A lifetime on trails, mountains, and wild places
From the mountains of New England to the Rockies, the Andes, Central America, and beyond, hiking has been one of the great connecting threads of my life.
Hiking became much more than a way to get exercise or reach a summit. It became the way I learned about weather, forests, geology, wildlife, endurance, judgment, and myself. Some of my strongest memories are tied to trails: heading above treeline into hard wind, watching the light change over distant ridges, finding a quiet campsite near water, or realizing that I had an entire mountain almost to myself.
One of the defining moments came during a Columbus Day hike in 1985 on Mount Lafayette. Somewhere during that climb, the thought became clear: nature is where I belong. That realization helped shape nearly everything that followed—years of hiking, backpacking, climbing, winter mountaineering, volunteer work, conservation, field biology, and travel built around wild places.
Hiking was also different from backpacking. It was simpler. I could choose a trail, carry only what I needed for the day, and explore almost anywhere without the weight of overnight gear. The catch, of course, was that no matter how far I wandered, I still had to turn around and make it back out by the end of the day.
Living close to Mount Monadnock gave me one of the best outdoor classrooms I could have asked for. I climbed it hundreds of times, sometimes several times in a week, in every season and nearly every kind of weather. I explored its main trails, side routes, ledges, winter snowfields, and quiet corners until the mountain felt almost like an old friend.
The White Mountains taught me the seriousness of fast-changing weather and the importance of preparation. Over the years I climbed 47 of New Hampshire's 48 four-thousand-footers, missing only Owl's Head, and worked through nearly all of the highest summits in New England.
The Adirondacks added another kind of mountain experience: long approaches, rugged trails, deep mud, thick forests, and summits that often had to be earned the hard way. I climbed roughly twenty of the high peaks there while continuing to explore Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and the rest of northern New England.
Winter transformed familiar mountains into completely different places. Snow, ice, wind, darkness, and cold made every decision more important. I learned hard lessons about wool, extra layers, shelter, food, and hypothermia—lessons that stayed with me on every later trip.
The goal was never simply to check off another summit. The real reward was everything that happened along the way—the weather, the people, the wildlife, the mistakes, the unexpected views, and the feeling of being fully present outdoors.
Once hiking became central to my life, travel changed too. I stopped thinking only about famous cities or tourist attractions and began looking for mountains, national parks, volcanoes, rainforests, wildlife reserves, long trails, and places where I could get away from roads.
My hiking years carried me through Glacier, the Tetons, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Canadian Rockies, the Bugaboos, the Badlands, the desert Southwest, the Olympic coast, and many other national parks and wilderness areas. A hundred-day western trip in 1992 mixed hiking, climbing, hostels, hot springs, and backcountry travel into one long outdoor education.
I sought out trails and wildlife in Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Mexico. That included volcano hikes, rainforest walks, national parks, remote biological fieldwork, and high-altitude adventures such as Cotopaxi in Ecuador.
Hiking became the best way to understand a place. Moving slowly made it possible to notice birds, insects, tracks, plants, changing habitats, and the way water shaped the landscape. My background in ecology and field biology made every trail more interesting.
The 2002 car accident shattered my left acetabulum and broke my pelvis in eleven places. It ended the hardest climbing years, but it did not end hiking. Recovery was long, and my range changed, yet I kept returning to trails because being outside remained too important to give up.
Experience did not make the mountains harmless. It taught me to respect them more. Two severe hypothermia incidents nearly killed me, and Dann saved my life both times. Those experiences changed the way I looked at clothing, weather forecasts, turnaround times, group responsibility, and the small decisions that can determine whether a difficult day becomes a tragedy.
I learned to prepare carefully but remain flexible. Trails disappear. Weather changes. Streams rise. Equipment breaks. People become tired, cold, injured, frightened, or separated. The best hikers are not necessarily the fastest or strongest. They are the ones who pay attention, make sound decisions, and help the people around them.
Most of all, hiking taught me that the world is larger, wilder, and more interesting than everyday routines sometimes allow us to remember. Even now, a trail entering the woods still feels like an invitation.