Occupation
Freelance Writer, Photographer, Consultant
Contributing Writer: GearTrends and SNEWS

For eight years, my primary job was field testing rock climbing and mountaineering equipment, then writing product reviews for Rock & Ice magazine. This culminated in the publication of my first book. I also edited the Performance section (techniques, training, nutrition) and that lead to my second book.

In 1998, I founded Trail Runner magazine, which became a sister publication of Rock & Ice. As Senior Editor for both magazines, I helped develop content and oversaw various departments. While working on these magazines was rewarding, I decided to freelance fulltime in 2001.

While I continue to write for magazines, my main focus lately has been books and photography. Among my magazine credits are: Outside, Backpacker, Rock & Ice, Climbing, POV, Hooked on the Outdoors, Newsweek, Desnivel (Spain), Vertical (France), and Headwall (Brazil).

In addition to writing and photography, I also promoted slide show tours for world famous climbers such as: Kurt Diemberger, Chris Bonington, Doug Scott, Joe Simpson and Reinhold Messner (his only US tour).

Background
I earned a BA in Nature Photojournalism – a self-designed degree combining writing, photography, and natural sciences – from the University of Colorado in Boulder. I completed the graduate program at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA but am still (sort of) working on my master's project.

Dad gave me an early start in the outdoors while I grew up in Washington, DC. In 1968, he and my uncle started a whitewater canoeing school and four years later, they founded the second whitewater rafting company in West Virginia. Instead of football and baseball, my afternoon sports in high school were rock climbing and whitewater kayaking, thanks to the St. Albans Voyageur (one of the nation's oldest outdoor programs).

Because I was too young to be a raft guide, my first paying job was as a photographer shooting the rafts (twice a day I'd hike down a trail 3-miles down to the river, shoot the action, then dash back up to process the film and sell prints when the rafters returned). The next summer I did become a raft guide and whitewater canoe instructor but my roots in photography were well established.

We used to make a lot of our own gear including: a mountain tent, sleeping bag, packs, down pants, and climbing gear (chocks, rappel device, aid gear). In 1980, I started in the outdoor retail business, working up from a part-time salesperson to promotions manager, store manager, and/or buyer at Hudson Bay Outfitters in the DC area and Neptune Mountaineering in Boulder, CO.

During my years as a professional gear reviewer, I have visited nearly 30 equipment manufacturers (from ropes and carabiners to fabrics and shoes) in the US and Europe. While I enjoy modern gear, I still have my wool knickers, wood ice axe, wood cross-country skis for perspective.

Past certifications include: CPR Instructor, Advanced First Aid Instructor, Wilderness First Responder, Emergency Medical Technician, IANTD Nitrox Diver and PADI Dive Master.

Personal
I'm forty-something (add gray hair to the photo above) and soon to be married (first time for both of us), much to the great pleasure of my folks. I have diverse tastes in food, drink and music but especially love spicy dishes, quality margaritas, fine wines, jazz, blues, and bluegrass.

I'm also an avid cyclist with a stable full of bikes. I try to keep the ski quiver to a dozen but it fluctuates with the seasons.

Over the years, I've also collected quite a few injuries including a nasty collision with a tree while skiing. The latest count (mostly in separate incidents): 15 stitches in scalp, 2 broken collar bones, sublocated right shoulder (multiple times), dislocated left shoulder twice (repaired by surgery, great ever since), dislocated right elbow (5 times), dislocated left elbow (1 time), compression fracture of L1 vertabrae, tibial plateau fracture of left knee (repaired by surgery), torn ACL right knee (repaired by surgery), fractured left fibula.

In 1983, I purchased a Radio Shack Color Computer with 16 KB of RAM, a cassette recorder for data storage, and a 300 baud modem; the monitor was a color tv. I switched to a 1 MB MacPlus in 1986, added a 20 MB hard drive and taught myself desktop publishing for my senior project in college (a self-published book on the NCAR building and its environment).

Currently, I'm running 3 GB of RAM on an Apple Power Mac G5 1.6 GHz with a 250 GB internal hard drive and a DSL connection; the monitor is a 23" LCD. In the field, I use an Apple 12" 1.33 GHz Power Book (my eleventh computer) with an 80 GB hard drive and DVD burner.