Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
For six years I've been slowly building up a collection of hiking and camping gear. Christmas gifts helped with much of this, though at times I would venture out and pick up something from a sporting goods store when finances and the wife would allow. I used this gear for a variety of deep woods…
It was mid-June of this year when I went for a short backpacking adventure up on the Mogollon Rim. The weekend was fun and I learned a lot about my gear and limitations, useful information for my upcoming week on Isle Royale. When I told my brother-in-law Chris about hiking the cabin loop he was…
Driving to Four Peaks is a dreadful ordeal. There are only two options: El Oso from the east and FR 143 from the west. El Oso is shorter and is in better shape, though to use it you'll need to loop all the way over to Tonto Basin, an annoying seventy miles outside of Mesa. 143 is a much tougher…
When I first started to mix backpacking with hiking, about four or so years ago, the thought of tackling Isle Royale popped up a few times. I was in the midwest, hiking in the Upper Peninsula, and that island seemed like the ultimate escape from civilization while staying in Michigan. The idea never…
An hour after first stopping at the murky pools of Barbership Creek I struggled back to my feet. I had pulled about half a liter from the creek and was done trying to pump more. The sun was beating down through the partly cloudy sky as noon slowly approached. All I wanted was to get back to the rim,…
Cold, damp air kept me snuggled in my old sleeping bag past the sunrise. By the time I finally rose, cooked breakfast, and packed up my gear, daylight was beginning to trickle down into the steep gorge. I tried to suppress my impatience. There was only eighteen miles to cover today and I had all day…
Munchies and long sips of water helped to strengthen my resolve as I headed north on the Fred Haught Trail. After a tough climb up to the top of the Mogollon Rim I wasn't so sure on my planned 30-odd mile backpack. The food and flat ground helped immensely. My long legs set a good pace, one that I…
The warm smell of pine rushed around me and filled my mind with dizzying nostalgia. It smelled of home, of the rich forests in the Upper Peninsula, and for a brief moment I was back on the Yellow Dog Plains. Then I was back in reality, back in Arizona, and I reached into the jeep to pull out my…
Sometime last year I got to tackle an interesting project at work. We use customer.io for a lot of front-end tracking for our users, even going as far as using their bucketing and email communication for much of our targeted marketing. While we had a great system in place for talking through…
Between work and kids and moving to Arizona it had been a long time since Katie escaped somewhere on our own. Well, it had been a full year. Last year she took me on a birthday trip to the Dells for a full weekend of sight-seeing and adventure golf. Of course we had been worrying about Noah for much…