Cascadia Tri-Sport Traverse

After graduating with a Masters of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from UW, I set off on a four-part human-powered three-sport adventure. I began on foot at Cape Flattery, the northwestern most part of the contiguous US on the Makah Reservation. I traveled south on the rugged wilderness coast, abiding by the tides for three days before reaching the Quillayute River. From there I walked to Forks to stock up for my largest unsupported stretch of backpacking yet: ~200 miles and 45,000 feet ascent in 10 days (9 nights) crossing the Olympic Peninsula, entering the Bogachiel river and exiting the South Fork Skokomish. On the way I progressed in my long term goal to summit every notable peak in the Olympics by climbing 9 peaks, the most notable of which being Mt. Anderson, the hydrological apex of the Peninsula. Foul weather and soft snow thwarted other objectives, but I'm at the point in the project where leaving some for later is welcome so that I can continue to enjoy the pursuit for longer. This was my longest and most challenging crossing of the Olympics and I'm glad to have crossed in entirety.

Paddling Puget

On day 12 of the journey I arrived at my friends' farm that lies at the confluence of the two major forks of the Skokomish. I had stashed my sea kayak there along with some food a week before I began the journey. Upon arrival I had a thoroughly debilitating ankle problem, so I rested up for two days and made friends with the farm hands. Fortunately the pain had subsided after the second night, and I set off down the Skokomish River. This was my first time kayaking a stretch of real wild river, and the stakes were high as a capsize would be catastrophic since cached in the hull of the boat was all of my backpacking/mountaineering gear. I was able to handle the few more treacherous rapids just fine, and the main difficulty was without a doubt a surpise logjam that completely crossed the river for ~50 feet. Upon reaching the mouth of the river at the Hood Canal, it was smooth sailing (paddling) from then on to my first campsite near Blefair. Along with me I brought a small cart that allowed for portaging with relative ease, enabling me to drastically shorten the journey back to Seattle by 'cutting off' the Kitsap and Key peninsulas at Belfair and Vaughn on day two. Undoubtedly a bizarre sight, I used a backpack fitted with climbing slings as a harness to pull the front of the kayak without needing to use my hands. I did this for a total of ~6 miles, much of which was on the horribly narrow highway shoulder of SR 3. I finished the portaging day on the beautiful and tiny Cutts Island. Day three was relatively straightforward paddling, the highlight of which was traversing the Tacoma Narrows and into Colvos Passage. On the fourth and final day of the kayak leg of the journey, I made landfall at Alki for lunch before continuing across Elliot Bay. Dedicated to the human-powered theme, I portaged the boat through Seattle Center to Lake Union and landed again at the UW after passing through the Montlake Cut. There, Aisling was awaiting me to accompany for the final portage home. We stopped at Ravenna Brewing, of course, on the way. To my surprise, there was ample kayak parking.

Cycling the Cascades

Shortly after arriving back home in Seattle, the preparation for cycling commenced. For this leg of the adventure Aisling and my dad, boththoroughly accoladed riders, accompanied me. On day one we left home for Snoqualmie Pass where we stopped for some nourishment and anti-nourishment (beer) before surmounting Stampede Pass and encountering a meadow on the Green River that served as a decent camp. Day two we all agreed was the most difficult cycling we've ever done: STEEP gravel roads connecting Stampede Pass and the Chinook Pass highway, all in 90+ degree weather. We ended in the old growth forest of the Ohanepecosh river within Mount Rainier National Park. Upon awakening and some convincing of my dad, he headed up the 3000+ ft climb to Paradise to start the day. Since Aisling only had a 3-day weekend, she departed us at Longmire and we continued that day to the Goat Rocks where we camped at a pass that proved to be a mosquito hellscape. On day four we descended the pass and traversed around Mt. Adams to Trout Lake. The heat was brutal, about 105 degrees, but we continued on until we reached the Klickitat River. Following the glacial waters to the confluence of the Columbia, we blasted upriver with 20+ mph winds at our backs to The Dalles where we crossed the mighty river. Plans to ascend the hills west of Mt. Hood were scrapped due to an obvious fire in the area with a massive smoke plume and evacuation orders in place nearby. Instead, we followed the Columbia to the Mt. Hood Highway where gorgeous views of the glaciated peak were plentiful, as well as camping. On the final day of this Tour du Volcano as I came to call it, we skirted around the south end of Mt. Hood at Barlow Pass and then flew downhill to the Portland area. Amazing bike paths took us to our friend's sanctuary in Tualatin.

Oregon PCT Section

A large section of the PCT in Oregon from Pamelia Lake to Timothy Lake was closed when I did my Oregon-Washington-Coast thru hike in 2021. So I decided I'd end my Cascadian traverse on foot hiking from Mt.Hood (Barlow Pass) to Santiam Pass. My Tualitin friends had been storing my backpack so I was equipped and ready to go from Portland. The first day was a lovely, flat, 30 mile Oregon forest cruise. Along the way south I scrambled a bunch of crest volcanic peaks that gave awesome vistas. I attempted Mt. Jefferson, but I didn't have traction and the traverse to the summit block was insanely steep snow, so I just enjoyed the view from Red Saddle. On the final night, a major lightning storm pounded central Oregon and I watched fires get ignited to the south. On the final day I really loved skirting around Three Fingered Jack and its unreal volcanic strata before getting met by my mom's old Bend friend. Glad I wasn't continuing south! The fires were crazy. Instead, I bussed out to a family reunion in Boise.

Biking Every Street in Seattle

One man’s mission to cycle all of Seattle, street by streetIn January 2022, Danny Roberts started his roughly 2,000-mile journey to bike every road in the city through rain, shine and injury.

Listen | Why one man biked every single street in SeattleReporter Conor Courtney explains how cyclist Danny Roberts began the passion project — and what the journey meant to both of them.

This map is a screenshot from the wonderful app, wandrer.earth. Cycling every street would have been vastly more confusing without this tool, which has connected me to an awesome community of intrepid, adventerous explorers.

I've been biking in Seattle for over twenty years, having grown up in Roosevelt as a kid, but it wasn't until I came back to Seattle for college that I got into more adventerous cycling. Progressively the routes got more ambitious and ridiculous. After graduating and thru-hiking in Oregon and Washington, I settled back into Seattle late 2021 and discovered Wandrer. I'm a bit of a completionist, known to sample many beers at a brewery and summit as many new peaks as possible, so it naturally became a new year's resolution for 2022 to try and bike every street in Seattle.

I was already at around 20% when I began actively seeking new streets, but I believe that those were all re-traced in the seeking of the other 80%. On a rainy day in April, I was coming back from a ride going east on 41st St N when I was cut off by a 17 year-old speeding south on Bagley Ave through the unprotected intersection. Unable to stop in time going downhill in the rain, I (with the legal right-of-way) slammed into the car and separated my AC joint, putting a damper on the new street process.

Took a month or so before I could bike again, but I got back on the saddle and continued exploring. With grad school on the horizon and my injury reminding me of my mortality and fleeting youth, I decided to quit my job and bike to San Diego and back. This really put a damper on my Seattle biking progress, but I biked over 4000 new miles elsewhere!

I think I was around 80% complete when I began grad school at UW in September 2022. Despite research and hefty assignments, I ended 2022 at around 90% done, and with a 4.0 GPA. By mid- February I had finished. So, I guess I accomplished the goal within a year, just not a continuous one due to the months away from Seattle. I've learned that you really set your own rules for what constitutes completeness for a goal like this. Many hairs could be split and definitions made, but I took a look at my Wandrer map and Strava heatmap and recognized that I'd definitely done what I'd set out to do.

Now, to bike the entire perimeter of the Puget Sound.

Pacific Coast Bike Route

In the summer of 2022, I planned to ride my first long bike tour before the start of grad school. I was loving cheesemongering at DeLaurenti but a recent, depressing shoulder injury and my impending return to school were enough to convince me to use my savings on an awesome adventure.

The "reach" goal was to ride from Seattle to my parents' home in San Diego and back. Starting with an Olympic sendoff from Aisling, I cycled first to Neah Bay, the northwestermost point of the lower 48. Then begun the long journey south along the Pacific Coast. At a pace of 90-115 miles a day, I made it just in time for a wedding in San Francisco. After visiting friends in Oakland, I crossed through Marin to return to SF and had the best burrito of my life in the mission before departing again southward.

I ride some trails with friends in San Luis Obispo before continuing to LA where I crashed with a high school buddy in Hollywood. Took a couple days off the bike to backpack and summit Mt. San Gorgonio and enjoy the SoCal sun. To finish the southerly route, my dad trained up to LA and we rode the century+ down to our house in San Diego (and to mexico and back the next day).

When it was time to go north, I made the ~120 mile journey to Pasadena to crash with a PhD friend at Caltech. A chill morning of cortados meant I started up the San Gabriel mountains in the hot sun. After a devastating flat on the ascent, I was lucky to come across a fire station with running water near the pass. It was in the 90s and full sun, and increased to the 100s by the time I arrived in Palmdale. A pit stop of ice cream and tons of beverages was made before heading west on the aqueduct bank trail, where I got multiple flats. The sun was setting beyond the walls of Antelope Valley. The trifecta of insane heat, 70 miles of hilly, encumbered cycling, and the distopian nature of the juxtoposed green suburbia in the desert along a continental scale aqueduct flipped a switch in my mind. For the first time I felt doubt about my journey. I shuddered at the realization that my reasoning for suffering through such a trial had vanished. My love of adventure and human-powered feats of endurance felt suddenly meaningless and stupid.

I persevered with a nagging headache and finally ditched the aqueduct and descended into the valley. Antelope Valley is hardly a valley as I know them as a pacific northwesterner: it is surrounded by faults that bound the Mojave desert and basically has no natural/perennial surface water. The further into the valley I went, the further the northern valley wall sank into the distance. I started feeling short of breath, sick to my stomach, and the headache was dominating despite plenty of food, water, and ibuprofen. I then had the bizarre feeling that I can only describe as forgetting who I was. I called Aisling to confirm my identity and it became clear I had to find a hotel immediately. Luckily, Rosamond was just a few miles away. I made it to a hotel in a psychotic state and relished in the AC and cold running water.

The next morning I visited the Wikipedia page for heat stroke and heat exhaustion and decided the continuity of my tour was less valuable than my internal organs. I got on a bus to Bakersfield, then a train to Stockton, then a bus to Sacramento, then a train to Klamath Falls. In my first steps back in Oregon, I was greeted by a drizzle on a ~60 degree day. I remember tearing up a bit at the comfortable coolness of cloudy Cascadia.

From there, I went on a world class tour of the Cascades that was massively more interesting than the Pacific Coast. The riding and scenery were just stunning, and the traffic was far less persistent. I meandered through stratovolcanoes, followed the Yakima, Columbia, and Methow rivers, and crossed the Cascades for good before arriving in Bellingham. I bopped up to touch Canada before heading south to stay with friends on Whidbey Island. Finally, I reentered Seattle southbound on the Burke-Gilman and made it home, all organs and unforgettable experiences intact.

Thru-Hiking on the Pacific Crest / Northwest Trails

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