Author: Daniel

Get Social With This Is Youth

Daniel 3 Comments
Remote Working Location Independent Lifestyle in Colombia

Hey Friends,

As our Nepal story winds down, I need to position this website to move into its next phase. There will be a next phase, don’t you worry.

Part of that work is consolidating my audience, making it easier to reach you and market to you when I need to do so. (Gross, I know).

As such, I have two new social initiatives:

  1. I have restarted my weekly email newsletter. It’s short, sweet and to the point. Check out the last newsletter here to get a sense of what they’re like, and please subscribe here. You’d be doing me a big favor.
  2. I have launched a Facebook page for This Is Youth, mostly so I can do some paid advertising if I feel like it. If you’d like to see my content in your FB feed, I’d love if you went and gave it a “Like” or a “Me Gusta,” if you’re one of my Spanish readers 🙂 Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/thisisyouthblog/

You can also follow me on Instagram at @thisisyouth — those are the photos you see in the “Pieces of Life” Column on the right.

Anyways, just housekeeping today! If all has gone well, I’m at Denver International, about to catch a plane.

Next stop, Panama!

Nepal 102: Raksi

Daniel 1 Comment
Hilarious

By the time we reached Jihnudanda, Linjon and I had been trying to get drunk for four or five days. I’m not really sure why the idea had taken hold with us, but alcohol had been a huge topic of conversation between us on the trail.

Every time we brought it up, our guides said two things: “wait until Jihnu,” and “We will drink raksi!”

Raksi is a local Nepali liquor, fermented from god knows what, bottled in whatever is handy, and sure to give you a nasty headache if you overdo it.

They have a liquor like this almost everywhere in the world, it turns out. Palinka in Hungary, Rakija in Serbia, Arak in Bali, Aguadiente in Colombia… the list goes on. Most of them are better than raksi.

But after a week of hearing about the stuff, laughing and joking with our guides — our friends — of course we were gonna try it.

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Nepal 101: Jihnudanda

Daniel 9 Comments

We retraced our route down the Annapurna Valley without much incident. We stopped at Chhommrong for lunch, where I bartered with a Tibetan woman for some souvenirs. She sold me two yak-bone bracelets. One, containing the “om-mani-padme-hum” mantra, I would give to Holly, the last time I would ever see her. The other, depicting the eight auspicious Buddhist symbols, I would wear on my wrist every day for nine months, a reminder to live an ethical life, before losing it while on a 24-hour, blacked out bender in Las Vegas.

But I didn’t know that, then.

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This Is Youth and Meg of the Mountain Climb a Mountain

Daniel 15 Comments
Climbing snow on Long's Peak Cables Route in early July

Hey friends,

Those of you who’ve followed me for a while know that in addition to travel, I have another passion: climbing. (For more context, see one of my favorite essays I’ve ever written: ‘Work the Problem.”) The “Pieces of Life” feed is a pretty solid example of this: it alternates between climbing pictures and travel pictures. The two don’t mix, they come in blocks. A month of climbing photos, then a few months of travel photos. Then back to the climbing. Then more travel. Etc.

The night before I left Colombia, I met an American expat for drinks. Happy for a friend, he kept buying me rounds. Uneager to leave Colombia, I kept accepting. Together, over the course of what was supposed to be just a quick get-to-know-you afternoon, we drank 26 beers. Our pyramid of empties filled the tiny table.

I traveled home the next day: 12 hours, three airports, one hangover. I arrived in Colorado late on a Saturday night. The next morning, Sunday, I was in Boulder Canyon, climbing. Leading 5.10d and 5.11a, although certainly not elegantly. Most people wouldn’t do that.

I wasn’t speaking Spanish, but I was speaking a language I loved — climbers have a language and a diction all their own. Kneebars, cams, handjams, crimps, onsight… words I loved hearing almost as much as chevere, súper, and ciao.

Ever since returning home from Colombia, I’ve been climbing a lot. I find this is the most effective way to fight the post-travel depression that always sets in when I return from an extended jaunt abroad. Luckily for me, home is Colorado, where amazing climbing literally comes at you around every corner.

While I’ve been doing a ton of climbing, I realized I haven’t written much about it. So today, I figured I’d give it a go.

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Nepal 100: The Palace

Daniel 10 Comments
Trekking Annapurna Base Camp Valley

After our race, Young Ankit and I struck up some conversation as we sat waiting for the rest of our group to catch up with us. Ankit was working as a porter, carrying the diplomat’s pack, but I had noticed that he seemed a little different from the rest of the porters. Younger, less beat-down. He was more wide-eyed, and certainly more social. Many of the other porters didn’t even speak English. Ankit was animated, articulate, and curious about life in countries other than his own.

It turned out, this was his first-ever trek. He was 15.

It was all still an adventure to him.

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