Author Archives: kurczy

At a secluded crag near my house, there’s a climbing route called Malevolent Eye. It’s 32 feet high, with a three-foot overhang and a difficulty rating of 5.10-. It’s tricky enough to challenge a good climber, with several blade-thin holds … Continue reading →

It was an “alpine start.” On March 11, my alarm went off at 12:45 a.m. I was in my car by 1 a.m., driving three and 1/2 hours from my home in Connecticut to the White Mountains of New Hampshire … Continue reading →

For years, I’ve had my eyes on these ski tours from the book Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast, considered the “bible” for regional off-piste: 1) In northern Vermont, the 9.4-mile tour from Bolton Valley to the Trapp Family Lodge … Continue reading →

After the first 28 miles of a 46-mile run across the Appalachian Trial in New Hampshire this summer, I was nearly dead. Aidan and I were both drenched with sweat, red in the face from the 90-degree heat and 99 … Continue reading →

Despite the pouring rain, I was determined to climb this 400-foot-tall rock cliff in Squamish, British Columbia. Rich wasn’t so sure—after all, who really wants to climb slippery rock? But time was short, as my flight back east departed in … Continue reading →

This is what summer looks like in British Columbia’s Garibaldi Provincial Park: In essence, it looks like winter. And it is spectacular. Located an hour north of Vancouver, between Squamish and Whistler, the park is rimmed by 8,000-foot mountains and … Continue reading →

At 3 a.m. we tumbled into our bed in Squamish, after flying to Vancouver from New York City. The plan was to sleep in, but all I could dream about was the nearby Chief, a 2,200-foot-high granite dome in British … Continue reading →

There is such a thing as being too cold to read, and I think it starts around freezing, which is often the temperature inside the mountain huts of New Hampshire in winter–or colder, if inside Doublehead Cabin. The cold usually doesn’t stop me … Continue reading →

When the shepherds were told they’d find Christ the Lord wrapped in swaddling clothes, they probably didn’t expect to discover a black dog swaddled inside a thick green blanket. But dogs are pretty redeeming creatures, and even dogs get cold, so why not? Orbit was recently swaddled … Continue reading →

“Jenna!” I yelled, my voice echoing off the surrounding ring of 3,000-foot-tall walls soaring up to Katahdin, the tallest peak in Maine at 5,269 feet. No response. I was halfway up what Rock and Ice calls “the most remote alpine climbing arena east of the … Continue reading →

If you like ice cream, then you want to be a Hillionaire, which is when you eat ice cream at all nine Ample Hills ice cream shops in New York and New Jersey in a single summer. Jenna and I really like … Continue reading →

Oh, the irony. On the same day that the Washington Post called Vermont’s four-mile-long Colchester Causeway “one of the country’s most spectacular bike trails,” a May storm devastated this thin spit of land that dissects the waters of Lake Champlain, rendering it impassable… and throwing a wrench into … Continue reading →

Following on my first and second write-ups about Yosemite, here is the finale. Chapter 6. Half Dome, Fully Done The same morning that superstar climbers Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell were lacing up their La Sportivas in preparation for an unthinkable new speed record on the 3,000-foot-tall Nose of El Capitan, I … Continue reading →

Following on my first installment about Yosemite, here’s Part II. Chapter 3: Half Done When my alarm sounded at 4am, I looked at Half Dome and spotted two climbers several hundred feet up the Regular Northwest Face, each wearing headlamps. While they’d asked for permission to … Continue reading →