Oh, road tripping. It’s one of those fun, adventurous things you can do year round and on a pretty small budget. Quite frankly, a day trip to your nearest outdoorsy happy place counts as a road trip in my book. The weekend and longer road trips tend to get more attention, but if you’re in the car on a mission to love life…it’s a road trip! Don’t sell yourself or your adventures short! The true Read more…
The United States has 58 designated national parks with hundreds of other variations of national land [monuments, refuges, historical sites, etc]. Some of these parks are well known with stunning photos of their iconic views splattered all over Instagram. Others are a bit more stealthy about their beauty. The national parks in Utah are a bit of both. We can probably easily recognize the views of Zion Canyon from the well known Angel’s Landing trail, Read more…
Dogs have long been known as man’s best friend and often go with us every where as our much loved furry companion. Many of us have acquired a dog as a pet for the primary purpose of being guaranteed at least one adventure buddy at all time. Any dog you’ve met out on the trail is a glowing ball of happiness…proof that they are a-okay with this arrangement. This doesn’t mean that adventuring with dogs Read more…
We’ve all heard the phrase “adventure travel”…it has become all the rage in the recent years. But what exactly is adventure travel? A quick search on Google tells us it is essentially “travelling to a remote or exotic place to partake in physically challenging activities that require specialized skills”. Okay, so that sounds far more intimidating than exciting, but we promise you that adventure travel is actually quite exciting. We just need to tweak those Read more…
Rather than grab life by the horns + ride this crazy train to the end of the tracks I am overwhelmed by my self-inflicted *need* to compete with the awesome that is my life. I wake up, ready to take on the day with a semi-ambitious to-do list…only to feel my entire being melting as I think about how I can’t be as good as I should be. I can’t meet my own expectations…expectations I feel like I’ve already lowered multiple times…how the hell am I going to take on life + even come close to meeting the expectations of others?
No. I can’t fix it. There is nothing I can do. Well, that’s not quite true. There is nothing I can do to directly affect the situation. All I can do is stand by my friend, offer up support + be there to encourage whenever possible. So, that’s what I’ll do. Because that is all I can do.
Over the last year I’ve heard a lot of advice along the lines of “don’t get in a bad headspace”. I got the gist of what they were saying – to me it was ultra runner speak for “keep your head in the game”. However, I absolutely HATED that phrase for years. It felt insulting and when someone asked if I was in a bad headspace I felt belittled and judged, as if they didn’t trust me to think my own thoughts. A little extreme? Maybe.
What do you do when your immune system gives into a weird bout of the stomach flu and cancels your weekend yurt trip? You watch a lot of movies in the comfort of your own home and reschedule that yurt trip with a hut trip a few weeks later. Or, at least, that’s what I do! I spent this past weekend at Uncle Bud’s Hut doing my best to make up for the weekend my body vetoed in mid-March. Along the way I learned a thing or two about taking the long way and making the most of the situation you’re in…
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All good adventures have a healthy dose of “first time ever” and “happens every time”, right?! Yup, I think that’s a fact. If not a fact, then a solid correlation based upon last weekend’s events. On a bit of a whim a few weeks ago I snagged a bed at one of the 10th Mountain Division Huts, subsequently signing myself up for an “Epic Girls’ Weekend”. Going into this I knew one person — Jenn, a bubbly ultra runner I hadn’t seen in just over a year. Turns out I had a lot in common with the other ladies than I thought possible + our weekend of epic’ness did not disappoint.
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Two weeks ago we packed up our gear with big plans for an early Saturday departure followed by a long weekend deep in the Colorado Rockies avoiding reality, cell signal and any adult responsibilities. Paula showed up at 5:30am, we loaded up the car, stopped for donuts and headed into the mountains. By 9:30am we were parked and unloaded at the Spraddle Creek Trailhead, ready to head up, up, up to the Eiseman Hut.