I grew up in Bri­ar­cliff, NY, about an hour north of New York City. After col­lege I quick­ly shunned the tra­di­tion­al career path and lived in south­ern Ver­mont, Dil­lon, CO, and Truc­k­ee, CA, as I fol­lowed snow and my pas­sion for ski­ing. When I am not hik­ing, I work as a ski patroller. Recre­ation­al­ly I enjoy back­coun­try ski­ing, Nordic ski­ing, snow­shoe­ing, moun­tain bik­ing, surf­ing and any­thing else active and outdoors.

Since 2002, I have hiked over 35,000 miles, equal to near­ly one and a half times around the Earth. My pas­sion start­ed in 2002 when I took an out­door edu­ca­tion class through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San­ta Cruz. In this class we most­ly trav­elled cross-coun­try through the canyon coun­try of south­ern Utah. On this trip I start­ed devel­op­ing the idea of set­ting off on the Appalachi­an Trail. The fol­low­ing year, 2003, I hiked from Geor­gia to Cap Gaspe, Que­bec fol­low­ing the Appalachi­an Trail and Inter­na­tion­al Appalachi­an Trail.

The next year, I under­took the Pacif­ic Crest Trail from Mex­i­co to Cana­da and then con­tin­ued on the Pacif­ic North­west Trail to the Wash­ing­ton coast. I fin­ished my first Triple Crown in 2005 upon com­plet­ing the Con­ti­nen­tal Divide Trail from Mex­i­co to Cana­da. I didn’t stop there, how­ev­er– I con­tin­ued to hike north from the Cana­di­an bor­der on the Great Divide Trail to Kak­wa Lake, British Colum­bia. Upon com­plet­ing the Triple Crown of long-dis­tance hik­ing, I looked for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to chal­lenge myself, push the lim­its of human endurance, and a good excuse to be out­side and hike for a year straight. From, 11/1/05 to 10/23/06 I com­plet­ed the East­ern Con­ti­nen­tal Trail (Cap Gaspe, QC to Key West, FL, incor­po­rat­ing the AT), the Pacif­ic Crest Trail, and the Con­ti­nen­tal Divide Trail in under a year, a total of over 10,000 miles in 356 days.

The fol­low­ing year fre­quent hik­ing part­ner Pep­per and I devel­oped a pre­cur­sor to the Te Araroa Trail in New Zealand and tra­versed the South­ern Alps and the South Island of New Zealand from south to north.

In 2007, I swam unsup­port­ed around Lake Tahoe with­out a wet­suit, and devel­oped and hiked a route from Duran­go, CO to Las Vegas, NV. In 2008, I hiked the Hay­duke Trail through UT and AZ, tra­versed Ice­land on foot, and hiked through Nor­way and Swe­den. The next sum­mer I ambi­tious­ly hiked 1800 miles, solo and unsup­port­ed, through Africa, includ­ing cross­ing through Ethiopia and Kenya, before end­ing my trip after being stalked by lions. In 2011, I com­plet­ed a tra­verse of the Himalaya Moun­tain Range from the east­ern Nepal bor­der to the India/Pakistan border.

I still work as a ski patroller in the win­ter, and I am con­stant­ly dream­ing up new adventures.