Sorry.

One of my favorite moments of the summer was how it kicked off with a pig roast at my buddy Szymons's.

Yeah, pretty rough image, right? How about a baby squirrel pallet cleanser?

Okay now I feel better. This guy hung out on our patio everyday for a few weeks. Adorable.

Warrior Dash

On June 13th, my lady friend and I competed in the Pennsylvania leg of the Warrior Dash. The race we attended was a 3.5 mile obstacle course erected on the Skirmish Paintball fields about 2 hours from our apartment.

Now I have to note that while I am aware of the existence of the Muddy Mile, The Mud Runner, the mud bah blah blah and the ten other mud related obstacle course races that took place this summer... I fucking hate running. Sorry but I do. I wanted to push myself a little and have some fun while doing it, and I figured a race that was only the length of a 5k and gave you a viking helmet at the end was the way to go. These Marine inspired 10 mile marathons are for people that are either actual soldiers or ran track in high school, both things I have strong moral stances against.

I doubt Heather and Hayley would be smiling after a 10K in their silly viking helmets. Plus after spending an hour running in the woods (actually a hair under 56 minutes), I actually like running a little more now. Especially if the finish of my run looks like this:

Maybe now I'll consider a few of those 5k charity runs, and maybe I'll consider another one of those mud runs that are getting so popular. There's no doubt however, that I'm signing up for the Warrior Dash again next year.

jesus christ!!

wow, so its pretty hard to do an adventure blog when you work full time and spend the rest of your time on adventures. (and by adventure i mean sitting by my pool or at the beach) also when you change the name of your blog and forget to tell..... anyone.

well i guess i should apologize to the people that read this page.... sandy and anyone that stumbled upon it because of a link to that hipster on a tall bike.

sorry.

awesome.... so moving forward ill be posting some picks and stories from this summer's escapades while at the same time remembering to use capital letters and punctuation. There we go. Much better.

Now for a quick preview of what you can expect in the all new BackSlacker.

Look, it's Mike, Wira, Hayley and me after the Warrrior Dash!

(the muscle pose was supposed to be ironic but I look kinda like a dick)

Look, it's Greg on a bike!

Look, it's me in a kayak!

Fantastic. Now that we got that first blog out of the way we can get back to the way things were.

Thumbs Up

Another great find from the Netflix instant view department, Thumbs Up is a web series that follows graffiti artist David Choe as he hitchhikes and rail hops his way from L.A. to New York. Along the way you get to see what kinda of person it takes to become a hitchhiker, and also what kind of person is still willing to pick one up.

You can find parts of seasons 1 and 2 on Netflix, or watch the entire series here. Either way its gonna get you inspired to see the rest of the country, especially when you know it can be done for free.

Hartshorne Park

It's been a few weeks since I've had a good hike so today's trip to Hartshorne Park was well overdue. I've been pretty opinionated lately, I'll try to keep it short.

The trail itself was pretty flat and simple, but that's a good thing. The entire park was very well maintained and clean, and would be great for anyone looking for an easy hike or even a decent bike ride.  My only complaint would be the lack of a big payoff. I don't really need a destination on every hike, but it's always nice when there's something to look forward to on the trail. Unfortunately the only landmark was this scenic overlook.

Somewhere behind these trees is an excellent view of Sandy Hook. Pretty disappointing. So much so that we actually had to check a map to make sure we weren't fooling ourselves.

Nope. Scenic Overlook Fail.

Alright, well atleast we had the beach ahead of us. I mean, Sandy Hook was only across the street.

The walk to the ocean was hot and long. Evan and I took the first chance we could to get out of the sand and into water. I know this isn't glamorous but the ocean wasn't looking too good today. They clearly hadn't cleaned up the coastline for beach season yet so there won't be any photos. I don't wanna do any more damage to the Jersey Shore's already glowing reputation.

An end to An Outdoor Life

When I came up with the title to this blog I was looking for something simple and effective. A title that would suggest that I was going to be sharing my opinions on various outdoor activities, and also using the site as a personal journal of my activities. I may yet keep An Outdoor Life as the title of the blog, but I wanted to post my ideas for what the title may become.

the outsiders' life
the outsider's life
the outsider
the outsideateer
the anteater
the outdoor-er
the rocketeer
james caan in the rocketeer
sleepless in the great outdoors
the greatest outdoorblog ever
hobocamp
the hobos livingroom
basecamp
an outdoor activities blog
summercamp
the backpackers guide to the galaxy
the backpackers guide to mostly north jersey
the backslacker

If I do change the title be assured that I'll get the new title to you as quick as possible.

Bouldering

It was around September of last year that I became interested in the subculture of rock climbing known as bouldering. For those that don't know, bouldering is a version of climbing that requires no rope, since your destination point is never really over twelve feet (anything above this height is referred to as "soloing," and honestly pretty fucking stupid to do).

My interest in bouldering came after a trip to the Stairway to Heaven overlook, a mountain trail near Vernon, New Jersey. At the base of the mountain is a series of boulders from six to ten feet tall placed relatively close to one and other. On the way up my travel companions and I decided to fool around for a while, climbing up these small obstacles that were just hard enough to make it slightly dangerous but tons of fun. I was informed shortly after that what we were doing had a name, and could be done in the comfort of air conditioned gyms, with gymnast mats to fall onto instead of slightly smaller rocks.

Now as much as I love bouldering I have to admit it is a pretty embarrassing hobby to undertake. I relate it to parkour or aggressive inline skating; its a version of an awesome sport but for slackers. Ultimately I know what I'm doing is a half assed version of rock climbing. I don't really like heights, I don't wanna buy equipment and I don't wanna work hard when I could just be having short blasts of fun instead. This is the same I when I started "blading" in middle school. Couldn't afford a skateboard, couldn't figure out how to ollie and already owned roller blades. PERFECT! It was fun learning almost every trick in one weekend at Rutgers campus.

Alright I'm lying, I couldn't do that super badass trick where you roll backward down a flight of stairs. Which by the way is almost never useful. At no point when skating away from the cops for trespassing did I head anywhere with a staircase, and if I did my first reaction would not have been to turn backward at full speed.

The point is that some sports are tailor made for half assed people. Parkour, or freerunning, is pretty much just running for people that wish they were gymnasts or ninjas. Its not even as noble as actually running, your only really going for twenty feet at a time and it's barely at the pace of a jog. I do find it ironic that parkour and bouldering were both invented by europeon gymnasts. These people were minimalists were trying to create a beautiful and fluid sport, but just like in the art world minimalism can be mistaken for laziness.

My real beef with bouldering are the enthusiasts that keep popping up in Youtube videos and at my local rock gym. They're Linkin Park fans that still wear black Jncos and have flame tattoos on their forearms. They're the kind of people that listen to the Final Fantasy soundtracks and are honestly considering buying a Fushigi ball. Its a contingent of half assed people that can't, won't or don't wanna take the time to actually learn to rock climb and I kinda don't wanna be lumped in with them (I have some bad tattoos and Jncos in my past).

With all of this spouting off I have to admit that I can't wait to get my ass back to the Rock Gym in Fairfield though. I even think its time to bite the bullet and actually buy a fucking harness for rope climbing. Maybe this way I can go back to bouldering with the idea that I can enjoy climbing anything; not just staying under ten feet because I'm too lazy to learn how to belay. Plus, I don't even know where to buy Jncos these days.