Trip Reports
Altemose, Rouwenna
Jul 20, 2019 to Aug 13, 2019
“What is your favorite thing about backpacking?”
My husband asked me this question when he joined me for 5 days of my thru hike of the Long Trail in Vermont. I couldn’t give him a short answer. I think I first said, “That’s a hard question.” And then was silent for a bit. There’s no one thing. And w...
Bergquist, Parrish
Mar 30, 2019 to Apr 9, 2019
On my first day at my new job, in a new city, in the new year, my new colleague Lisa invited me on an adventure. I was coming off a harried Fall of marketing myself to The Academy (:/) and finishing my dissertation. I forgot to take a break: I defended my dissertation at the end of December, moved t...
Damaraju, Venkata
Aug 23, 2018 to Sep 4, 2018
Natural caves, along with deep oceans, are some of the least explored places on earth by humans. In fact, there are more undiscovered cave passages in the world today than mountains left to summit. This past fall (2018), thanks to the Sean Collier Adventure Grant, I had the opportunity to join an in...
Rohr, Tyler
Aug 19, 2018 to Sep 5, 2018
Read the related Rock and Ice article Fluid Machine: Life, Death, and Transformation on São Tomé’s Pico Cão Grande.
From the plane over Accra the life of the lights below is strange and somehow comforting. Their shape is organic and distinct from the geometry of other cities I know. Instead of the...
Cramer, Avilash; Cain, David
Jul 2, 2018 to Jul 4, 2018
I received a Collier Adventure Grant to climb the Kautz Route, a WI2/3 ice route on Mt. Rainier, the iconic 14,400' glaciated peak in Washington state. Along with David Cain, I climbed the route in about 35 hours car-to-car on July 2-3 2018. My write up of the climb was picked up by Rock and Ice mag...
Li, Linda
Dec 3, 2018 to Dec 7, 2018
Introduction
May 2018, my sister and I recently resumed our weekly family dinners in Somerville. She had just come back from her first season living out in Revelstoke, British Columbia (BC), a gem of a ski town tucked away in no man’s land, 8 hours from Seattle and 2 hours from Banff. She said “I on...
Boulicault, Marion
Jan 8, 2019 to Jan 26, 2019
I had big plans for 2018. Having finished my PhD coursework and also completed my first ever self-organized short backpacking trip (in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho) the previous year, I felt finally ready to attempt longer and more challenging backcountry trips. Maybe a week in the Cascades? Or s...
Sandoval Olascoaga, Carlos; Zhu, Tony
Jul 26, 2018 to Aug 6, 2018
I heard about The Bugaboos after I got introduced to big wall climbing in Yosemite 14 years ago. After learning how to spend a few nights on el Capitan, it seemed like the next step would be to take the game to the alpine. The Bugaboos were also known as the “poor man’s Patagonia”, and as broke coll...
Hermus, James; Migl, David; Saulnier, Chris
Aug 1, 2018 to Aug 3, 2018
Our background & rationale for the trip
We all met through MITOC and have been climbing in the Whites together but had been talking about trying to do a trip to explore some larger multi-pitch adventures. It so happened that we were all in the Pacific Northwest on other personal trip...
Smolyar, Karina; Taylor, Erik
Sep 6, 2018 to Sep 16, 2018
The GR20 trail runs 112 miles (180 km) along the Corsican mountains, diagonally bisecting the island, gaining over 40,000 feet of elevation. The northern 70 miles (the GR20 North) from Calenzana to Vizzavona consist of steep ascents and descents, scree slopes, and a generous serving of rock scrambli...
Tafsia Shikdar
Aug 4, 2018 to Aug 10, 2018
The first time I set foot in the US was last summer, when I embarked upon my freshman year at MIT. So everything on this continent is new and exciting; I’m still waiting to see my first racoon! During this year I’ve taken every opportunity I can to explore nearby areas: I’ve been on long bus rides t...
Ding, David; Amadei, Carlo Alberto; Blankley, Paul; Hoernle, Nick; McClelland, Charlie; Sevostianov, Vlad
Aug 11, 2018 to Aug 20, 2018
We hope this report captures a glimpse of the beauty we encountered, encourages respect for nature and environment, and perhaps inspires you to discover for yourself the magic this planet has to offer.
Philosophically, mountaineering mainly serves as a vehicle to discover where the boundary between...