Summer Racing 2019

It’s been rather quiet over here at Mountain Lessons, dear reader, because something happened. We had a kid! Our little girl was born on June 4th and since then we’ve had less sleep, lots of fun ‘firsts’, plenty to write…

It’s been rather quiet over here at Mountain Lessons, dear reader, because something happened. We had a kid! Our little girl was born on June 4th and since then we’ve had less sleep, lots of fun ‘firsts’, plenty to write…

A few weeks ago while planning a trip to Golden, BC, for my mother in law’s 70th birthday, I googled something along the lines of “Golden trail running” and discovered that the Golden Ultra at Kicking Horse ski resort was…

Taylor needed a goal to get her out and hiking as she rehabilitated from shoulder surgery. Hiking isn’t very intrinsically challenging, so she wanted to make it hard and walk a long way. This year, that meant looping Mt St Helens…

It’s been damn smoky around these parts lately, with an explosive fire blooming in the Columbia River Gorge that has choked us all with air quality that makes Salt Lake City’s inversion smog seem like an eco-paradise. Thankfully, our usual…

Mt Olympus is one of the most imposing peaks on the Salt Lake City skyline, and also one of the most popular. It’s West Slabs, which face the University and downtown area, are a popular scramble that starts with 5.4…

With Taylor back in Portland and my parents off to Iceland for a few weeks, I’m left to my own devices here in the Wasatch. Despite a pretty solid schedule of 16 ER shifts including 4 overnights as well as…

Having road biked up Guardsman’s pass and ridden horses around Silver Summit, a wanted to squeeze in another big day before she had to hop onto a flight back to Portland to return to her real job as the house breadwinner. We’d…

Because she’s amazing and wonderful, my wife Taylor somehow managed to get time off from work to join me out in Utah for almost a week. As soon as she arrived, she was pressing me to fill my limited free…

I’m in Utah now for a month of emergency medicine at the University of Utah, trying to persuade them to take me as one of the nine emergency medicine residents that they accept each year. Travel, particularly airport travel, really…

Seated at my computer in the ICU, I chuckled out loud while reading an interview with Kilian Jornet and Emilie Forsberg. When the nurse next to me asked what was so funny, I explained that this famous endurance couple clearly…