For a while after I decided to quit working in New Mexico I struggled with what I was going to do next. I pondered this while in the high mountains of Colorado for my friends’ Nagel and Julie’s wedding in Steamboat Springs. Traveling and spending time alone reminded me of what I enjoy and I began thinking about other things that I enjoy. I put myself in a paradox of places, because I love the openness and simpleness of the wild places, yet to study Aikido I must live in a town large enough to support a dojo. I relish in [View Full Entry]

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April took us to the Rio Chama in northern New Mexico for the next group's third week. It was an odd weather week in that we were rafting and canoeing in pretty cool water. The temperature would alternate between freezing and 60 from day to day. We woke up twice to snow and went to sleep while it was snowing once, but it the snow would melt and the sun would be out by the time we were ready to get on the river. It was a beautiful landscape that reminded much of the Sedona area, there was tons of gorgeous [View Full Entry]

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While I was home in Phoenix in November/December I thought I'd be staying there until April or so, but Seaver called me to come back to work in New Mexico. There was opportunity for advancement in this small company and I would be the most experienced instructor. The schedule would be different now…instead of 16 days on and 12 days off we were going to 8 days on and 6 days off so there would be more continuity in instructors. On top of that there were only going to be 4 instructors, and the partner you got was the one you [View Full Entry]

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After spending a month working in New Mexico I got a three week break. I was contemplating going to Phoenix since my birthday was during those three weeks. I had called a buddy of mine who lived in Austin when I got out of the field,but didn't here back from him that night. The next morning I was all packed up and was literally sitting in my truck at about 7am contemplating whether to drive to Phoenix or Austin when my phone rang. It was Nagel, from Austin. He told me if I went to Austin I could stay at his [View Full Entry]

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After doing the seminar for Wilderness Odyssey in May I had been seriously considering working there. I was excited because there were other activities other than just hiking and the students were a lot closer to my socio-economic background than the kids in Idaho. The part that had me worried was that the kids at Wilderness Odyssey were mostly going to be adjudicated, which means they're in the court system. To add to my fears I had heard that the first group that came through Wilderness Odyssey had hit the new instructors pretty hard. I was experienced by then, but word [View Full Entry]

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It's been several months since I've written anything on this blog. Not for a lack of material, but I suppose just a lack of motivation. I haven't traveled in the past 9 months as much as I traveled before. All of April and the beginning of May was spent in Idaho, working and spending time in Boise. I got instructor of the month at my job, which felt good after working there for about 9 months. At the end of May I headed down to Ruidoso, New Mexico to interview for another wilderness therapy program started by a couple of guys [View Full Entry]

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The end of June through July was mostly spent working. I worked a three week trip, had one week off, then worked a two week trip. First I worked a week of Ridgewalking, then I worked a boys group for a week that was already on the "West Side", which was great. We went to some waterfalls and got to swim a bit. There's usually no water deeper than your ankles in Idaho so that was fun. We had a couple of grueling hikes where more than one student was cursing my existence. After that I worked "O" camp, where the [View Full Entry]

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I had a great time off..I had almost three weeks off from April 10th through the 28th. I spent a few days in Boise with friends, watching the BillyGoats play some, went four wheeling with a bunch of co-workers(I'll add pics later) and going to the Komyozan Dojo to practice Aikido. I needed some alone time and my Aikido Sensei (teacher) suggested I visit Leslie Gulch, which is in Oregon, but it's only an hour and a half away from Boise. I got direction from my buddy Ty and headed out. I camped there for two nights in the dry campground [View Full Entry]

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I flew home in February to attend the Winter Count primitive skills conference in Maricopa, Arizona. I had an amazing time, sleeping in my tent in a warm Arizona winter, 65 degrees is heaven compared to the average at work of 20 degrees during the day. I had a few co-workers to keep me company at Winter Count, but I wouldn't have been lonely had they not been there. Everyone at Winter Count was very friendly. Friendly and usually a bit eccentric in one way or another. There are people like me, Wilderness Instructors, from various programs around the West. Anthropologists [View Full Entry]

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It's been a while since I've last updated my blog..maybe a month or so. I've had some downtime recently to write about my last couple of trips and my time back home. However; the universe had different plans for me. First off, after my last trip I still hadn't heard back from the guy from the dog sledding place, so that job feel through. I had already asked for that time off work , at least the month of December, so I had to figure out what I wanted to do for the month until I got back on trail on [View Full Entry]

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