The Unlikely Mountaineer

Building Fitness from the Ground Up

The rock shifted under my boot.

It was May 2024. I was suspended on my first ever abseil, halfway down a cliff in the Southern Alps, somewhere between the Ball Glacier and Caroline Hut. I was exhausted from the previous day's hike up to the hut and already sore in places I didn't know could hurt. As I felt the rock move, my whole body froze up (even if I wasn't technically standing on it). My mind split in two: one voice screaming in panic, the other whispering logically: I'm safe, the rope will hold, the anchors are secured, everything is good... Logic was losing ground by the second.

Antarctica

Ski Touring Adventures on the Ice

As we made our first anchorage, our guide encouraged us to get our ski gear together quickly for a late afternoon ascent of Banco Island, and our first, warm-up ski…