Hi! We’re Rose, Jeff, and Goldie and we like to travel. Follow us as we embark on our next adventure to Europe starting in Split, Croatia.
Travel has been a core part of our family for the last decade. Rose and I started out living in Suburbia, Maryland taking weekend trips deep into West Virginia and longer trips out to Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado and the Wind River Range, Wyoming.
In 2014, we moved to Eppstein (near Frankfurt), Germany and spent the next three years exploring lots of Western Europe. There, we discovered trail running, enduro mountain biking, and matured a lot as climbers. We also drank our fair share of Euro-beer and enjoyed cities as tourists.
Just after moving to Colorado in late 2017, we quit our full-time jobs, sold most of our stuff, and started out Van Life. We spent a year driving around the West before moving into a home in Boulder, Colorado.
While based in Boulder: we learned to sail, became sport climbers, traveled to Ecuador and Slovenia for longer than a month each, adopted Goldie and saved her life, and got excited about our next adventure.
While spending two months in Ecuador this winter, one of the highlights was our hike of the Quilotoa Loop!
Activity: Hut-based Hike
Country: Ecuador
Start: Sigchos, EC
End: Quilotoa, EC
Distance: 21 miles
Elevation Gain: 7200 ft Recommended Duration: 3 days
Pet People Rose and I love our pets. They are more than animals that keep us company – they tend to quickly become full-on members of our family. During our time in Europe, Mama and Yoda came with us. Mama wanted all the cuddles and Yoda did her best to control Eppstein’s field-mouse population – often bringing home “presents”. Due […]
“We’re about to hit another patch of wind” Emmy, our crew-mate with two Atlantic sailing passages and years of sailing instruction under her belt, announces matter of-factly. “What, how can you possibly tell that?” I say, scanning the instruments for clues. “Oh, you can see the wind” she responds casually, channeling her inner Yoda. She was right, you can see […]
We are one week into Van Life now and I want to provide some details about Van Life: What is it? Why do it? What are my thoughts (good and bad) one week in? Van Life is a movement to reduce housing expenses by nearly 95% and live a mobile, adventure-based life. Why Van Life? There are two main reasons […]
Climbing Mt. Alice. 5.8, Grade IV. 13,300 ft. 9 pitches. Unholy loose rock, lichen fest with some quality climbing mixed in…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Approach We approached Saturday afternoon after having decided that morning that we would attempt a route on this rarely visited peak in RMNP. The approach, a little under 9 miles and ~3,400 ft of […]
The day before yesterday, Kiran and I climbed the Aiguille de la Republique via the Voie Normale. Opting to rappel an adjacent route rather than down-climb the route, we were 16 hours camp to camp from our comfy bivvy under a huge boulder 25 minutes from the base of the route. The Aiguille de le Republique is the most curious looking […]
Enduro MTB Until we were a good bit of the way through a bottle of wine that night, we hadn’t even heard of Madeira. Then a quick google search – “Okay google, where can I mountain bike in Europe in the winter?” and this video popped up: About 15 minutes later, the plane tickets were confirmed and the room booked. […]
Scotland was one of those places we were interested in visiting, but was by no means at the top of the list. Learning about fell running changed that. “For those in the US not familiar with the uniquely British activity known as fell running, then you should be thinking steep rugged hills on low lying terrain, likelihood of crap weather and nasty […]
Red Rocks is where you climb. A lot. We have climbed at a few places around the world–Chamonix, the Tetons, Paklenica, Montserrat to name a few. So far, no where we have been offers the “mileage” you can get at Red Rocks. By mileage I mean the ratio of pure climbing to all of the other things that come along […]
Late September, we spent two weeks based out of Harrogate in Yorkshire–located essentially smack dab in the middle of the UK. That point right where the rolling hills of southern UK turn a bit more serious, hinting at the rugged, mountainous landscape of Scotland further north. In the interest of seeing as much as possible on two pedals, we rented […]