Just sitting in the Boise airport preparing to head off to Munich. Kind of testing out this blogging thing to see how it works. It's been a crazy past month and the crazyness will continue as I look ahead. I haven't spent more than 24 hours in Boise in over a month due to several trips for work (San Fran, Boston, D.C., and San Diego) as well as an absolutely amazing labor day bash at the Frank Castle in Sandpoint on Lake Pend Oreille with the Dukes of Hazard, a weekend trip back to Estes to do some hiking in Rocky Mtn National Park and catch a golden buffaloes game, and a visit to Conrad and Whitney in Manhattan.


I'm really looking forward to this trip. I have a quick 1-2 day trip to Biberach an der riss Germany before a 3 day trip to Ghent, Belgium. In between the two I have a week, a rental car, and a jovial bison along for the ride. I'm super excited for this trip because Bill Strunk will be along for the ride. We hope to hit up Oktober fest in Munich, Trappist beer brewing monasteries in Belgium, and do some sweet hiking in the swiss alps and stay at some nice B&B's and chalets high up in the alps.


I am becoming quite the pro at travelling through Europe, and each time I have more fun, so this one looks to be the best one yet, especially with the Bison along for the ride.

I have been blessed with some amazing trips this year for work and play, and I look forward to adding onto it. I started out the year with a trip to Hawaii to see Anna (well, not quite abroad, but if you look at Yosh, you know it's abroad enough). We had a fun time exploring the big island: going to Hawaii volcanoes national park, going up mauna kea, snorkeling and sailing in the clear pacific and of course going to some beaches and singing karaoke. My first trip abroad for Sapidyne was to Cambridge, UK. I had several days to explore Cambridge and Englands west sea coast. I was then able to take a sweet weekend trip to Paris via the chunnel train. My next trip to Europe brought me to Belgium, where I got to delve into amazing chocolates, waffles, and trappist beers in Brussels. I also got to explore some other areas in Belgium including Oostende coast, Bruge, and the ardennes. And I got to visit some cool castles in the tiny kingdom of Luxembourg. On this trip I was lucky to take 4 days and head over to Switzerland to hang out with David Fluekinger (ACI grad) and his roommates. We got to do a bit of hiking in the Apenzell Alps, but mainly enjoyed the bar scene of St. Gallen. A few months later I was back in Belgium again. This time Robert Hamilton and Jared Smith met up with me. We partied hardy in Brussels and Ghent, swam in a cold canal, found ourselves lost on European highways, and all in all had a great time. As a lover of mountains, I had to head back to Switzerland, which at the time was hosting the Eurocup, an exciting event in itself. I headed back to St. Gallen to stay with David and Dianna for a bit. We did a sweet roadtrip into Austria to see Lech and St. Anton the old haunts of my parents during their ski bumming years. We of course stopped by Lichtenstein on the way home. After staying a few days hiking in the St. Gallen area, I headed out on a train tour of Switzerland. I packed around the Interlaken area (Mt. Eiger, Mt. Jungfrau, Mt. Monch), and stayed in a beautiful villa called gimmelwald. I then toured Zermatt and the Matterhorn and headed southeast through the Italian Alps and then the Italian portion of Switzerland. I rounded out my tours abroad thus far this year with a trip south to Peru. Backpacked the infamous (and difficult) Incan trail all the way to Machu Picchu , biked and paraglided through Cuzco and the sacred valley, and then headed downhill to spend a week in the Amazon rainforest at a research camp. Quite the incredibly awesome experience! Some of the national trips that really stand out were: a week of skiing pow pow in Jackson with my bro, a weekend skiing at Winter Park with my mom, the Labor Day wakeboarding bash at the Frank’s in Sand Point, extreme snowplay in may with Lucas in Estes, Kayaking and biking around the San Juan Islands in Washington, Partying hardy with the Elephants in Bellingham, Breckenridge Skiing with Aunty M, bro, grandma, and Dianne, an Arizona Wildcat b-ball game (and win) in Pullman with O William, 4th of July crazyness with Triggers in McCallBut just as amazing as these unique trips this year were my trips where I got to see my friends throughout the country. Exploring beautiful places is often no match to being in the company of friends. So thanks to all of you that I was able to hang out with and have good times with on my travels this year: Brother Zach (Jackson hole, Bellingham, McCall, and Sand Point); Chris Sherman (Yale, New Haven, Boston, New York);Conrad and Whitney Frank (Seattle and New York); Bill Strunk (Pullman, Seattle, Sand Point), Kyle Sales and Dr. Barclay (Seattle, Sand Point); Mom and Dad (Estes Park), Lucas Stringfield (Estes Park), Taylor Hayen (Boston), Triggers (San Diego), Sara Bates (Philadelphia), Nick Van Santen (San Francisco), Nate Handel (San Fran), Rachelle Toobian (San Diego), David Fluekinger and Dianna Abercholi (Switzerland), Robert Hamilton and Jared Smith (Belgium), The Elephants (Bellingham), Anneke Mulder (Washington, D.C.), Krissy Price (Boston), Anna, Mary, and Stefan Windler (Kona, Hawaii), Jake Hess (Estes and Snohomish) Katie Van Vorhis (Seattle) (Don’t worry Joe, I still hope to meet up with you in San Fran and Yosemite soon!)

Just a hop, skip, and blog away

I love adventure, I love exploration…and so naturally I travel…mostly in my thoughts and dreams, luckily often in real life. I have had the good fortune to go on some amazing abroad and American travels and vacations with my parents as well as some incredible experiences though my college and internships. With each and every new adventure and travel opportunity, I yearn more and more to go abroad as much as possible. Traveling is in my blood, and I am in love with that fact. Some people are into collecting music, or their car, or video games, but for me it’s traveling, whether it be a weekend backpacking trip into the wilderness, a ski trip, a visit to a NP in the southwest, or a epic journey abroad.. I am trying out this blog thing because, well, (a), Heidi told me too, but (b) I think it will help you my family and friends follow my adventures, trials, tribulations, and joy on my next few epic trips. On these trips internet will be few and far between at times: whether I’m on a two week trek in the jungle or a homestay in the middle of nowhere with an indigenous tribe, or just in a town without electricity. So once my trip starts, if you do not here from me for a while, do not assume the worst, but more assume the best: I am far from the hustle and bustle and technological addiction of western society, but rather enjoying some batel nut and shooting the breeze with a Batu tribesman, stranded on some island shoal with only a snorkel and mask, or trekking up some untouched jungle clad, mist shrouded peak.

During my college years I dreamed up 7 major trips/adventures that are on my so called Blue List along with the hundreds of smaller ones: Backpacking through SE Asia; going from North to South in S. American and then west to east on the Amazon; working an Austral winter on Antarctica; trekking through the Indian subcontinent (and also trekking through the high Himalayas of India, Nepal, and Tibet); Island hopping through the South Pacific (Tahiti, Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and New Zealand); journeying north to south from Egypt to South Africa (focusing on the pyramids and wild game safaris); and ski bumming at a world class ski area. As most of you know I was able to spend the winter after college ski bumming with the one and only Lucas Stringfield at Vail Resorts in Colorado. So with nail biting steeps and blower powder behind me…what’s next? Obviously something from my dreamed up trips. With memories of living in the Cook Islands as a child, trekking in Peru with the fam, island hopping in the Philippines, and studying savannah ecology in Kenya with Toad and the gang fresh in my mind and all serving as tantalizing appetizers, how could I choose? As an avid lover of nature and wildlife, my first dream had always been to travel through Africa. I was able to satiate my desire to go there for a little while with a couple of unreal trips to East Africa thanks to a bushcamp study abroad and a road/camping trip through EA with the Doc. So my next thought was always SE Asia. Full of mystery, unique culture, unexplored jungles, pristine beaches, the largest beach parties in the world, and infamous lore amongst the backpacking culture, it had to be my next trip. Add this to the fact that as a nature lover and (soon to be?) ecologist, SE asia teams with some of the most unusual animals on the planet and is in the core of the triangle of biodiversity stretching from queensland to the Philippines to Indonesia. It is surrounded by emerald seas filled with diverse coral reefs teeming with colorful fish…mist shrouded karst mountains jut above the rainforests and beaches giving the sub continent a magical topography. Volcanoes actively erupt around unexplored jungles. (Some huge swathes of land weren’t explored until the late 90’s, and everyday you can read about new discoveries to science as explorers and biologist push deeper into areas such a borneo and Papua new guinea). Sadly the rainforests and pristine lands are disappearing at an increasingly rapid pace. By 2025 only 2% of the primary forest is predicted to remain. Lovable species such as the orangutan, tiger, asian elephant, and rhino, are on the brink of extinction and several sub species no longer roam the continent already. This adds to my desire to go, and to go now, to see it before it is completely gone. It is nothing like it was 50 or 20 or even 10 years ago, but there are still huge areas of pristine forests left and the jungle animals still do roam through much of the continent (albeit in small numbers). In fire years, it may be disastrous, so why wait…the time is now. Not only is the natural world exciting to me, but the old culture (think Angkor wat) and the newer cultures, foods, and architecture are supposed to be stunning and like nothing I have ever seen. As with most places I have experienced, the people are supposed to be overly friendly and welcoming. And outside of the tourist trails in Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines, it is supposed to be rather untouristy and unspoilt. All of this combined with incredibly cheap travel: 50 cents-$1 for a beer, $1-3 for a cheap bungalow, $1 for an authentic meal, make it the place to go…for me! So Southeast Asia, here I come!
I have no definitive plan as yet, other than I’m leaving in mid December. I plan on being gone anywhere from 8-16 months, most likely around a year. Starting in Thailand, working my way around peninsular southeast asia (Myanmar (aka burma), Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia) then island hopping through Indonesia, trekking through Malaysian and Indonesia borneo, Singapore, papua new guinea, and perhaps ending in Australia’s NT or Vanuatu. Of course anyone is welcome to join me along any part and any time frame of my journey. Let me know when you might be down there, and I’ll let you know where I might be. Suggestions of places to see and things to do are also more than welcome.

I don’t know how well I’ll keep up with this blog. I’ve always enjoyed the freedom from technology, the real world, and almost reality when traveling abroad. But I will try my best to keep it up to an extent…especially if the internet café is air conditioned! So check back from time to time if you’re interested or to procrastinate in the office.

So wish me luck, keep me in your prayers, enjoy this blog if you like, and hopefully I’ll see you when I get back!

Excelsior!