twigs, small rocks and pieces of brush that had gotten stuck in my rig from the last jump. BASE jumping is funny like that, you're always landing on interesting terrain, and never know what you'll end up shaking out of your end-cells. As I straightened the lines and folded the parachute into the container, I realized that it was the 10th time that I had packed a parachute that day. It took just under an hour to finish closing in the container, and I made it to bed around midnight.

The next morning I awoke to sweet summer air and the only person I saw in the neighborhood was the funny old guy who always goes for a walk outside my apartment at odd hours of the day. I got out to gunbarrel and we set the balloon up. I didn't tell Kevin's customers that I was jumping out, but at the last second I hopped on board with them, donning a helmet and a parachute. After we left the ground it took about 20 seconds to climb to 500 feet, where I proceeded to fall to the ground. The ride was great, and I set down the parachute about 10 feet from where we took off, a pretty accurate landing based on my current skill level. I then waited around for a few minutes, watching the other balloons take off, before getting in the van and chasing down Kevin's balloon.

It was a really fun way to start the day. I've jumped out of Kevin's balloon many times before, but in this case I wasn't really planning ahead on doing it. I simply had the opportunity, and took that opportunity. It would have been much easier to sleep in, but lately, waking up at a reasonable hour hasn't been a part of my routine.

Being spontaneous is definitely a good thing, but more important is taking every opportunity that comes your way, if you don't you may regret it...

Meri's Gash

2009-08-10T12:12:00.001-06:00

"It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the sky than in the sky wishing you were on the ground"

Meri's Gash With Scott from Sarah Child on Vimeo.

Rural Decay

2009-07-31T13:53:00.002-06:00

The mountains are a place of beauteous and bountiful rebirth.

Urban Decay

2009-07-31T13:51:00.001-06:00

Sometimes we can change the world, but most of the time, the world will change itself.

Exploration

2009-07-23T07:57:00.005-06:00

As a child, I was terrified of urban exploration. My parents instilled in me such a rigorous schema of moral beliefs that I felt no inclination to break the law, however absurd that law might be. Although I would crawl into abandoned gold mines up in the mountains with ease, walking into the dank dark depths as far as I was capable, anytime I encountered a "No Trespassing" sign, I would diligently decline from any sort of illicit exploration. When I was six my family moved to Virginia, about 20 miles from the heart of our nation's capital. Next door to us was a very old farmhouse, right in the path of suburban expansion. It was scheduled to be demolished and removed in order to make room for million dollar homes and ostentatiously planned community developments. I'm sure some family had lived at this farmhouse for generations, and probably lost some sort of legislative zoning battle forcing them to leave the residence for a small compensation from the city. It appeared that the family had just up and left, taking only their most valued possessions, as there were several relics abandoned on the property. My father and I, in a bout of adventurous behavior, decided to go explore the house, and get a glimpse of the history that was about to be destroyed so that our new neighbors would be able to have that 6 bedroom monstrosity, complete with his and hers walk-in closets.

When we approached the farmhouse, however, my six-year-old conscience was telling me "no". There were "No Trespassing" signs posted all over the vicinity, and a big earth mover parked in front. It was scheduled to be demolished the very next day, so what would be the harm of taking a quick peek? I absolutely refused. "But Dad!" I exclaimed, "the signs say no trespassing! We shouldn't be in here..." My father assured me it was ok, but I remained adamant, and adhering to my morals, I stood in the door frame for nearly half an hour while my father explored the house. He finally appeared again bearing gifts from the abandoned residence. The one I remember most vividly: a dusty one quart glass bottle from the Green Meadow Milk Company. I think he still has this on a mantle in his house somewhere. We walked back to our own house and went inside for some lemonade, but I'll never forget that big farmhouse and what could have been inside, waiting for me to explore.

You wouldn't think that a six-year-old would have the moral cognition capable of making decisions like that, but amazingly I held fast to my understandings of the law. Most children have very little inhibition, causing them to get into all kinds of trouble and making mistakes; mistakes which are invaluable in a necessary learning process. I never made that mistake, the mistake of harmless trespassing on a soon-to-be demolished property. It is something that has come back to me on several occasions. What could have been inside that house? What sort of things might I have found which could have clued me in to the history of the residents inside? My young imagination ran wild with the thought of it. Unfortunately I was never able to go back, I could only stand in the recently sodded yard of an affluent businessman, wondering if he knew what he had taken away from me.

But even though I didn't necessarily make a mistake in the eyes of the law, I did make a mistake by not going in and exploring that house; and I've learned from that mistake. These days, I've grown to appreciate the potential adventure of any situation, premeditated or not. I've grown to learn that some laws are meant to be bent, sometimes broken, and are in place only so that the adventurous have something to look forward to, something to keep their monotonous days going, a challenge to be met with a mischievous grin. There are adventurers in all of us, begging to be emancipated and allowed to explore the world. The beauty lies in the fact that you can never be certain of what the future holds. The uncertainty is intoxicating, forcing improvisation, wit, and a positive outlook. Not knowing what will happen in your immediate future is a fun prospect. It isn't for everyone, but for us true adventurers, we can appreciate the spontaneity of an unforeseen life. Everything new that we experience helps us grow as people, and exploring the unknown is a great way to experience something new.

Thanks for reading.
-scott

Some photos from a recent journey to explore an abandoned place, in an abandoned time:

The Great Divide

2009-07-22T16:17:00.000-06:00

We live in such a beautiful state. Colorado is full of immaculate adventure and breathtaking landscapes. I'm really torn by these places. I want to live there forever, but I know if I spend too much time in a beautiful place, indifference begins to overcome the aesthetics. Fortunately it was a gorgeous place with wonderful company. Here are some photos proving it:

Michael Crichton would be proud

2009-07-18T09:41:00.002-06:00

A few friends and I took a day to explore the "Jurassic Park" area in Rocky Mountain National Park. Playing on the edge of time, the edge of space, and the area between, here are a few photos from the adventure... thanks for looking

Fish Creek Highline

2009-07-10T11:13:00.001-06:00

On the 4th of July some friends and I set up a highline over Fish Creek Falls in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It was a beautiful line, about 90' long, directly over the falls. It was an incredible experience in a beautiful location with some great friends. Here are a few photos from the day:

Mallorca

2009-07-10T11:09:00.001-06:00

Just a few photos from a fun adventure abroad:

Recollection of the Future

2009-06-19T07:54:00.000-06:00

We all have gut feelings, ominous premonitions, mental states that make us step back for a second and think about what we are doing. Some would call them hints by God to be careful, they could also be labeled as reactionary mechanisms that have evolved in a Darwinian method throughout the history of our species. Without a doubt, though, these fleeting states of mind, the ephemeral glimpses of the true reality of the situation, have a lot to do with the way we live our lives. In many cases, the premonitions that we have often outweigh any empirical evidence describing what should be the case. Empirical evidence is very convincing. Scientific data giving probabilities of failure and success, chances of survival, predictions of reactionary chains of events: it usually is correct without fail. But so much of our life is lived off of first impressions, gut feelings, premonitions; a lot of the time, we are highly successful relying on these methods.

The failure of empirical evidence is evident in every action that we take. The world would be a boring place if it were entirely predictable by scientific postulates and mathematical formulas. Knowing exactly what is going to happen before it does takes away a lot of the sense of adventure. Life needs the unexpected. Pleasant surprises are an important way to learn lessons. What's even worse about scientific datum, however, is that although they can adequately explain events that have happened in the past, their legitimacy fails in both the present and future. The classic example is that of gravity. Perhaps one of the most predictable forces on this little corner of the universe, yet we cannot explain its origins. The consequences of gravity are easily understood. You drop an object, and unless it is subject to a substantial number of additional forces, it drops to the ground. This is repeatable without fail. However, just because the object continues to fall to the ground, there is no necessary proof that it will continue to do so in the future. This is one of the great puzzles of western philosophy.

Our entire worldview is structured such that we observe our surroundings with a wholly scientific mind. It is the western way. Education, observation, the growth and decline of civilizations is all dependent on a scientific method of learning. As such, it is based on empirical evidence, and trends that have been observed through the analysis of that evidence. Everything from designing a satellite to designing a constitution for a new democracy is proof of this. The way that I structure this blog entry is proof of this. The way that I learned to skydive and slackline is proof of this. We approach the world with a very scientific mind, and therefore learn from and interact with it in a very scientific way. Slacklining, as I experience it, is one of the most zen-like activities that I pursue. However, the fatal flaw in my learning was that I approached it scientifically. Through steps, progress checks, and self-assessment, I scientifically analyze every step along the way in order to improve my skill level. It is the only way that I know. This juxtaposition between scientific learning for a zen pursuit is staggeringly odd. How could one facilitate the other?

I have come to believe that a method of scientific learning has limitations: It is subject to the understand of what has happened before, not what is happening, and what will be happening in the future. Just because something has continued to work in the past by no means gives justification for the belief that it will happen again in the future. This world is very complex, it is filled with surprise and mystique. There are so many things that we try to know about the universe, which are undeniably difficult, if not impossible to learn through a scientific method. In these cases, intuition, gut feelings, and subconscious thought really do a lot to define the truths of this world. Intuitions tell not of the past, but of the present and the future. Although sometimes less predictable than scientific evidence, the success rate of intuition is staggeringly high for something that requires no thought and no evidence to acquire.

This past weekend was filled with premonition, and doubt. I was getting ready to skydive Saturday morning, and had the strangest feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong. I did a couple more practices of my emergency procedures to prepare myself, but kept feeling some sort of voice in the back of my head warning me about the next jump. It wasn't telling me not to jump, but just to be careful. Mind you, these sorts of voices occur all the time while participating in an extreme sport, but this was a little different. More intense, more focused. I decided to go on the jump anyway, as I recklessly thought that life is too short to listen to all the voices anyway. (If we stood down every time we were nervous about taking a chance, life would be exceptionally boring). The jump was wonderful. I led a tracking dive on my back and two of my friends came in and docked on either side of me in a V formation as we flew a little more than a mile south of the airport. When it came time to open my parachute, however, things started to go even further south. I opened in a track, to ensure proper separation from my fellow jumpers (canopy collision during or directly after opening is one of the leading causes of death in skydiving). This type of opening caused my parachute to come out much faster. Apparently I had a weak point in the fabric, because when it inflated, with a "snap", the parachute spun up violently and as I looked up I noticed a large hole in the bottom skin of the parachute. It was about a foot in diameter, and caused my parachute to turn to the left on its own. Luckily, I was still able to land the parachute with the hole, but it was a very gripping experience.

My adrenaline had kicked in and I found the peaceful state of mind that (for me) accompanies being in stressful and extreme situations. I was able to act quickly and safely to prevent injury and/or further damage. I even landed in-bounds next to the runway, despite having to fly a mile back under an injured wing. However, it wasn't until that night, several hours later, when I realized that I had a premonition which accurately predicted the intensity of the situation. A voice had told me something would go wrong, and it did. This is obvious evidence of the power of intuition and gut feelings. In this case, the feelings were right. How could empirical data have predicted the failing of my parachute? Even worse, how could something completely unaffiliated with the construction of my canopy and the circumstances of its failure adequately predict the level of danger I was placing myself in? I would disregard it if this had not happened before, but it happens often.

Premonition is a powerful tool in the backcountry as well. When climbing high altitude peaks, traversing through avalanche terrain, crawling to the exit point of a BASE jump, the internal dialogue with your surroundings is very real. Countless stories of dramatic events in the backcountry are accompanied by descriptions of dreams foreshadowing the future, of premonitions, or just general gut-wrenching feelings. Usually, these feelings are right. It is very difficult to believe that these have any real effect on the events because we are brought up in such a scientific world, with a mechanistic understanding of events and how they unfold. But let's take a look at the origins of western thought, and the understanding of knowledge.

In Meno, an ancient text discussing the meaning of virtue, Socrates is simultaneously explaining to his interlocutor the origins of knowledge. After all, how could one know about virtue if one didn't know about knowing first? (typical Socratic nonsense). But there are a few gems in what he has to say. One of the classic examples of this occurs in the interaction between Socrates and a slave boy. Socrates asks the slave boy simple questions about geometry, questions that are easily answered by the boy. Socrates asks a few more difficult questions, and the slave boy struggles a bit, but comes up with the answer on his own. Socrates finally asks a very difficult question, and the slave boy admits that he does not know the answer. However, Socrates is persistent. Through a few leading questions from Socrates, the boy is able to show that he knows the answer. Admittedly, this sounds a lot more like teaching to me, but Socrates portrays the following message from this discussion: "learning is not a matter of discovering something new but rather of recollecting something the soul knew before birth but has since forgotten". The slave boy is able to discover the answers to the geometric questions which Socrates asks, and this is because the boy knew the answer all along, he simply had to recollect the answer.

Although Socrates redirects this to a discussion of virtue, it is very influential in the understanding of premonitions as well, mainly: where do these ideas of the future come from, if not from scientific evidence? Perhaps, as with the case of the boy, we already know the answers to the questions that we have every day. Why are we here? Can I fly? How can I best show my love for another person? Every time we ask a question, we can search inside ourselves to find the answer. Every time we have a problem, we can search inside ourselves to find a solution. This is what Socrates is saying. In the case of recollection of the future, we are simply searching inside ourselves for what we already know. We already know how why we are here, we already know if we can fly, we already know how we will die and how we will live. It is simply a matter of pursuing the right experiences in our life that will show us what we already know. By putting ourselves in the right situations, we can easily discover the answers. This is where gut feelings and premonitions come from. This is where remembering the future takes place. You can't depend on scientific data to show you the way of your world.

I'm not saying this is the right interpretation, but it is one interpretation. I would get severely ridiculed if I actually claimed that I could predict the future because I already know the future. But this isn't the right way to look at it. Instead, we can use premonitions and thoughts of the future as tools. Each time we are gifted with the ability to lucidly observe events that will happen, we should use it to our advantage, to help make our lives better. Each time we are gifted with a recollection of the future, we should see how that helps us answer the deepest questions that we have in this life. These are tools to assist us to become the best possible beings we can. These are tools that open our eyes to the inside of ourselves, and the inside of others. The recollection of the future is an important part of seeing the real world, and loving all of the beings inside it.

A quote from chapter 33 in the Tao Te Ching:

Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self requires strength;
He who knows he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of will power.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

Breaking in the Camera

2009-06-12T11:57:00.003-06:00

I recently hit 25,000 shutter actuations on my Nikon, 1/4 of the lifespan of the body. I guess it is a good thing and a bad thing. At least the thing will be nearly obsolete in another 3 years when I finish it off.

In other news I shot some photos of a break dancing event in Boulder this week. Here are the results:

From a Different Perspective

2009-06-12T11:25:00.005-06:00

Looking at the world from a different set of eyes. Up high, in secret places with smiling faces.

It amazes me that so many people are unhappy with their stagnant lifestyles and boring jobs. The only entertainment and pleasure they have is from fruitless endeavors such as drinking and watching way too much television. There are so many opportunities for adventure in our backyards. There are so many ways to entertain oneself by simply exploring the city, exploring the neighborhood, exploring the forest. Getting out and seeing the world through your own eyes, through direct experience, through positive interactions with friends and with complete strangers; this is a fun way to spend a weekend! It is easy to look at the world as simple objects which are there but have no effect on your life. Look again. Everything that is in this world is here for a reason, but you can never be sure what that reason is until you explore it! The big factory could be an old relic of the industrial revolution, or it could be the most beautiful playground ever designed. The abandoned mine could be an old relic of the gold rush, or it could be the cave you always dreamed of in your youth. Look at the world from a different set of eyes! Everything can be an adventure if you make it one. You don't have to plan out long expensive trips to far away countries. Some of the most beautiful places in the world are right behind you; you simply need to remember to do the double-take, and go from there...

Out for a Stroll

2009-06-12T11:16:00.002-06:00

I've been slacklining a lot lately, due to the beautiful Colorado weather we've been having. Here are a few photos of the lines I've set up in the last couple weeks.

BASE Jumping

2009-05-28T11:41:00.005-06:00

photo by Heather F.

Some friends and I headed up to Twin Falls, ID this last weekend to attend what is often called a "boogie", where dozens of jumpers get together and try to out-macho themselves by making bad decisions, performing advanced aerials, swooping and stalling canopies, and narrowly adverting horrendous accidents. Having a propensity for misadventure, I naturally had to go.

The tradition of carnage and close-calls was upheld as many people pulled too low, fell through other canopies in freefall, and so on. This was certainly an eye opening trip for me, and helped to solidify my ideas of BASE jumping as a fruitful endeavor.

photo by Heather F.

BASE has always intrigued me, but I've never been certain why. I did my first jumps off the bridge last November, and had a great time, but stood paralyzed by inexorable fear before every jump. This trip, the fear had almost entirely subsided, likely replaced by complacency. This disregard for the intensity of the situation scared me even more, and forced me to reevaluate my own reasons for BASE jumping. Surely something so dangerous and irrational couldn't be associated with such nonchalance.

I decided to take a short break from jumping on Sunday and took some photos of my friends instead. After seeing a few very close calls, I became worried that I would make some of the same mistakes. After all, the majority of BASE fatalities have been due to human error. So what are my reasons for jumping? And how do I justify the enormous risks involved?

I think a liberated state of mind is what compels me to jump the most. The clear consciousness of near death experiences, although dangerous in its habituation, is a beautiful thing. Focusing on nothingness, even for a few fleeting moments, is invaluable to me. For the same reason that I pursue highlining (which scared the piss out of me the first few times as well), I also find solace in the mindfulness provided by BASE jumping. The quiet flapping of nylon above my head, soft grass crunching beneath my feet on landing, the meditative action of packing a parachute, getting the folds just right, closing the container in a certain way, all of these things are the simple pleasures that appeal to me.

photo by Heather F.

But there is more than just the state of mind associated with BASE jumping. Finding a spiritual connection to your actions is worth so much more than the actions themselves. Succumbing myself to the act of falling, the wind whipping through my hair, the firm shout of canopy inflation, leaving the earth and returning to it once again, it really connects one to the world. I know everyone's reasons are different, some jump for fame, some jump so that they can do something that very few in the world will ever do. These are fun reasons, but I don't think they outweigh the risks involved. Putting oneself in harm's way simply for the accolades of others is reckless and irresponsible. I think all jumpers can say that there is further meaning behind their desire to jump. I'm not quite sure what that meaning is, but I know it is there. Like an astronomer piecing together glimpses of a black hole, the reason I jump is difficult to put a finger on. Some evidence is there, but it doesn't fit together; some desire is there, but it isn't completely understood. However uncertain I may be, I realize that as long as I search for the extra pieces of the puzzle, as long as I evolve, as long as I can safely stand at an exit point and question my existence, the jump is worth it. It brings me closer to a goal that is not objective or definite, but one that is being shaped by my very existence. There certainly isn't one singular path which is the most ethical or responsible. To live my life to its fullest potential, I have to constantly grow in my understanding of myself, and my understanding of the world. BASE jumping allows me to do this, and so is an industrious pastime.

I still get pangs of fear and glimpses of disaster every time I climb over the railing, but these are inundated by the understanding that I will be a different person when I land on the ground, and hopefully, a better person.

photo by Heather F.

Slackline Party

2009-05-28T11:38:00.003-06:00

Another fun day of slacklining! Here are some photos:

Imagine, Part 3

2009-05-22T10:52:00.003-06:00

Imagine, there are big holes in the earth. Craters without a bottom, shafts without an end, tunnels with no destination. You cannot see these holes, but you know that they are there. These holes have a singular destination: zen, dharma, oneness, mindfulness, actionless action, prayer, whatever you like to call it. As you walk through the earth, and experience its greatness, you can sometimes fall into the holes, into a different world. A world where everything is the same living, breathing, creature. A world where you understand that being alive is a gift and you are thankful for that gift. A world where you see the billions of stars as a singular, incandescent ball of firey life that warms the heart. Some places do not have these holes, while others have a very thin crust waiting to be collapsed. Living your life in a mindful way means walking through the earth and finding all the places where the crust is thin, where there are holes that you can fall into consciousness. Imagine living a life in this way, and you can live every day as a challenge, and as a gift.

Blind Ambition

2009-05-19T10:54:00.001-06:00

I did some climbing this last weekend, and with the absence of sunglasses, my eyes became really sunburnt, to the point of mild snow blindness. The whole beginning of the week I could barely function due to the pain in my eyes. It was as if someone poured a bucket of sand all over them. Despite the painful aftereffects, the actual climbing itself was amazing. Here are a few pictures, and a link to my friend Scot's trip report.

Scot's Trip Report

Scary Saturday

2009-05-15T04:18:00.000-06:00

Have you ever had one of those days where something happens that makes you feel lucky to be alive, twice? Last Saturday I had to take two of my friends to the emergency room for various accidents. They weren't really life threatening, but they could have been devastatingly worse. It takes a lot of courage to step back and ask the question: why are we doing these things? What responsibility do we have to others to be safe in our pursuit of passion, and what responsibility do we have to ourselves? This question is very open ended, but the answer usually points to the fact that climbing, skydiving, highlining, BASE jumping, are all very selfish activities.

Though I am still a humble novice in all of these sports, they provide me with the zest for life that is rarely encountered in day to day life. I have been around climbing for several years, and it has become an integral part of my existence. The fluid motion of constant movement over rock is very peaceful and relaxing. Lately I have been climbing easier and longer routes without a rope; only myself and the rock. Confidence on familiar terrain allows me to ascend without difficulty, and the freedom allows me to enjoy it. Most would be scared being unroped, a thousand feet above the greening grass of Chautauqua park; for me, I can only smile. I am able to do what I love most.

Skydiving and BASE jumping are perhaps my newest and most selfish pastimes. Paying hundreds of dollars a month to be ferried up to 17,000 feet above sea level in a twin engine otter seems outrageous to my hopelessly poor college peers. However, I somehow find a way to pay for all my necessities, and more, by working steadily and saving money for things that I love. I once compared with a friend and found that by not drinking more than a few beers throughout college, I have spent about the same on jumping as most CU students spend on alcohol. Which seems more selfish? Even so, it is hard to justify paying money for something that lasts, at best, a minute or less. Is it financially responsible for me to spend thousands of dollars a year on this alleged freefall "addiction"? No. But is it really wrong for me to do these things? This is debatable.

My entrance into the world of zen was earned through my pursuit of highlining. Perhaps the scariest of all the extreme sports (even my friends at the GoFast games thought I was a little crazy), albeit one of the safest, highlining forces one to abandon all fear, hope, desire, eagerness, etc. and adhere to the process of simply doing. Through higher and longer lines I learned to control my fear, ignore it, and turn it into the simple action of taking a step. I have been able to accomplish mild and mediocre achievements that I would never have thought possible when I was a big-eyed high school student scrapping up enough cash to buy my first set of quickdraws and cams. The highest lines in the world have been turned into banal strands of nylon under my chaffed and eager feet. My nonchalance of the danger comes not from any mental fortitude that I may have, or any physical skill, but simply from my desire to do what makes me happy. My delusional confidence arises from a faint desire to exist in my most natural state. This allows for any feat to be accomplished.

It is with this attitude that I approach the activities which I hold so close to my heart. I simply strive to be myself, and being myself entails doing these activities in my most natural state. I get frustrated when old friends and mentors look at me and think that I am crazy. They ask each other, at what point in the last four years did I go wrong? Where did I become such an adrenaline junkie? This couldn't be further from the truth. Adrenaline is an unfortunate by-product of these sports. It clouds judgment and takes me further from the peace of mind that I so readily embrace. They should be asking me, at what point in the last four years did I go right? Even this is an inaccurate question to ask, but it is a better one. In my opinion there are a few defining events in my life throughout the last four years, but none of them have single-handedly taken responsibility for where I am now. Where am I now? I'm only just a few mental steps away from my maturity level in high school. I still haven't accomplished anything worth noting, and I still haven't become the best at anything that I do. But I don't really want these things. What I have done is defined what makes me happy, and acted on these definitions to the best of my ability. In essence, I do what I do for myself, and not for the entertainment of others. Unfortunately, this is the definition of selfishness.

I hate being called crazy, because I am not crazy. I get a sinking feeling when I visit the people I looked up to only four years ago, the people who first began to spark my interest in the outdoors, the people who taught me how to live my life for myself. They all look at me now like I am a nutter, I'm out for cheap thrills and good bar tales. This saddens me because the very people who shaped my life no longer understand it. This even includes my family and my closest friends. I am constantly trying to explain myself, but am often without the words to do so. I can't tell anyone why I would climb without a rope, or walk a line a half mile above solid ground, or jump out of an airplane. While I'm still not very good at any of these things, I do them, and I don't have a reason why. I do them because they fill a gap in my life that nothing else can fill. They provide different facets of pleasure in a gem of existence. Do they help me to become a better person? Yes. Do they help me to become better than anyone else? Of course not. This isn't a battle to one-up the next guy, or do the most dangerous and extreme stunt imaginable. It is a battle to bury my own primordial doubt and replace it with happiness. It is a battle to define who I am and become the most passionate man I can be. I'm not crazy, I'm calculated and scientific, and free.

So despite the inherent and often publicized danger in all of these passions of mine, I cannot help acting upon these very human desires for adventure that I have. Instances such as the injuries I saw on Saturday, although detrimental to the adventurous spirits of my injured friends, only add fuel to the fire, for all of us. I'm sure once Jeff recovers from his surgery he will be more active than ever, and Joe has already scabbed up and been down several treacherous ski descents this week. I cannot put words to the song of passion, I can only dream, and experience the truth of my existence. I feel obligated to look out for the best interests of my family and loved ones, but I cannot stop doing what I love to do. Ceasing to do that which I enjoy would be a worse fate than dying in the midst of it. I cannot help but jump off things, walk in the sky, and ascend into the clouds. It is my nature. It is what makes me human. To call me crazy, to say I should not pursue these passions, to think that I am selfish and irresponsible, this attitude is a blind perspective to the truth of my bliss. I hope that now, by reading this, people understand why I do what I do, and can hopefully empathize with it. Thanks for taking the time to read what I have to say.

Going the Distance

2009-05-04T10:46:00.002-06:00

I have been really excited about marathon slacklining lately. This is the act of getting on a long slackline (longer than 200 feet) and walking the line back and forth multiple times until one can no longer walk. It is difficult at first, but the oneness and meditative peace that accompanies this activity is unmatched. Walking a long, difficult slackline for up to an hour, or more, takes great mental and physical stamina, but also helps to tear away protective layers of you soul to expose your true being to the world, and to yourself. Here are a few photos from a longline session Josh and I had in Cheesman Park (Denver) last week.

Imagine, Part 2

2009-04-24T01:59:00.001-06:00

Imagine you are a candle, sitting in a row of several. Only one is lit, while others are untouched and perfect. Once there was a match, and that match lit the first candle. Your body and mind manifested in that candle, and it shone brightly. You learned about wick and wax, you learned how to dance in the wind, and how to burrow in the wax to avoid it. You learned how to keep the wax around you hot enough to sustain flame, without consuming too much of your body. You learned about life, you learned about war, you learned about beauty, you learned about death. Through the bright fragrance of life you lived the best you could, and the match was not in vain.

Eventually, the body was used up, but the hand that lit the match then transferred your flame to a new candle. The burning lust for life maintained, but was now manifested in a new body. New lessons were learned, and old ones were remembered. You learned how to further preserve the wax, and learned how to burn through your body with a slower pace. Again the candle was eventually consumed, and you were transferred to another. This time you learned how to burn even slower, but also learned how to burn with increased luminescence. Brighter and more slowly you burned. Again and again the candle was eventually extinguished, each time the duration of existence becoming longer, and the light becoming brighter. Eventually you learned how to maintain life within the candle without using any of the body, and you maintain perfect light forever. The hand with the match no longer needs to assist in your reincarnation, and instead lies at rest in your eternal peace.

Imagine that you live each day in this way, not as a candle but instead as a human. Further extending your intellectual stamina and luminescence. Eventually your body will expire, but your mind and experiences will be eternal.

Imagine.

Imagine, Part 1

2009-04-23T09:14:00.004-06:00

You are sitting down, in the cool grass of spring. A light wind tussles your hair, but not enough to notice. Imagine you are sitting there, eyes closed, seeing the red and black illusions of the imprints of light on your retina. Focus blurs, and the weight of your body subsides. You are sitting on the top of the Earth, it falling away on all sides. The senses of sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing, all dissipate in intense focus. But you aren't focused on anything at all. Imagine, as you sit there, your legs drip away into the earth, followed by your arms and torso and head. Rivulets of skin and bone melt into the one object that sustains all life. You inhale, and the earth expands. You exhale, and the earth contracts. The tides are your sweat, moving from place to place to cool off the body. The clouds form from the evaporated sweat, and then rain down in continued sweet perspiration. Imagine as you sit there, you sink deeper and deeper into the earth, knowing nothing, but everything. You travel everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. As you sit there in the earth, searching, you fall and rise, you fly and sink, you die and become eternal, you fight and submit. Imagine you are at peace so that you don't know everything, like you wanted to, but realize that you don't need to know everything. Imagine you are at peace so that knowledge is meaningless, but awareness and fluid thought are omniscience. Imagine you sink further into the earth. You are hot, molten in temperature. All life surrounds you, but cannot survive without your heat. You steam and rupture, you boil and fly towards the surface, landing in a barren land of rock and sand, devoid of life. You sink into the earth again with powerful thought and uninterrupted concentration, and grass sprouts, flowers emerge, the desert turns into a meadow, a beautiful sanctuary of life. It spreads as fast as destruction, and continues past visible comprehension. Trees blossom and petals fall onto your concentration. Your disturbed thought is interrupted by pure beauty, and you are overcome by bliss.

Imagine.

I love Life

2009-04-19T22:00:00.002-06:00

I've been loving life more than ever lately, things just seem to be going my way. Even the bad luck I have here and there is so quickly outweighed by the wonderful adventures of life that I don't even notice the bad things anymore. I was inspired to put together a video of all of the awesome adventures I've had in the last few years that I managed to take random clips of.

Click here for the video on youtube...

Thanks so much to everyone who has provided support and love for my life and my adventures. I love this world more than I could possibly describe. Sometimes I want to shout it from the top of the world, and other times I want to ponder it in silent reverence. This is the scope of the appreciation I have for everything that we have here in this life.

Another California Adventure

2009-04-10T09:22:00.003-06:00

A couple weekends ago I went and visited my friends out in San Francisco. It was a great trip. My friend Damian had the grand opening for his new climbing gym, Bridges, and we all hung out there and climbed and slacklined. Then Andy, Libby, Bill, Maria and I went out to Lodi to try to do some jumping, but the winds were at 30 mph pretty consistently most of the weekend so we didn't end up jumping at all. Even so, it was still a great trip, and I'm really stoked to have such great friends out there. Here are a few photos of the fun.

Ninja Night Highline

2009-03-28T11:38:00.002-06:00

Said and I had the awesome idea to go set up a highline at night, and pretend we were ninjas. It would have worked out well, but there were added elements of the incoming blizzard (which dumped 15 inches of snow throughout the course of that night and the next day) and the night time environment, and the fact that I was rigging up the line by myself. It went flawlessly though. I was able to get the line up and tensioned in about an hour, with an extra 10 minutes for tightening. Then it was walkin time! Said crushed it, a noble send for his 4th highline ever, and walked there and back performing many tricks. Larkin also showed up with some big lights so that we could paint the rock with light and get some cool photos. It was a really great time, and even though I left Boulder to rig after a full day of work, I still got home before my normal bedtime. Alright!

My first tandem skydive!

2009-03-25T16:10:00.002-06:00

Nearly a year and a half since my first skydive, I received the opportunity to participate in a tandem skydive. I had never done one before (as I went right into AFF for my first jump), and it was a bit scary.

My friend Boyd just got his tandem instructor rating (congrats dude) and one of the many requirements for this rating is to take 10 practice tandem jumps, 5 of which must be with other experienced skydivers. I met the 100 jump minimum for the ride-along, so Boyd and I geared up and headed to the plane. I rarely get on a plane without a skydiving rig anymore (even when I'm traveling I usually bring my parachute as a carry-on for the cool dropzones in different parts of the country) and it was a little nerve racking to have neither a helmet nor a parachute while getting on the jump plane. But the fear soon subsided as Boyd strapped in my harness and we jumped out of the plane. It was a short freefall, and very sluggish because of the drogue which sits above the tandem group to keep them stable and to slow the falling speed to an agreeable amount (without the drouge a tandem group can easily reach speeds of 200 miles per hour). When you pull the parachute (which simply releases the drogue and uses it as a pilot chute to deploy the main) you go back into freefall for a bit, as the drogue falls away and you accelerate for a bit before the main comes out. It was fun, but unexpected. After that, it was a nice long canopy flight to the ground, where we landed safe and sound.

So for anyone considering doing a tandem jump, do it! It was a lot of fun, and not as scary as I'd imagined. It is a great way to experience skydiving and I'm even more excited about jumping now. Thanks again Boyd for the sweet experience.

Fun Skydiving

2009-03-18T08:12:00.004-06:00

I've been in a skydiving phase lately. Pretty much every ounce of free time that I have is spent studying for class or heading to the drop zone. This last weekend was particularly fun. Although I was a bit sick, I've found that freefall is a great cure for the common cold.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the balloon jump we put together. It was my 3rd jump out of a balloon, and this time we spiced it up a little bit.

While the other guys jumped out of the basket, Joe and I decided to get creative and rigged some ropes up to the basket and descended into freefall by rappelling out. When the balloon hit about 6,500 feet above ground level, Joe and I began our treacherous rappel out of the balloon while intentionally forgetting to tie stopper knots. In climbing it is important to tie a knot at the end of a rappel rope so as to prevent falling off the end of the rope. But this is exactly what Joe and I had in mind. We started down the ropes, hanging 50 feet below the hot air balloon, and then rappelled off the end. It was a really cool experience because of the unobsructed 360 degree view of Boulder and the front range. We could see all the northern Colorado mountain ranges, and probably all the way to Kansas. It was a truly spectacular experience. The freefall was fun, and the farmer that approached us for landing in his field wasn't too angry, which was great. It made for a spectacular morning!

Click Here to see the youtube video.

I'm hoping to get to 200 jumps by the end of May so that I can legally and legitimately fly my wingsuit all this summer (although I'm not sure if I can wait that long so it may be when I get to 150 jumps). Only 78 more jumps to go!

Slackline Party

2009-03-05T08:34:00.003-07:00

I hosted a wonderful slackline party at Chautauqua Park this past Saturday, and it was quite fun. We had a total of 13 lines up at once, and probably 60 or more people who stopped by to have some fun. It was the most successful slackline party yet, and I'm really excited to see the sport grow to this level. Here are some photos from the weekend:

Now Presented in 3D!

2009-02-22T21:17:00.002-07:00

I was walking home on friday and the UPS man drove up and stopped me in the street. "Hey are you that slackline guy?". I suppose that I am that slackline guy, at least as far as redheaded male slackliners go. Anyway it turns out that the UPS man for my neighborhood is also a 3D photographer and was down at the GoFast games last September taking 3D photos of the event. You can see his work here:

3DSnow

There are a bunch of cool 3D photos of the BASE Jumpers, the JetPack Pilot, and of course, the Highliners from the event. He (David Snow) hooked me up with a cool 3D photo of me walking the Royal Gorge slackline 1012 feet above the Arkansas river. Cool stuff! The photo in its 2D format is seen below.

February Climbing

2009-02-21T21:57:00.003-07:00

The weather has been fantastic lately, which is odd for February, but it has allowed for some great climbing days this week. I managed to get outside 5 out of the last 6 days and did a lot of trad, and some really fun bouldering as well. I sent in Eldo, Boulder Canyon, and finished off with a beautiful day in Carter Lake. I forgot how much I love climbing, I've been spending too much time falling and not stopping to enjoy the way up. I managed to lead a nice 5.10 on trad this week, so hopefully I can work from that base up to my goal of 5.11+ trad this year, eventually climbing the diamond on Longs with my newfound climbing ambition. Here are a few photos:

At a belay station in Boulder Canyon
Leading the first pitch of the Bastille in Eldorado Canyon

Said crushing a cool bouldering route at Carter Lake

Life Changing Experiences: A Look Back at the Lost Arrow Spire

2009-02-11T09:39:00.003-07:00

Everyone has that one thing in their life that molds them into the person that they are. Sure there are plenty of little elements in everyday life that affect the way we look at the world, and gradually show us our passions and things like that, but usually there is one big event in everyone's life that dictates who they are more than anything else. For me this event was going to the lost arrow spire in Yosemite, CA this last summer and spending a week out there. I was looking through my old photos in one of my spare hard drives just recently, and found a couple things that I had originally overlooked when I first did my trip report.

The best thing about the Lost Arrow Spire is that people hold it in such high regard. When things are sensationalized to great extent, it makes it even more rewarding to conquer them. Not for the reactions that other people have when you do something great, but for the self-empowerment that you feel after you do something incredible. We all have dreams, goals, idols, heroes, aspirations. These are the things that make us happy when we wake up in the morning, and they are things that help us sleep well at night. Dreaming big has always been fun for me, but it wasn't until the Lost Arrow Spire trip that I realized that dreams don't always have to be dreams. We put these things in such high regard that they seem almost unattainable, but in reality, they're not. Realizing that I actually could do anything that I dreamed of changed my life in the best way imaginable. This state of mind has allowed me to succeed at work, at school, with other passions such as climbing, skydiving and now BASE jumping. I guess you could say that this is the first time my eyes were opened to the power that humans have to do anything they dream of. The best part is, people grow in what they dream about, who they idolize, and what their goals are. My past heroes are now my friends, my past goals are now my accomplishments, and my future goals are so wonderfully complex that only I can understand them. It is this feeling, the churning in the stomach and the lightheaded anticipation, the numbness of your toes as adrenaline seeps in, the moment of clarity and love that accompanies the accomplishment of dreams, that makes life one of the most precious things that ever existed.

Kites are Beautiful

2009-02-09T17:58:00.003-07:00

I love the way that kites cut through the air, nothing but nylon and string, they dance from treetop to treetop, and flirt with the clouds.

The wind fills the cells with air, creating a wing that creates lift, so you can actually fly away with the kite. We usually kite in North Boulder park. It is nice and wide open, lots of kiters, and it is right next to Boulder Hospital in case we eat it after a 20' high jump.

I love watching the kites fly back and forth through the sky. In a state of hypnosis and awe I guide the kite in dives, slices, loop d' loops, and lazy 8's. The fabric ripples as is silently soars in an 85 foot hemispherical enclosure. I slide around and let the kite take me wherever it wants to go. The five square meters of caged happiness dances around the sky, flocking with birds, and waving to airplanes higher up in the atmosphere.

But the caged kite is not happy. It wants to be let free. It tugs and pulls with all its might to be released from its dyneema fetters. Being attached to a human is its curse, and its blessing. For my kite would not fly without the chains that hold it back. The tension from the lines keeps the kite rigid, allowing it to create lift and waltz from south to north and back again. Without it, the kite would be lost, fluttering fabric spinning around like a white plastic bag caught in the smallest of tornadoes. So I let my kite out as often as I can, letting it taste the flight that it desires, though it never gets to experience the real thing.

One day I will set my kite free.

Family

2009-02-09T08:30:00.001-07:00

My little brother, Paul, just got his Eagle Scout, while simultaneously being accepted to West Point military academy. We had a little celebration for him. Here are some photos:

Dream as you'll live forever, Live as you'll die today

2009-01-28T14:20:00.004-07:00

In my dreams I think of flying, of soaring to the sun. The wind whispers through my hair as I rocket towards nothingness. Then I spread my wings, and doubled nylon lifts me higher. I swoop around a cloud, lightly brushing the curious cumulus structure. Whisps of smoke rise as I sear through the saturated mass of air, and my hands trail vapor as I fly faster. I need not breathe, as the oxygen permeates me completely, through osmosis I am alive. My eyes close, taking in the feelings of flight. The tingling in my arms, the rippling of my skin, the flapping of my wings. I circle around the mountains that were my home, but now my home is the sky.

The perfect curvature of the earth seems so small. I am rising, rising, soaring into the stratosphere. Higher I go without pause, the pace quickens, soon I am above the whole rockies, and higher still. The majestic mountains and golden plains fall before me. I fall faster and faster away from the earth. A swap in physics as you know it causes me to depart from this planet, into space. Still I fly, higher, dancing with satellites, a ballet no one can see. Dodging meteors and asteroids, I fly, faster. Sound has already left, and now the red and the blue are shifting into a tighter and tighter ball of light as I achieve Einstein's symphony in C.

A massive, soundless expansion of matter ensues. At the beginning of time I soar around newborn nebulae and birthing stars. I fly through colorful clouds of matter a million miles wide, and, within seconds, reach the other side. I cruise from galaxy to galaxy, and they follow in my wake. Two collide and I fly right towards the center, accelerating and accelerating. I reach the singularity faster than light, happier than light, and I am expelled out of the other side. Dark matter drips from my fingers and toes, sucked back into the vacuum of nothingness. I pick a star and head straight for it, bringing with me the matter and the life I have collected from around the forming universe. My wings still taking me through the most beautiful constellations I have ever seen.

I find my star and circle it, flying around and around, depositing matter as I go. I swoop through solar flares and loop through the expunged radiation. As I fly, the matter conglomerates back into planets, and recognizable forms of life. I fly towards the third closest one, beginning to slow in my approach, with arms stretched out, embracing the warmest and most welcoming region of space. As I slow down, bombarding the particulates of the atmosphere, my spirit slows as well, the further I get from the flight that I know, the more I fade. I deploy my parachute, and descend towards the solid ground that I left so long ago. I look up to the stars, cutting brightly through the young, blue sky, vowing to return. And as my feet touch the ground, I finally expire...

Lodi / San Francisco

2009-01-20T09:30:00.007-07:00

I took a spontaneous trip to California this weekend, I figured with the long weekend and all, and the amazing weather, it would be fun to go hang out in the bay and maybe do a bit of skydiving. I met up with Andy and Libby, and after hanging out in San Francisco for a little while (In and Out burgers, checking out Damian's new and almost complete climbing gym, teaching Andy how to pack his parachute) we headed out to Lodi, CA. Lodi is the most rockin drop zone I've been to yet. With $13 jumps from 13k feet and $5 jumps from 3k feet, it is the cheapest skydiving in the world, and as such is pretty crowded, even in January.

I was able to touch up my tracking and belly jumping, and managed to get 11 jumps in over the course of 2 days, not too shabby. Donning my tracking pants, (which have vents that take in air and inflate creating more surface area, I was able to do a 90 second freefall! That's 90 seconds of falling (instead of a normal average of 60 seconds) just by flattening my body and flying forward through the air. Instead of falling downward at 120 miles per hour, I was able to shape my body like a wing and reduce my downward speed to 80 miles per hour while consequentially having a forward speed of around 60 miles per hour (I was able to track about 1.6 miles horizontally during the dive). I'm pretty stoked on my tracking progress and am excited to transpose this skill into the language of wingsuit.

I also did a bunch of jumps with Andy, and one really fun High Pull with Andy and Libby. Libby just finished her AFF and is doing great. Its fun to be able to jump with such good friends and such good people. Andy did have a reserve ride though, as his main didn't deploy properly during one of his jumps. But all was well. We did a great jump right before leaving to go back to the Bay. It was just a belly jump, but Andy's altimeter ran out of batteries in the aircraft so he didn't have an altimeter! After doing several flips out of the plane, Andy and I came in to a dock so he could read the altitude off my wrist until it was time to pull. It was pretty fun. He had an excellent landing too! despite the fact that he didn't have an altimiter to guide him through the landing pattern.

We also hung out for a bit in San Francisco, and I had the opportunity to check out the Golden Gate Bridge, and do a little wire walking around that area. It was a good trip, and I'm glad I went. I got some good skydiving in, and got to hang out with some really good people. I can't wait to go back in March for Spring Break!

The List

2009-01-16T09:07:00.002-07:00

I've got my eye on some killer routes for the spring climbing season, here's what I'm hoping to send before the summer sun heats up the rock:

Eldo Canyon:
Bastille Crack - 5.7
Yellow Spur - 5.9
Naked Edge - 5.11a
Diving Board - 5.11a
(and many other classic trad routes in this area)

Boulder Canyon:
Standard Route (Elephant Buttress) 5.8
Cozyhang w/ 5.10 finish (The Dome) 5.7-5.10b
Dementia (Repeat at Happyhour) 5.10a
Hot Flyer (Upper Security Risk) 5.12a sport
Empire of the Fenceless (Easter Rock) 5.12a sport
Bailey's Overhang (Castle Rock) 5.8

The Park:
Culp Bossier (Hallet Peak) 5.8 III
Casual Route (Longs Peak ) 5.10 IV
Pervertical Sanctuary (Longs Peak) 5.11 IV
North Ridge (Spearhead) 5.6 II

Ouray

2009-01-13T09:55:00.007-07:00

We got asked to rig a highline and do a cool highline demo down at the Ouray Ice Festival this last weekend, and it was a lot of fun. Friends and pro slackers flew in from all over the country to participate in the festival and to walk the line and climb some amazing ice.

There were also a lot of really amazing ice climbers there, but that wasn't the main reason we were participating.

After the Slackline Brothers Tent was all set up, we got to rigging the line. It took several hours after we got the go ahead for the anchors, and it took a couple extra tries to re-tension the line to the best walking tension. We got it to just the right tension and then had plenty of walking fun for the weekend.

Here are a few photos:

There was also a killer after party on saturday night and we all danced it up and had a good time. I won a dance/limbo contest and got a free $400 Arc'Teryx jacket, so I'm pretty stoked about that. All in all, it was an amazing weekend, with some amazing friends and I had a great time displaying the art of highline to the Ouray, Colorado crowd.

Also, we got a little screen time in the local press for our funambilist feats:

Denver Post
Telluride Daily Planet

New Resolutions

2009-01-13T09:47:00.001-07:00

2009 is going to be full of surprises, good surprises I hope. But while there will be spontaneous and surprising adventures, there are also a few things that I would like to accomplish this year. I guess I'll be unoriginal and make a list:

Finally graduate and move on from CU. I've got so much on my plate that it almost seems as if school is holding me back.
Launch the big project in March (secret secret)
Make a few more highlining trips out to Moab
Reach 250 skydives and get my skydiving coach rating.
Rig some highlines in Mallorca this summer.
Walk a slackline more than 100 meters in length.
Knock out my Alpine Trad ticklist (now that I'm done with those boring 14ers)
Send 5.11 trad (5.10 was my highest this last year)
Reach 50 BASE jumps
Spend more time away from the computer and enjoying beautiful Boulder.
Climb V8
Eat Healthier
Exercise more often
Smile more frequently
I'll come up with some new stuff as the year goes on, but pretty much my main priority is to continue loving life and living it to the fullest.

*edit 16. Help my not so old man in his quest to climb all of the 14ers.*

Old Resolutions

2008-12-31T09:04:00.006-07:00

At the beginning of the year, I set out a bunch of goals to reach by 2009. Some of these I achieved with flying colors, and others were forgotten. Here's a look at what I intended to accomplish vs. what I actually did:

Design and build a line of power kites

(I designed a couple kites, but I never got around to building any. I need a good sewing machine!)

Finish the 13 remaining Colorado 14ers on my list

(I finished all of the 14ers the day before my 21st birthday this year)

Climb 5 14ers in the remainder of the winter

(I managed to climb 3 or so during the winter. I guess I didn't have a lot of time for climbing this last winter)

Reach 100 skydives, or maybe even 200

(I have a total of 85 parachute jumps a this time. I got close, but the crazy Colorado weather sometimes keeps me grounded)

Walk the lost arrow spire highline in Yosemite

(I rigged and walked the spire highline in Yosemite this summer. I onsighted the line and walked it 36 times! I was incredibly surprised by this, but it was a good accomplishment)

Rig 5 new highlines in Colorado

(I walked 5 new highlines in Colorado: (1) Little Bird Rock Highline, (2) Terry's Backyard Highline, (3) Coors Gap Highline, (4) Golden Spire Line, (5) Royal Gorge Line.)

Begin writing a book

(I've begun writing a book about slacklining that I will try to publish sometime in the next year or two)

Get a job with an engineering company

(I've been working at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) since May)

Help Mary train to climb 5.12

(Some things didn't work out the way I wanted, but I'm happy for the experiences that I had)

Climb Castleton Tower

(Every time I made it out to Moab, I ended up leaving all the climbing gear in the car and just walking slacklines)

Rig and walk 3 highlines in Moab, UT

(We rigged 2 old highlines, the birthday gap and the doghole, and then established 6 new incredible highlines at the Fruit Bowl in Moab, which we had up simultaneously. That makes 8 new lines in Moab for me)

Teach myself to kite-ski

(Didn't end up doing the skiing part, but I did plenty of sliding around on the snow with my kite)

Get published

(I'm now publishing content on a regular basis on slackline.com, and am working on a big project that will help me get published even more frequently during the next few years).

In all, I would say that I did pretty well. I had lots of dreams, and many of those dreams came true. Some of those dreams were put on the back burner a little bit, but they will certainly make an appearance during the awesome year of 2009.

A Year of Slacklines

2008-12-22T11:22:00.006-07:00

I put part of this post on the slackline.com forum, but figured it would be fun to put it here as well. I was just looking back at all of the slacklines and highlines that I have walked this year, and what a great time it has been, having the ability to walk so many beautiful lines, in awesome places with wonderful people. Here are a few of the more memorable sessions I've had :

A tree highline somewhere over boulder creek:

Walking the Lower Bird Rock highline in Boulder:

Dylan getting down on the Fruit Bowl lines in Moab:

Walking a long line in Norlin Quad:

Walking the Coors Gap line in Golden:

Andy crushing the Birthday Gap in Moab:

Walking the Golden Spire a week before leaving for Yosemite:

Walking the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite:

Walking a line across Boulder Creek:

Another trip to the Golden Spire:

My awesome sister walking her first highline: (Brother also walked this line on this trip)

Slacklining below Capitol Peak (one of my last 14ers):

Walking 988 feet over the Royal Gorge at the Go Fast Games:

Some friends killing the Fruit Bowl lines in Moab:

Doing some slacklining with the family:

It has been an incredible year, with lots of fun slacklining and highlining. The goals I set for myself were matched and exceeded, and I am inspired by the ability that we all have for success. Next year I hope to walk higher, better, cooler highlines, and more of them. But as long as I get to set up a nice peaceful line in a park from time to time, I'll be happy. Though if you see a photo in the news of someone walking a highline suspended by a hot air balloon, don't be suprised to hear that its me.

Nylon Flying Machines

2008-12-19T10:31:00.003-07:00

A year and a half ago I never thought I would be able to fly. I never thought that I would be capable of the things that I am doing today. Through the inspiration of my friends and heroes, I have been able to pursue a sport that is unlike any other in the world. The sport of parachuting, with its many facets, is an amazing one. The ability to put on a parachute and go jump out of anything, anywhere, is so freeing, and is one of the best feelings that I have ever experienced. Being thousands of feet above the ground, with the only thing keeping you up being a bunch of nylon and strings, the feeling is undescribable.

I had the opportunity to do another balloon jump recently, and it was really fun. The balloon is an interesting flying machine. You can't steer it, you can't control it, the only thing that you can do is make it go up or down. When it is really cold outside, the ballon will gain altitude really quickly, and in less than 10 minutes, we had already gone from 5,000 feet above sea level to 10,000. Jumping out of a balloon 5,000 feet above the ground is fun as you can take 15-20 seconds of freefall before deploying your parachute. I jumped out with Jake, and we both did several backflips out of the basket before getting stable and then pulling our parachutes. It was a fun jump, and any time that I get to see the beautiful town of Boulder from the sky is a special experience.

(boulder from 10,000 feet)

Another fun flying machine that I have is my power kite. This is a 50 square foot nylon parachute with kite lines on it, and if there's enough wind it will pull really hard. Here's a video of me setting a new personal land speed record with the kite (with speed to rival any olympic runner).

Going Fast with my Kite

Maximum Speed not to Exceed Mach 0.3

2008-12-12T14:36:00.004-07:00

I used to dream about flying. When I was little I would pray to god every night that he would give me wings so I could fly to school instead of take the bus. I woke up every morning slightly disappointed, but still quite happy. I wanted to see the world from the air and soar through the sky, and I was only 6. 15 years later, my prayer was answered. Now I just need to hollow out my bones and graft the nylon to my skin. Human flight is finally possible. I've spent so much of my life on a slackline, one inch away from flying, but now my dream has come true.

More Slackline Media

2008-12-03T17:02:00.004-07:00

I was interviewed with some friends for a slackline article a few weeks ago. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was published in newspapers across the country, including several local ones. Here's the Denver Post article:

Slackline Craze Catching On

Unfortunately, I don't think it is catching on enough. When faced with the supremely difficult choice of classifying this article on the web page, the denver post web team decided to forgo reading the article and instead interpreted slackline to be a fishing related term. So if you need to find this article on your own, go ahead and look in the hunting and fishing section, should be the one after "Global warming threatens winter ice fishing industry: we cain't go fishin on that there lake if there ain't any ice to fish on"

Another Moab Highlining Adventure

2008-12-02T19:07:00.006-07:00

For fall break I had been planning on going out to Moab, probably since the beginning of the summer. Well as things panned out, more and more people showed interest in the trip. It was bound to be killer. Along with the ever growing Colorado crew, Andy, Jenna, Scott, Sean, Maria, Libby, Clay and a few others showed up from California, Tia and Becca came in from Wisconsin, Bernhard from Switzerland showed up, and everyone was ready to crush the highlines. The trip began with an eventful start.We spent the first Saturday night at Terry's house, rocking the lowlines and walking the highlines. Everyone was going nuts on the plethora of nylon and within the first half hour I was already injured. In an attempt to show everyone exactly what a horizontal surf looks like, I managed to separate my shoulder and crater my hip into the cold hard ground outside Terry's place. It still hurts, x-rays are pending.

The following morning we all got up and prepared to head out to the fruit bowl in Moab, where our highlining adventure awaited us. About 10 miles down I-70, my oil filter dislodged, and my oil emptied from my engine in a threatening cloud of smoke that ruined all visibility. With no oil in my engine, I was hesitant to start it up again, so we waited about 2 hours for a tow truck to pick us up and tow my jeep the rest of the way to Moab. By the time we got to the fruit bowl, the sun had set, but I walked a few lines anyway.

The next day I spent in Moab getting my car fixed up and it turns out the oil filter seal was put on incorrectly during my oil change the week prior. It was a quick fix, but it ruined another beautiful day of potential highlining. By the time I got back to the fruit bowl, a world record or two had already been broken, and the 130' line had already been sent several times.

The next two days, tuesday and wednesday, had good weather and we got a lot of walking in. Andy managed to walk over a mile on the highlines in one day, while I onsighted the 63' line, the 92' line and the 102' line. It was a great and successful trip for everyone. Many people got their first sends on the appropriately named Cherry Line (22') and Libby walked the 130' highline, the longest highline ever sent by a female, as far as we know. Pretty damn impressive.

Thursday was an interesting day, as we gave thanks for the rain, it kept pouring down on us. We decided to split and head for Terry's place for the next few days because the forecast had nothing but rain until Saturday. However, the rain was so intense that the roads we were trying to get out on were covered in mud and several people got stuck or almost ran off the road. To add to that there was a small river slowly building up through our camping area as the desert sand was quickly saturated. Needless to say, we all made it to Terry's unharmed.

Turkey dinner was fun, we had leftovers, pizza, pasta, and other various edible items we could round up on Thursday night. The next day we slacklined and highlined in Terry's yard and fooled around in Fruita. Terry has this beastly 3/8" chain that covers a 100' span in his yard. The darn thing is almost unwalkable. It takes incredible strength and stamina to walk that chain because it itself weighs more than I do, meaning any reverberations in the chain are incredibly difficult to subdue. I walked about halfway 3 or 4 times, but couldn't get further than that. Mike walked the whole thing, it was pretty rad.

On Saturday we all had a good session in the morning on Terry's lines, and then headed back to Boulder. Unfortunately, the storm that gave us trouble on Thanksgiving day was back again to haunt us. I-70 was closed through several parts, and we had to wait either at various towns along the way, or just in the middle of the road until traffic started moving again. Vail pass was a blizzard and there was about 8 inches of snow at the tunnel, meaning people were driving either very slowly or not at all. We made it back to Boulder after a 10 hour drive and passed out.

Sunday we rigged some long lines in the snow, which was fun. A 180 foot single line and a 220 foot threaded line went up, and were both quite challenging. As they accumulated more moisture, they became looser and therefore more difficult. It was a fun session, and afterward I took my friends back to the airport. I'd say it was a fun 10 days, and despite all the mishaps, misadventures and misfortunes, I still came out with a smile. I'm looking forward to another highline trip in the future with my most excellent highline friends, and the best thing is, the highline community keeps getting bigger and bigger. I think at this time last year, there were probably only 6 or 7 people in Colorado who had walked a highline. I think that number has increased 6 fold by now, and it shows no signs of stopping.

BASE Jumping

2008-11-11T11:29:00.004-07:00

Went and did a few BASE jumps last weekend, actually I just did some S jumps. S is for Span and includes Bridges, Slacklines, etc. B = Buildings, A = Antennas, E = Earth (cliffs and such). It was incredibly terrifying and at the same time it was very fun. The Perinne Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho is open year round for BASE jumpers, one of the only places in the world that is a legal jump location. Hence, there have been thousands upon thousands of jumps off of this object, and many injuries as well.

The bridge itself is about a quarter mile long, so walking out to the middle is a bit intimidating in its own right, especially when you aren't planning on walking back. Standing on the edge, looking down, I was terrified for my first jump. My nerves were going haywire, sending odd sensations throughout my body. It took all I had to force myself to jump off, it was exponentially more difficult than stepping out on a highline is now. Though, I remember the second highline I ever walked, with Dylan and Said out at the Monastery. I was terrified for my life and I simply had to let it all go and focus on the goal that I wanted to achieve. The same occurred out there on the bridge. The quintessential feeling of gut-wrenching excitement brushed over me as I brushed with death, but all was well.

I did two jumps on the first day, both of which were PCA or pilot chute assists. In this method, someone holds your pilot chute as you jump, thus extracting the parachute almost immediately and can be safely done down to heights of 70 feet above the ground. This is the most common first jump as it allows one to become comfortable with the immediate exit and freefall, without having to concentrate on the deployment.

The second day I did 4 handheld jumps. I held the pilot chute in my hand, instead of stowing it underneath the container, and tossed it out into the wind after I jumped to initiate the deployment. You fall a lot further with these types of jumps compared to the PCA, but the parachute is still deployed safely above the ground.

My last jump of the day I did about an hour after sunset, which was fun because I've never jumped in the dark before. It was a little difficult, but not as bad as I thought.

The next day the winds were really high, so I only did one more handheld, and the last day I did my first stowed jump. That was fun, finally a real ground rush and a hard smack of an opening. All the landings were great, and I had a wonderful time.

Being out there, on the edge of mental stability and emotional strength, it becomes really difficult to step back and look at the big picture. In order to live life with purpose and intention you must live in the moment, but you can't always live only for the moment, there are other important parts of life as well. Nothing in this life is worth dying for, but many things enrich life so much that they are worth pursuing. The adventures and experiences that we have make our lives meaningful, but we must do these things for the right reasons. Being alive to be with the people whom we love and who join us in our plight for meaningful living is one of the most important things we can do in this life. Our existence is a chain of enriching ourselves with the presence of others, and returning the favor. Without the close friends in our lives, we would be nowhere. Looking into the edge of human capacity is a powerful way of seeing who we really are and finding out the people in our lives who are the most important. If we fool ourselves with ego-driven pleasures to try to make ourselves happy, we are only cheating ourselves of the pleasures that come with strong friendships and great times. Doing something such as BASE jumping or highlining or skydiving is incredibly selfish if you do it only for yourself, but doing these things to enrich your life and consequently enriching the lives of others, this is what gives life its meaning. The world doesn't need people who are sitting around wondering what they can do, the world needs people doing things that make them happy, because this happiness radiates infinitely. Doing something mediocre doesn't have any impact; doing something incredible, that is what will change the world.

I love November

2008-11-05T10:30:00.004-07:00

November is such a wonderful month, probably my favorite. I'm not sure why it is my favorite, there's just a feeling of warmth that I get from all of the amazing things that are happening this time of year.

I love the warm colors of the changing trees and the crunchy leaves that cover the ground in a mysterious moss.

I love the long shadows cast by the southern sun, rising lower and lower on the horizon after each day.

I love the crisp cool air and the feel of the fresh breeze rushing by my face in freefall, making my eyes water from the beauty of it all.

I love the gray skies and tight slacklines waving sinusoidally in the wind of the coming winter.

I love the glimpses of snow that show up, but decide to hold back at the last minute, blessing us with yet another sunny weekend.

I love the hay rides and the pumpkin patches and laying down in the middle of a field, slightly shivering but still warm from the heat of the earth.

I love the smiles of friendly people enjoying being outside.

I love the feel of cold granite in my hands as I run out a climb 30 feet above a .5 but only paying attention to a chirping bird floating by.

I love the sunrise from the basket of a hot air balloon.

I love the sunset from the edge of a bridge.

I love the hope and excitement of the new year that is rapidly approaching, and the thoughts of all the good times to come.

Thats pretty warm for November

2008-11-03T14:48:00.002-07:00

The average high this weekend was about 75 degrees F. That's pretty warm for November. I did plenty of jumping to celebrate the hints of global warming. On Sunday I jumped out of our friend Kevin's hot air balloon. That was a really neat experience. I also got to do a high-pull with some good friends on the sunset load on Sunday evening. It was a fantastic and incredibly tiring weekend. Here are a few pictures:

Adam and I in the balloon

Kevin's Beautiful Flying Machine

Me under canopy, Joe in the background, floating back down to earth from 17,000 feet

Joe and Matt flying towards the sunset.

Timeless Existence

2008-10-28T15:09:00.002-06:00

If I told you that a typical freefall only lasted for 60 seconds or less, you would probably say, "that's not very long at all". But 60 seconds can feel like a lifetime, or at least half of one. Imagine a lifetime where you are completely alive, where your senses are completely in tune and the consequence of a mistake is often fatal. Imagine a lifetime where everything that you do moves you, a lifetime where any deviation of your position will send you off on a different course, where everything is done with impeccable intention. Imagine a lifetime where you are traveling incredibly fast, suddenly slow down, and then maybe travel fast again. Imagine a lifetime where all your thoughts and actions merge together into a beautiful dynamic ballet, dancing through the clouds, flying towards an unattainable goal but still you try your hardest to get there. Imagine a lifetime where you achieve the highest amount of pleasure possible, and your happiness is unprecedented. Imagine a lifetime that is completely emotionally draining and fulfilling at the same time. Imagine yourself in this situation, and then you will realize that the 60 seconds of freefall isn't really 60 seconds at all. Instead it is years and years of happiness and experience and love. These 60 seconds are a quintessential example of life in the way that it should be lived. These 60 seconds are devoid of all worry and pain and discomfort but instead breed unlimited peace. This is living for the moment, and that moment lasts a lifetime. Now you understand how 60 seconds is a very very long time.

Another Weekend of Adrenaline

2008-10-22T09:53:00.002-06:00

This weekend was fairly eventful, as normal, but a few notable things happened that are worth reporting. Saturday I dedicated as a skydiving day, which was great because the weather was incredible and the winds were nil. Unfortunately, the dropzone had donated the biggest plane we jump out of (the twin otter) to Eloy AZ for the skydiving nationals, so we were stuck jumping out of the King Air, which only hauls maybe 15 people up to the sky instead of 25. That being the case, it was super packed with not too many slots available and I only got to do two jumps. It was all good though because those jumps were fun as hell. I've been getting really into tracking, which is a discipline that prepares you for wingsuiting. You make your body as flat as possible, with your arms to your sides, and you shoot forward, diving towards the ground, picking up acceleration and lift. I have these inflatable pants that increase your surfacce area for the purpose of making you fall slower and shoot forward faster. They're a lot of fun to play around with. I did a tracking jump with my buddy James and we probably covered 1.5 miles horizontal distance in the 2 miles vertical that we fell. Needless to say, it is a lot of fun.

Sunday was a change of pace for me. I'm so used to pushing my own limits that I rarely get to focus on the limits and boudaries of others, and helping my friends to redefine their limits and bounaries. I brought everyone up to the Golden Spire where I rigged the 30' line and let everyone have their fill. It was a great day and about 15 of us were up there giving the line a go. Lots of people got out and just hung there on the line, others got a few steps, while others were able to walk the whole thing. It was definitely a learning experience for everyone. I've finally gotten past the point of being nervous of lots of people walking on my rigs, and now its somewhat comfortable. Some of Boulder's best slackliners also got to fell the shaking legs, the wind in their hair, and that feeling of blissful weightlessness before the leash catches the fall. It was certainly a great day. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to introduce more and more people into highlining, and grow in my own comfort of the sport as a whole.

Brocken Spectre

2008-10-12T20:01:00.004-06:00

This rare phenomenon occurs when there is a large amount of fog in your close proximity. The water molecules reflect the light that is refracted by your shadow creating a rainbow-like formation around the shadow of your head. It is called a brocken spectre; it is pretty cool to look at and incredible to think about. It brings to mind all of the complexities of this earth, so many things constantly going on at all once, most of them we aren't even aware of. A drop of rain, a vine growing in a crack in the wall, a leaf floating in the wind, a chip of paint, a reflection in the fog, trash in an alley, a person walking home alone in the cold, a wilting flower. There are things both good and bad. What you notice is important, and is very indicative of the kind of day you are having.

Can we create our own happiness? What does this look like? What if we focus our eyes to see only those things that make us smile and give us pleasure instead of looking at the negative things? People claim how bad their lives are, but is it because of the situations they are put in or find themselves in, or is it because they view the world with negative eyes and see the sad things surrounding them.

There is beauty in everything. From the wind in your hair to the first crisp day of fall, to the birth of a child to the smile from a neighbor. Anything can be positive. Whether or not you perceive it as such is up to you.

Junkie

2008-10-09T15:51:00.003-06:00

I was first offered a skydive about a year ago. It was real casual. I didn't really think much of it. Yeah I've heard that skydives can kill you, but its never really been on the forefront of my mind. Anything could kill you right? Whats one skydive going to do in the grand scheme of things? So I took that skydive with mild reluctance and it was pretty enjoyable. I figured if I had done one that it wouldn't hurt to have another skydive. I started skydiving a lot. My friends started to worry and told me that I was addicted. They said "Come on Scott, that stuff aint good for you, you're gonna get hooked." I shoved it off like it was no big deal. "Aw come on guys, its no big deal. I can quit whenever I want." Thats how it always starts. By thinking I could quit whenever I wanted, I did it a lot more, and then after a while, I realized I was addicted to skydiving. And not only that, but it was slowly eating me away from the inside out. I started getting really touchy and jumpy. The only thing that could calm me down was a nice long drag (coefficient) under the skydiving canopy. Furthermore, the amount of money I was spending was ridiculous. I've been going through at least a pack(job) a day, and it continues to get worse. Luckly I'm on the up and up though. It turns out that addiction can be fought. Now I dont need to have a skydive every second. If I get my mind occupied in some other fashion, I can focus on the moment and not on something that can kill me. Thats when I took up highlining.

If you or someone you love suffers from addiction to skydiving, don't wait. Dive headfirst into recovery and contact someone now. Visit http://www.addictionrecoveryguide.org/ for more info.

Pilot Chute in Tow

2008-10-09T15:36:00.002-06:00

So last weekend I had a fun little malfunction with my parachute. The pilot chute, which deploys the main parachute, locked up on me during a hop and pop. It had been packed in my rig for a while and was all wrinkled. Despite my ardent efforts to de-wrinkle the thing (anyone who's seen me wearing a nice shirt knows I have no skill with an iron) it hung up on me. During said hop and pop, I jumped out of the plane at 5,000 feet and counted to six. After I pulled, the pilot chute just chilled there, as if to say, "haha, I'm too wrinkled to catch enough air to pull the parachute out" Well damn, I thought, this isn't good. The ground was still about 4,000 feet away, so I had time, so I stayed calm. I hung out there for a little while longer, waiting a few more seconds, but nothing happened, so I reached behind me and yanked out the closing pin, and the parachute deployed flawlessly and to my great fortune, lived to skydive another day.

Planning the future

2008-10-01T22:10:00.004-06:00

I love living in the present, but sometimes you can't avoid looking to the future. As the seasons change, it is time to start thinking about new possibilities and new adventures. Here are a few things I will be trying to accomplish in the next year:

Moab highline extravaganza(s)
BASE jumping at the Perrine
Reach 100 skydives before Jan 1st
Go on a road trip to Lodi, CA (and jump for $13 a jump!)
Rainier (unsupported speed ascent)
More and more trad climbing (including a bivy on the wall)
Ecuador Volcanoes
Climbing and Jumping in Switzerland

After this, who knows? Only the future will tell, and I am constantly creating that future in my daily endeavors.

GoFast Games

2008-09-30T11:13:00.003-06:00

We absolutely crushed an awesome line this weekend; probably the highest and most beautiful so far in Colorado. It was the GoFast games and through some connections we managed to get permission to rig the awesome lines at the games. I headed down there thursday night and started rigging with Dylan friday morning. We had a 40' line rigged that was 988 feet above the bottom of the gorge. It was right next to the bridge, and had a nice vertical drop that allowed us to show off for the spectators on the bridge.

Dylan and I crushed as usual, and Jack came up from Durango to join in on the fun. It was his first legit highline (other than the one he rigged over the narrow gauge railroad down there) and he walked it in style. Smooth onsight, with some tricks thrown in as well. It was really exciting.

By the end of the weekend, and bunch of the BASE jumpers came by to give the line a go as well. They all had the guts, but it was more of a mental game than jumping off of the bridge, so Dylan, Jack and I were the only ones to cross the line.

I had a great time. Nobody was injured the entire weekend, which made me even more excited about BASE jumping. I was also able to get extremely comfortable on the highline, which is a really incredible feeling. Standing there, the wind blowing hard, focused only on balance, and nothing more. It creates an interesting feeling of enlightenment, one that I really cannot yet explain. It really is a zen experience, a transcendence from the line into another existence. I love it.

It was a fun opportunity, and hopefully we'll be invited to come back again next year. I would love to rig a 100 foot line next to the 160 foot line that are already chilling there.

54 reasons to love Colorado

2008-09-22T19:26:00.002-06:00

I just recently finished climbing all 54 of the 14,000 foot high peaks in Colorado. It was an incredible journey and I got to see so much of Colorado, places that people I live with and around will probably never see in their entire lives. So many beautiful valleys and magnificent peaks.

It was a journey that started when I was about 9, I think it was then when I climbed my first 14er, Antero. I have since climbed that one 2 more times, mainly because it is so close to St. Elmo, one of the most beautiful places in the state.

I knew when I was in elementary school and got my first 14er checklist shirt that I wanted to climb all of the 14ers one day. It was a goal that, back then, seemed enormous. I couldn't even name the 54 14ers, nor could I comprehend the difficulty and effort required to climb all of them. But the human body is incredibly powerful and is capable of so much.

At the beginning of this summer I realized that it was entirely possible for me to finish the peaks this year. I had only about 10 left after the end of last summer, but they were located all over the state, and they were some of the more difficult peaks. Regardless, I went to it, and finished strong.

After all was said and done, I looked back, thinking about the incredible journey to climb all the peaks. So many mountains with so many friends or family, so many tanks of gas to fill, and so many stops at the Coyote Cantina, Subway and crappy gas station food. I have to say though that my favorite peak was Capitol, as it was incredibly long and tedious and fun.

Now I'm off to climb different things, but I'll never forget the great times I have had on the Colorado 14ers, and I can't wait to get back there this winter and repeat some of the more incredible mountains in the state, and maybe start to ski down them.

View a few of my trip reports for my most recent peaks here:

Capitol and Pyramid
Little Bear, Blanca, Ellingwood

And my 14er completion list

Balance, Meaning and Living Well

2008-08-25T09:35:00.005-06:00

The more I pursue my passions and my life's ambitions, the harder it becomes to live an equal and balanced life. We try to do what we love, but when we are always doing what we love, is that a selfish thing to do? Is it right to ignore the needs of people around us and completely engross ourselves in our own passions and our own wants and goals? It seems there is a fuzzy line between being ultimately happy for ourselves and being negligent to the needs of others in our life.

Lets face it, nobody can survive being alone in this world, that just goes against the principle designs of our social structure. Humans thrive on each other and our individual contributions towards the well being of our society. But it seems so many people are unhappy serving a role in life which benefits others and not themselves. On the opposite end of the spectrum, someone who completely envelops their life on becoming ultimately and purely happy for themselves is acting in a way that could be harmful to the people around them. Even if I were to claim that I don't need others in my life, and don't love anyone aside from myself (this clearly isn't the case) there would still be others who depend on me in some way or another, and who are affected by my actions on a regular basis. I'm talking about family, close friends, and anyone else who has been affected by me living my life the way I do. So is it right to go ahead and neglect the needs and wants of those people and live life solely for myself? I think not.

What I am starting to realize the more I push myself to the limit of my comprehensible level of existence, happiness and peace, is that I often push others out of my life to focus completely on my own ambitions. This is an unhealthy thing. People need to dream of course, but it is hard to actualize those dreams without the love and support of others. If I die tomorrow "doing what I love" I would die a peaceful and idealistic death, one in which I would probably be very happy with. However, the people who loved me and depended on me, who I left behind, would have to deal with the unresponsible reprecussions of my actions.

What I need to do is find a balance between doing what I love, and being with the people who I love. In this way I can live my life in an unselfish way that reflects a combination of my passions as well as the passions of others. I do what I do because it makes me happy, but I would love for others to be happy with what I do as well. It is a tricky place to be in, and an extremely complicated way of living my life, but in order to further grow and to reach further peace in my life, I have to earn the love of others, and surround myself in it.

The 5th great 14er traverse

2008-08-24T16:57:00.002-06:00

14 connoisseur Gerry Roach, author of the most popular colorado 14er guidebook, claims that there are 4 "great 14er traverses" including: Crestone Peak to Crestone Needle, El Diente to Mt. Wilson, South Maroon to North Maroon, and Little Bear to Blanca. While I've only done 2 of these, its about time to add another traverse to the list.

Friday evening, in a stroke of both boredom and genius, I packed a bunch of stuff into my car and drove up to Aspen, CO to try to climb a few 14ers this weekend. The initial plan was to solo Pyramid, and then hike into Capitol lake and solo Capitol the following day. It was a certainly feasible, but clearly reckless and dangerous. Phase 1 was nearly complete as I reached the summit of Pyramid Peak in just a couple hours from the trailhead (I was flying). At the summit, I ran into my friend Scot, with whom I had climbed Kit Carson, Challenger and Culebra with a few months ago. We hadn't planned anything at all, but by a stroke of luck we ran into each other. As a spur of the moment thing, we decided to do the rarely traveled traverse from Pyramid peak to Thunder Pyramid, a class 5 scree-fest filled with loose rock, huge drops, and loads of satisfaction.

The traverse only took a few hours, pretty average based on the difficulty of the terrian, and we were off the summit of Thunder Pyramid before noon. I'd say that it was definitely more difficult than any of the other traverses I've done, but it was incredibly fun, and definitely a classic that should be added to the list of any serious peak-bagger. The trail off of Thunder was rather unappealing though, as it was just a slippery walk down thousands of feet of loose rock and talus. Because of this, the descent ended up taking just over 4 hours, which left us worn out but elated as we reached the cars. We had just done a traverse that most people spend months preparing for, and we had done it on a whim. The weather worked out marvelously for us, and there were no accidents with the loose rock, so we lucked out, but we also showed how well the human mind and body can perform under extemporaneous conditions and pressures. I'm excited for the successful trip and am happy that I got to spend the last weekend of my summer doing something worthwhile.

Now its time to think more about the concept of time, because I am going to be needing a lot more of it once classes start tomorrow.

Tranquil Flight

2008-08-18T14:01:00.006-06:00

White whisps of water molecules fly by my head as I track into an infinite bliss. I see the shadow of my freefalling body below, on the cloudy sea. Faster and faster I fall, but this is no bad dream, but a good dream, the ultimate dream, turned to reality. Actualization of my aspirations to become something more; my world has come true as I step out the door of that turbo-prop heap of flying metal into the sky. And as I lean forward, arms tensed, legs straight, speeding faster and faster and faster, it is not I who is moving, but the world. The entire earth is speeding towards something better and I am guiding it there, with my wings of skin I curve, create lift, carve through the edge of the cloud, following the side of soaking disaster like a steep chalky cliff created at that moment by the great one. Relaxed and alive I fly through the air at 100 miles an hour and nobody knows and I like it that way. The clouds fall faster and faster and soon comes the ground, and I fly back home to the grassy meadow, all the while wishing I could call my home "the sky".

Man on Wire

2008-08-15T16:08:00.003-06:00

I had the pleasure of seeing this movie last week and it was fantastic. Phillipe Petit is one of my biggest heros, and this just solidified my affection for almost legal highlining endeavors. I recommend this movie to anyone looking for inspiration to challenge themselves, Phillipe's philosophy on life is one we can all appreciate.

Info about the movie can be viewed here:

Designer Genes

2008-08-12T11:51:00.004-06:00

What are the genes in the body that control the level of fear that someone has in a situation? Why am I not privileged to have these genes? It seems that everything I do scares others to a degree that I can't understand? Its just walking a slackline, or its just jumping out of an airplane... is it really that bad? Perhaps I'm missing some key infrastructure in my cognitive brain soup that should make me scared when I'm about to walk a highline or skydive. Or maybe its just a family thing. It probably is, and here's my proof.

This weekend I rigged the Golden Spire highline again, mainly for my sister Laura to try out a second time. Last time she had difficulty standing up, so I devised a plan to remedy that. Paul came along for the fun too, and was hiding lots of tricks in those short sleeves of his. It turned out that they both had it in them to try really hard, but they didn't really seem too stoked on it, just wanted to hang out. I was mistaken though, Paul stepped up to the line, and after hanging out on it for a few minutes, gave it a go. The thing about highlines is that the hardest part is standing up. Once you are standing, you're in an extremely familiar position so it flows naturally and comfortably.

Paul and Laura did great, and both walked it on virtually their first tries! Laura became the only woman (as far as I am aware of) to walk a highline in Colorado, or at least the youngest. I'm really proud to have two awesome slackliners in my family.

Forecast: Rain

2008-08-03T23:41:00.000-06:00

This weekend during one of my skydives, a storm managed to develop over the landing area as we were flying up to altitude. We only made it to 9,000 feet AGL which was kind of annoying because the freefall time wasn't as long. However, it turned out to be better rather than worse as it was rain/snowing as we jumped out of the plane. In fact, we jumped out of the plane in the middle of a raincloud. Rain doesn't hurt too much as it hits the ground, but when you're falling through it at more than a hundred miles per hour, it hurts really bad. Imagine getting shot with a drop of water at 200 feet per second. Not fast enough to penetrate the skin, but enough to sting. Then imagine getting shot thousands of times before you are able to open your canopy. It was like that. The whole jump was a fiasco though, only three of us fun jumpers actually made it down to the landing area because of the terrible spot through the cloud and the high winds. People landed all over the place, even several miles north of the drop zone itself. I hope I never jump in the rain again, or at least if I do I hope I'm not wearing just shorts and a t-shirt. Its weird how the little things will surprise you when you least expect them. It was a fun weekend of jumping, regardless.

Time

2008-08-01T00:25:00.000-06:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

Dickens said it best, but I've been thinking about time a lot lately, and frankly, I've started to lose faith in it. I think people rely on time too much and too often. I always hear people say "Dude that was such a good time" or "It's about time". We tie everything we do to this concept of regular motion, angular momentum, and perpetual rotation. Being late or early can define someone's social characteristics or reputation, and time can go quickly or miserably slow depending on your mood. Stop, take a step back, and look at what time really is. Time ties us to what is false, to what is unforgiving, to what is stagnant, to what is woefully human. It creates stress, loss, many bad and negative things, yet it also creates room for freedom and playful innocence.

I've always had a weird notion of time. Ever since I was a little guy, long before I started studying enlightenment and philosophy. I used to think of different situations that the world would be in if my idea of time was different. For example, it has always been a question of mine how the world would be if I had been born 10 years earlier. It all boils down to an idea of perception vs. reality. What is it exactly that governs the current state of affairs of the universe? We are born into this universe seeing it as we do, but is it because that is the way the universe is, or is it because that is what we perceive it to be? What I mean by this is: I have always questioned what year it would be now if I had been born 10 years earlier. To someone born in 1980, they would say, "of course it has to be 2008". But to me, I would say "it has to be 1998". The world would be completely different if I had been born 10 years earlier. The reason for this is that my perception of time would be changed, but not the duration of it. Had I been born in 1977 instead of 1987, the 21 years I have experienced would have been displaced by ten years, and the year would now be 1998 instead of 2008. The fact that I have only been conscious and aware for 21 years means that it would be impossible for it to be the year 2008 if I had been born in 1977. I started my current database of knowledge and memories right when I was born, not sooner and the fact that it is limited to 21 years means that I can only trust my own direct experiences. Another example: If I was born last year it would be, in my current state of consciousness, 2028. People don't seem to understand this when I explain it to them, but most of them miss my point, and I blame the concept of time for this.

My point is that time is irrelevant compared to experience. You can live 20 years and have the same amount of direct experience as someone who lives to be 100. Most people get caught up in this notion of time, and it actually holds them back. It saddens me to see someone so distraught with deadlines and appointments and all these things that are fabricated to hold society together, but actually do more harm than good. I like to think of life in terms of experience, joy, passion, ambition, love and whatever it is that holds these things together. It has nothing to do with time. Thats why when I'm in my most enlightened state, more often than not on a slackline, I have no perception of time.

See my reactions to time on a highline here.

Life isn't about how long you live, its about what you live for. I've accomplished more in the last year than I ever thought possible, but not once did I worry about that, just by keeping your mind on a goal that you are passionate about, you can transcend this idea of time and create a life that will excite and surprise you. I think the more we live for what we are passionate about, and the more that we love what we are doing, the less that time becomes an issue. In fact, it could even melt away into a nothingness that is resolved in pure enlightenment. Don't let time hold you back. Even if you think you don't have any left, you can still live your life to the fullest. Its never too late to start, because without time, you wont be late for anything.

Freefall Frenzy

2008-07-27T23:56:00.000-06:00

I did a ton of jumps this weekend, which was a lot of fun. Skydiving is pure fun. It is very scary, but man is it incredible. I have been doing a lot of tracking dives to prepare myself for wingsuiting in the hopefully near future, and this weekend was full of some pretty amazing jumps.

For a couple of them, Simon wore a GPS unit on his hand in order to map out our trajectory across the sky. In tracking dives, the objective is to obtain as much horizontal distance as possible, mainly by flattening the body and creating a pseudo-airfoil with your shoulders, arms and legs. Looking at the map of the trajectories, we covered some serious ground! Approximately 1 to 1.5 miles was the distance traveled during our tracks, which is the equivalent of 60-90 miles per hour forward movement (as well as 110 mph downward).

Click Here to see the flight path. The straight line pointing southwest was our tracking vector, which we covered in a mere 58 seconds.

I had a great weekend, did some great jumps (including the sunset load highpull where we deployed our parachutes at 13,000 feet above the ground (18,000 above sea level) and flew all the way down, enjoying the setting sun. Also, my pack-jobs are becoming more consistent, and faster, which is definitely a positive thing. Its always nice jumping out of a plane knowing that your parachute will probably open correctly...

LA Times Segment on Santa Monica

2008-07-25T21:43:00.003-06:00

So when I went out to Cali earlier this month, I landed in LAX. Ric and Maria (owners of slackline brothers) couldn't pick me up till the evening, and I landed at 2:45. I had a bunch of time to kill so I took the bus up to Santa Monica to check out the pier. I had heard of a high population of slackliners chilling at Muscle Beach up there too, so I decided I would go see if there were any lines up. I met up with a guy named Josh who was friends with Harlan, one of the slackers also flying in to walk the lost arrow spire. We set up a line and started walking. It wasn't long before we drew a modest crowd, and then a couple people started taking pictures of us. Turns out one of them was a reporter for the LA Times. He was doing a segment on Santa Monica beach, and put me up on the article. Enjoy:

LA Times Article

Down by the River, Up on the Ruff (roof)

2008-07-25T08:13:00.003-06:00

The whiplash I got on saturday from that really hard opening has all but subsided. Fortunately I am feeling about %99, and it has been time for some fun!

Some friends had a line set up over boulder creek when I got home from work yesterday, and I joined them for some fun.

It was full of crazy tricks, rad flips, and lots of falling into the water.

At one point I did a transfer from the rope swing onto the slackline. Flawless!

In the evening we tried to do some night kiting, but the wind died right when I got there. Just my luck. So we decided to look at some stars instead.

It was a fun thursday night, one of the best all summer. Now I'm getting rested up for a weekend full of freefall!

Tasting the Clouds

2008-07-22T07:06:00.000-06:00

Flapping fabric double backed creating wings between my arms and legs.
This is where I want to be.
Monoliths in the sky, made of vapor and smoke and magic.
This is where I want to fly.
Water droplets on my face, falling gently along my side.
This is where I want to soar.
What was a dream is now a certain future in my hands.
This is where I want to live.
Transformation of body, release of mind, freedom of soul.
This is where I want to stay.
Human flight, transcendence, peace.
This is why I live, and this is why I die.

I can't wait to taste the clouds again.

Full Moon, Tight Lines, and Zero Porosity: Tales of the Weekend Warrior

2008-07-20T21:53:00.001-06:00

July 18th-20th, one of the best weekends yet, was absolutely full of adventure. A self proclaimed "weekend warrior" I was out to make the best of the 48 hours between thank God Friday and rest day monday. (I like to refer to going to work on Monday as my rest day, because I finally get to rest from all my "mild" adventures).

Friday night James, Steven, Kate and I took off from Boulder around 7:30 to go climb Mt. Audubon, a prominent 13er in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Gunning for a full moon ascent, we got to the trailhead just after sundown, and were hiking as it became dark. The first mile was spent in the fading twilight of a hazy evening, but just as we reached treeline, the moon began to rise. Already it was worth it. In a relatively easy hike we made it to the summit (13,221 ft) at about midnight. My Saturday had already started. After some pictures and tea, we made our way back down to Boulder for some much needed sleep.

Saturday was spent jumping out of planes. I did 2 tracking jumps with Jeff, one where he couldn't keep up with me, and then another where I couldn't keep up with him. Then I did a solo tracking dive with a pretty crappy opening that torqued my back and gave me some unwanted whiplash. It doesn't feel like there's any permanent damage though.

Sunday we woke up early and rigged a highline in Golden, the 30 foot long "Golden Spire" line. Everyone who came out got on the line, and did a great job pushing their individual boundaries, which is what it is all about. Laura got out there and got comfortable with the exposure and the experience in general which is a lot to go through. She did great and I can't wait to take her highlining again (I think irrational lack of fear is mixed in our gene pool somehow).

Sore, satisfied, bruised and amused, I returned to Boulder for some welcome rest.

Its weekends like this one that remind us that we are capable of anything, but until we push ourselves to the limit, or beyond, we will never know what satisfaction really is.

Lost Arrow Spire Trip Report, by Libby Sauter

2008-07-17T21:03:00.002-06:00

You can see a photo-trip report of the Spire trip at the following link:

http://forum.slackline.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1115

Enjoy!

Momentary Zen, and the Bridge Between Space and Time

2008-07-14T23:28:00.001-06:00

I've been having a difficult time coming up with words to describe this trip, but as a tourist from Spain explained when we were walking the line, "there are no words". Unfortunately I don't know how to put emotions onto a piece of paper, I just don't have the technology, so here is a meager attempt to explain the line that changed my life.

We all grow up with incredible ambition, imagination, creativity, and invulnerability. People grow older and these things wear off. But children are purely and innocently powerful in their abilities to fabricate and follow their dreams. "You can be anything when you grow up!" These words of encouragement dwindle out of the equation as life goes on. So many people give up on dreams, and the pure idea of actualizing those dreams is lost in a hectic world of pressures and status and outward appearances. It is time for people to let go. You can't live life tied to monetary significance or political affiliation or a stereotype of any kind. We are all one living, breathing creature, despite how different we look, we are all the same person.

Dreams are an odd thing. I've said this before and I'll surely say it again: Some people don't have dreams. Other people dream and think how fine their lives could be. They don't change anything. This sounds strange. The actualization of dreams is one of the most amazing things to do with your life. It can bring happiness, joy, enlightenment, and it radiates these things to others around you.

I've had dreams about the Lost Arrow Spire highline for several years now. Ever since I started highlining it has intrigued me. While most people settle for watching videos on youtube and living vicariously through others, they lose sight of their own dreams. Vicarious living is dangerous living as you gain a false sense of accomplishment. It is so easy to do things yourself, to pursue your passions and to live your own life to the fullest that it is sad to see so many let their dreams slip right out from under them. I hate how cliche this sounds, but just do what makes you happy! It will get you out of a comfort zone, and into a better place. Enough about that though, the Spire...

We rigged the Lost Arrow Spire highline in Yosemite last week (55 feet long, 2890 feet high) as well as the second line (110 feet long). You don't know what to expect getting on a highline that big after your highest span was previously 400 feet. The sheer exposure and lunacy of it all is somewhat inundating. It was hard to take in at first. The whole week was a long meditative journey though. I don't ever really meditate in the common sense of the word, but I do actively pursue a higher state of mind, or another level of cognitive existence. Being on a line that high off the ground, it is impossible to walk with a bunch of crap in your head. It has to be clear, free, void of concern or dread or thought of death. I was able to reach that higher state of mind, and everything became clear; time stood still and I was living in a stationary dimension different than all others I have existed in. The future became the present and the past, actually these words became obsolete as space, time, and nothingness conjoined into a beautiful present. It was very surreal and had an ominous "now" feeling to it. I was able to see myself standing on different parts of the line all at once, and could visualize myself in other "places" with lucid thought and clarity. Somehow being on the line, sometimes for minutes upon minutes at a time (as I learned later because I had absolutely no concept of time out there), I could understand my future, because I could see it in front of me. It wasn't 1 dimensional existence, but it was existence in a dimension that can't be understood by an everyday state of mind. It can't be expressed in words, but in emotions and thoughts, it was beautiful.

I hate looking at things in terms of numbers, but I walked the line 36 times and didn't come off it once. I only say this to provide argument for the amazing state of mind and balance of energy and emotion and love that took place out there, precariously perched on that 1 inch piece of man made nylon.

I learned from this trip that no matter what your prior circumstances are, the most important thing in life is to pursue what you are adamantly passionate about, regardless of what that is. Become so incredibly involved, emotionally, in what you do, and love others for what their passions are as well. Live every moment for that moment. I have seen the future and the past, and the present is the most important of the three.

Vacation

2008-07-02T08:39:00.002-06:00

I'm headed for Yosemite tomorrow morning, flying out on Thursday and we'll be walking the Lost Arrow Spire highline by Sunday hopefully. I'm really excited. 2890 feet above the ground and a hell of a scare factor. I'll be back soon with some amazing pictures and some amazing memories.

Highline on a Weekday? No Seriously

2008-06-30T23:45:00.000-06:00

We rigged our new "Golden Spire" highline this evening. Even after getting off work and down to Golden at 5:30, we still had a few good hours of walking. I've done so many highlines recently, this one hardly seems like a big deal, but it sure was a lot of fun. Josh finally sent his first, and a couple other guys came pretty close. More than anything, I'm really glad to have a few lines really close that don't take that long to rig. Today we proved that we can highline whenever we want!

Mountain Marathon

2008-06-30T17:00:00.002-06:00

If you hike 28 miles, does it count as a marathon? No? Bummer. Well we had fun anyway this weekend. I got on board a 14ers.com trip to Culebra, the only privately owned peak in Colorado that you have to pay to access. I know it seems ridiculous to pay $100 to climb a peak, but if you're trying to climb them all, there's no real way around it.

After driving down with Scot, who I learned later is an ex NFL player for the Seahawks and the Steelers among others, we slept in till 6:00am, when the Cielo Vista ranch opened for business. There were only 20 of us on the mountain on Saturday, and it was a big mountain. Unfortunately it wasn't that big, and I was able to cruise to the top in a meager 1:50 from the trail head. I waited for everyone else to get up, and then we had a big party up there. Made it down to the car before noon and we were on our way to the Willow Creek trail head to climb Kit Carson and Challenger.

After a 2 hour drive we were at the trail head, and we started on our way. It took about 2 hours to hike the 4 miles and 3,000 or so vertical feet to the lake, which turned out to be pretty good time. We had planned to climb Adams that night, a high 13er, but unfortunately it started to hail with vigor right as we were about to leave the base camp. We decided to call it a night.

The next morning was show time. Our original plan was to climb the class 4-5 north ridge of Kit Carson, then down climb the normal route while tagging Challenger point on the way down. Unfortunately, the entire time from when we got to the upper basin until we were back down from the upper basin, we were shrouded in a dense and humid fog/cloud that gave us about 50 feet of visibility the entire way up. Fortunately, the route was well cairned, and we met up with 3 other people from the Culebra climb the day before who followed us the rest of the way.

We made it to the top of Challenger after climbing a sketchy snow pitch and some loose scrambling, and then continued to Kit Carson. The interesting thing to not is that Kit Carson is only 200 yards away from the summit of Challenger, yet you have to hike around it to get up to the summit. Unfortunately the fog was so thick that we couldn't see even the slightest glimpse of Kit Carson, so we ominously continued into the fog, travelling in what we thought to be the right direction. It was surreal.

We made it to the top of Kit Carson without incident. And on our way down there were intermittent breaks in the fog to where we could see the ground thousands of feet below us. It wasn't until then that we realized how exposed the mountain we were on was. It was steep! We made it back down, and hiked out to the car, content with the weekend. It was a total of 28 miles and nearly 10,000 vertical feet or so.

On the way back, we ran out of gas right at the top of Poncha Pass, but luckily were able to coast all the way down to the gas station at the bottom of the hill. The rest of the drive was filled with greasy burgers, undercooked fries, and an ICEE from LoafnJug. The weekends just keep getting better and better.

Ringing Bells

2008-06-22T23:03:00.003-06:00

This weekend James, James and I went up to Aspen to have another attempt at climbing the Maroon Bells (We went on my 20th birthday and it rained the whole time, making the 4th and 5th class rock unclimbable). It was quite the adventure! We left Boulder at about 7:15pm, headed for the Maroon Lake Trailhead. At approximately 11:30pm we reached the trailhead, leaned our chairs out of the upright and locked positions, and managed to get painfully awkward sleep for about an hour or so.

At 2:00am we awoke to several alarms and packed our bags and were on our way by 2:30 at the latest. We managed to see several porcupines on the way up, but fortunately they were more interested in the bark off the trees than the soft, non-quill-proof skin of our hands and faces. Danger averted!

After bypassing our pin-cushion friends, we made it to the bottom of the Bell Cord Couloir at about 4:00am. Donning our stylish crampons, or "pointy things" as the tourists called them during several inquiries on the way down, we slowly made our way up into the darkness, and the steep steep snow and ice slope ahead of us. There was a group of 3 skiers who we quickly caught up to in the snow, and made it to about the 2/3 point when the sun finally peeked its head over the flanks of Pyramid Peak. It was dreadfully slow going, but we managed to make it to the top of the couloir at about 8:00am, taking 4 hours to climb nearly 4,000 vertical feet of snow and ice (not too shabby, but there's room for improvement). As the maroon flanks crumbled and descended below us, we took a break to refuel for the traverse to Maroon Peak, the highest of the two on the agenda for that day. We made it to the top of Maroon Peak with some moderate class 3 scrambling at about 9:00am, and had another break on the summit.

The next task was daunting, and was what we thought to be the most difficult part of our ambitious agenda. The traverse from Maroon peak to North Maroon checks in at sturdy 5th class, and from our estimates, it reached 5.4 or 5.5 at its hardest section. Carrying rope and protection, but neglecting to use it, we made our way across the 1/4 ridge up turrets and towers, across ledges and snowfields, and made it to the top of North Maroon at about noon. The most difficult section of the traverse was either the class 5.5 free climb, or the 65 degree snow slope traverse, but we managed to carry on towards our lofty goal.

When we reached the top of N. Maroon, we tried to be relieved, but all three of us knew that the hardest part of the climb was yet to come (reassuring, right?) We signed the summit registry, (it appeared that the last entry was from September of last year, the day after we got rained out) and then began our descent. This was the fun part, the scary part, the adrenalizing part, and the terrifying part. This was to be the most trying and testing descent of my life, and I'll reiterate what I've learned before Never go down a route you haven't come up first. There, I said it. The problem was that we forgot our own rule.

The first part of the descent was covered in snow. We were able to posthole/glissade through a good portion of it, but it was drastically steep, and there were cliff bands on all sides so we had to be very very careful. It took the better part of an hour to descent what looked to be 300 vertical feet. We were not making good time. After some botched routefinding attempts, we decided to keep slogging down the direct part of the ridge, hopefully able to find a route further down. It wasn't too steep yet, so we figured we were in good shape. We continued in that fashion, downclimbing small patches of rock when we reached them, until the snow started to dissipate due to the increased slope. We looked to the south part of the ridge and were able to see some small cairns in the distance! We followed those, through loose and crumbly class 4 terrain, until we had lost about 1500 feet (over 3 hours or so).

We reached a point where we followed a cairn trail, but suddenly it stopped. We couldn't find anymore. We decided to keep descending what looked like a stable and welcoming gully. After sliding and slipping down 500 feet we realized we were surrounded on all sides by cliffs varying from 100 to 500 feet in height. It was an impasse, but we were too exhausted to realize it. James suggested flirting with the ridge again, but after a brief inspection it proved more dangerous than what we were already on. At this point we had been climbing steep, difficult and engaging terrain for over 14 hours, and the worst part of it was, we had no idea how to get down.

After some conscious decision making, we decided instead of risking a rappel over the cliff band, we would climb back up to the last cairn we saw, and look for traces of a trail. We climbed the 500 or so vertical feet back to the last sign of civilization, passage and hope, and were again dumbstruck with an impasse. We searched and searched and unfortunately there was so much snow that any of the cairns that may have been nearby were completely buried. In a last act of desperation, I lied down on a rock and hung my head, admitting defeat. Thoughts of high altitude bivy and helicopters and hypothermia and embarrassment filled my head.

After laying down for quite some time, I look downward and saw the faintest trace of a trail in a patch of melted ground. After further inspection it appeared that it was where we needed to be! I called out to James and James who had gone searching in other directions and told them to come take a look at my hallucination. Sure enough they saw it too, and we headed for the trail. We did a 100ft downclimb in steep snow, and made it to a rock band which we down climbed to get to the trail.

At this point we were able to follow it off and on to the base of the mountain, combining several hundred feet of glissading with class 3 and 4 downclimbing and a little bit of praying. But we still had to find a path down to Crater Lake! The normal creek crossing was flowing at about 10 times the rate it was in September, so we had to glissade through the trees (remember sledding as a kid and trying not to hit all those trees) and bushwhacked our way back down to the lake.

After a long trudge out, purely elated and exhausted, we made it back to the cars at 8:00pm, with a total moving time of 18 hours. Then we drove home.

I love how you love life so much more when you are right on the edge of letting it slip between your fingers. (don't worry mom, thats an embellishment)

The world is easier to see in 1 dimension

2008-06-16T08:58:00.003-06:00

Everything we see, our whole gamut of understanding and comprehension is in three dimensions. That is just how we have come to understand the world. Spacial comprehension of the combination of sight and touch creates this understanding within us. But what if there is more? What if there are senses that are more difficult to control, but more rewarding to command. Are there more than 5 senses, and do the combination of these create more than 3 dimensions? It seems that every dimension correlates directly to a combination of human senses. Clearly there are the 5 obvious ones. But I'm talking about obscure feelings. Balance, Time, Intuition, Instinct, the onset of deja-vu, Deep Emotion, Love, so many unexplainable and uncontrolable aspects of our lives that impact our actions greatly despite our inabilaty to understand them. What if we can focus on controlling each one of these individually? What if we can do something that allows us to remove all other senses from the realm of cognitive processing and simply work on controlling only one of these at a time, developing them, and eventually controlling them. Will we see the world differently? Will we be able to view the world in one dimension, or 5? Will we become a better person?

Slacklining gives the ability to see the world in one dimension, focusing not on what surrounds us, what gives us a sense of vast sky or claustraphobic canyon, but instead on a one dimensional location, on a single line on infinite planes, back and forth you move, but tethered to one location. It seems dangerous, it seems insane, it seems as if a fall would kill you, but how does one fall while living in one dimension? There is no such thing as falling when there is only linear space. Learning to control everything is easy in one dimension, because there are no consequences in a one-dimensional world. To the common observer, it would seem that human life is impossible in a theoretical one-dimensional world, but it has been done. We do it all the time on the line, and continue to pursue this. What does it give us though? What do we gain by simplifying the perception of the world into a single, irrevocably straight line? Perhaps it is a glimpse into a tranescendant life where spacial dimension meets emotional dimension and the true essence of being human can be found. That is what we strive for when we walk the line. That is what we live for.