CURRENT MISSION

To see the world and the people in it as it is and not how I or others think it ought to be.

ABOUT ME

I grew up with a seasonally migrating family splitting time between rural Vermont in the winter and a one room cabin in Denali National Park Alaska in the summers. We frequently drove the distance in a Volkswagon camper van older than myself which meant lots of time stopped on the side of the road checking out the local scenery while my dad tinkered with the rig trying to coax it back into action. Through these experiences I've gained a love for being outside and am definitely more drawn towards folks who have a similar outdoorsy background.

In high-school I attended a ski academy and spent most of my waking life in pursuit of fame in the ski world. Clearly that didn't work out, but the traveling I got to do as a part of going to ski camps around the world really sparked a desire to get out of the small community I grew up in and see more of the world and get to know more of the people in it.

PHILOSOPHY

Get out and play!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've not had too much experience with couchsurfing as I'm more likely to be found under a tarp at the base of a cliff in the mountains. But my favorite experience was when I ended up spending a day climbing with a local in New Zealand and getting invited back to their place so we could go climbing at a different crag the next day. One day ended up turning into over a week and then he helped to get me a short-term job at a caving company so I could have my own place to stay and I spent over a month there caving, rafting, and climbing on the weekends with the awesome group of people that he knew.

Interests

When I'm on the road I'm most likely on a quest for vertical rock as I've never found anything more engaging and demanding, both pysically and mentally, than rock climbing. When I'm at home I enjoy spending lots of time in the garden, hiking, cooking, and have recently been furthering my skills as a quilter and fiber artist. But really, I like learning new things and so definitely love to get to know people who have a different background from me and have various skills that they're willing to share.

• dining
• cooking
• marathon
• running
• working out
• gardening
• traveling
• hiking
• spelunking
• camping
• skiing
• rock climbing
• logic
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

My tastes in music and books are too eclectic to list them all! Currently I've been listening to a lot of bluegrass, jam bands, and folk. Two of my favorite recent finds have been Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk and Greensky Bluegrass.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

One of my best experiences recently was running a marathon on the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica! Just looking out over the sea ice and knowing that the next closest person was hundreds of miles away is a humbling experience. While my time in Antarctica was nothing like what the original explorers experienced, I feel like through pushing myself to my physical limits running the marathon I was able to better grasp what Antarctica might have felt like to those intrepid men.

Before that it was probably topping out on a multi-pitch climb in the Tetons while the sun lit up the arete that we were on in amazing orange light. Everything about that day was just an adventure that I will never forget, especially relizing that I'm still fairly afraid of heights while traversing hand-over-hand along a knife edge with over a thousand feet of air below me and then getting to glissade down an ice sheet by headlamp.

Teach, Learn, Share

Willing to teach anyone how to spin poi and the joy of circular pursuits. Also definitely keen to spend time going climbing or hiking with pretty much anyone though it'd be nice to have a chance to learn more about trad climbing.
Growing up in rural environments with a fairly self-sufficient agricultural family has definitely influenced me to be more focused on the natural world side of things. I feel like I could spend hours talking about the finer points of the costs/benefits of food production in the United States and really enjoy it when someone who is also interested in those topics is able to show where there are holes in my logic. It would be great to be able to learn more about subsistance lifestyles, both past and present, as they relate to the greater social structure.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Chile, France, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland

Countries I’ve Lived In

Antarctica, United States