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”→
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.
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”→
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”→
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?
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.
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”→
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.
When I first heard of the Barefoot Autism Challenge, I immediately thought of art museums. Not that I am a fan. They make me feel claustrophobic. When I do visit one, I rationalize that there’s only so much I can absorb. So I fly through the place, taking in a handful of paintings and a few sculptures, but all the while, I sense the ticking clock.
Why did the Barefoot Autism Challenge spark the thought of art museums? Maybe when you take on a challenge, it shakes up your thinking. Lets loose some new ideas. Arguably that’s the point of taking on any kind of challenge. In any case, I do remember the first time I ran the Ft. Worth Cowtown Marathon, how right by the starting line there sat a low concrete building with a plaza and a forlorn sculpture. After the race, as I walking back to the car, I looked up and saw the place again. Stared for a moment. Wondered if they’d let me in without shoes (Cowtown was my first barefoot marathon). Maybe that’s where the idea came from.
The Challenge is simple — go somewhere barefoot for the experience and to show support for the autistic community, where barefooting is popular for the sensory input which helps with processing information about the environment. I decided to give it a try at that museum by the Cowtown starting line.
Recognizing that barefoot is an unusual mode of dress, I went out of my way to make a good impression. I dressed up in stylish jeans and an expensive fitted shirt (the kind I used to wear during my banking days). Traded my Yankees cap for one with the logo of the Dallas Cowboys (the better to fit in with the local crowd). Rehearsed answers to all the questions I thought might be asked. And then, on the appointed day, freshly-showered and cleanly-shaved, I strode in confidently through the front door. And was immediately intercepted. And shown right back out.
I demanded to see the manager. A few minutes later, a portly gentlemen emerged wearing a navy blazer. He was courteous and patient. Explained, “It’s the law.” Talked safety, too — when they move the art around, small tacks might fall out from the frames.
I could think of nothing to say in response to such nonsense.
On the way back to my car, a woman observed how lovely Texas weather was, that you could go about barefoot in November. This comment made me smile. But, I am a stubborn man. I vowed I would return.
How irritating — that they would spread salt so liberally everywhere, not only in the streets, but on the smooth white sidewalks where I’d planned to run (and not a patch of snow in sight). Later I asked my Mom — she didn’t know, but agreed it must have been the City, which forced me to consider the possibility that the local population was so lacking in balance and agility that a late November snow-dusting was seen as potential calamity. In any case, due to the salt I cut my run short at 4 miles instead of 5 and stepped into a favorite coffee shop for my morning cappuccino, only to be confronted by a young woman behind the counter. I saw a pale white face, light-blue surgical mask, and a pair of hazel eyes glaring at me.
“We can’t serve you — it’s the health code.”
With raised eyebrow — “In Illinois. Really?”
“Even if it’s not against the law, it’s our right.”
So I left.
Once back at my hotel, I opened laptop, entered the mileage in my training log, and saw I’d finally crossed the boundary — I’d just passed my 10,000th mile of barefoot hiking, walking, and running. And then I went back out, still searching for my morning coffee….
The Long Brown Path 