The Quixotic Jedi

Fuck me, but I’m tired.  Saturday’s hike was a fucking nightmare.  Fucking.  Night.  Mare.  It took me almost 7 hours to go 5.95 miles.  I had to fight for every step.  There were about four or five feet of snow on the mountain.  Even with my snowshoes, I was sinking in up to my knees.  [...]

In the past couple of weeks, at least two people have told me directly that they’re “living vicariously through” me – specifically with respect to the photos posted on facebook of my winter peakbagging extravaganza.  I can’t tell you how cool that is; how good that makes me feel.
Well, I’m considering dialing that vicarious experience [...]

The opthamologist said that my eye is healing well.  I have a final appointment with him next Friday.  My vision is still a bit blurry, though today I finished the novel I started on Wednesday.  Driving is ok, but not great – I’m still a bit apprehensive.  I think the hardest part of this hike [...]

Yes, I know it’s been nearly a week since my last post, but I have a good excuse:
I’ve only had the use of my left eye since Saturday, and until yesterday, my right eye was in quite a lot of pain.

(Skip to around 1:23, please.)
Saturday’s hike was Doubletop and Graham mountains – both bushwhacks, though [...]

Today I’ll be hiking Cornell and Wittenberg mountains.  They’ll be numbers 18 and 19 of my 35 Catskill winter peaks.  I have 10 trips left and 10 weekends before March 22d.

I’m off on Monday for MLK Day, so I’ll be able to get a bit ahead of schedule, I hope.
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This will hopefully be short.  I just finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds.  It was pretty excellent.  I’m glad I’m done, because now I can get back to regular life sans story-obsession.  I’ll probably bring Hemingway’s short stories to work tomorrow for lunchtime reading – I doubt I’ll get too swept away with that.
Big [...]

Today I’ll be hiking Plateau and Sugarloaf Mountains.  I really hope I have the energy to do so.  I’ve taken the last two days off and feel pretty well rested.  I’ve been eating about as much as I normally do, which is to say not a whole lot.  But I’ve been sucking down water like [...]

Today we’ll be hiking Halcott Mountain.  It’s a short hike, just a little over two miles up and back.  Brian Haydinger will be joining me as guest hike leader.  This will be #15 of 35 winter peaks for me, and Brian’s very first.
After this, I’ll have 20 peaks (in approximately 14 trips) over the [...]

I am exhausted.  I’m definitely going to take Friday off.  North Dome and Sherrill are done, though: peaks 13 and 14 of 35.
I was up kind of late – the alarm on my blackberry woke me up at 7; my regular alarm had been going off since 5:30.  I got to the trailhead around 10AM.  [...]

Today I climbed Twin and Indian Head Mountains.  Below are the videos I uploaded to YouTube.  I keep splitting Twin Mountain into “west” and “east” peaks, but they’re really north and south of each other.  And now that I think about it, I’m not even sure that I didn’t mix the two up.  I have [...]