Walking towards the Rio Grande river on the U.S.-Mexico border, I was greeted with a war zone. There was a motley configuration of military alongside camouflaged doorless humvees with M-16s […]
Highpointing
Posted inOutdoor
One million miles of badlands–state highpoint #48
Coyotes don’t majestically howl at the moon, they yip and high pitch bark in an annoying cadence. That’s what woke me up in the middle of the North Dakota Badlands […]
Posted inLife and culture
Alone in Badlands National Park and other highpointing tales
March 18, 2018: Very rarely do my journalism assignments geographically coincide with highpoint opportunities. But the women’s Division II college basketball Final Four was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and […]
Posted inLife and culture
Winter above the 45th parallel — climbing in the true white north
Dec. 28, 2016: “Dad is leaving on his own vacation, again. Kids, come say bye,” my wife said before I left for Montana this past summer. My cellmate was right, […]
Posted inLife and culture
Mt. Rainier — climbing above clouds
Mt. Rainier was such a brutal climb that I was in the emergency room four days after leaving the mountain. Sacrificing acclimation for safety was something that had to be […]
Posted inLife and culture
Winter hike in -3F to the top of Illinois
Feb. 11, 2016: The elderly man working the toll booth outside of Chicago wasn’t sure what to make of me. It was the dead of winter, just hovering around zero, and […]
Posted inLife and culture
From Mansfield to the top of Mt. Mansfield
Dec. 30, 2015: Originally, I was going to solo Mt. Mansfield in Vermont. Heading into the climb, I felt generally optimistic, overconfident and borderline apathetic. Any one of many routes to the […]
Posted inLife and culture
Fox travels 1,250 miles in 2 days to nab 3 East Coast highpoints
March 8, 2014: Starting in Ashland, I drove to the East Coast and in one day, grabbed the winter highpoints of Massachusetts (Mt. Greylock), Connecticut (Mt. Frissell-South Slope) and High […]
Posted inLife and culture
Climbing origins: Mt. Davis & Backbone Mountain
March 3, 2013: One could argue chasing peaks isn’t really going after something, but running away. I left work early and headed to my gear stash, to my atlas, to […]
Posted inLife and culture
Ram/Arrow team up, summit Katahdin in winter
Climbing up the Abol Slide, my mind reverted to the story from the Bangor Daily News: “Holden man died Saturday after falling more than 1,000 feet down the icy surface […]