My memoir focused on the first 25 years of my life as a climber. This reflection is about the next 25 years of my life as a climber and mother. I couldn’t have imagined that what started out as a simple outing in 1975 with my two older sisters, my brother, and my sister’s boyfriend Chuck would become such an integral part of my life, connecting me to a community of people all over the world.

If my life’s meaning could be summarized in a simple phrase, I would choose this quote from Mark Twain: “The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

In looking back on my life, I realize that perhaps the day I found out my “why” is September 16, 1994, when I free climbed the Nose in one magical day. I had no idea how this ascent would impact my own life, as well as the lives of so many people throughout the world. At that time, no one—not even me—understood that it would take over a decade for this ascent to be repeated by anyone, man or woman.

By the time I had finished writing Climbing Free in 2002, the only person to have repeated a free ascent of the Nose was Scott Burke, who summited in 1998 after 261 days of effort. Due to an impending storm on his 12-day ground-up ascent, Scott top roped the Great Roof pitch, though he was able to free climb this pitch. It took over a decade before Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden finally repeated an all-free ascent in 2005. In the 30 years since my first free ascent, only 12 people have made an all free ascent of the Nose. Tommy Caldwell is still the only other person to have done a free ascent of the Nose in one day.

I returned to Yosemite in 2018 with a talented young Swiss climber named Nina Caprez, who was interested in making an all free ascent of the Nose. This turned out to be an ideal opportunity to support my friend, while celebrating the 25th anniversary of the first free ascent. In those 25 years, I hadn’t even sent a route of comparable difficulty. Nonetheless, my personal goal was simply to try free climbing as much of the route as possible. This experience gave me a much better perspective of the difficulty of this route, as well as a chance to reflect on how my life as a climber and mother had changed over the years.

In 2003, I bought a house in Boulder, Colorado and a few months later, I gave birth to my son, Owen. I was content to adopt a more stable lifestyle in a progressive community close to good climbing, skiing, and hiking. By the age of two, Owen had already traveled to more than 10 different countries. As soon as he was old enough to go to school, my travels became less frequent, especially since I had become a single mom living on a drastically reduced income.

My priority was no longer about my own climbing goals, yet I still managed to climb while Owen was in school or between work engagements. Adopting a cat and then a dog made traveling even more complicated. Most of my climbing took place at Boulder’s local crags, or more often than not, at the climbing gym, with occasional trips to far away destinations. Speaking engagements, climbing camps, and other work related opportunities enabled me to make short trips across the US, and to several countries in Europe and New Zealand. On one occasion, I flew all the way to southern China just to spend five days climbing in this extraordinary place!

Many people assumed that Owen would become a climber since he is such a talented natural athlete, but climbing was not his passion. Maybe that’s because, as he explains, “climbing is too slow.” Or perhaps it was the pressure he might have felt as the son of Lynn Hill. Despite our many camping and climbing trips with friends and kids his age, he seemed to enjoy swinging on ropes more than the actual climbing.

A relatively new sport that did appeal to Owen, however, was parkour. We took a basic parkour class together with a few friends back when one of the first parkour gyms in the country opened in Boulder. Shortly after our parkour gym closed, Owen and a bunch of his buddies began to meet at a local gymnastics center, where they created a new form of movement called “tricking.” Similar to the tumbling sequences of gymnastics, tricking is a kind of performance art that involves an innovative series of flipping maneuvers.

I was happy to see the camaraderie that Owen shared with his friends, as well as the confidence he gained, and the physical strength and skills he was developing. It reminded me of the early days of climbing, when our intimate group of friends—now referred to as the Stonemasters—were pioneering new routes and pushing the level of free climbing at our local crags.

However, unlike climbing, which is a great lifestyle sport, tricking took a toll on Owen’s hips, so he turned his focus to playing music. Perhaps the exposure to different languages and accents on all our travels helped him develop a keen ear for language and music. One day, without any prior piano lessons, Owen blew my mind by playing a beautiful piece of classical music. It brought tears to my eyes. For his first album that he mixed together with a friend, Owen sang, while playing the drums, guitar, and base. Unfortunately, like climbing, making a living from your passion is not an easy path.

It’s also a path inevitably shaped by the technologies that Owen grew up using. As the way we work, conduct research, and communicate constantly changes, our virtual connections are rapidly impacting our in-person interactions. Climbing has also evolved as a result of technology. I remember when my friends and I would joke about the seemingly ridiculous possibility that there would be climbers who only climbed indoors on artificial walls. With the advent of climbing board systems like the , it’s possible to repeat the exact same boulder problems with the same configuration of holds anywhere in the world.

Technology has also enabled climbers to “work from home,” thanks to Starlink technology that provides Internet connection in the most remote places on the planet. It’s no wonder van life is so attractive to many climbers. The cost of living in my hometown of Boulder, like many other desirable places, has become increasingly difficult to afford. Meanwhile, the need for guidebooks has been all but replaced by apps such as Mountain Project, which has given climbers free access to all the beta, from GPS coordinates to recent updates about routes.

With the exponential growth of climbing worldwide, several nonprofit organizations such as The Access Fund, The American Alpine Club, and The Outdoor Alliance have become indispensable in helping manage the environmental, political, and ethical issues that climbers in the US face today. Gone are the days of dirtbags making spontaneous plans to climb in our beloved national parks without making a reservation in advance and paying an entrance fee.

Political and legal issues associated with climbing are not limited to the US. Even in France, where the culture of climbing and mountaineering is revered, many recent closures to climbing on private lands have resulted from threats of lawsuits due to accidents. Thanks to the organizations in the US, we have the legal support to help protect the interests of climbers and outdoor enthusiasts. In December 2024, the finally passed, allowing climbers the legal right to manage the replacement of fixed anchors and bolts on existing routes in designated Wilderness areas (provided they do not diminish the Wilderness character of the area.) The ethic of the Clean Climbing campaign first introduced in the early ‘70s by Doug Robinson has come full circle. Climbers are now working with the National Park Service to help strike a balance between the protection of outdoor recreation and the preservation of our natural resources.

Along with the growth of the outdoor industry, more climbers and “extreme athletes” are making a living through sponsorships, or as social media influencers. As the level of competition has grown, so too have the level of performance and the level of risk. It’s no surprise that there has been a corresponding increase in the number of serious injuries and deaths in recent years.

The rising temperatures associated with global warming have also contributed to the rising number of deaths in the alpine environment. Due to the rapid melting of glaciers over the last 100 years or more, there has been an increasing number of avalanches and unprecedented rockfall in mountains around the world. When I lost my brother-in-law Chuck on his first mountaineering expedition to Aconcagua, I began to question the level of risk I was willing to take.

Though I have done some free soloing in the past, it was apparent to me from the beginning, that free soloing was not worth the gamble of possibly losing my life. After my near death experience when I fell 72 feet to the ground in Buoux, France, I’ve come to accept the risks associated with climbing. Being a mother has made me even more cautious when it comes to risks. Over the years, I’ve lost an increasing number of friends—some due to climbing accidents, but more often than not, due to cancer, heart disease, car crashes, or other unexpected accidents.

In 2022, Sasha DiGiulian invited me to be her partner in an attempt to free climb Logical Progression, a 28-pitch (5.13b) route in Chihuahua, Mexico. It wasn’t the right time for me to be focusing on a big wall project like this. My son was about to graduate from high school and my father-in-law was battling melanoma. This was also during the end of the COVID lockdown period and I hadn’t visited my mom and her husband in over a year. The day I called my mother to tell her that I had made the decision not to go to Mexico, I found out that later that same day, my step-father had passed away. I was glad to be there for my mom during this painful time, and to be able to celebrate my son’s graduation ceremony in person.

Rather than go climbing with Sasha in Mexico, I proposed that we establish a new route in our own backyard instead. After picking out a beautiful line up the south face of The Maiden in near our homes in Boulder, I wrote up a proposal to get the necessary permission to establish our new route. Our proposed route went directly up the middle of an improbable looking face with just enough features that it appeared feasible to free climb.

In order to get the permission we needed, we had to find a way to place some natural protection on this overhanging face to allow us to get a better idea of the actual difficulty and where we would place protection bolts. Since this 278-foot tall formation is overhanging and the last section of the route traverses to the side almost the same distance as it overhangs, this proved a more challenging task than I had imagined.

I started out by leading up the first pitch of an existing route called Kor Dalke, that criss-crosses up the south face and intersects with our objective in a few places. I was able to climb up to a belay ledge above Kor Dalke, where I placed adequate natural protection for our first anchor point. To establish the next anchor point, we climbed the third pitch of Kor Dalke, where another natural anchor was installed above the second pitch. The last pitch involved a lot of acrobatic maneuvers and clever rope management techniques in order to get in a few pieces of gear on the dramatically overhanging face.

Upon submitting a second proposal with more specifics about our proposed route, we gained permission to begin working on our project. The following winter, Sasha and I spent numerous days cleaning the rock, establishing protection bolts, and working out a sequence of moves up this beautiful face. Though Sasha is a Millennial from a completely different generation, we had a great time getting to know each other and working together to create a fun climb to share with our community. By the spring of 2023, we had completed the first ascent of a three-pitch (5.13c) route that we named Queen-line.

After retiring from my career as a professional climber, I thought a lot about how I wanted to earn a living. Rather than focusing on the accumulation of financial wealth, I chose to dedicate my time to utilizing my most unique assets to provide a service to others. The countless number of interviews, videos, and podcasts I’ve participated in over the years—as well as endorsing numerous environmental campaigns—has been my way of giving back to the climbing community and helping preserve our natural environment.

Of all the services I have offered over the years, teaching and coaching has been my favorite means of sharing meaningful experiences with others. While Owen was a toddler, I took the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) rock instructor course, along with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Wilderness First Responder course, so that I could become a certified rock climbing guide. After years of experience as an instructor, I realized that it would be useful to create an educational video to demonstrate the mechanics of climbing technique. Through a lot of experimentation with graphic tools that didn’t exist when I first embarked on this project over a decade ago, I was finally able to produce a video called, “Fundamentals of Climbing.”

In 2006, with the intention of eventually hosting climbing camps, I bought a parcel of land in Hueco, Texas, home to world-class bouldering and fun route climbing on uniquely featured rock unlike anywhere else on the planet. Located 40 minutes outside of El Paso, Hueco Tanks is an oasis with a unique history that has attracted humans and animals for more than 10,000 years.

When Owen was a toddler, I had started a business offering climbing camps in various places across the US and a few in Sardinia, Italy. I knew that by the time Owen graduated from high school, I would have more time to develop my property in Hueco. With this vision in mind, I have made progress in developing my property over the years. After clearing a spot on my land and installing a septic tank, I purchased a 1976 Airstream that had rolled and needed a lot of work to become livable. It took me until just a few years ago to get electricity installed, along with a 3,000-gallon water tank and pump. Last year, I hired a few local climbing friends to build a bathhouse with a shower, sink, and two toilets. As of last week, I have the architectural and structural plans necessary to build a house that can accommodate groups of people, climbing teams, or simply friends who want to climb with me in this amazing place.

In 2019, I returned to the Nose with Nina Caprez for the second time. She had been so close to sending the route the previous year, that I was psyched to go back and support her again. On our final push—we had been on the wall for a week—Nina had led and free climbed every pitch on the route up to the Changing Corners. I was happy to have free climbed all but the two most difficult sections on the Great Roof and the Changing Corners. On Nina’s final attempt to free climb the Changing Corners, she fell only one inch away from sending and was too exhausted to give it another try! I felt bad for Nina since she was clearly capable of free climbing every inch of the Nose. But I had never been away from my son for more than two weeks and it was time for me to return home.

My relationship with Nina had grown through our experiences together and I knew she was struggling to process this experience and move forward in her life. After a difficult period of reflection, she decided to take the opportunity to climb in a tropical limestone paradise on an island called Makatea in French Polynesia. As it turned out, Nina met her partner, Jeremy, with whom she fell in love and had her first child named Lia. Within the next few months, Nina will give birth to their second child. Ironically, Nina’s so-called “failure” on the Nose, led to her realizing perhaps the most meaningful success of her life.

People sometimes ask me if I still climb. I can’t imagine ever quitting climbing unless I become physically incapable. I love the feeling of grace and fluidity that I experience when moving over the rock. I can’t think of a more appropriate way of learning and adapting in the world than by climbing on the beautiful shapes and forms of nature.

I’m grateful to have been able to follow my passion all these years. Climbing remains my anchor in life that provides a connection to nature, mind/body health, and to so many people in my community of friends and peers all over the world.

My hope for the future is that we will unite and cooperate together as a global community to create a more sustainable way of life for all.

The post Lynn Hill Isn’t Done Climbing appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

While out on a hike, it’s common for kids to say, “it’s too far” about the trail, or, “it’s too heavy” about their backpack. But knowing how far kids can actually hike, and how much they can actually carry helps parents plan better routes and know the difference between instilling a sense of accomplishment and taking the fun out of hiking.

I talked to two experts on the topic. Tod Schimelpfenig is the former (now retired) curriculum director for , and raised four kids in rugged Wyoming, taking them each backpacking as early as age three.

Dr. Stephanie Canale advises kids and parents daily in her family medicine practice in Santa Monica, California, and hikes regularly with her eight-year-old son.

Here’s what Schimelpfenig and Canale have to say about much weight kids should and shouldn’t carry, and how far they’re capable of hiking, broken down in three age groups.

How Far Can Kids Hike?

“I think the average, school-age child could easily go five miles, as long as you’re going at their pace,” says Dr. Canale. “The key is to stay well-hydrated, have snacks, take breaks.”

She adds, “Within reason, I don’t think we should be putting limits on them.”

Still, here are some guidelines:

Ages 0-3

Canale recommends that parents carry kids, at least for most of the hike, when they’re toddlers.

For this young age group, we recommend sticking to outings less than two miles. Just getting out and going any distance with kids three and under should be considered a “win.”

Distance: .25 to 2 miles

Ages 4-7

Schimelpfenig says that kids are capable beings, explaining that he backpacked up to six miles a day with his six-year-old. But, he adds, he’d opt for shorter trips over longer, and has always paid close attention to whether his kids were enjoying themselves or not. “Kids get curious, want to stop and look at things, socially interact and play,” he says. “I’m very cautious about saying, ‘OK we’re hiking to XYZ,’ and instead have a kid-led hiking agenda.”

Distance:

Age 8+

Every kid is different, but older, school-age kids around eight years old and up can manage higher mileage. Of course, the distance will decrease the heavier load they’re carrying, but older children and certainly teenagers can hike a decent amount of miles.

Of course, that doesn’t mean forcing your nine-year-old to hike at least six miles every outing is a good idea. Having a positive experience trumps distance, but know that they’re physically capable.

Distance: 6 to 10 miles

How Much Weight Can Kids Carry?

“In the medical literature, you’ll find it says kids can carry 15 to 20 percent of their body weight,” says Schimelpfenig. “But I would err toward 15 percent, and that’s in a pack that fits them properly, not in some adult thing that doesn’t carry the weight well.”

Canale suggests that lighter is better for younger kids. “I’d say five to ten percent body weight for kids under seven or eight,” she says.

Age 0-3

Maybe it’s an empty backpack, or a backpack with a stuffy or a jacket in it. Or maybe they carry a small water bottle or snack.

Weight: 0 pounds to 5 percent their bodyweight

Age 4-7

Canale, who recommends five to ten percent bodyweight for this age group, notes that weighs 42 pounds, which means they’d carry a pack that weighs either just over two pounds, or just over four pounds.

Most backpacks will weigh around two pounds, so having a child carry an empty pack with small snacks in it, or with a light fleece layer, may be all they can handle. Larger kids in this age bracket will be able to carry heavier items, like small amounts of water.

“Carrying water is a good way to teach kids to stay hydrated while exercising, even on short hikes,” says Canale. Consider having your child carry a little water at a time, and refilling their bottle or bladder with your own stash of water during hiking breaks.

Weight: 5  percent to 15 percent of their bodyweight

Age 8+

“The older/larger/more experienced a child is the more they can carry,” says Schimelpfenig. Under his guidelines, children of this age of their body weight. If your child is 80 pounds, then that child could carry pack-weight—the weight of a backpack plus its contents—of 12 pounds.

Weight: Roughly 15 percent of their bodyweight

Give Kids What You Have

“Kids like having some of what their parents have in their packs,” advises Shimelpfenig, “an extra layer, a little bit of food, a rain jacket.” Load your packs together so kids see what you’re carrying, and can take pride in loading similar contents. “Hopefully,” he adds, “they start thinking about what they need when they go outdoors. It’s never too early to get them thinking about that.” He adds that for backpacking trips, he’d carry the sleeping bags, tent, and heavier items.

Make Sure It Fits

Both Schimelpfenig and Canale emphasize the importance of well-fitting backpacks. Canale says to make sure the sternum strap attaches across their sternum and not their breast bone for heavier loads.

Shimelpfenig implores that the hipbelt should sit directly on the hips, not at the waist. “And the shoulder straps should stretch out from the pack at a 90-degree angle to the child’s shoulders, not from below or above.”

Both advise that the pack should be snugged up to the back so it can hold the load close to the body and low around the hips.

And while kids are capable, adaptable beings, Schimelpfenig says to remember that they’re not miniature adults. “It’s like the difference between a mouse and a cow,” he says, explaining that kids don’t regulate their body temperatures as efficiently as adults, and aren’t as capable of expressing themselves clearly when they have, say, a headache that could be caused by the altitude.

So while it’s important to stay in tune with your child’s wellbeing on the trail, it’s also important to know that they really are able to carry a backpack (just one that’s not too heavy), and that they łŠČčČÔÌęhike a mile
or five.

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After 2,000 road miles, three national parks, five campsites, and six junior ranger patches, we are finally back at home in Boulder, Colorado.

We spent most of the first half of our trip in Grand Teton, followed by a night in Yellowstone and hours on the open roads of Montana. We passed four-and-a-half days hiking and paddling through the expansive beauty of Glacier National Park, hit Yellowstone again on the way back down, and spent one final night in Grand Teton before heading home.

I no longer smell like Deet and campfire smoke, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it’s nice to be home—back to our dog, our house, my garden, and our friends. But on the other, I see our two weeks as a family unit in a truck and in a tent as a time capsule. It was a unique experience—hard at times but worth it overall—that’s now just a collection of memories.

Now that I’m looking in the rearview mirror on this trip, I’m realizing that I learned a few lessons:

1. Not Planning Anything Until You Start Driving Works, but It Might Cost You.

We had maps and printed out emails with recommendations from a couple of friends, but otherwise, we were winging it. Relying on first-come, first-serve campsites that fill up early in the day meant we had to stay within striking distance of campgrounds we wanted. We had long drives in between Yellowstone and Glacier, so that meant spending money on motels twice, which I wasn’t thrilled about. (One night was in the beautiful Old Faithful Inn after nabbing someone else’s canceled reservation.) We could have camped outside the parks, but breaking down camp with kids in the morning would have meant time lost. Toward the end of the trip I thought to reserve a site at Yellowstone so we could do the big drive from Glacier and arrive at the end of the day.

2. Being Competitive and Anxiety-Prone Makes Getting First-Come, First-Serve Campsites Mini Sagas.

Just ask my family: I get totally insane on the drive toward a campsite. Arriving at the camp kiosk, I barely wait until the car has stopped before unbuckling and jumping out to grab the pay envelope. I mutter to myself while scanning for the best possible open site, and if another car is patrolling while we are, my heart can hardly take it. Once we nab a site, I try to recover while setting up the tent.

3. Kids Can Hike Farther Than They Think They Can.

Our boys, ages 6 and 10, complained while doing the first 3-mile hike of the trip: “My legs hurt!” “My shoes are heavy!” Singing songs helped, as did pulling various snacks out of my bag. A couple days later, they banged out a 6-mile hike (more snacks, more songs), and did a few more lengthy hikes throughout the trip with no problem. Camping with kids means you learn a lot more about them than you normally would around the house.

4. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Bribery (or Blackmail).

My two boys can get crazy loud. Instead of constantly shushing them, my husband and I decided to have them each start at $10 to spend in each national park. We’d deduct a dollar every time they misbehaved. Worked like a charm.

5. I Can Go Five Days without a Shower, and I Don’t Need as Much as I Think I Do.

Excluding the occasional river dip, I didn’t shower for six days. This reminded me of my expedition adventure-racing days and made me feel youthful and happy. Living out of a duffle bag, I also realized I don’t need as much stuff as I think I do.

6. National Park Rangers, and Ranger Programs, Are Indispensable Resources.

Rangers helped us plan hikes and activities, and gave us valuable tips of all sorts. They also held the kids’ attention when they spoke about the parks and all things nature. Every time we rolled down the back window to have my 10-year-old hand over his fourth grade “Every Kid in a Park” pass to enter a park for free, the ranger cheerily greeted him by name and thanked him for bringing his family.

7. Audiobooks Are the Bomb, as Are Comfy Pads and Coolers.

Audiobooks helped us pass hours on long car rides and were enriching for all the members of our family. A good cooler—we had a Yeti Tundra 65—that holds ice for days allowed us submerge ourselves in our campgrounds and not return to civilization to restock when we didn’t want to. And having sleeping pads—we had two —that virtually self-inflate and are as comfortable as a bed, made camp set-up easy and sleeping awesome.

8. We Got More Efficient as We Went.

The boys learned their campsite chores, as did my husband and I. With every campsite, the process became quicker, and packing the car also got easier.

9. Camping with Kids Is the Ultimate Bonding Experience.

My boys played more creatively during this trip than ever before. They also held my hand on hikes more than they ever do at home (even my 10-year-old). The four of us giggled in the tent, had inside jokes, talked about likes and dislikes, argued and made up, got through low points, paddled boats, saw wildlife, and got some low-key family therapy without realizing it.

10. Heading Home Is Hard When You’re Having Fun.

I cried three times on this trip. Once when the overtired boys pushed me to my limit. Once when we were leaving the eastern side of Glacier and watching the awe-inspiring mountains fade away in the background. And once when we pulled out of the last campground and I realized we’d be back in our beds that night.

Lesson learned: There’s no better way to learn about your family than to go camping with your kids.

The post 10 Foolproof Tips for Camping with Kids appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

I’m lying on copper-colored sand ground from High Sierra granite, the coarse grains pushing into my temple and knees and elbows. An army of black ants is crawling up my sunburned arm, across my muddy hiking shorts and down my legs. My lungs feel like crushed plastic bottles as I gasp for air. I want to throw up, but I can’t — my pack doesn’t have a spare ounce of food or pain medication and coughing it up is a luxury I can’t afford.

This is life in the Sierra Nevada. More specifically, life underneath Franklin Pass in the Mineral King Wilderness, in the homeland of the Western Mono, TĂŒbatulabal, and Western Shoshone, 10,488 feet above sea level. That’s roughly 10,488 feet closer than I usually am to the harsh, summer afternoon sun, which is beating down on me now.

Behind me, I hear sticks snap as my dad treads through the thick willow shrub, searching for a stream. Finally he calls out.

I force myself up, stumbling as stubborn branches dig across my dry legs. I don’t care. All that matters is the blessed snowmelt that eventually slides between my parched lips. 

My dad shifts. “You okay?” he asks. He’s not the type to ask sympathetic questions. Once, when I was a skinny freshman playing varsity soccer, I injured my leg and he said I should just give it a week or so, to see how it does; he’s an orthopedic surgeon and has seen a lot worse. I winced through practice for days until an x-ray finally revealed that not only was my leg broken, but my other foot had broken and healed on its own at some point in the past. In short, he’s not a guy who normally takes pain too seriously. 

But this isn’t exactly a normal day. It’s my dad and my first time backpacking together, and my first time backpacking ever. He’s back in the High Sierra, his favorite place in the world, for the first time in 40 years.

“It’s the ,” Dad continues. “We can’t afford to run out of water like that.”

Back at the visitor center, the ranger on duty hadn’t said anything about water sources or altitude sickness. Instead, she just gave us that smile I’ve gotten used to, the kind that said she was surprised—happy, maybe—to see Black people in the wilderness. She asked if we were good to do a much longer trek than we had planned — about thirty miles over four days — and we both said yes. There really wasn’t any other option: It was 4th of July weekend and there weren’t any permits left for the Black Rock Pass loop we’d planned. Anyway, we were packed, I was ready to make my backpacking debut, and my dad had waited decades to return here.

Now, huffing and puffing on the ground below Mineral King, I weigh our chances of making it. We still have two major passes ahead of us: one looming above us right now, ​​11,710-foot Franklin Pass climbing into the eastern side of the Sierra, followed by the 12,434-foot Sawtooth Pass, which would return us back into the west side.

We have decent gear, borrowed from my dad’s friend at work. We have snacks and dehydrated meals packed meticulously by my mom. Our boots are broken in from years of day hiking. But we also haven’t seen a single other person over 60, and barely anyone over 35. And we definitely haven’t seen another person of color.

That night, the wind beats against us with Old Testament wrath, slapping the side of our tents against us as we curl up in sleeping bags not warm enough for the 40 degree temperatures.

“I’m not sure I ever went to sleep,” my dad says, once the blue 5 a.m. light finally spills over the peaks above our camp. His eyes are puffy and swollen, and he’s wearing nearly every piece of clothing he brought.

It’s now my birthday, and for a second I worry that my dad—the only person who can wish me a happy birthday here, out of reach of all cell service—will forget. Not that he ever has before, but it’s been a long night.

He doesn’t. “Happy official birthday, buddy,” he says as he heats up the water. I exhale a sigh of relief, getting out of my tent and giving him a side hug. I allow myself two cups of coffee, both as a birthday celebration and as an offering to my middle-aged body.

At the base of Franklin Pass, we stare up at the switchbacks until it feels like they’ve started staring back. The sun is climbing up the backside of the pass as we begin our climb. Within minutes, our body temperature is warm enough to strip away my jacket and base layer, my dad’s convertible pants and his thermal skull cap. “Just put one foot in front of the other,” he says as we round the second of probably dozens of switchbacks. This is what he told my mom, he says, all those years ago, when he got lost on his own backpacking debut.

They had taken this exact same route, but in the reverse direction. When my mom saw these switchbacks, she burst into tears. They’d already been climbing for over twelve hours, starting with an alpine wake-up at 3 a.m., and still had another seven or eight hours to go. My dad was only 22 or 23 at the time and didn’t know how to read a topographic map. Instead of listening to my mom’s suggestion, he went east when they should have gone west, doubling or tripling their total route.

“I guess I didn’t really know the ropes,” he says.

My father had always wanted to go camping and backpacking growing up, but didn’t have anyone to take him. His dad taught him how to shoot a bow at the archery range, he went hiking nearly every day in the Vandenberg Air Force base with one of the neighborhood boys, and he read the Vandenberg library’s wilderness survival guides and Lewis and Clark stories. But then his dad went overseas on duty, and his mom was busy on her path to eventually become the first Black woman VP of the U.S.’s fifth-largest US bank. My dad didn’t fully see himself in any of his exploration books’ characters, and he didn’t know anyone else who looked like him that went camping or backpacking, so he didn’t either.

Still, we’re out here, though not everyone has gotten the message. The day before I flew out to California, I was talking with my white neighbor when he remarked that “Black people don’t really like to hike.” I winced.

“We actually do, but it’s hard to get out there,” I told him. I knew this was an oversimplified answer. I could have told him about the REI team member I’d met earlier that week, whose Instagram handle is BlaccBackPacker, or that 16 percent of African Americans in a recent survey said they’d never visited a National Park because they thought the parks were unsafe. I could have told him about the sections of the Appalachian Trail I had hiked, even though, as the New York Times has pointed out, 95% of all AT thru-hikers are white. I could have told him about the Black Texan I’d met on the Pacific Crest Trail, who was hiking from Mexico to Canada even though he “had never been backpacking or camping or even hiking before.” But I didn’t say any of this. Not because I was afraid of how he would respond, but because I simply didn’t have the energy or patience to educate my neighbor on things he’s smart enough to figure out himself.

I’ve lost count of what switchback we’re on now; maybe the fifth or sixth. Despite sipping water regularly, by the seventh or eighth switchback, the lightness returns to my head and I resort to the three ibuprofens in my pocket.

There’s a couple day-hiking below us, and two brothers we met yesterday ahead of us. A guy in a red shirt and red pack is climbing fast up the second or third switchback. I think about the camping trips our family did growing up, to Yosemite and Santa Cruz and the redwoods, and can’t help but wonder how my life would be different if I had started backpacking earlier. Would my relationship with the land where I was born be different, perhaps more whole, more restored?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. What I do know for certain is that not all of my ancestors had the chance to restore their relationship with nature. My grandparents, who died before I was born, never returned to the Arkansas fields they were forced to tend as cotton sharecroppers. They left the land for Chicago and ultimately California and never went back—never having the chance to fully heal from their past or reclaim their relationship with nature.

The man in red passes us. “Nice pace man,” my dad says, but he only nods his head and mumbles something indiscernible. I suppress the urge to yell out my dad’s compliment, so the hiker would have no choice but to respond or to blatantly ignore us. But I don’t say anything, to him or my father. I know Dad and I are thinking the same thing.

That’s the thing about being Black in America: it means that your skin colors every experience you have, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Did that man ignore my dad’s compliment because he wasn’t happy to see two Black dudes in the wilderness? Did the woman hiking yesterday ask us if we had wilderness permits because she didn’t expect two Black men to have followed the rules? Were the three flat tires I got when I was working on a forest restoration project in West Virginia a coincidence or something else? I tell myself I should assume the best in people. But now, 8.6 miles into the backcountry, I wonder if I really believe that, or if I just know deep down that if I admit the truth to myself, the wilderness might transform from a sanctuary into something more frightening.

My dad stops at the next turn and takes off his pack, plopping down against a boulder. His tank top is layered in white sweat, as are his pack and his cap. I’ve never seen him struggle like this. Yes, he’s 65, but he was also on the 1976 Olympic wrestling team. He wakes up at 4 every morning and rides his exercise bike every night. Last year, for my 36th birthday, he cycled nearly 80 miles with me around Lake Tahoe, 6,000 feet above sea level, on the northern side of the Sierra. And now he’s struggling to catch his breath. I do my best to slow down and match his pace.

We’re barely talking now. The stories about him and Mom have stopped. It’s just us and the mountain and the unforgiving July sun. Even some of the granite looks worn down here, weathered and rounded by wind and water. My dad tries to explain the geology, but it takes too much energy to talk above the headwind that’s blowing over the pass.

Finally, we reach the col, and the trail flattens out. Straight ahead of us, over a thousand feet below, is the Eastern Sierra: A valley of dark green pine and ancient juniper spread below us, backed by a horizon of toothy, 14,000-foot peaks. We’re on top of the Great Western Divide, one of the largest and tallest subranges across the 400-mile Sierra Nevada.

The next day is July 4th. I wake up at the first suggestion of morning, as Dad stirs in his tent.

I’m about to wish him a happy Fourth of July, but hesitate. In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin wrote about the great shock that comes when you discover that “the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you.” Dad is from a military family; his father died in a mission in Okinawa when Dad was only 20 years old. Still, the Fourth isn’t the same celebration of freedom for us that it is for so many others.

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shivers as he makes hot chocolate and we load up our packs. As we make our way along the meandering creek, a story from the 70s, when a landlord in Tulare evicted my mom, who’s white, after my dad stayed the night when he was visiting her from med school.

“The story of the negro in America,” Baldwin wrote, “is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.”

The path we’re walking on today is still relatively flat, but the banks and rocks in the creek we’re walking along are blood red from oxidized iron. Up ahead lies Sawtooth Pass. The name alone gives me the chills.

The pass was the site of my parents’ troubles on their trip back in the 1970s, my father tells me. They should have taken Sawtooth Pass the night they got lost. Instead, they headed east instead of west—subconsciously spooked by Sawtooth, perhaps. Their food eventually ran short, Mom’s feet started to blister and bleed, and the sun disappeared behind still-distant Franklin Peak. When they finally made it to the car, Mom collapsed.

“It was miserable,” Dad says, but they survived, putting one foot in front of the other. I tell myself I can do the same as the path abruptly turns toward the granite wall of Sawtooth Peak. Dad is quiet again. We continue on in silence, the wind now howling against us.

At Columbine Lake, roughly the climb’s midpoint, we stop to catch our breath, laughing in disbelief at the guy we’d seen at the foot of the climb. “From Columbine it’s just a tiny push,” he said, emphasizing tiny. As we scramble up slabs of granite, my dad slipping further and further behind, my glutes scream that it this hike is anything but.

After another hour of climbing, in an exhausted haze, the granite slabs gradually give way to a gradual, cairn-marked trail, which deposits us directly on the mountain top.

“You made it,” a warm voice just beyond the pass says. I look up to find a hiker in a black down jacket, with a kind sun-lit smile. He and his partner look South Asian—the first people of color I’ve seen since the flatlands.

It turns out my father’s reputation has preceded him: The hikers tell us they had heard there was someone on the trail who had been there back in the 70s. I feel a swelling pride when I tell them that my dad—the man coming up the pass’s final stretch now—is him.

As my father catches his breath at the top, the hiker in the black jacket grins at him.

“How does it compare to 40 years ago?” he asks. My dad glances at me and smirks, hopefully feeling like the Sierra legend he is.

“It’s a lot harder,” he laughs, shifting on his feet and taking a sip of his water.

As they leave, we watch them descend down the pass, the orange sun sinking slowly toward the interlaced layers of mountain. To the left are colored specks near Monarch Lake, where hikers are already setting up their tents. I point toward them as Dad zips up his jacket, preparing for the descent. We might be going at our own pace and might not look like all the others ahead of us. We might not have grown up backpacking or reading topo lines correctly. But we belong here too, just like the granite standing solemnly above us and the sun warming our soil-colored faces.

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All year, Eli Hemming said his primary focus was charging up and over the La FlégÚre ski resort on the last climb of the OrsiÚres-Champex-Lac-Chamonix (OCC) race at the UTMB World Series Finals to then break the finish line tape in Chamonix, France, as the champion.

That’s almost exactly how it played out on Thursday afternoon. The 29-year-old runner from Kremmling, Colorado, fended off the world closing in around him as he overheated under a humid, sunny 80 degree day, as well as a hard-charging Francesco Puppi, to win the 57K (36-mile) race in 5 hours, 11 minutes in 48 seconds. In doing so, he not only  claimed a UTMB-Mont Blanc Finals title and the , he became the first American ever to win the prestigious race that serves as the de facto global championship at the shorter ultra distances.

But the race was a dastardly tilt, and Hemming had to turn himself inside out to get the win. It figured to be a grueling battle, both because of the 11,500 feet of elevation gain and descent but also because of the strong field of international runners and hot, humid weather with sunny skies soaring into the 80s under the early afternoon sun.

How Hemming Became the First American to Win OCC

Hemming went out hard early in the race, but he didn’t feel compelled to challenge for the lead up the first two climbs over the first 9 miles. That’s because fellow American Christian Allen was absolutely flying off the front, as the 26-year-old runner from Orem, Utah, surged to the lead from the gun and led by more than 2 minutes through the 15-mile mark as he passed through Swiss the village of Trient.

But that’s where the runners faced the toughest test of the race, a spikey 4-mile, 2,300-foot technical climb to the Chalet des Grands before continuing upward on slightly less steep terrain to the Col de Balme mountain pass. In all, it’s a 3,000-foot ascent over about 6 miles to the 7,200-foot high point on the course.

That was the first crux of the race, and that’s where Hemming took charge. As Allen faded, Hemming surged up the big climb as several other speedy runners gave chase, including Swiss runner Remi Bonnet who is known for his uphill running abilities. But Hemming had been waiting for this all year and specifically trained on long mountain ascents near Breckenridge, Colorado. He continued to surge across the Swiss-French border and up to the pass, building a nearly 7-minute lead over Spanish runner Antonio Martinez Perez.

From there, Hemming extended his lead to 10 minutes on the 7-mile, 3,000-foot descent to the French village of Argentiùre. But with one more big climb—a 3.5-mile, 2,000-foot technical grind to 6,200 feet atop the ski resort—he was anything but home free. Early in the climb, he slowed from a run to a walk, and even stopped at one point midway through the climb, bent over and rested his hands on his knees. He looked in distress, but eventually gathered himself and started running slowly up the hill again.

Perez had been charging up the mountain behind him and there was a brief moment where it looked like Hemming’s lead might be in jeopardy. But he managed to reach the final checkpoint at the 50K La FlĂ©gĂšre aid station in first, and immediately looked better as he began the 4-mile descent down to Chamonix. Although he had gained ground, Perez felt the impact of the climb, too, and was caught by Italian runner Francesco Puppi before reaching the ski resort aid station. After a cordial acknowledgement as he passed, Puppi suddenly had a new spring in his step. He surged up the final 200 meters to reach the checkpoint about 4 minutes after Hemming then began bombing down the rocky, rooty dirt trail in pursuit of the leader.

Up front, Hemming had recovered slightly, running smoothly albeit without the intensity of a couple hours earlier. Puppi was clearly running faster. What had been a 10-minute lead at the 28.2-mile mark had greatly diminished with less than 3 miles to go. But with every stride, Hemming was one step closer to his year-long goal of winning OCC and he wasn’t going to let it slip away.

When he reached the edge of the Chamonix pedestrian village, he was quickly re-energized by the throngs of cheering spectators and increased his pace briefly as he dashed through the winding 200-meter section before slowly slightly on the final blue-carpeted approach to the finish line.

“I was trying to pace it as well as I could, and I knew if I made it over Col de Balme with a good gap, unless I blow up—which I did a little bit—I knew I could hold up pretty well to the end,” Hemming said. “It ended up being a bit of a grind. I knew I had about a 10-minute lead at Argentiùre, but I was very much overheated and the walls started closing in a bit. I tried to take a little time to cool down, but I knew I had to keep moving and just make it to the top.”

Still running hard, Puppi dashed through the village three minutes later to finish second in 5:14:46, followed by Perez in third at 5:17:56, China’s Juwei Zi in fourth (5:22:17), and Aritz Egea Caceres in 5th (5:27:07). Nick Handel, a 32-year-old runner from San Francisco, was the second American runner in the men’s race, finishing 13th in 5:41:08.

The victory is the first big international win for Hemming, who transitioned into trail running  in 2021 after several years as a professional triathlete. Hemming has won several domestic 50K races in the US, including the Canyons Endurance Runs 50K on April 26 in Auburn, California. Last year, he placed second to Bonnet in the Mont-Blanc Marathon and also finished fifth in the Golden Trail World Series Final 20K championship in Noli, Italy.

Puppi, meanwhile, turned in his best race since coming back from an extended U.S. running trip in the spring. He handily won the Chuckanut 50K in Bellingham, Washington, in March, and the Lake Sonoma 100K in California in April, but then struggled with fatigue for a month after returning to Europe. He placed eighth in the Mont-Blanc Marathon and 15th at the Sierre-Zinal 31K two weeks ago in Switzerland. This was his second year in a row taking second at OCC.

“I don’t think I have the energy to process what I just did right now,” Puppi said. “I am continually impressed by the suffering of endurance racing going like this and with what all the athletes that ran with me did today. I just try to be my best every time I race. I’m happy I gave my 100 percent and that’s what matters.”

Miao Yao Wins Her Second UTMB Championship Race

For a while, it looked like Hemming, and his 27–year-old wife, Tabor, might be on the verge of one of the best trail running stories of the year. They decided to part ways with sponsor Salomon, in the offseason, and sign with the Adidas-Terrex team at the start of the year. While they both raced well early in the season—Tabor took third at the Canyons 50K in April and third at the Broken Arrow Skyrace 25K in June—they opted not to race as much this year as they’ve been known to. They also decided not to join their new teammates at an extended Chamonix training camp in late July and instead stay home and train at high-altitude in central Colorado.

Knowing what they’d be facing on the course, they sought out long climbs near Breckenridge and Frisco that topped out between 12,000 and 13,000 feet—including Wheeler Pass between Copper Mountain ski resort and the community of Blue River.

“The course is fast and steep, but it’s also very runnable,” Tabor said. “We knew we could get quality training at home, so we used those climbs to train, so we were happy to stay at home and run the places we know best.”

Tabor looked great early in the race, running with a strong pack of lead women that included Judith Wyder of Switzerland, Clementine Geoffray of France, and Miao Yao of China, plus Spain’s Sara Alonso, New Zealand’s Caitlin Fielder, and fellow Americans Dani Moreno and Allie McLaughlin.

Wyder was the early leader and figured to be tough to beat—despite a recent bout of COVID. She had earned the silver medal in the 50K race at last year’s World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Austria, and more recently took second in the 20K mountain running race at the European Championships and first at the Mont-Blanc Marathon in early July.

Wyder led Geoffray, Moreno, McLaughlin, and Yao through the initial 4.5-mile climb to Champex, then expanded her lead to the top of the second climb at the 6,200-foot summit of La Giete as Yao and Alonso maneuvered into the second and third spots. But following a similar strategy as her husband, Tabor took the lead on the long downhill into Trient and began to surge on the technical climb up to Chalet des Grands with Yao, Wyder, Alonso and McLaughlin in tow.

Hemming ran in the lead for part of the climb, but she paid for the aggressive move. Wyder and Yao overtook her and those two separated from the rest of the field. They dueled back and forth but Yao took the lead over Col de Balme and would never relinquish it. She seemed to get stronger as the race went on and she extended the gap on Wyder to 4 minutes at La FlégÚre ski resort.

From there, Yao cruised into Chamonix to secure the first win by a Chinese athlete at OCC in 5:54:03. With a 2018 CCC win already under her belt, she also enters the rarified air of having two UTMB World Series Finals championship titles to her name.

Wyder was second in 6:00:05, followed by Geoffray in third at 6:02:10, Alonso in fourth (6:05:15), and Fielder in fifth (6:05:46). Moreno, who was third in the OCC in 2022 and dropped out last year, ran a strong second half to finish sixth as the top American in 6:06:59. Tabor Hemming continued up and over Col de Balme but slowed significantly and eventually dropped out at ArgentiĂšre.

“I’m really happy about my race. It was really fun out there to compete with such strong ladies,” Wyder said, “Miao Yao was flying in the end. I’m so proud of myself to be back and to be able to be racing healthy. I didn’t think about [having COVID recently]. Today I was really happy with my performance and with my legs today.”

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If Halloween is the best night of the year for kids who love candy, then the day after is when grown-ups with a sweet tooth hit the jackpot. Overnight, entire aisles of sweets get marked down, selling for 50 to 90 percent off. It’s a great day to stock up on hiking fuel. And this year, I’ll be stocking up on Swedish Fish.

My love for Swedish Fish as a backpacking snack started on the , a weekend-long group hike the brand organized along the spine of the Rockies in Colorado. At aid stations along the route, tables brimmed with the loose Scandanavian-themed gummies. I grabbed them by the handful (the pre-Covid world was a different place), munching on them across passes and at water breaks.

Now, on long backpacking trips, trail runs, , or basically any other adventure, Swedish Fish are my secret weapon. Why? Let me break down why I’m raiding my local grocery store for these—and why you should too.

They’re Pure Sugar

Granted, this isn’t particularly unique—most candy is all sugar, after all, and that’s not usually something you brag about when you’re talking nutrition. But when you need energy, and fast, taking a hit of simple carbohydrates is a quick way to get it, hence all of the energy gels and blocks at your local REI. But not all sugars are the same: As our friends at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű outlined in a recent article on energy gels, research suggests a combination of glucose and fructose can boost athletes’ endurance without causing tummy troubles. One of the main ingredients in Swedish Fish is invert sugar, which is—you guessed it—a combination of glucose and fructose. No wonder these gummies go down so smooth.

They’re Cheap

Even when they’re not on sale, Swedish Fish are a fraction of the price of purpose-made energy chews.  retail for about 92 cents an ounce; Swedish Fish, about 34 cents, are comparable to other candies. Add in that post-Halloween discount, and you can stock up for a season’s worth of backpacking trips all at once. (Just make sure to keep them in an airtight container; no one likes a leathery, dried-out gummy.)

They’re Covered in Wax

OK, bear with me on this one: This is the best thing about Swedish Fish. Like a lot of candies, they’re covered in carnauba wax, a palm-derived substance that candymakers use to give their creations that appealing gloss that consumers love. Thanks to that, you can keep them almost anywhere without creating a sticky mess: I’ve decanted them into my shell’s chest pockets on ski tours, where they stayed just warm enough to be edible, and stashed them in my hipbelt pockets on backpacking trips. As long as the weather’s not hot enough to melt them, they won’t pick up dust or crumbs from other food like gummy bears do. (Do pick somewhere reasonably clean, though.) Bonus: No need for single-serving plastic means less waste, and less microtrash to carry out.

So keep your M&Ms and your Skittles: I’ll be boosting my blood sugar with a schoolful of those fruity, chewy candies on my hikes this fall and winter. Try it, and you might just find yourself going fishing for them too.

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