Auld Lang Syne Again

"Anyone who lives too much in the past will end up having no present to remember." ~ Paulo Coehlo

What can I say about 2025? So much. On paper it seems less of an adventure than 2024 was. I didn’t visit any new state high points or take any really big trips. In fact, I didn’t tick off any of my goals for 2025. Not a single one.

Early on my daughter—Jay—turned eighteen and then graduated high school in the spring. My son came home for the summer from college and didn’t go back. So, I’ve found myself with my two adult children living with me.  

Mental health? I started seeing a therapist again. While I don’t see hardline results from that so far, I have to admit that I’ve gone a long stretch without being depressed or worrying about becoming depressed. I had an epiphany earlier in the fall that most of the things that had kept me confined in an endless cycle of depression are gone from my life. I have almost no reasons to be depressed anymore. My physical state is one of them.

I weigh exactly the same as I did at the beginning of the year. My diet is marginally better but nothing to write home about or that would satisfy even the weakest criteria for New Year’s resolutions. I made efforts.

First, at the end of the summer I tried to hire a physical trainer to work on my general lack of strength and my climbing fitness. She did an assessment and gave me a training plan, but she didn’t have the time to work with me one-on-one, so that wasn’t as effective as I had hoped. I will say I had kept to the plan mostly up until a couple weeks ago.

Then I hired a climbing Physical Therapist I found through Instagram. I foolishly paid him $1,000 for a PT plan to strength and stabilize my shoulder(s). That’s been fairly effective, but I feel like I overpaid, and then again, there has been no checking back in from the guy (I paid for access to a PT plan in an app) and never any one-on-one. It was an option, but I said I could probably work on my own. I thought he would at least check in every week or so. Nada.

I finally got fed up with my chronic back pain, so I went to the doctor and said, “my back hurts.” He prescribed a muscle relaxer, ordered an x-ray, and referred me to physical therapy. This week is my third week of that. And then this morning I read an article about ischemia. It sounds like it could explain my chronic pain and stiffness. And it seems like my theory about losing my cardio fitness resulting in my chronic pain and weakness is supported by what I read, too.

We saw a couple of concerts this year. Billy Gibbons played at the Kentucky Theatre, and we saw the Avett Brothers at Rupp Arena. Then Jay and I went to New York last week and saw Heathers – the Musical and All Out with Eric Andre, Abbi Johnson, Ike Barinholtz, and Jon Stewart. Then there was the summer classics at the Kentucky Threatre. We saw Raising Arizona, Close Encounters, Blade Runner, The Big Lebowski, and screened for its 50^th anniversary: Jaws.

"He thought of the many roads he had traveled, and of the strange way God had chosen to show him his treasure." ~ Paulo Coehlo, The Alchemist

I made an attempt to read more this year. The hardest hitting was The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo, but I also read Dharma Bums and On the Road by Jack Keroauc, The Parable of the Talents and The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, Revelations by Jerry Moffatt, Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, The Pearl by John Steinbeck, The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. I’m currently reading The Body Keeps the Score and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

"...there's nowhere to go but everywhere." ~ Jack Kerouac, On the Road 

While I didn’t visit any new to me state highpoints, Tonya and I revisited a number of places from my past. We took a trip and hiked to Mount Rogers, Virginia. Then we paddled the Nantahala River with Tony. On the return trip home we cut through the Smokies and I can finally say I can remember visiting Kuwohi. We also went to Grandfather Mountain on that trip.

Grayson Highlands, Virginia

We rode the Dawkins Trail and the Brighton Trail. We visited Black Mountain, Kentucky. We went to Kingdom Come State Park and hiked Bad Branch to the falls and then to High Rock on Pine Mountain.

The new took a long weekend and went to New River Gorge. We had planned to go out west, but the wheel bearings were going out of my car and that bumped us out of the longer trip. No climbing or mountain biking was threatened by our trip to West Virginia, but it was a great trip, with us staying two nights at the Hawks Nest State Park lodge and hiking around and seeing the sights.

Eating my feelings

Lower Chimney Top Falls

Red Byrd Arch

Top of Sky Bridge

Then there was the aforementioned trip to New York. Tonya was going to go, but her dad has not been doing well and she didn’t want to get too far away. If I hadn’t already booked a hotel and we’d gotten past the full cancellation date I probably wouldn’t have gone myself. But I’m glad Jay and I did. It was a good trip for the both of us.

Times Square

Maybe the most sobering moment was losing my friend Rick after reconnecting with him only a month before. We had a good conversation about getting older and losing our mobility and energy. And then he was gone—fell and hit his head because of some stupid medication he was on. He wasn’t even sixty years old. It woke me up. Rick’s death has motivated me more this past year to move than anything for a long time.

"If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die." ~ The Avett Brothers

For a long time I’ve tried to return to bouldering. Most of my efforts have been weak and inconsistent. Last winter after New Years I started seriously developing Schoolhouse Rocks. Within three months I had put up 54 new first ascents. Summer put a damper on my progress, but over the fall and in the last few days I’ve added about ten more. I’m sitting at 63 or 64 new first ascents in 2025.

Still attempting Balaclava Lover Boogie

Conjunction Junction, a return to V2

Attempting Judy is a Punk

Survival of the Fattest V2

When I had been working out for a bit and seeing the first positive benefits of my efforts, I decided I would work and send The Pearl at Sky Bridge Ridge. I had worked it years ago but gave up on it due to debilitating tendinitis. It’s an iconic V5 put up by Rennak in the late ‘90s. While working that I recleaned and tried to resend a lot of other problems there. All of that activity kick started the bug in me. Since then I’ve been shifting my thoughts more and more to bouldering. Yesterday felt like a decent step up in progress.

I revisited Lumpy Wall and the Junkyard, but lost my window of opportunity when the Forest Service gated Indian Creek for the winter right before Christmas. I’m going to throw everything at Schoolhouse/Boulder City, Group W Boulders, and reestablishing and expanding Trenchtown and Tower Rock this winter that way in the spring and early summer I can fill in a bunch of gaps at Lumpy and reestablish the Junkyard and a couple of satellite areas in the general vicinity.

I didn’t send The Pearl. Yet. I got to a high point and then couldn’t get back there. I felt like I was losing ground. Then I watched a Power Company Climbing video with Kris Hampton about Eric Horst’s grade pyramid. I realized I need to rebuild a base before I will ever be able to get close to sending that hard. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. So much keeps thwarting me.

But then I began compiling and editing a comprehensive bouldering guide for the Gorge. I’ve documented over 1,000 problems from my own records and three other sources. There are problems up to V13. It’s time to get this information out there for historic purposes as well as to more firmly establish the existing areas. I know, I have regretted my development efforts over the years. And there’s a good chance I’ll regret this as well. But life is short, and I want to live.

So, what is in store for 2026? Honestly, I’m leery to make any predictions. Let’s leave those bones uncast for now.

Suffice it to say, I have five state highpoints I am determined to get this year. I want to finally…FINALLY get back into some kind of active shape. I want to climb more. I want to hike more. I want to take more photos with intention. And write.

There are changes coming in my life that I won’t write about here, but there is a distinct positivity about my prospects. Life is good and continues to be good. I’m fortunate to be able to say that.

I wrote all of that...and contradicted myself. "Didn't take any really big trips"?! I hauled my stress-related fatness to a new high point on the Grand Teton! Obviously, I didn't summit or that would have been the main headline for this post: LOCAL BOY SUMMITS THE GRAND. FINALLY. 

Looking down from my high point

Looking up from my high point

I did return to the Grand. I did not summit. I learned a lot. I was okay with the failure, though I wasn't sure if I really should be. Some of it was out of my control. Some of it wasn't. So what happens now? I'm not sure. 

That's the 2025 recap. And basically i told you very little about my year. 

"Ultimately, we want to realize the best version of ourselves." ~ Chris Sharma