What a fantastic year this has been. It has been a wonderful year! I've enjoyed it immensely, and learned a lot as well as knocking some major life goals out of the way. In the past twelve months I've graduated from college, climbed a significant mountain, and taken a six-thousand mile road trip around the western half of the country. During that trip I visited five national parks, including some of the ones on my bucket list - Redwood, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks.
Each of these accomplishments and experiences has taught me something. I've finally gained the confidence that I've been searching for, and know that all mountains can eventually be climbed. However, on the road trip I saw the environmental changes - first hand - which are changing the planets' chemistry, at work. The reason I left on that journey was the Colorado flood, a thousand year flood of "biblical proportions". It was not a nice sight to witness the wake of destruction left behind by this catastrophe, not to mention the damage afterwards.. On the road, as I continued down the coast to Yosemite I had my breath taken away by the scorched land in, "one of the largest forest fires on record". Something's changing. The last, and probably most haunting memory that I have - one that will be imprinted as deeply as those from my gripping adventure on Longs - is of the famous Bridalveil & Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park. The only difference here is that where there should have been water plummeting over a half-mile tall cliff, there was no water at all..
This doesn't have to be this way, and it doesn't have to be an unsolvable crisis. I hope that this New Years day we'll all remember that we can't take everything from this planet without expecting some consequences. I hope that we will be realists about what's happening out there, and make an effort to protect those wild places that we all love. When the last mountain is "conquered", so will humanity cease to exist. Let's keep climbing those mountains of life, but don't forget that everything we do affects the future of humanity and our planet. Live simply - that's my New Year's resolution along with continuing my adventures, hopefully outside the country for a while this year.
~Nick Whittemore
This is the just of where I got this stuff from, and one of the ultimate masons behind the philosophy of this blog. - Reflections of a Green Business Pioneer. I've read his book, "Let my People go Surfing", and watch one of the best adventure documentaries ever created, "180 South", and discovered this doesn't only apply to business. It applies ever more to life.
