New Directions

Perhaps every post-college adult experiences the self-reflection crash course that we call "ahh! What am I doing with my life now???" As a relatively recent academia-plegic, cut off from my scholastic world, I have done as many do: take up something entirely different. Or perhaps several somethings.

But my academic years were hardly limited to all-things-scholastic. While studying at the University of California, San Diego, I split my free time between guiding for the university's outdoor program and working in a benthic ecology lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Never could I decide which to focus on, but I didn't really have to, so I just kept on with both.

A year after I finished college, I found myself at a crossroads -- go back to school and study ecology, romp around the mountains collecting bugs and putting them in vials to be classified and studied back in the lab, or...? After years of classroom-based study, I didn't feel ready to re-enter the classroom, at least not yet. Ecology offered an enticing balance of romping and studying, but indeed it was the mountains that pulled the most. So I drove buses for Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.

Wait a minute. Driving buses? Okay, so it was really just a ploy to get a free ski pass and make decent money in an area I love. And I was buying myself time to decide what the next chapter of my life would be.

The more time I spent climbing and skiing on the Eastern Sierra, the more apparent it became to me that it was the mountain lifestyle I wanted. But I missed teaching (which I did a lot of in college), and I especially missed the exhilaration of watching a new climber or hiker or paddler find a new perspective, discover inside of them a new resilience, or just have a grand adventure. With a background in guiding backpacking, rock climbing and sea kayaking, I knew I could fuse everything together. The next summer would be my first season with Shasta Mountain Guides.

And a fabulous season it was! A veritable cure for my academia-plegia, with athletic, intellectual, instructional, and natural challenges on every trip.

This past fall, I completed the first of many courses with the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA): the Rock Instructor Course. This is the kicking-off point for a career's-worth of technical guiding opportunities, and I intend to pursue higher courses in rock and alpine climbing, and eventually skiing.

Keep an eye out for new postings this fall (and winter!) as I guide with California Alpine Guides on Orizaba (a snowy 18,490ft volcano near Mexico City), and throughout California.

In the ever-wise words of Annie Dillard: "How we spend our days is how we spend our lives."

Here's to another good day in the mountains.