WHY EXPLORE
A wise guy - just your typical ne'er-do-well Harvard grad who mucked about in the woods instead of seeking a steady job - once wrote, "Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still."

Wandering the wildest, most elemental places on this planet. Wondering on unanswerable questions. Writing in attempt to sleuth some sense from it all. Advocating for wilderness conservation in the process. Such are the Thoreauvian bones I hope to gnaw on all my life. I can imagine no richer sustenance than that supplied by this sort of questing, peregrine existence, particularly if peanut butter is available as a condiment.

I have always been drawn to the alien and extreme. As a little kid I grew up hungry with wanderlust, and subsisted accordingly on a literary diet of travel, exploration, and adventure narratives. I never had the chance to see a mountain or the ocean until university, so until then, books served as my portal to the wider world. Through them I heard the call of the wild and the song of the open road; learned how to suck out the marrow of life and follow the crooked, winding, lonesome, and dangerous trail, which leads to the most amazing view. Going to Carolina on the Morehead scholarship opened the world to me, and seven continents later, I still feel like I've barely prodded the surface of this planet.

Over the course of these sojourns, I've learned a few essential truths about myself. For one, I can scarcely stagger about in high heels, but attach my feet to pedals or crampons and I'm golden. For two, I am severely allergic to indoor confinement and instead prefer an unconstrained context of stone, ice and sky. And third, my happiest state of mind and being is an inspired sort of lost. Like Everett Ruess, "I prefer the saddle to the streetcar, the star-sprinkled sky to a roof, and the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway."

Whether exploring through science or writing, on a bike or on foot, solo or with others, my simple goal is to move, be moved, and move others in turn. We inhabit, to my continual shock and amazement, this marvel of a random planet in a universe as mysterious as it is vast. I hope to explore many of its wildest corners and cultures in my lifetime, and bring others along through writing and photography. In the process, I hope to help save what wilderness remains in the world. Per Ed Abbey, "Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins..."

PAST ADVENTURES
Alaska, Antarctica, Borneo, Bolivia, Chile, China, Honduras, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, Mongolia, Morocco, Svalbard, Tibet. Biking, hiking, ski slogging, mountaineering, horse, camel, and yak riding. Vagabonding for the sake of science, nature, culture, history, and sheer stupid sublime adventure.

FUTURE ADVENTURES
In 2010, my best childhood pal Mel and I are going to finish cycling the Silk Road, from Italy to India. And this time, we're exploring transboundary protected areas and advocating for peace parks along the way, with a focus on the Siachen glacier. The more unpronounceable the names of the countries we bike across en route, the better. Check out www.cyclingsilk.com for details.

"The river is somber, with broken waterfalls and foaming rock, in a wasteland of sere stubble and spent stone, and I wonder why,
in this oppressive place, I feel so full of well-being, striding on through the rain, and grateful in some unnameable way - to what?"
-Peter Matthiesson