When Silence Speaks...

Another fatal incident at Capitol peak forced me to write this piece today dedicated to the mountains, not just as a reminder to whoever is reading it, but primarily to myself; of what mountaineering is really about. Not all connect to nature in the same way. Some connect to oceans, some to the jungles, others to canyons, deserts, valleys, wildlife, stars and so on; some like me connect to Mountains . They are all different elements of nature where one finds solace. One of the major reason for me to stick to Denver for so many years, has been it's mountains. Coming from the coastal part of India, I never got a chance to feel the mountains until Denver. My first year in Denver, I did a fourteener, and that's when I fell in love with mountains.  Since then I have done multiple 14ers, and every time, I return home more humble than before. Every time there is some learning I take back with me. While I am hiking up the mountains I always think why do I stuff my backpack wi...

So we had planned to end our trip by Kayaking next to the Aialik Glacier. It was a full day trip with a water taxi ride of 2.5 hrs one way, about 4 hours of Kayaking and then 2 hours back to Seward. We started at 7:30 AM from Seward, and were back at 6:30 PM in the evening. From the shore where we started kayaking Well, I don't know what makes me pick up some of these activities, considering that I don't know swimming, neither have I kayaked ever in my life. So to try this for the first time in an open ocean, was let's put it as Stupid. Hey, but it is me, and most of the times logic does not work well with me. And precisely the reason that my parents hear about it from me only after I get through it safely, to relieve them of the burden of being worried for me the whole time. Anyway, so I was paired with Jacob, a college grad who was alone on this Kayaking tour. My friend and his wife were on another Kayak, and our guide Ryan on...