TreeHouseRules

Abandoned PA turnpike exploring and fresh roadkill harvesting. Day 5? Passed over the Appalachian Trail and more than half of Pennsylvania is done. Camping out on an awesome lake house tonight. #abandonedplaces #graffiti #darktunnels #bikepack #greenriders #roadkill #notsovegan #crosscountry #urbanexploring (at Valley-Hi, Pennsylvania)

@joshgraveline sniffing out a bagel shop dumpster dive on day 1 while passing through New Jersey. #greenriders #bikepack #toomanybagels

"It's a sorry story you have there, a story of hopelessness and futility, a story in which there is literally nothing to be done. Man is flawed so he keeps screwing up what should be paradise, and there's nothing you can do about it. You don't know how to live so as to stop screwing up paradise, and there's nothing you can do about that. So there you are, rushing headlong into catastrophe, and all you can do is watch it come." "yes, that's the way it seems." -Ishmael by Daniel Quinn It's raining so everything smells extra pissy. Starting this cross country ride one week from now. #nextchapter #readmorebooks #bikepacking #greenriders #takelessdomore #streetsofny (at Harlem)

Favorite morning. Was #cowboycamping above #timberlinelodge and this is what you get to wake up to. Timberline actually looks like Hogwarts in Harry Potter when you're stumbling up the hill at night and can't see anything else. Ended up sleeping at the base of Mt. Hood for two nights because the breakfast buffet was so good 🤤 #dirtbag #pct

About 8 years ago. The good days when you didn't know it was going to be the good days. Taken while bushwacking somewhere far from the typical C mountain hike at #UCR. Here we were following coyote trails, spotting wild burrows, finding abandoned stuff in the middle of nowhere... all while carrying shortboards so we could get lost on purpose. We would eventually crawl out of the mountains when the sun was getting low and find a road to skate hills towards where we thought UCR would be. That's one way to have a #realadventure and know how badass your low-key friends are. Granted, college wasn't a positive time in my life. At least when I consider my mental state of being. Now I'm better at managing my mental health and know the adventures that I have the freedom to pursue are definitely the new "good days" no matter how #masochistic it is. #nostalgia #onism #enouement #ucriverside #ucralumni #skatetrip

After leaving the #PCT via Kearsage Pass, I hitched out of Independence, CA to rest in Bishop, CA. The morning I was going to trek back up and continue where I left off had a ominous warning. Storm clouds could be seen filling the mountains. Kearsarge was like an 11,000ft wall you can't see over from Independence (about 4,000ft) but you know the greater passes beyond it would be nastier. OG, a triplecrowner, was the only person I saw going back out. As solo hikers, we crept up into the belly of the beast at our own paces. By the time I crossed over Kearsarge again and reconnected to the PCT, I was trekking through sleet, slight hail, and chest tightening cracks of thunder. Nervous exhilaration tests your perseverance against doubt. I also started feeling sick. In hindsight I think it was a mild case of giardia considering how I had been drinking untreated water since entering the Sierras. By the time I had climbed up most of Glen Pass, wind and snow encouraged me to pitch a tent in a protected nook. OG caught up and decided to join. OG, being an OG, got up way earlier than I though. I probably spent 13 hours laying in my soggy tent until it seemed like a reasonable hour to pack up my freezing gear. Going over Glenn Pass in fresh snow was harder and I wondered again if I should have just kept going yesterday. Tactical decisions making is like an art. Soon enough I crossed paths with OG again. Here he is double checking his bearings. A no filter shot with numb hands. I had learned not to blindly follow someone else's tracks because it doesn't always work out better. In this case, we both were probably meandering more than we meant to. For that, we were rewarded the pleasure of navigating what felt like an #untouched land. I also got to pioneer the first #glissade but, OG was having none of that anyway. He doesn't like glissades and he thought I was going to die. #thruhike #adventure #highsierras #highsierrastories #🤘#summerstorms #snowysummer #pct2016

"In the beginning there was the gift. We are born helpless infants, creatures of pure need with little resource to give, yet we are fed, we are protected, we are clothed and held and soothed, without having done anything to deserve it, without offering anything in exchange. This experience, common to everyone who has made it past childhood, informs some of our deepest spiritual intuitions. Our lives are given us; therefore, our default state is gratitude. It is the truth of our existence." - The first lines of Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transformation. March for climate change day. AKA #icantbelieveistillhavetoprotestthisshit number 567. Ok, I am not joining some kind of protest march but this is one of those things in which I feel like that this needs to be on our everyday list of priorities. I mean, how effective are New Year Resolutions? Celebrating Earth day doesn't fix the planet because it has a mark on a calendar. You shouldn't wait until Thanksgiving to think of something to be thankful about. Why do we end up waiting for memorial day to make a big show and forget about it for the rest of the year? #rantover I'm having a #posttrailblues moment and feeling particularly crappy about the state of the world. #thruhiking taught me that selflessness is a necessary quality to being a better person. My nihilistic existentialism is a casual backseat driver wondering to why even bother trying to be a better person? So I'm taking a moment to try and remember what it's like being a happy dirtbag appreciative of beauty I don't quite understand. #cascadelocks #pnw🌲 #pct #takelessdomore #payitforward

Do you like to people watch? The two thru hikes I've done were both mostly as a solo thru hiker. Sometimes I would just set out to crush miles and there would be no one for days to interfere with my way of doing things. Absolute freedom. Once in awhile I would conduct an experiment. All experiments involve observation. One of my favorite observations was watching this guy stare at this tree for about 20 minutes. Animal watching takes more time and commitment. When he carried on, I stood in the same spot and also observed the tree. I came to the conclusion that it was a pretty cool tree. Meanwhile, there was an impending rain/sleet storm brewing up. An hour later, I was soaked cold for 4 days straight and didn't see the sun for over a week. I wouldn't mind doing it all over again. #peoplewatching #thruhike #pnw🌲 #pct #nostalgy #sensorydeprivation #brainfart #zonedout #observer #simplejoys #treeporn #timeless #hazy #solitudeandserene #donotdisturb #norush #birdnoises

"Peace of mind isn't at all superficial. It's the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance. That which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this piece of mind. The ultimate test is always your own serenity. If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working, you're likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself. The material object of observation can't be right or wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don't have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test in a machine is in the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility, it's right. If it disturbs you, it's wrong until the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine is always your mind. [...] The act of pronouncing it wrong is a form of caring. What's more common is that you feel unpeaceful even if it [the machine] is right." - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (It's not about motorcycles or bicycles) In other news, I'm pretty much ready to start this #nextadventure #crosscountrybike #readabook #readadamnbook #readagoddamnbook #mentalpreparation #longhaul

True story: boy scout troops tend to hit the backcountry in big groups. There's only a couple adults for a flock of kids. One time I was relaxing by a spring when 3 boy scouts appeared to collect water for their troop. None were older than 10 years by my guess. Insults were flying back and forth while the husky one struggled with their water pump. No matter how much he pumped, water wouldn't filter through. He ignored their rhetoric and just kept pumping and pumping to no avail. The littlest one then suggested to just fill drometer bags and bring it back to camp as is - nobody would know. The third cried out, "that's how you get Gonorrhea!" To which the fat one, pent up in frustration, exploded with "No, dumbass, Gonorrhea is what you get when you suck your dad's dick!" #traillife #hikertrash #giardia #gonorrhea #waterpump #thruhike #sexeducation #comebacks

One of the greatest questions of all time: where did this shit come from? Answer: I don't know what the shit you're talking about. #philosophicalshit #denial

It's really easy to play with the thought that a world changing event could be happening when you're out in the wilderness for months at a time. If you're on a national scenic trail, it could be over a week before you learn the news. One of the reasons why I live the way I do is because I acknowledge that everything in my life has an expiration date. Sometimes I forget and take a lot of things for granted when I step out into the world. More often than not, I forget that everything could be totally changed by the time I get back. One quick meditation I've trained myself to have every time I put on a seat belt is the acceptance that this could be it. It keeps me from texting and driving among many other things... anyways. I wonder how many thru hikers are stepping out to the trail this year wondering about #nukes Pictures from 2014 while bagging side peaks in the #whitemountains #presidentialrange #appalachiantrail #thruhike

"and I couldn't hear what they were screaming, either... But you don't have to... They're screaming Me! Me! Me! Me!... I'm Me!... That's the cry of the ego, and that's the cry of this rally!... Me! Me! Me! Me!... And that's why wars get fought... ego... because enough people want to scream 'Pay attention to Me'..." Picture from 2014. My guess would be Massachusetts or a southern state along the Appalachian Trail. Or should I say the Appalachian River that you have to trudge through for days at a time instead of a solid trail. Then one day you'll reach Pennsylvania and you're not sure if you want to see another rock again. It's hard to explain how much a human being can appreciate solid flat patches of dirt. #appalachiantrail #😭 #thruhike #killyourego

When people in my everyday "regular" life complain about something trivial like a wet sock... do you even know? #exulansis #pct #sierras #wetfeetdontcare #thruhike

If you think you're spiritually enlightened, go spend a week with your family - Ram Dass #cascadelocks #pct

Seeds are exciting. We just move too fast now and don't slow down to enjoy the process. There's got to be room for growth. Anticipation for success or failure isn't what it used to be. There's good and bad to that I guess but, how does one see the bad when you're going too fast in the wrong direction? I'll be planting these seeds this summer on a cross country bicycle tour from New York to Seattle. We'll be traveling much faster compared to my long hikes but still slow enough 😁 Check out #greenridersacrossamerica when wheels start rolling at the end of May. Thank you to @coraltreefarms for these #heirlooms and hopefully I'll be able to send after pictures! #bicycletour #sustainableliving #simpleliving @robjgreenfield #slowtravel

"It was the laughter of mortals at the trick which had been played on them by an ironical fate. They had been taught to believe that the whole object of life was to reach out to beauty and love. And that mankind in its progress to perfection had killed the beast instinct: cruelty, blood-lust, the primitive, savage laws of survival by tooth and claw and club and axe. All poetry, all art, all religion had preached this gospel and this promise. Now that ideal had broken like a china vase, dashed to hard ground. The contrast between that and this was devastating." -Phillip Gibbs A solo hiker gets a lot of time to think to himself. After not paying enough attention to my environment and getting lost in my thoughts, I found myself fighting for every step forward by kicking in ice steps and punching handholds. Maybe it was inevitable even if I had found the actual #pct route. Then I was forced to go around the snow slope covering the switchbacks leading up to #matherpass anyway. Climbing stuff like this will make you focus on the task at hand entirely or it will cost you many frustrations or worse. Caught up to these guys before I knew it. They were shocked and rather upset that I "didn't even look tired." I had been meditating on what would have happened to me if I had gone to war as an 18 year old. #highsierra #thruhike #matherpass #meditations #stoic #supportourveterans