Trip Reports

I applied for the Sean A. Collier Adventure Grant this spring knowing that I wanted to adventure in a place I’d never been and challenge myself in a way I’d never experienced. Last year, I thru-hiked the Appalachian trail with a friend, spending 5 months in the tree-covered hills of the east coast. But I…

How do you talk about biking across the country? This is not a rhetorical question. This is not a segue into an adventure story that will take your breath away. I am earnestly curious. Because this summer my friend and I biked across the country, and I don’t know how to talk about it. How…

In June 2018 it was my great honor to receive a 2018 Sean A. Collier Adventure Grant to sponsor my cycling adventure around the province of Nova Scotia. In keeping with the grant program’s mission to honor Officer Collier’s enthusiasm for the outdoors and his commitment to tackling new challenges, I sought to use this…

Itinerary Solo ascent of Mt. Aconcagua (22,841 ft), the tallest peak outside the Himalayas Dates: ​December 24th – January 4th (12 days) Participants: ​Bruna Moscol, MIT ‘15 Route:​ Normal Route (Horcones Valley) Status:​ Completed, no summit bid due to weather *** Day 1 – Start from Horcones (9,185 ft.) to lower camp, Confluencia (10,825 ft)…

            The Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) is a 110-mile Alpine trail traversing three countries and circumnavigating Europe’s highest peak, Mont Blanc, a peak which overlooks the entire circuit from the dizzying height of 4810m. And although the TMB and its variants rarely go above 3000m, the trail has no shortage of climbs and cliffs,…

I heard about Yosemite Valley only a few months after I first started climbing. I was reading an article by one of my climbing mentors where he described his 1970’s ascent of “El Capitan”. The intensity of his experience, the challenges, and lessons depicted in his story motivated me to plan my first trip to…

I was fortunate to receive financial support through MITOC’s Sean A. Collier Adventure Grant to embark on my first scuba adventure and get Open Water certified. I earned my PADI Open Water License in August 2017 in the beautiful Bocas del Toro archipelago, located on the Caribbean side of Panama. My training involved six one-hour…

From June 1-11, 2017, Ben Kessel, David Migl, and Ana Beglova traveled to Peru for mountaineering in the Cordillera Blanca. After acclimatizing in Huaraz and hiking to Laguna Churup (4650m), we spent several days on an attempt of Nevado Pisco (5750m), turning around at 5400 m due to altitude sickness. We spent the next couple…