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Some of us enjoy the exhilaration of hiking to a mountain top. If you feel like singing "The hills are alive, with the sound of music!" when you get to the top, you know what I mean.
Growing up in Minnesota could never lend itself to mountain-top experiences. I've always been comfortable moving in more than 2 dimensions. When I was 5, I climbed an 80 foot tree to see the lake, 2 miles away. Later, in high school, a few of us discovered that we could watch what the town cop was doing from the water tower. Exploring caves, riding a motor cycle through the steam tunnels at the university, SCUBA diving, and many other vertical adventures were only a matter of time.
When I was a child, my father told me tales of far-off places he had visited as a Merchant Mariner during the Great War. His stories left a lasting impression, and assured that I would leave the prairie to see what else was out there.
It was not until the early 90s that my brother Scott and I hiked two small peaks, a 7000' peak at Palmer Gulch KOA near the 4 faces in South Dakota, and Oberlin Summit, 8180 ft, near Logan's Pass in Glacier National Park. That was the first mountain top that made me feel like singing. I did sing.
These pages include trip reports and pictures from many of my adventures. I hope you will find them amusing and helpful.
Reflections:
Sometimes, I wish someone had told me a few of these things when I was younger. Perhaps people did, but as Simon and Garfunkel's song The Boxer goes, 'A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest ...'. This list has worked well for me, and I wish I had started doing these things earlier in life.
1. 'To thine own self be true.'
2. 'Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.'
3. 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained!'
4. Be healthy!
5. Read every day. Write every day!
6. Take acting classes, so that you are comfortable playing many roles. (What was Ronald Reagan's greatest role?)
7. Write down your goals, and spend 5 minutes working on a goal item each day.
8. Invest in index funds, particularly including international funds.
9. With regard to your job, be an asset and not an expense.
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