After time on the road with Funk and Thorn, life slipped back into a slower rhythm. The next few weeks became a reset, a chance to recharge and ground before taking off again. Days filled with old friends, the kind of familiar faces that remind you who you are beneath all the dust and miles.…

XVI. The Coast’s Call March 14th, 2025  The sun had just crested the Black Mountains. Standing 191 feet below sea level in the gravel lot beside the truck, a smile came easy. Two months in Death Valley felt like a blur, a cloud of cigarette smoke and sin, but they had been necessary. A stepping…

XIV. The Garden of Eden We lay beneath an ancient oak, its branches sprawling like the rafters of a cathedral above us. Out here, the world had gone still, no hum of cars, no signal to reach us, just her and me tangled in the tall grass. The meadow breathed slow, gold from the fading…

XII. Ghosts of the Past December 13th, 2024 — Southern California The next morning, I woke well-rested. The desert nightmare was behind me now, buried under sand and starlight. I turned west onto the highway and drove toward the coast, up and over one last jagged range. Then, for the first time in six months,…

X. The West Temple The weeks in Zion had passed in a blur. Fun, sure, but slipping into the same old mess: cigarettes, bottles, and late-night dice games. The novelty was fading, and a familiar emptiness started to creep in. I needed something raw. Something real. Something to push me to the edge. That’s when…

VII. The Road To Zion  September 26th, 2024 – Missoula, MT I left Missoula mid-morning, Autumn waving from her porch, wrapped in the golden glow of late September. Caught one last glimpse of her through the rearview mirror, her hair loose, a hopeful smile etched on her face, the old sun-faded porch beneath her bare…

IV. The Chief  Fin and I settled into a rhythm as summer unfolded in the Cascades. The work was simple but steady, rotating through positions on the alpine coaster: checking wristbands, walking guests through the controls, watching the track from the summit. Pride came in sending folks flying down that hill with a grin. It…

I. The Enchantments  June 24, 2024 – Leavenworth, WA The Enchantments through-hike in the eastern Cascade mountains is a legendary eighteen miles of raw, high alpine wilderness. At the trailhead 13 miles deep into dense Pacific Northwest forest from the little town of Leavenworth, WA, I started at sunrise. Morning light cut through the trees…