Aaron McHugh, Author at Aaron McHugh

Dispatch: Perfect NYC Business Travel MicroAdventure Brooklyn Pumptrack

The winter chill rolled up the East River as Nik leaned into turn number two at Brooklyn’s Pumptrack. Just before close, I met Nik, pumptrack watchman for the day. I told him how we Coloradans heard about the park and I wanted to share the story with you readers. He was down and gave us a quick couple laps on his BMX for some GoPro Be a Hero pics.

Nik on turn number two on Brooklyn's pumptrack — Nik on turn number two on Brooklyn’s pumptrack

I saw a blurb from Outside Magazine on this adventure hub near Brooklyn’s Williamsburg Bridge. On a recent trip, my wife and I walked a dozen blocks to scout this microadventure friendly urban bike and skate park. I loved this little gem. The pumptrack is a postage stamp of industrial dirt carved out between turn of the century Brooklyn workingman brick towers.

Break free of the NYC business meetings, cocktail dinners and Times Square. Catch a train over to Brooklyn and rent a bike, board and protective gear for $20-$30 and pretend you’re twelve years old again.

Good luck not giggling as you bank big city turns and flow the whoop de doos at Brooklyn Bike Park. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s accessable. Super kid and beginner friendly. Stunning Manhattan views More details on Pumptrack Brooklyn Facebook page.

Nik posing for a pic with me at the pumptrack

Directions: Brooklyn Pump Track is located at 318 Kent Ave Brooklyn, NY 11249 between South 3rd and 4th streets. Open 11 am to 7 pm.

By Train: Subway stops are the L at Bedford Ave or the J, M, Z at Marcy Ave.

Williamsburg bridge Brooklyn chalk art on the pumptrack

Nik and I closing out the day at the pumptrack

Be the Hero of Your Life

Sometimes I feel like I’m viewing the world through a GoPro camera on slow-motion frame-by-frame…stop..start..pause…play. I watch other people seemingly unburdened and able to live in real-time without the bothersome need to always review the highlight footage after every play.

Sometimes I wish I could skip the footage review and not be so observant. Yet… there are these Matrix like moments when time slows down and everything is vibrant and real and happening. I feel alive…fully alive. And then I think maybe seeing life in single frames helps me extract more of the juices from life?

My GoPro-like viewpoint helps me see that we are all chasing after the same thing. We want a life that’s meaningful to us. People like us want our lives to make a difference. Sometimes we can’t easily explain even what change or impact we want to leave. We simply can’t shake the idea that we’re supposed to make the world better than we found it. We feel most alive when we are engaged, known, seen and understood.

I love GoPro’s tag line, Be a Hero. Being the hero in my life isn’t about fame, fortune, spotlights and ego. I think it’s deeper than that.

I think being the hero of our lives requires us to show up and own the golden moments, our glory, our mojo, our love, our sharp whitt, our mana “Yeah, can you believe I did that? Killer!” The stuff of our life that would make the GoPro photo of the day highlights real.

And…I’ve gotta own the scenes of my life that aren’t great also, “yeah….can you believe I did that?” All the footage that ends up on the cutting room floor, that we hope never makes it out for everyone to see-Our mistakes, shortcomings, character defects, and places we aren’t yet finished.

Be the hero. Own it all.
All the ingredients are raw materials that are useful in our stories. All of it.
Be gracious and kind to yourself. Love the people you are with. Be curious. Go searching for life.

Keep going,

Aaron

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask, “Why?”

I want to share a conversation that reminded me of the importance of asking, “why are we doing this?”

Me: Tell me about how you do your job.

Co-worker: When we finish the project, we overnight a hard copy of the report to each customer (For $50).

Me: Do they like having a hard copy?

Co-worker: I don’t know. The file we create for them is too big to email.

Me: Have you asked customers if they’d prefer an electronic copy instead? Why?

Co-worker: I don’t know. This is the way we’ve always done it.

That evening I realized that I’ve been asking Why all of my life. In my early years my parents, my teachers and professors really didn’t have a lot of appreciation for the question. As I recall there were very few other people around me that were compelled to voice this constant question.

My early employers also suffered my incessant asking. With maturity I gained more couth, but regardless of my improved timing, the question still stuck out in contrast to my fellow conformists.

There is Power in the Question Why?
Some people have abandoned this question in exchange for simply doing what they’re told. But you my fellow heretic are not like everybody else.

The Rule Followers of history claimed,

“The World is Flat”.

“Poor people don’t need to read”

“In order to solve world conflicts you have to go to war”

“No one will ever want a computer in their home”

“That mountain is too high, no man can climb it”

“An Internet bookstore will never work”

Those people who asked WHY punched through

“We’ll I guess I’ll just have to go see for myself”

“We’ll there are more poor people than rich and God seems to care about them too”

“I think I’ll just sit here in the middle of the street and by my presence force them to reconsider”

“Computers will become personal and be in every home in America”

265 people climbed Mt. Everest in 2012

Amazon just celebrated 22 years of global domination in book sales.

You’ve Got Mad Skills

An excerpt from Fire Your Boss: A Manifesto to Rethink How You Think About Work.

The World Needs You

I’m going to assume that you’re reading this manifesto because something is amiss in your career. There is a growing chasm between what you always envisioned you would do for work and what you found yourself doing for ten hours today.

I believe life is short. I believe life is precious. I believe you are the only version of “you” that will ever occupy this earth. I believe that you are especially equipped with a unique quiver of qualifications, gifts, talents, passions and experiences. Our family calls the stuff that comes naturally or easy to you “your mad skills.”

I heard Bono, lead singer for the band U2 say, “I’m good at writing songs and I don’t know why or how. I just am.”

You’ve Got Mad Skills

Your ”mad skills” enable only you to bring forth solutions to problems, cure disease, create melody from cacophony, teach the next generation of humanity, disrupt your industry, and invent solutions to desperate circumstances. All of this happens in and through the context of work.

Therefore, my friend, we cannot view work as a burden. Work must not be about survival. Work is the place in which we alter the white space before us for good. We must reclaim our place as pioneers of new outcomes, inventors of new solutions, designers of new products, dreamers of new possibilities, and architects of a better tomorrow. We must re-infuse our work with challenge, reward, zest, zeal, fun, laughter, creativity, and unapologetic hope.

Trip Report: Father-Daughter California Road Trip From Los Angeles to San Francisco

The azure blue color of the sea and the barks of the sea lions pulled us from our car. We wandered down an unmarked scraggly brush covered trail as the girls picked nickel sized daisies to decorate their hair. “Let’s go up” they claimed as they climbed out onto the craggy perch above San Martin Rock in Cape San Martin. Witnessing them unafraid reminded me of, Kate Arnold’s article 10 Ways to Raise Brave Girls based on the book The Gutsy Girl.. Our father-daughter California Road Trip was a perfect training ground for becoming Gutsy Girls.

We dreamed up the perfect alchemy for our adventure, National Geographic Adventure meets Sunset Magazine. Repeat our five-day microadventure and you will begin a life-long love affair with California.

Flowers, friends, ocean, air, joy and play

Not all those who wander are lost.

J.R.R Tolkien

We romped nearly 500 miles launching from Costa Mesa (Orange County), arriving four days later in San Francisco. Most people defer to the herd mentality when experiencing the scenic CA Hwy 1. Although a very accessible way to enjoy the rugged beauty by stopping to take pictures and eating nice meals, you miss the hidden gems of adventure. Our adventure list included sea kayaking, snorkeling, cliff jumping, hiking, ziplining and car camping peppered in between the driving, good food and spotify playlists.

Hunter with daisies — Friends with ocean daisies

Here’s a map I drew up of our adventures

I plan on turning this into a print published adventure guide. This map I drew helped me retrace our steps and add in a few adventures for the wish list as well.

Father daughter California road trip LA to San Francisco custom map

Don’t repeat my mistakes

Before I get into the must-repeat stops and adventures, let me tell you what didn’t work very well.

Don’t book an RV campsite just because you can’t find a tent camping site to reserve. It turns out you have to own an RV 🙂
Don’t wait until 10 pm to find a place to sleep for the night. If you can’t find a campsite, book a cheap hotel before 8 pm. I drove too late a few nights and ended up needing to pull over and nap in a rest stop.
Add an extra day to saunter. We drove the entire route in four days. I would recommend taking an extra day to slow the pace down.

Laguna Beach -Fishermans Cove Beach — Laguna Beach, Fishermans Cove

Take a Nap in a Mermaid Lagoon

After our flight from Denver, we went straight to our favorite beach in Laguna Beach, Fishermans Cove. This beach is just north of Heisler Park. Look for a small unmarked footpath located at the bend in the road where Beverly street and Cliff drive meet.

Beach hike under Morro Rock

Morro Bay State Park located just 15 miles out of San Luis Obispo. Morro Rock stands without peers 578 feet above the shoreline. Get out and stretch your legs on this 3.5 mile beach hike along the bay via Morro Strand Trail.

Patagonia-Founded in Ventura

Visit Patagonia’s Original Store

Yvonne Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, used to shape surfboards and pound out pitons for big wall Yosemite climbing in his ironworks shop downtown Ventura.

Gutsy Girls cliff jumping Santa Cruz island Channel Islands NP

The Channel Islands National Park

Snorkel Sea caves by headlamp. Cliff jump into sublime mermaid enclaves. Sea kayak beginner-friendly pirate escape routes and dodge high-tide blowholes. Picture the Galapagos islands but twenty-five miles off the coast of California. You will find seals, whales, dolphins, sea urchins, octopus, sea anemones, starfish, sea kayaking, snorkeling, sea caves, cliff jumping and wilderness untamed by man. Watch the full NPS video on The Islands. We launched our ferry ride to The Channel Islands from Ventura, CA.

Gutsy girls snorkeling the sea caves of the channel islands

Elephant seal beach San Simeon across from Hearst Castle

Get Up Close with 100 Elephant Seals

San Simeon Elephant Seals put on a full blown Discovery Channel live show on the beach across from Hearst Castle. Look for the turn to Hearst Castle on your right, instead hang a left (going North on Hwy 1) and grab your camera before walking down to the viewing area. Growing up in the mountains of Colorado, my daughter had never seen anything like these giants. Watch this video of two bull seals tangling.

Scurrying down from the summit of San Martin Rock lookout

Scurry onto a rocky summit San Martin Rock

We stumbled onto San Martin Rock lookout. We found an unmarked faint trail leading towards the Pacific. We scrambled our way to the rocky summit (I wouldn’t recommend this for little kids). My brave girls didn’t blink at the steep exposure on either side of the catwalk leading to the lookout.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

World renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium is perfect for a few hours or an entire day. The exhibits are immersive. You become apart of the ocean instead of simply observing the ocean through six inch thick glass. My favorite is the JellyFish exhibit (watch the live web cam) where each tank is backlit as the Jellies dance effortlessly.

Zipline tour of Santa Cruz Redwoods

Suspend 150 feet above the forest floor in Mount Hermon Adventures Canopy tour. The 250 foot tall ancient giants redwoods remind you of their life and resilience. Mount Hermon Adventures, $99 aerial adventure canopy tour.

Sleep beneath the Redwood giants

Henry Cowell Redwoods state park preserves some of the world’s tallest old-growth coastal redwoods. The record holder is 280 feet tall and 1,500 years old. Slumber underneath these gentle giants and reserve a campsite. Five miles from Santa Cruz.

Coit tower at sunset after we climbed Greenwich stairs

Watch Sunset from Coit Tower

We climbed the long flights of stairs from Greenwich Street, Greenwich steps. Highly recommend this route as it meanders between homes, private gardens and steep views of the San Francisco Bay.

Greenwich stairs starting down near the piers lead all the way to Coit Tower

Dispatch: Play Hooky With Your Kids

Our Joy Bus was running cold. Before you stop seeing your breath, you’ve got to drive her twenty miles to punch through the Rocky Mountain morning frost. My daughter and I are playing hooky from school by taking an educational field trip of our own design.

After I watched the movie Captain Fantastic, I thought, “Moving to the Redwoods sounds awesome. But I don’t think I know enough Shakespeare or Kierkegaard to fill a homeschool semester. Instead, let’s skip a little school and pepper in some experiences that go beyond the textbooks.”

After I floated the idea past my wife, my daughter agreed we’d skip work and school and create our own educational adventure outing. I keep a MicroAdventures list of places to visit or things to do in our town. It makes impromptu adventure planning easier.

Averi and I skipping school and finding our hooky groove in Garden of the Gods park

A few takeaways from our school skipping lessons:

For our hooky playing field trip, we picked The Pioneer Museum, bouldering at Garden of the Gods and drive through coffee treats at Dutch Brothers. We agreed no phones or social media posts. We didn’t want to be distracted by the pings.

It felt like we somehow carved out a special portion of time. The rest of the world was at work and in school and we were driving our Joy Bus.

At the museum, we learned some fun facts about our western town’s history, “Helen Hunt Falls is named after a real person?” Helen Hunt was a writer who lived in the late 1800’s. “You mean Banning Lewis Ranch neighborhood was a real cattle ranch 100 years ago?”

We learned that our favorite pizza place downtown, Ilvicino’s used to be a Kodak camera store in the 1950’s and Chipolte’s building was a three-story department store.

Our Joy Bus at Garden of the Gods -Playing Hooky Day

Ideas for your school-skipping Captain Fantastic hooky planning adventure

Decide if you need to plan ahead “Next Tuesday….” or “Hey wanna skip school tomorrow?”
Depending on the age of your son or daughter, they might need to plan a bit.
You don’t have to teach anything…just go searching for an adventure, or new experience. Let the experience be the teacher. Go weird. Go big. Go Small. Go artsy. Go hard. Go easy. Go cheap. Go fancy. Just GO.
Visit a farm, a museum, a historical setting, hike a trail, scout a waterfall or take a cooking lesson.

The point is to eject on your normal routine together and find a reason to create a memory.

Unplug.
So what’s it gonna be? How’s next Tuesday sound?

Keep going-
AM

Invent a Silly Reason to Get Outside

I think simple impromptu adventures are the easiest to coordinate-no planning, no agenda and no big goal to accomplish. I like to invent silly reasons to get outside. On a snowy day, my buddy Kyle and I packed some warm clothes, a small stove and a couple of $.15 packs of Ramen Noodles. Our only goal was to go for a hike and find a fun place to cook Ramen noodles on our small backpacking stove. In winter, the trails here in Colorado are quiet and empty of crowds. Which means that you don’t have to walk very far to be removed from your busy life.

Ramen Noodles on the summit with the MSR Pocket Rocket stove

Here are a few ideas for you to get outside this winter and invent a silly reason to have a Ramen Noodle adventure.

Skip carrying a stove. Boil enough water and fill up a thermos.
Use Styrofoam coffee cups with lids.
Pre-mix up your Ramen Noodles or Cup of Soup at home. Combine the ingredients. It makes it easier than opening tiny little packets with cold fingers and trash blowing away.
Bring some tunes. Pack in a small Bluetooth speaker to pump some Christmas music.
Turn off your cell phone. By disconnecting from the outside world for a few hours, you’ll be in the present moment.
No snow? No hill to climb? I’ve done this same adventure at the beach or a park. You don’t like soup? Great cook up some coffee or tea and read your favorite children’s book to your kids. The point is to invent a reason to get outside, be with the people you love and get off the digital grid.

This post is an excerpt from the Field Guide: 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the full guide here.

The Summit register on an adjoining peak to Eagle Peak

Rest Like a Dog Sledding Champion

I learned the hard way that I am not a robot. For decades I pushed myself to the brink of depression and emotional exhaustion. When I was younger, I was so regimented that I wouldn’t permit myself a nap as I thought naps were for lazy people.

I read an article recently that changed my beliefs about rest. I learned about Susan Butcher, a four-time winner of the infamous suffer-fest endurance dog sledding race across Alaska, the Iditarod. She held the speed record from 1986 to 1992. Prior to her disruption, the legendary Arctic men mushed in twelve-hour shifts. Twelve hours on the sled in the harsh cold followed by twelve hours off to recuperate.

Susan chose a provocative, seemingly cushier plan. She unlocked the secret weapon that crushed her opponents, three hours on followed by three hours of rest. She instituted this sustainable rhythm of work-rest-work-rest in smaller bursts for eleven straight days. She obliterated the course record by resting more frequently.

I’ve been reminding myself that like Susan, resting actually helps me go faster and farther. I now build rest into my weekly rhythm. I’ve become a big fan of naps a couple times a week. Like the legendary Arctic men, the shift that occurred for me was when I stopped believing rest was for the weak. I now believe that regular rest is the secret weapon to sustainable living. Susan changed the race forever and now her methods are adopted as the better strategy to race the Iditarod.

Rest more. Go longer. Be more productive. Live smarter.

This post is an excerpt from the Field Guide: 99 Ways to Navigate Your Best Life. Download the full guide here.

Point Your Toes in a New direction

When I was in college I was certain about having a future career in the ministry. I didn’t want to be a pastor. I thought I’d work at a camp in the mountains. In high school, my life was salvaged starting with a conversation with my friend Heather.

During Mrs. McCloskey’s English class she turned to me and said, “There is more to you than this”. I’m sure I was high during this conversation. Yet she saw deeper than my behavior and bad choices. Heather knew God and I became curious. Soon after, I decided that I wanted to help other people experience God like this.

After I graduated Baylor, my wife and I packed our U-Haul moving truck and drove to Colorado to spend the summer working for Young Life. My plan was coming together. For our volunteer assignment we were stationed at Wilderness Ranch, an ideal remote outpost. Our mission was to help launch high school kids for weeklong-guided trips in the high country.

I recently found a letter I wrote late that summer to a wealthy man who owned a ranch nearby. He was funding the start of a similar wilderness program. The actual day-job was spending time with high school kids reminding them, There is more to you than this. We were offered the job and needed to relocate our newlywed belongings to this one stoplight town.

My wife cried, “I can’t do this. This town is so small”.

We said, “Thank you, but we won’t be coming”.

Without a plan, with no map for what to do next we stepped forward. Actually we didn’t know where to step. Before we could take a step we first did what my wife calls Pointing your toes. She learned this idea from Donald Miller. Without really knowing where to go, what the end game would be, we started with pointing our toes in a new direction.

Twenty-three years later reading that letter, I can see. I see how sometimes you think you know what you want. You spend a lot of energy and focus on getting there. Then you find out it’s not what you want. You see differently once you arrive in the place you dreamed about.

Life isn’t static. Life is fluid, pliable and moving. We get a new boss. Our company sells. New neighbors move in. Your kids grow up. Your marriage ends. You get bored with the predictability and comfort that you worked decades to achieve.

Yet, we don’t know what the next step should be. A step feels too big. Start smaller. Slowly move your toes. Start pointing them in a new direction and see where it goes.

Hike South Dakota’s Highest Peak

I found this gem of a peak in an obscure mention in Outside or National Geographic Adventure. I knew it would make for a perfect MicroAdventure to hike South Dakota’s highest peak, Harney Peak. I tore out this adventure blurb for our Men’s Town Road Trip. Harney Peak is South Dakota’s highest point at an elevation of 7,244 feet above sea level. Located in the Black Hills only a few miles from Mount Rushmore’s National Memorial, this peak pays a huge summit dividend.

The history of Harney Peak's fire lookout tower built in 1929 — The history of Harney Peak’s fire lookout tower built in 1939

The reward on top of Harney Peak is the three-story 360-degree fire tower lookout built in 1939. Built during America’s New Deal era, this is one of the most beautiful architectural creations I’ve ever witnessed in the wilderness.

The Story of Black Elk

According to Outside, Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux medicine man who fought in the battle of the Little Bighorn, climbed Harney Peak on a vision quest when he was only 9 years old. When he came down, he called the mountain-not far from the precise geographic center of the United States-the “center of the universe.

Trailhead: Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park

41 miles south of Rapid City, SD, we hiked the 7-mile round trip route from Sylvan Lake to Harney Peak. The trail is very well marked and climbs a moderate contour around crazy valleys to Harney’s granite monolith summit home. Bring your own water and plan on a full day to enjoy the hike and summit vistas. Make sure you poke around and investigate the fire lookout tower and water pump-house below the summit. You will be amazed at the engineering involved in making this outpost fully sustainable for mountain fire forecasting. If any weather rolls in, shelter up in the fire tower.

Side Trips from Harney Peak

Hike a portion of the Lewis & Clark Trail
Go deep into Wind Cave on a guided National Park Service adventure
Visit Mount Rushmore at Sunset
Go where the buffalo roam and explore Custer State Park

Resources for hiking Harney Peak

Here is a downloadable map for Custer State Park-Harney Peak.