I never necessarily viewed my actions when growing up as being outdoorsy. Most of the things just kind of fit into place and I became inspired by the outdoors. Most of my interest and experience stems from my friends and I taking a trip to Mt. Rushmore. Black Elk Peak is the highest point in the Black Hills wilderness range, and being the first difficult hike my friends and I made. Using a school Burton backpack with a full propane stove and stainless steel pot hanging off my back we climbed up .My experience further progressed from wanting more, to doing more than I could at times. I don't have as much experience as one would think a guy writing a page about mountaineering would but I guess that's the point. A personal ongoing portfolio. Here's the 3 events that set it off
North Route, Springtime, 14,011 ft, 12 miles, 2 days. One of my first planned trips with my friends. My first alpine experience too. The first day I got too cocky and tried to summit but turned back after I realized I had little energy left and I already got beat down by a couple torrential storms. Surprisingly I recuperated real quick and summited together with my friends the next day. Truly an incredible experience, it's quite quiet once you get above treeline. We then tried Mt Lincoln through the Amphitheatre route the day after Holy Cross. I'm interested in trying to summit via the cross couloir in early spring or trying the Halo Ridge route in the dead of winter. Maybe this winter.
After being infatuated with mountaineering I figured sometime down the road I'd learn how to rock climb. A co-worker ended up taking me to a gym on the outskirts of the Chicagoland area and I instantly fell in love. After a couple days of research I ended up choosing a pair of 5.10 Hiangles for the middle ground profile they have. I went in hard. 3-4 days a week I would spend my time climbing. I would practice ropework and knots during work, and during my breaks, I would go outside my workplace and traverse on jagged random bricks that would stick out of the walls. I ended up giving myself an arbitrary goal (influenced by a story really) to climb 5.12 by the end of the year. And so by the year I continued climbing and by the end of December 2022 I had reached my plateau. 5.12 was never hit. However, having finished numerous 5.11D's left me truly satisfied. Soft ratings or not, it was a real achievement of mine. I've gotten rusty over this year as I've toned down my spending, but have been able to climb outside in the area. The Chicago Mountaineering Club has been a great outlet to learn and small talk with other people from the area
In early spring in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a small town hosts one of the biggest ice climbing festivals in the midwest of all places. It's odd to think about but Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore off of Lake Superior is home to some really unique climbing based on its geography. I took some of my buddies including errormine to Munising and went around the town, hiked, and tried to claim my first lead climb, on ice of all fucking things. I had been spending paychecks cautiously on gear that I could find on sale or secondhand and ended up completing my set of Black Diamond Vipers at Down Wind Sports in Munising using their 20% off coupon for the fest. I tried my hand at Little One, a 20ft WI3 and found that it was way tougher than I had thought. My calves almost bursting out my flesh like that one scene in the Animatrix. Another try at another WI3 where I lead proved that either I was incompetent or that my gear was sorely lacking. I used a Petzl Sarken with 2 horizontal front points paired onto a experimental salomon s/lab hybrid boot, I could barely get my front points in and when I did they never felt that secure. I figured it had to do with the fact that the s/lab boot was never designed for ice climbing in mind and therefore it simply couldn't do what I wanted it to. For this upcoming Ice Fest (2024) I went ahead and didn't do what I should have which was just bit the bullet and bought some uber expensive Scarpa Phantom Tech's, and Instead opted for the extremely cheap second hand Arcteryx Proclines. A gimmicky ski boot that was more or less designed to climb well rather than ski well. I also got a pair of Petzl Darts to match so we'll see. Maybe I am incompetent