Climb your own line. 
We started our trip with a goal that someone else had come up with, and tried to measure ourselves by it. We fully admit we weren’t up to that goal- we didn’t have the fitness or the experience in the range to complete it- but the weather pushed us another direction before we wasted any more time using someone else’s ruler. The trip we ended up with was more fun, and more fulfilling than the one we planned. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Love your life. 
The main reason this trip went well is because we loved it. We put love into the planning, into the execution, into each action that went along with it. It was a result of loving mountains, loving the craft of being in them, in loving the work each day.

Being far from our loved ones for such a long time was a meditation on their importance in our lives. Leaving Missoula at the start of the trip, we made it about an hour down the road before we started talking about how much we missed our wives (and our dogs). I missed my wife every single day. I learned something about how to be a better human, and better husband, every single day. That’s why we go.

Build great partnerships
This trip wouldn’t have happened without Devon, and the track record of previous experiences he and I have built together the past few years. It wouldn’t have happened without the trust and care we showed for each other and the idea as a whole. We started by picking our partnership, then figured out what we could do from there.

Copyright: Skander Spies, 2021