111- Expedition Log Expedition log: January 12th, 2023. We set off on our expedition late last night. With wide open roads and perfect conditions, it took us less time than expected to arrive at our base camp situated in the heart of Munising, just blocks off the mighty Lake Superior. The crew wasn’t exactly thrilled with a lack of cell phones and sleep as we initiated our first alpine start. It was approximately 4 am when we started to prepare
110- Ice Tales I am a product of Project Forty discipleship. My connection to Project Forty first began through a Facebook marketplace ad. No, Matt was not selling his never ending trail riddles, he was selling chalk bags as a fundraiser for wilderness ministry, and I wanted to know more. I needed more than just a chalk bag at that point in my life, I needed to be mentored and encouraged in my walk with Christ. I was at the
109- What Do You Do When You Hit 'The Wall'? “I can’t” leaked from Jahiem’s lips for the final time in my humble opinion. My feet remained planted on the root covered rock that acted as my belay platform, while I gently sat into the rope a bit more, letting Jahiem know that I “had him.” He had battled his way up the first twenty-five feet or more of the dry, sandstone face that had likely split thousands of years
94-Rain, Rain, Go Away... Then Come Back In An Hour I checked my weather app one more time, even though I had swiped through it only a couple of hours prior—still thunderstorms every day? Really God? Help me to have a good attitude and capability to make this trip not stink. The drive down brought me closer and closer to my second home, the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. With a small window between potential storms, Chris, Jen and I
93-Swimmin' In The Moonlight How many spots have we passed already? The sun had disappeared behind the thick collage of green, browns and blacks that made up the Kentucky forest in the cool of the evening. Scouting out the perfect campsite for an OCD outdoorsman can prove to be quite the challenge sometimes. Would the Tentsile fit between these trees? Well, this one maybe, but it’s under a huge widow-maker that would not end well in the event of a
91-When Lemons Abound... Forty-two degrees is unseasonably warm for the frozen shoreline of Lake Superior as February snow typically pushes back the sandy Chapel Beach deeper beneath it’s growing weight. The ice formed by persisting water seepage atop the cliffs and the blasting falls that fight against the slow formation that freezes its power in its tracks, yielded to the even stronger ball of fire that dictates our life on this planet. Dropping in the middle of this fire and
90-Flint City Originals The air was brisk as I knelt down in the snow to fasten on Tony’s snowshoes. He had never been snowshoeing before, along with the other four guys from Flint who willingly stepped way outside of their comfort zones to join this Project Forty adventure. Munising sat quiet and still just across the bay formed by the Superior waters between Grand Island and the mainland Upper Peninsula. The ice shanties yielded small, steady streams of smoke, the
81-This Blog Is Not About COVID-19... My eyelids pried themselves open against my body’s will to ignore the predawn fight to beat the inevitable heatwave coming our way. It was already 25 degrees and climbing to 40 degrees by 3pm, not the ideal weather for climbing frozen waterfalls. I stole an extra ten minutes of sleep as I assessed my aching body from the first two day’s battles of might and power. Somewhere in the daze I tuned my ear
80-We Came, We Saw, We Conquered... Now What? The cold, Superior air exited my lungs with a smooth stream that clouded my limited view by headlamp. The sun had gone down hours ago and I was still on the move, staying warm and stepping face to face with the climb that we had trained so hard to conquer. The only vision my guide partner and I had was the faint glow of a wall of ice in the full moonlight
65-Down The Mountain We Go! I don’t think my face hurt so much from over exposure from the bright, beaming sun that contrasted the perfectly blue sky, as it did from the perma-smile and joy that beamed from my spirit. Seven of us set out to climb a mountain and we succeeded. More impressive than that, the weather seemed to know how important it would be for the guys to look back and be able to see how far they
