From the office to the alpine

The starting line was March 2024 – I signed up for a gym membership – the first one I had in years. Committing to weight training was easy enough and something I could manage. It began to lead to some welcome weight loss and was generally a hedge against becoming someone I didn't want to be. I just wanted to start moving and the workouts started feeling good rather quickly. Over the next couple of months, I was inspired by a friend to sign up for a marathon in December. I had genuinely never thought about running for fun, but I had no reason to believe I could not do it, so I signed up. To kick it off, I ran a 5K in June and embarked on my way to train for my first ever marathon. To properly prepare for the 26.2-mile race, I put a half-marathon on the calendar for a confidence boost and to reassure myself that my fitness was there.

In November, I ran the Santa Barbara Half Marathon in 1:40:16. Perfect weather, beautiful course, and a much better result than I anticipated. To this day it's still my favorite course I've run. A month later I drove up to Sacramento for the CIM. This was a point-to-point race beginning in Folsom and ending in downtown Sacramento. The morning of the race we boarded buses that transported all of the runners to the start line while it was still dark outside. That ride with the interior lights turned off made me feel like a professional athlete. On that bus ride, I'd been talking to the guy next to me who had just done his first triathlon and made it sound interesting; he was encouraging me to sign up for some the following year. Later that day, I crossed the finish line having completed my first marathon; 3:47:51 wasn't anything to scoff at for a first attempt. I felt real pride after sticking to an actual training plan for five months. By March I'd run the LA Marathon too. Undertrained, slower than CIM, but still a great experience.

Then in April 2025 the email arrived. I'd won a Mt. Whitney day permit in the lottery. Something I'd been applying for every year since 2020. Suddenly the summer had a centerpiece. I started reading about altitude, acclimatization, and what it actually takes to train for a 14er when your longest hike to date is a flat 5K. I picked two SoCal warm-ups: Mt. Wilson in May, Mt. Baldy in June. Wilson out of Sierra Madre with my friend Drake. The Cosmic Cafe at the top is a nice treat for a PB&J & Gatorade. Then, I hiked Baldy solo a month later, experiencing Devil's Backbone, my first time at ten thousand feet, the highest point in LA. Both were manageable and great training for what lay ahead. Had I gone through this again, I may have added San Gorgonio and San Jacinto into the mix. But hey, that's what happens when you are a beginner.

The same summer, the two triathlons I'd signed up for back in December came due. The running was easy. The biking was fine. The swimming (especially open-water swimming in cold Pacific water) was an experiment that I did not enjoy. I'd never formally learned how to swim, didn't enjoy practicing it alone, and the ocean confirmed it. First was a sprint distance triathlon at Zuma Beach and then an Olympic distance triathlon at Dockweiler beach. After some future swimming lessons, I do plan to revisit this discipline with more rigor and precision.

On July 8, 2025, I completed the Mt. Whitney day hike with Drake. We left Whitney Portal at 1:30 a.m. and hiked for several hours in the dark, using our headlights to illuminate the landscape. Seeing the summit hut at the top was unreal and gave me a sense of relief in a time when I felt like I had nothing left. Getting back to the car in the afternoon felt like an eternity. It was the proudest day of my life, and I knew it as it was happening. Standing on the highest point in the lower 48 was beyond comprehension. I came off the mountain with a clearer goal than I'd gone up with: I knew then that I wanted to keep climbing.

In February 2026, I ran my first trail race at Boney Mountain in Newbury Park with SoCal Trail. My legs weren't ready and my time reflected it, but I loved everything about it. The trail running community is different. The events are quieter, the people are kind and friendly. By the time the Point Mugu Trail Race came around in April, I felt that my fitness had improved. My time had jumped meaningfully, and I knew trail running was going to be part of this thing from then on.

The bigger ambition has always been the Seven Summits and the famous Himalayan peaks. One day – if I am ever so fortunate and time allows – I would like to eventually tackle Aconcagua, Denali, and Kilimanjaro. But those mountains live on the other side of a 9-to-5 and hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare. They're a someday goal, not a now goal. What I needed was a project that fit inside the life I actually have. Project King of Cali fits my lifestyle and my dreams. I can do it on long weekends, mostly using my own car, mostly with gear I already own. And the order of the peaks is roughly the order of how hard they get, which makes the project a real curriculum: easy ones early, sustained Class 3 in the middle, the technical Palisades traverse last. I should come out the other side ready to rope up on something serious. Until then, I have work to do.

2027 has three trips on the calendar: White Mountain Peak + Boundary Peak, Mt. Williamson + Mt. Tyndall via Shepherd Pass, then Split Mountain + Middle Palisade. This site will hold me accountable and tell my story along the way.