6 Tips for Beginners Learning How to Rock Climb

Rock climbing, as a means for exploration, has been around forever. It has always been a way to access new terrain to explore. As a sport, it gained its popularity in the late 60s with the explosion of activity coming out of California’s Yosemite National Park. And most recently with the booming popularity of Rock Climbing gyms, Rock Climbing is more accessible than ever. I’ve climbed very hard routes in gyms (5.12+) and absolutely fun and exposed climbs outside, but there are so many things I wish I was told when I was starting out climbing. Here are some of …

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Surfing 20 Years In… And Finally Trying to Improve

With nearly 300 posts on this blog, and can you believe it, I’ve barely ever talked about on of my first real passions in the outdoors. Long before I ever hiked a mountain, as a kid from New Jersey, I cut my teeth surfing on the inconsistent summer waves on the South Jersey beaches. Throughout my life, so far, I’ve never lived closer than 1.5hrs from the beach whether that was New Jersey or Connecticut. The two chances I now get to surf every year, I cherish, and realize it is something I will always love. In 2021, I’ve gone …

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SCUBA Diving in Maui, Hawaii | VIDEO

Our trip to Maui this summer was centered around the opportunity to go SCUBA Diving. I got my open water certification just a week before flying to Hawaii. For my first real open ocean diving experience, it exceeded all of my expectations, and I couldn’t have asked for a better dive. We booked two dives with Maui Dive Shop which has a few dive shops around the island. On the day of the dive, we drove down to Maalaea Harbor where we’d meet the crew and hop onboard their charter. We lucked out and only had 3 other divers join …

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DOG BEACH | Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA

Watching our dog Gregor play with a hundred dogs, all running amuck on the beach, splashing in and out of the ocean, is completely worth the 12+ hour drive from Utah. Which is why we’ve been to the Ocean Beach dog beach twice in the past three years. It has become a tradition, of sorts, for us to make the pilgrimage across the Western states over the Thanksgiving weekend to California. And for the last four years, where we’ve gone has pretty much been based on where our dog could go to a beach. And it has never disappointed. The …

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Washington & Oregon Road Trip 2021 | Bend, Yakima, Seattle, Olympic Peninsula

Every year, Courtney, Gregor, and I load up the truck (or a rented Van) to take a weeklong road trip around a state out west. So far, we’ve done a road trip around Montana, Oregon, and Colorado. This year, to knock off the last western state that neither of us had been to, we headed up to Washington State! Admittedly, it was going to be a far haul and lots of driving to get there and back, but with a week off, we knew it would be worth it. And after the countless opportunities to paddle all types of water …

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Cabin Life: Living in Tollgate and the First Impressions

We closed on the cabin in the first week of August. Temperatures were regularly in the upper 80s, trees were covered in green leaves, and the dirt road into the mountain community was drier than Death Valley. Yet, whenever we chatted with any of our neighbors or friends who knew the area, they only cared about one thing. “How prepared were we for winter?” I couldn’t believe it. It was summer, why was anyone caring about winter just yet, but it didn’t take long for me to understand why they always asked that. Three simple words: preparation takes time. We …

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Learning to SCUBA Dive | SCUBA Utah

My story with SCUBA diving is almost identical to that of how I learned to sail. I literally took both lessons within a week of each other in July 2021. SCUBA is something I never thought I’d do because I I didn’t hang around anyone who SCUBA dove until I met my wife Courtney. So as a wedding present, to myself, I signed up for a Recreational Open Water SCUBA certification course with SCUBA Utah. Like all SCUBA lessons, you spend more time in the classroom than in the water, but fortunately all that “in-class” portion is now online. Throughout …

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Learning to Sail with Sail Park City

Learning to sail was something, honestly, that I never thought I’d ever learn to do. I didn’t know a single person who sailed, even though I grew up near the beach in New Jersey. But that all changed, like most things, when you get married. A family friend of ours named Hayden & Radeen sail every spring around the Caribbean and had some of the most incredible stories and experiences that we couldn’t help but be jealous of. So for Courtney’s birthday, I got her a sailing lesson package through Park City Sailing which offers four Adult Lessons in the …

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Gear Needed to Get into Mountain Biking

Getting into mountain biking, back in 2016, was one of the best decisions I ever made. Mountain biking has taken me from mountain tops to desert landscapes, with some of the best times with friends I’ve ever had. So, with that being said, mountain biking can be a daunting to get into. The websites like PinkBike and Backcountry will make it seem like you need a $10,000 mountain bike and all the top gear in order to hit your local trail. I’ll let you in on a little secret… that couldn’t be further from the truth. I got started with …

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