How Have the Outdoors Impacted My Life?

...a Long Winded Story of How I Got Here

How has your life been impacted by nature and the outdoors?

Mine would not be the same without it.

Every part of the life I live now stemmed from an initial draw to the mountains.

I mean, how did a Bay Area girl like me end up living in a little mountain town in Northwest Colorado?

Growing up, I loved hiking and camping (who didn’t?). After college, my boyfriend (now husband) and I decided to pack up our stuff and spend a summer in Yellowstone National Park before coming back to the “real world” and getting “grown-up” jobs. We had been hired to work as restaurant staff…he as a dishwasher, and I as a line cook. It wasn’t the glamorous park job studying wolves and teaching people about thermal features. I was slinging burgers, serving chili, and making insane amounts of fish and chips at a little restaurant on the shores of Yellowstone Lake.

What the job did give me was the opportunity to live, eat, sleep, and breathe inside of the national park for 6 months. We got to experience the raw beauty and joy of it day in and and day out.

There was no tv, limited internet access, and a whole summer of adventures to be had.

We loved it so much that, fast forward two years, we went back!

Magically, friends we had made our first summer there had also returned! We spent our time off hiking, camping, backpacking, and exploring the outdoor playground that was the Greater Yellowstone area.

We hiked over 300 miles that summer!

It was the most wild and free I had ever been and I was so sad when it came to an end.

Above: Backpacking in the Grand Tetons 2010 Below: Summiting Middle Teton 2012, Grizzly sighting 2012, Backpacking to Heart Lake and Mt. Sheridan 2010

With no real plan on the horizon, our friends asked if we’d want to move with them to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. They had spent a winter there before and thought we would love it!

Sight unseen, we moved to Colorado. What we thought would be one winter season has now been 7 years of the most wonderful life we could have imagined. Living here has allowed us to build the life we want for ourselves in our tiny corner of the Rocky Mountains.

In short, that was a long winded approach for me saying that I am so grateful to have a life where the outdoors are literally right outside our door.

Giving back to organizations that strive to protect our planet is only a small way of me of showing thanks for allowing us to enjoy the outdoors.

*Edit as of January 2020, 5% of all profits will benefit the National Park Foundation :) I will no longer be rotating organizations, but please don’t hesitate to reach out about donations of my physical products!