With all the new (and old) members on the forum I think we're due for a,"tell us about yourself" thread. I'll start:
Hi, I'm Neil and I'm a hiker.
OK, bad opener.
How's this? I'm a 49 year old father of three boys. I have no idea what attracted me to the outdoors but when I was in my early 20's my buddy and I began bushwhacking in Manitoba, Canada with a piece-of-junk compass and literally no knowledge or experience. Looking back I can see that the stuff we did was pretty hardcore even for experienced hikers let alone the beginners we were. Summer gave way to winter and off we went on the train to be let off at midnight in the middle of nowhere with temperatures that were regularly in the neg 30 to 40 range. We learned that in school you get the lessons first and the exams second. In the winter camping school of hard knocks it was exam first, lesson second. The fun we had!
After spending 5 years hiking in the Canadian Rockies I went back to school and got a real job (my own health clinic) and had one kid after the other. There was a long period there where hiking was restricted to one winter camping trip per year (same buddy, also transplanted to Montreal).
Then I took one of my kids, then 5 or 6 on a little snowshoe dayhike. The difference between me and most dads was that I brought a shovel and saw and made a big snow-free area and lit a big fire in it. We cooked lunch and roasted marshmallows. On that trip I could tell the kid had potential but our family was still pretty young.
Finally, years later, I decided to check out the Adirondacks and drove down for the day and hiked Marcy. After the Rockies, Marcy is pretty tame, right? But still I figured the area would be OK for my boys to roam around in. We did a few family trips and then my super keen 14 year old of the snowshoe trip and I went up UWJ, Armstrong and Gothics one fateful day. The kid rocked and so did the ADK's! A light bulb kept going off in my head that day as I realized what I had going for me. The rest is history as they say and we have the 46 under our belts and come December 21 we hope to take a huge chunk out of the 46-W.
Being the obsessive type who likes to take things to the extreme I'm working my way through the hundred highest list and hope to do 50 slides over the next couple of years.
Hi, I'm Neil and I'm a hiker.
OK, bad opener.
How's this? I'm a 49 year old father of three boys. I have no idea what attracted me to the outdoors but when I was in my early 20's my buddy and I began bushwhacking in Manitoba, Canada with a piece-of-junk compass and literally no knowledge or experience. Looking back I can see that the stuff we did was pretty hardcore even for experienced hikers let alone the beginners we were. Summer gave way to winter and off we went on the train to be let off at midnight in the middle of nowhere with temperatures that were regularly in the neg 30 to 40 range. We learned that in school you get the lessons first and the exams second. In the winter camping school of hard knocks it was exam first, lesson second. The fun we had!
After spending 5 years hiking in the Canadian Rockies I went back to school and got a real job (my own health clinic) and had one kid after the other. There was a long period there where hiking was restricted to one winter camping trip per year (same buddy, also transplanted to Montreal).
Then I took one of my kids, then 5 or 6 on a little snowshoe dayhike. The difference between me and most dads was that I brought a shovel and saw and made a big snow-free area and lit a big fire in it. We cooked lunch and roasted marshmallows. On that trip I could tell the kid had potential but our family was still pretty young.
Finally, years later, I decided to check out the Adirondacks and drove down for the day and hiked Marcy. After the Rockies, Marcy is pretty tame, right? But still I figured the area would be OK for my boys to roam around in. We did a few family trips and then my super keen 14 year old of the snowshoe trip and I went up UWJ, Armstrong and Gothics one fateful day. The kid rocked and so did the ADK's! A light bulb kept going off in my head that day as I realized what I had going for me. The rest is history as they say and we have the 46 under our belts and come December 21 we hope to take a huge chunk out of the 46-W.
Being the obsessive type who likes to take things to the extreme I'm working my way through the hundred highest list and hope to do 50 slides over the next couple of years.
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