Hello all,
This is the beginning of my foray into the blogging world. I will be posting about several hobbies of mine, basically as a journal for myself, and I am open to any feedback. First, I am an avid hiker, and hope to become more involved with alpine mountaineering. I have been reading various books about Everest, etc. and it has me dreaming! My wife and I are working on a goal of climbing all of the mountains above four thousand feet in the Northeast. This elevation is significant as it is typical treeline in this region. Now, for my first mountaineering goal, I am setting my sights on Mt. Rainer. We recently attended the Adirondack Mountain Club's Winter Mountaineering School and got a handle on the basics. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in winter hiking in the Northeast or as a starter to larger mountaineering goals like me. It was during this outing that I got the trail name "Captain Glissade", as my instructor began calling me after I laughingly glissaded most of the way down Giant Mt. We are planning another couple of trips for this winter, hopefully back to the Adirondacks and a trip to the Whites in NH.
Second, my brother recently introduced me to the world of triathlons and I have been completely hooked. Just like climbing mountains, meeting the challenges of training and completing tris is a painful, yet thrilling and rewarding adventure. Last year, I completed an Olympic distance race in June, and then a Half-Iron race in September. I plan to do probably two halfs this year and one or two Olympics. I also did a ten week sprint distance training series over the summer that is a lot of fun.
