John Sigmon

East Face of Robert's Horn

I picked up some tendonitis in my hip mid November and had to keep it close to the car for most of early winter. After a few weeks of PT and confidence in the body improving, along with a weather window and not a lot of lower elevation Utah ice,

Introduction to Running

I have been helping some friends out with starting running and wrote some information for context before working with them on a training plan. I thought it would be useful for a wider audience and wanted to share it here. If you want to work with someone to reach new

Black Ice Couloir

Overview The Black Ice Couloir is one of, if not the, classic moderate alpine ice route in the United States. It was so named because for decades the snow would melt off in the summer, revealing ancient "black" ice underneath. Supposedly that ice permanently disappeared more than 20

Epinephrine

Overview On June 9th, 2023 Sean Sasser and I climbed the ultra classic Epinephrine. I've been to Red Rock several times and climbed almost all of the classics so I was looking forward to this one for a long time, and it didn't disappoint! We got

Geurt's Ridge to Memorial Couloir on Mt. Olympus

Overview I am again trying to catch up on documenting a few past adventures. Julie Jung and I set out April 15, 2023 looking for a big day and got it. We climbed up Geurt's Ridge on Mt. Olympus, traversed around the south summit, and "skied"

Southeast Face of Mt. Emerson

Overview Continuing my trend of writing up some posts now that I am resting post-surgery... Back on June 18, 2022 Julie Jung and I scrambled up the southeast face of Mt. Emerson for a beautiful day on one of the Sierra's most approachable big mountains. Mt. Emerson provides

Kamp's Ridge on Mt. Olympus

Overview I am currently laid up from surgery and thought this would be a good time to finish up some posts on earlier adventures. On June 10, 2022 Julie Jung and I set out in the morning to climb Kamp's Ridge on Mt. Olympus to the north summit,

East Buttress of Mt Whitney

Overview Julie Jung and I set out on June 14th, 2022 to climb the East Buttress of Mt. Whitney (Grade III, 5.7, 1,000 ft). We planned to do the approach in the morning, the climb the same day, stay the night at Iceberg Lake, and climb Mithril Dihedral

Planning for a First Trip to the Cirque of the Towers

I know a few people headed to the Winds for the first time, and found myself repeating advice and thought it might be better written down and shared. If you're making your first trip to the Cirque of the Towers hopefully you find this helpful. Getting There There

Geurt's Ridge Winter Ascent

Overview On January 16, 2021, Julia Bodiford and I climbed Geurt's Ridge and descended the standard Olympus trail. We stopped short about 40 meters short of the summit due to deep snow and nightfall and descended a gully to the south to reconnect with the main hiking trail.

North Ridge of Pfiefferhorn

Overview On April 2, 2022, Craig Pierson and I summited Pfiefferhorn via the North Ridge in winter/spring conditions. We skied off the summit with rapidly warming snow, but successfully got back to the car without incident. I felt horrible all day, pretty much from the moment we left. I

Mt. Hood South Side Ski

Overview Selina Sekulic and I traveled to Washington intending on summiting Adams and Rainier in early May. We found winter like conditions on the volcanoes, and decided to shoot for Adams. This time of year the road to the trailhead for the standard route on Adams is typically unmaintained, and

Intro to Mountaineering (Part Two Learning Skills)

Overview This post is a compilation of resources that I have found helpful both for myself and to share with others. As I copied and pasted, and searched YouTube for the same links over and over, I thought this might all be better in the same place. These resources are

Intro To Mountaineering (Part One Purchasing Gear)

Overview This writing only covers how to choose and purchase your mountaineering/ice climbing/winter gear when you are starting out. There is so much gear to be acquired, and this post only aims to provide an intro and overview of what the main options are. This includes boots, crampons,

Grand Teton Solo via Owen Spalding

Overview On September 5th I started out from the Lupine Meadows trailhead at 7 AM to summit the Grand by myself. My intention was to climb up the Owen Spalding (OS) route and down climb the route as well, as I did not want to take a rope. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weather

Mt Hood via Old Chute

Overview Julia Bodiford and I summited Mt. Hood (11,249 ft.) via Old Chute June 24, 2021. It was our first time in the area, and first Cascade volcano. Weather & Conditions It was cold and windy on the way up. Somewhere in the 20s F probably, with a steady

Middle Teton Spring Attempt

Overview Julia Bodiford and I set out to Grand Teton National Park for the first time on 6/8/21 with the intention of attempting the Middle Teton via the Southwest Couloir car to car the following day. As it was our first time to the park, we wanted to

Grand Canyon - Escalante Route

Overview On 5/28/21 Julia Bodiford, a friend, and I began the Escalante Route in the Grand Canyon. We approached the route via Tanner Trail, exiting via the New Hance Trail on 5/30/21. The Escalante Route is considered the most rugged backcountry “trail” in the Grand Canyon

My Battle With Chronic Pain

Intro This writing is about the details of my sufferings with a repetitive strain injury (RSI)[1] that was debilitating for over a year and has affected me daily since early 2018. The emotional stress of having a chronic injury cannot be overstated. It dampens everything like a heavy blanket.

Linting Your Python and Shell Scripts

Linting vs Testing Linting is a “static” test in the sense that it doesn’t run or execute any code. It analyzes the file(s) looking for code smells [https://martinfowler.com/bliki/CodeSmell.html] and what the linter considers poor style. On the other hand, tests actually execute some

JSON From the Command Line

I want to share a command line tool I have recently learned. jq provides a fantastic and fast way to manipulate and manage JSON files, especially when they become very large. I want to give a quick overview of how it works and then show some examples. Giving jq input

Git Tips

Basic Git Usage A great reference for basic git usage, including push, pull, merge, and other operations is Travis Swicegood’s “Pragmatic Guide to Git” [https://pragprog.com/book/pg_git/pragmatic-guide-to-git]. Julia Evans also has a wonderful and easy to understand introduction to solving common user errors within git

Bash Tips

Overview This post simply provides a grab bag of bash snippets that are unrelated and not enough to write a whole post on. Enjoy! Redirects All those fun redirect operators are outlined really well in this Stack Overflow post [https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/159513/what-are-the-shells-control-and-redirection-operators] . Grep, Awk, and Sed

Climbing, Mountaineering, and Skiing Videos

During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 I started compiling a list of (mostly) free climbing, mountaineering, and skiing videos. I created a Google Doc that is available here. I will occasionally sync this page with the Google Doc. If you want to make suggestions, navigate to the document and add