Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
There's a lot of awesome stuff covered here. Jacob Emerick is a web programmer with years of experience in scalable architecture and development of best practices. He also enjoys hiking the wilds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This blog contains a mix of topics ranging between these two interests and more. read more
The night air felt thick, an inky black pool that my lungs struggled to pull in fast enough. Sweat dripping off my face, fog collecting on my glasses, I stumbled forward a few steps and paused, leaning heavily on my trekking poles, and slowly turned to gaze at the city below. Palm Springs sprawled…
Summer of 2021 was a weird time. Work was hectic and I wanted to get out and do long, epic adventures, yet few destinations in Arizona seemed appealing. The challenge of exploring a remote and damaged area, like the Mazatzal and Galiuro Wilderness, in the summer heat was less than ideal, and my…
We needed to get out to the backcountry. It was early summer in 2021, and the kids and I were raring to go on an adventure. There was a spot, next to the Sierra Ancha Wilderness, that I had been looking forward to exploring, so with a loose plan and two full backpacks we headed east, driving past…
It's been a long, long, long, l-o-n-g few years. Mitigating the pandemic, buying a house, handling work stress, and trying to redefine a post-Mountain Rescue existence has been challenging. Certain areas (like this blog) have suffered more than others. I used to try to write a handful of posts every…
A few weeks ago, during normal working hours, something interested happened in one of our team's Slack channels. One of the engineers (from a different team) came in, asked a question about a project they were working on, and, after waiting less than ten minutes, decided to "@here" with a rude…
Noah and Charlotte had been asking about a camping trip for a few weeks, and Thomas, while more hesitant, was lured in by the mention of s'mores, so after work we all piled into the Jeep with a full trunk of gear and headed out to Globe. There are some great trailheads in the Eastern Superstitions…
Wind roared off the Kaibab Plateau, tumbling over gullies and canyons and thrashing through pines, plummeting into the fire-scorched forests of Saddle Mountain Wilderness to slam in the side of my Jeep. Huddled behind the tiny vehicle, curled under a strapped-down sleeping bag, I made a feeble…
South of Mount Lemmon and the Santa Catalinas is another sky island, a shorter one, that has been spared from the devasting wildfires of the last few decades. The Rincon sky island sprawls across several mountains, including Mica Mountain, Rincon Peak, and Tanque Verde, and supports a large stand of…
Galiuro Wilderness is a relatively short sky island located between the Santa Catalinas and Pinalenos. Compared to those two mountain ranges, with their lofty 9k and 10k peaks, the highest point in the Galiuros is Basset Peak, a mere 7663'. While it may lack the elevation of its neighbors, this…
On the southern edge of the Mazatzal Wilderness is a little hiking loop made up of access roads, the Arizona Trail, and an old ranching single-track on top of Black Ridge. I've been wanting to take the kids on this loop for a while and, once I felt confident in their endurance, we headed out on a…