...It Begins! (And How It All Began)

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Helen Keller (mandatory quote #1)

Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion. I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn. Anatoli Boukreev (R.I.P., mandatory quote #2)

The Great Way is very level but people greatly delight in tortuous paths. - Tao te Ching (words of wisdom for a Presi Traverse)

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it. - Sir Edmund Hillary (that's more like it!)

Many of you know me as Koba, the sweat-spilling stage-jumping, rappin' and sangin' the truth-to-the-youth hip-hop firebrand and performer extraordinaire but I'm also guessing many of you know me as Koba the mountain-obsessed trail junkie because I just can't seem to ever shut up about the "freedom of the hills." It's been a year and a half since my newfound passion commenced and I thought it was about time, especially given my expanding ambitions, to document my granola pathology for the world to bear witness to, or at least a tiny portion of the Al Gore.

...In the Summer of His 27th Year...

I was born in the Adirondacks, literally within miles of the Canadian border, and spent much of my childhood at my grandfather's house near Old Forge. In high school I casually went spelunking with friends at Chimney Mountain in the Central Adirondacks and like many other upstate New York kids, the woods, creeks (read: cricks), open blue sky and ubiquitous snow were all but synonymous with the world. My sudden affliction for hiking however was no revisitation of that experience. I had grown up a pudgy, computer-anchored video game-addled nerd more likely to have his head in a Noam Chomsky book than a Sierra Trading Post catalog. But that experience did set a context for what I have come to immeasurably love, a love that dare not spare me a weekend.

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Comin' home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door
When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hangin' by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changin' fast and it don't last for long

So how did it happen? In June 2007 - in the summer of my 27th year - I came across an article about Samantha Larson, who at 18 had just become the youngest person to complete the Seven Summits challenge, i.e. summitting the highest peaks on all 7 continents. Amazed by this accomplishment (and combined with a particularly slow workday) I began to seek out journals and stories of others who dared taunt the windswept summits of these inhospitable peaks with their fragile mortal presence. I instantly became an armchair mountaineer and decided to begin training for the actual task by walking to and from work over the Brooklyn Bridge - the world's greatest short hike. Lo and behold a couple of months later I traded in Wikipedia entries about the north face of the Eiger and Cerro Torre for the summit of 3,780 foot Wittenberg Mountain, the throne of the Catskills.

Since then I have hiked and backpacked in all seasons in:

• the Adirondack High Peaks (10 peaks including aborted Great Range traverse)
• the Catskills (4 peaks, Wittenberg 4 times, Burroughs Range Loop)
• Shenandoah National Park (northern half of AT)
• Acadia National Park (Beehive, Champlain, Cadillac, Huguenot, Dorr)
• Mohonk and the Shawangunks
• the Hudson Highlands (Breakneck Ridge 20+ times, Mt. Taurus, Mt. Beacon, Bald Hill)
• Harriman State Park/Bear Mountain
• and elsewhere
  

It's also worth noting that I've long been an activist and advocate for humanity's better interests. How can you claim to love and defend this beautiful blue planet if you do not seek out its most precious and threatened ecosystems, its most magestic and elusive vistas that give wide open view over the very things you've pledged loyalty to. And how do you sustain your Xbox 360 addiction without the healthy counter-weight of rigorous and routine physical effort?

Anyhow, I'm going to use this space to record my stories and photos with hopefully helpful information for anyone inspired to follow their inner Alexander Supertramp into the wild. Please don't hesitate to leave comments and if you have any inquiries whatsoever don't hesitate to contact me. Sorry mama but the mountains are calling, word to John Muir.