I've climbed fire and I've climbed ice. I'm always on fire with desire but now I've gone frozen on my old ways. Pinky swear.

Valley of Fire

Vail Ice Climb

I feel free to live in the moment and have yammered on about my problems to hear myself think over the last year to all my old buddies, but the problem is I'm surrounded by supporters when I needed critics. Old sage advice: keep criticsclose because you'll never find that pot of gold when chasing rainbows with other rainbow chasers. In 5 years who will give a shit that I climbed the Colorado 14ers in winter? Lately I've been peak bagging, riding, climbing and back to doing my thing without telling anyone or posting about it anywhere or what I call top secret weekend warrioring and it is seriously liberating in a way that I’d never considered it might be and, at least for now, I’m loving the fact that I’m living my life for my own pleasure, not social media. The invitations I get are more sincere because the people who matter still get in touch. Writing is my artistic outlet and often therapeutic.

The old me used to post for self aggrandizement. Going out, taking pictures just to post and then immediately writing took away from living authentically. Last summer I could at a precise moment admit to myself that I was doing whatever I was doing solely for the bragging rights and I felt dirty. Brain rehab taught me to appreciate working hard on objectives that I never had to work on before i.e., me and my poor habits of believing I'm invisible and superior to scrutiny. I never felt a bond with any of my partners like I used to and kept wondering why I felt like a 5 pointed star trying to fit in the what I now call the circle jerk gang. I like keeping my hands to myself thank you. I climb not to find the meaning of life but to simply find truth because somehow I connect to this kind of truth. The mountains always tell the truth and I feel empty inside when I'm with most people, especially my new work people but fill up when I'm with nature. My old crew has this inability to control their lust for small time glory. I need to be with those that don’t seduce me into that old way of thinking. I am not better than anyone else; conversely the behaviors I see are just reminders of how I don't want to be.

Lectures' over, now just fun! Go look out west. See the big pearly while massif in the middle? That's Mount Evans Wilderness.

My coveted duathlon days are my favorite kind of adventures. Kinda like a 2 for 1 deal. Bingo. So I grabbed my favorite ol' boy Fatso and biked up Mt. Evans road from Echo lake because the road to the top is closed and gated for the winter. I fat biked up 8 miles, which will put me on Rogers east ridge. There's one avalanche trap on the road up to but I mitigate it by hiking up a little hill around the snow. Fatso is aptly named for this obstacle.

I biked up all that and Fatso is down there. The ridge up to Rogers is snow barren. Good.

On my way up Rogers Peak as I'm having deep thoughts shallow things like it's cold, I'm thirsty, I'm hungry...I’m a hard core baby but I do have a soft spot. Haaaa! Reminding myself that going up is the easy part.

Summits are like orgasms; good, not always great but, glad you had one. Haaa Haaaa! Cracking myself up here. I looked over the edge at Warren Peak once on top of Rogers hoping I could tag both today but there's another avalanche trap known as a wind slab on the road at the saddle between the two so weighing my options here. Calculating the time it will take to hike down Rogers, up Warren then back up and down Rogers to my bike because going over Warren and back down Mt. Evans road is now out of the question. So I decided to orphan Warren meaning this is the last peak I left out of the Mt. Evan Massif. I've climbed every single peak but Warren now. Pretty easy to do in the summer anyhow. For now I'll leave the apple unpicked.

The wind is trying to blow me clean off the summit but I hide behind boulders and take selfies. I respect the mountains and the weather because they are indifferent to our suffering and therefore offer us maximum freedom to thrive or to fail in our own chosen way. It's not a case of out smarting either rather I ponder the that richness in life is the opportunity to succeed and how gratefulness makes me happy. I am so grateful to have strong legs and a strong back again to get do the things I love. I express myself through my physicality. Always have and will continue to work hard so that I always can. Some of the best things in my life have come from my ability to conquer challenges through hard work.

And now I can't wait to get back to Fatso and fly down the road. Where's my cape? I used to have this gladiatorial rush through all adventures and now although fully healed with toes ablazing, I take my time to enjoy the adventure.

As time flies and leaves it's shadow behind thank you Rogers Peak for being so kind. I acquired some new snowshoes which are light and fast and I'm ready to put them to the challenge here. I chose to go down Rogers east face which has a firm crusty snow layer where snowshoes should bite.

Hell no! Those snowshoes are no good for steep mountain sides. They really freaked me out. They didn't bite at all. Slippy slippy slippy. With my ice axe in hand I plowed deep into the snow and delicately chose my footsteps smartly to the nearest rock where I could sit down, ditch the shoes and instead use microspikes. Crampons would have been the best tool but I didn't bring them because I didn't think I'd need them. The microspikes did the job just fine and I dashed to the tundra then glissaded down to the road.

If I had put on my microspikes and they too didn't dig I would have about faced and trekked back up to the ridge and retraced my gps tracks back the way I came up. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. I'm tenacious and scrappy. Now I don't mind at all at failing because I realized that before my big accident I had a high success rate, which gave me a false sense of confidence.

I have everything I need and used everything I brought. So far this day in nearing perfection. Now all I have to do is not crash on my bike on the way back down the snowy road.

Seeing my chariot but reminding myself that by moving the risk calculation further by making things safer no longer means I get to take more risks. So far my stats for the day are 2000' fat bike ride up, 1,200' hike up and down Rogers and now 8 miles of wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! There were long stretches of pavement off to the sunny right side of the road and big lug wheels going 26 mph on pavement create some good vibrations. Oooo la la! I know I'm going too fast and enjoying the ride but it's time to chill out. The handle bar mitts keep my hands warm and my toes are always ablaze. I am free!

I make it back to my final chariot, warm up the car, pack away my stuff and down some electrolytes. What a day.

3 days later I'm ready for another adventure.

What's better than a Duathlon, besides my awesome idea last year of Pack Sherpa 2000, which involves drones that drop off your gear at a precise location with explicit information all about your climb via an app on your phone? A triathlon. On Thursday I got to do some hot yoga then a did quick hike up Chief Mountain on Squaw pass then went skiing at Echo Mountain and then to work. Boo Hiss. But Chief was a huge bang for your buck kinda deal. Super easy hike off highway 103 near Evergreen and once at the top a 360 degree view of the entire front range. Awesome. Had no idea that I'd have such lovely views of Rogers Peak. See?

How's my form Andrew (best PT ever)?