engineeredforadventure

“Dream It. Do It.” Well, I couldn’t say it much better than that. My mom has always said that I needed “exertion.” I got cabin fever really easily when I was young (hell, I still do. . .), and if I didn’t get my daily exercise in I’d be bouncing off the walls. As I grew older I spent more and more time in the gym to get my “exertion.” The most recent evolution of this “exertion” has been through…

I’m a foodie. Plain and simple. The most social space in our entire house is our kitchen, not the TV room or the living room. My family spends countless hours together cooking from scratch, mixing together real, whole ingredients. So in planning for my John Muir Trail hike, it was very difficult for me to find trail-friendly foods that matched my food-centered upbringing. I was not interested in living off of Snicker’s Bars on the trail, like many thru-hikers do…

We made our way through an empty Tuolumne Meadows, putting in some miles on our way towards Donohue Pass. Following the banks of the overflowing Tuolumne River, we came across the first creek crossing on the trail for which we had to take off our boots if we wished to keep them dry. In no way was this a difficult crossing, as the small creek was hardly treacherous, yet the water was deep enough to warrant the use of my…