On Saturday morning I was at sea level in the Bay Area, and by mid-afternoon Sunday I was more than 10,000 feet in the sky following the Deer Mountain Trail toward the summit that offers a panoramic view of Rocky Mountain National Park. There are so many reasons I love hiking, but the process of this hike was truly transformative. Waking up early in the darkness, feeling the biting cold of Boulder, Colorado as I step outside, watching my breath form clouds in the air in fron

Being silent is hard. Being silent for more than two hours in the company of a group of strangers while you trek 3.5 miles up a muddy trail through the pouring rain in a redwood forest is even harder. That’s exactly what the STRIVENT weekend adventure Meetup group did this weekend though. With intention, at 7am we set out from Stinson Beach to hike Mt. Tam’s Matt Davis 7-mile loop trail in a group silent meditation. Silence is powerful. When there’s no noise coming from the

There’s a subtle difference between pain and discomfort, and we discussed it on the STRIVENT Weekend Adventure Hike today while trekking along the Upper Meadow Trail 8 mile loop in the Rancho San Antonio Park. Pain is real. Pain weakens the integrity of a structure. For instance, putting pressure on bones or ripping tendons. This is real pain that can do long term damage that needs to cease immediately to prevent injury. Discomfort is psychological though. Discomfort is t