Supermarket Hippie

November 28, 2024 Barefoot KenEdward Abbey, family, fashion, food, Hippies, Monkey-wrenching, politics, TravelLeave a comment

Nearly naked, I placed one foot onto the smooth rubber mat, my mind ringing with Edward Abbey’s war-cry, obey little, resist much! Abbey was the bestselling author who advocated for protecting wilderness from commercial exploitation, if necessary by sabotage (he called it “monkey-wrenching”).

Instantly the automatic door swept aside, and I entered the supermarket, the tiles slick and cool underfoot. I noticed the specials (two pints of blueberries for $5) and the surprise on the faces of some of my fellow-shoppers – evident in a subtle downward flicker of the eyes — as they confirmed that I’d violated an unwritten moral code. Honestly, people are mostly cool with it. But not always. Continue reading “Supermarket Hippie” →

13,000 Miles Barefoot

November 9, 2024November 16, 2024 Barefoot Kenbarefoot, Bear Mountain, Board Mountain, fitness, health, hiking, Irritated Meniscus, John Ruskin, Naxoprene, Ringwood NJ, running, Voltaren, Windbeam Mountain2 Comments

The 19^th-century English art critic John Ruskin saw in mountains a story of endurance and destruction. All we can know about a mountain is that “it was once greater than it is now, and it only gathers vastness, and still gathers, as it fades into the abyss of the unknown.”

And so it is with people – we endure as long as we can, hoping to leave something behind.

This is my report on reaching 13,000 miles of barefoot walking, hiking, and running, after starting on this unexpected journey some ten years ago. Continue reading “13,000 Miles Barefoot” →

Fourteen Peaks in the Taconics

October 5, 2024October 7, 2024 Barefoot Kenart, Barefoot Hiking, Bear Mountain, Democracy, design, Everett Mountain, Frissell Mountaian, Great Barrington, Greylock Mountain, history, Jonathan Haidt, Pine Mountain, Pittsfield, politics, Taconic Allochthon, Taconic Mountains, Technology, The Anxious Generation, Tower Mountain, W.E.B.DuBois1 Comment

I’ve set myself a daunting objective – bag 1,000 mountains barefoot — a task so large it will take many years to complete. It’s a crazy project — partly an effort to retreat from the digital environment, refresh, refuel, and rearm so I can reenter the fray — partly a chance to live more naturally, as a participator in nature instead of as a passive observer — partly a chance to explore and learn, and the funny thing is, the project keeps dragging in themes and thoughts about the rest of life, and snatches of history. Regardless, I’m not even at the half-way point, so better keep moving.

This summer I summited some big ones, including the Navajo’s sacred mountain of the west, Dooks’o’osliid AKA Humphrey Peak (12,633 feet) outside Flagstaff, Arizona, and Colorado’s Mt. Elbert (14,440 feet), the second-tallest peak in the continental US. It was slow work, though, with six summits eating up two weeks of precious vacation time, a rate of progress so slow I might well be 100 years old before I finish. Continue reading “Fourteen Peaks in the Taconics” →

Peak-bagging in AZ and CO

August 27, 2024August 30, 2024 Barefoot Ken1000 Mountains Barefoot, Bear Mountain, Coconino Sandstone, Dooks'o'osliid, Fireweed, Flagstaff, Gus Bighorse, Handies Peak, Humphreys Peak, Kaibab Limestone, Leadville, Mt. Elbert, Mt. Elden, Mt. Royal, Mt. Taylor, Navajo Nation, Parnassus Moth, San Francisco Mountains, Schnebly Formation, Sedona, Silverton, Tiana Bighorse3 Comments

2 weeks out west. In search of connections. And peaks to bag, since I have a long way to go to reach my lifetime goal — 1,000 mountains barefoot. Continue reading “Peak-bagging in AZ and CO” →

12,000 Miles Barefoot

May 14, 2024July 7, 2024 Barefoot Kenbarefoot, Barefoot Autism Challenge, Barefoot Sue, barefoot-shoes, hiking, Irritated Meniscus, running, shoes, Sue Regan Kenney, Tyler LeechLeave a comment

A blue heron looked up from the slimy water and gave me a sly sideways look, just as the digits 11,999 started to roll. This was during a 1.6-mile barefoot stroll along the paved trails of Andrew Brown Park, Coppell, Texas. I’m kidding – I don’t actually carry an odometer. Rather I measure distances using a GPS watch and track my training (walking, hiking, running) in an excel spreadsheet with 16 tabs stored in the cloud. It’s only in the spreadsheet that I see the world in digits.

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From Andrew Brown Park it was off to DFW and then there was the long flight back to New York and a dark drive home in the rain. The next morning, I emerged from boreal gloom onto the open summit of Wittenberg Mountain, where the southern view unfolds before your eyes as you step toward the edge of a flat sandstone ledge – nearly 100 miles of rolling green ridges, spring forests, hazy clouds — and it occurred to me that this, too, will end. Instead of counting up past 12,000, maybe I should be counting down from (X-12,000) to zero, where X is my total lifetime mileage. Only, I don’t know X. Not yet. But with each year it’s drawing closer. I can sense it, just like when parachuting at night, how the invisible horizon rises to greet you – that’s when you flex your knees and get ready to roll. Continue reading “12,000 Miles Barefoot” →

The 1,000 Mountains Project and a Cosmic Dragon

January 26, 2024March 22, 2024 Barefoot KenAcross the Years, Healthy Life Expectancy, Riccardo Manzotti, Superstition Peak 50574 Comments

One cold evening, as I was ruminating about my future, a sly thought crept into my vacant mind — to climb 1,000 mountains. And it felt so right, although I held off from making a firm commitment, reminding myself to “give yourself some time to think it through.” But the allure was powerful and immediate. You see, I’m the kind of person who likes to take on big projects and get them done. Like when I ran the Leadville 100-mile ultramarathon, and a few miles before the half-way point, there was this sign – “Go Big or Go Home.” And then the trail headed up and up and up, rising relentlessly into the mountains, until it finally crested at Hope Pass, elevation 12,600 feet, where I felt like lying down on the trail and dying, although I hadn’t yet reached the half-way point.

Mind you I didn’t initially draw any connection between this project and the dragon. Which I’d only seen once before. A year ago, to be precise, in December 2022. I was hurtling south on route 26 toward Grapevine, Texas, in a rental (black Dodge Charger with a 370-horsepower HEMI v8), satellite radio blasting Soundgarden’s alternative edgy angst — when my eye was snagged by the roadside foliage’s autumnal tints. Oaks in green and red and bronze and mottled orange. Cedar elms turning tangerine. Frilly mesquite leaves waving green and lemon. What did these colors signify? Could there be, I wondered, a cosmic dragon studying our world from a parallel neighboring universe – and were these spots of color, flecks in the iris of its eye? Continue reading “The 1,000 Mountains Project and a Cosmic Dragon” →

Forced Mindfulness – at the Roosa Gap Roller Coaster

September 25, 2023September 26, 2023 Barefoot Ken2023 Roosa Gap Roller Coaster, Chip and seal, Forced Mindfulness, Josh Dickson, Mamakating Road, Positive Psychology, Resurface2 Comments

Josh Dickson is a UK-based therapist, thought leader in the field of human potential psychology, and student of “flow,” the super-productive state of consciousness experienced by athletes and other high-performers. Core to his practice is the idea of “mindfulness,” which is sought traditionally through gentle and voluntary techniques, like relaxation. But in a series of recent articles, Dickson brings up a different approach, which he calls “forced mindfulness.” Forced in that this kind of mindfulness requires “conscious and intentional effort” to deal with intensity — sense of urgency — the risk of pain.

The other day Josh asked me, might barefoot running be a form of forced mindfulness?

I looked at him. Considered the question. Said I’d think about it. Continue reading “Forced Mindfulness – at the Roosa Gap Roller Coaster” →

To the Land of the Black Sun

September 16, 2023November 25, 2023 Barefoot Kenavery, bigelow, Black Sun, crocker mountain, Edward Abbey, Emerson, hamlin, katahdin, north brother, old speck, reddington, Saddleback, spaulding, sugarloaf, the horn, Thoreau3 Comments

9-hours in my faithful black Jeep, and maybe longer, as Google Maps just shunted me off the highway and now I’m rolling through small beach towns (signs flash Ogunquit and Kennebunk), where tourists stroll the streets and mill around in trendy bars, hanging out beneath tall gas lanterns on this cool summer evening — but I’ve got a dull ache in my butt (piriformis syndrome from doing squats again) and I just want to get to Millinocket – or anywhere, honestly.

Strictly speaking, this is vacation, but my mindset is all business. My mission — to climb the state’s 4,000-footers, of which there are 14. With long driving times between mountain ranges and interruptions for work calls that can’t be rescheduled, the schedule has little slack. And it’s not like I can just bang out these peaks. I hike barefoot. My pace is slow.

A few weeks ago, this strange thought popped into my mind – that Maine was the “land of the Black Sun.” The intuition being, I guess, that if you journeyed far enough from home, you’d find places so radically different from the familiar, that common attributes might shift into their opposites. Like when Clarence King traveled west from Connecticut to join the California Geologic Survey and then, as soon as the expedition was under way, begged permission to climb a mountain. Any mountain. How about the tallest one in sight. This was 1864. When he and a companion finally reached the summit of Mt. Tyndall, King looked into the sky and saw the darkness of vast yawning hollow space. While the desert basins below were blindingly bright. It was a “strange reversal.” The opposite of familiar sunlit skies and dark cool earth.

On occasion I, too, have experienced strange reversals. For example, I’ve noticed when wearing sunglasses with polarized lenses, that when I tilt my head, the contrast shifts. The brightness flickers. Shadows come awake.

I roll into Millinocket at 2 am. An envelope with my room key is taped to the door, just like they said it would. Continue reading “To the Land of the Black Sun” →

11,000 Miles Barefoot

August 7, 2023August 10, 2023 Barefoot KenBarefoot Autism Challenge, Cowtown Marathon, Loopy LooperLeave a comment

Last fall, reporting on my 10,000th barefoot mile, I commented on a confrontation in a coffee shop, and even today I still recall the young woman’s hazel eyes, above the light-blue surgical mask, glaring with hostility. Then there was the art museum in Ft. Worth, where a portly security manager dressed in a navy blazer explained, patiently, that “it’s the law.” Which it’s not. (Trust me, I do my research.)

But I am nothing if not stubborn. On the way to 11,000 miles, I made it into both these places without shoes, as well as dozens of other establishments, as part of my participation in the Barefoot Autism Challenge, and as part of my unplanned transition to a mostly barefoot lifestyle.

I don’t track steps, however, so coffee shops and art museums did not contribute to the cumulative total. Rather, it was running and mountain-climbing that got me to this latest milestone. Continue reading “11,000 Miles Barefoot” →

Barefoot in New Hampshire

July 5, 2023July 1, 2024 Barefoot KenBarefoot Hiking, Earl Schaeffer, Mt. Madison, peak bagging, Presidential Traverse9 Comments

It’s been a long, steep, wet climb up the mountain’s northern shoulder, and now I’m nearing the AMC hut tucked in a col beneath the summit of Mt. Madison. Another 500 feet to go, and I will have completed my quest – to climb all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-footers, and to do so barefoot, which is how I hike and run these days.

Continue reading →

The Long Brown Path

Peak-bagging, running, barefooting, exploring, and other minimalist adventures in nature

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