Aaron McHugh, Author at Aaron McHugh

Dispatch: 24 Hours of Adventure in Portland, Maine

I’m down to four states left to visit in the US, Maine was number five. Between two client engagements, one in Maine and the second in Connecticut, I chose to plan a down day in Maine for twenty-four hours. Originally I’d intended to drive to Acadia National Park, three plus hours north, but I was too tired to spend all day in the car. I had a great day of rest, adventure and play. I share these stories with you, my comrades, knowing that you also face similar challenges in integrating your work life and play together.

Portland Head Light

Commissioned by George Washington in 1791, this is Maine’s most photographed lighthouse. Active today, shining it’s high beam across Cape Elizabeth.

image-bleed — One of Maine’s 10 Best Lighthouse list.

Portland Head Light, the first tower commissioned by George Washington in 1791, is a working beacon today, as are at least 59 others.

Breakwater Lighthouse

Modeled after a citadel guardian from the Acropolis of Athen, Breakwater Lighthouse sits across the bay from Portland, ME.

Exploring Casco Bay with Portland Paddle

Sea kayaking is tough to find living in Colorado and I’ve fallen in love. From Orcas Island, Hawaii, Scotland, and the Sea of Cortez, MX sea kayaking is incredibly accessible and #microadventure friendly. Portlandpaddle set me up in fifteen minutes with a full sea-worthy kayak, skirt, laminated map, PFD and drybag for $25 x hour. SUP options, kayak tours and big adventures all staged from Portland’s East End Beach.

Trip Report: Into The Land of Wind River Isolation

The first time I saw Gannett Peak, it was projected through a Kodachrome color slide onto the white backdrop projector screen. I’d never walked on a glacier nor stood in crampons, but I knew I wanted to go there and climb Wyoming’s highest point.

Twenty-six years later, I just returned from a week-long mini-expedition navigating through Wyoming’s Wind River Range, home of Gannett Peak. Although we didn’t summit Gannett’s massif, we skirted her northern flank. She was just as beautiful as I’d imagined. My fellow explorers and I traveled ninety-nine miles through forests, across glaciers, down rubble-strewn mountain chutes, over cols while threading our northward route.

The pictures we took tell a better story than I believe I can say through words.

The Stats from our Wind River High Route

+99 total miles
+60,000 Net vertical feet (measures both the up and down)
+59 oldest and toughest guy (Dave the Pathfinder)
+70% off trail (map and compass travel)
+27.5 lbs starting weight with seven days food and gear
+18 miles longest mileage day
+14 maps
+5 blisters
+3 glacial rivers crossed
+1 badger unique wildlife sighting
+Zero The number of people we saw in this remote wilderness over four days

Our inspirational quote that drove us onward and upward

“In the wilderness, we face Something Awful, both outside and within us. The result of this confrontation is our transformation.”

My Epiphany

During our twelve hour days, it became clear to me that this trip was a concoction of ultra-endurance racing, mountaineering, and ultralight wilderness travel.

My favorite movie scene

Jerry Maguire during his breakdown-breakthrough while doing headstands he said, “I was the Me, I always wanted to be.”

Favorite tunes to help us lose track of the pulse of pain

+Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits
+Wake Up by The Arcade Fire
+The Wanderer by U2 & Johnny Cash
+Iron John by Jackopierce
+The Cave by Mumford & Sons
+Taylor by Jack Johnson
+I Can’t Be Satisfied by Muddy Waters
+Mrs. Robinson by Simon & Garfunkel
(Apple Music playlist here)

Best homemade trail meals

Skurka’s Breakfast Cheesy Potatoes and for dinner Thai Peanut Noodles.

Invaluable gear

Weighing in at 60 grams for the stove, light and fast is the game.

Trail Designs Sidewinder Ti-Tri alcohol Stove. For decades, I’ve packed in fuel bottles and canisters which are heavy and bulky. For this trip, I upgraded to this ultralight setup reducing my pack weight by 1lb+ without any loss in reliability or wait time for a hot cup of coffee.

Minimalism manufactured in Maine this no-nonsense beast goes anywhere in comfort.

Hyperlite Mountain Gear’s Windrider pack weighing in at less than 2 lbs, this internal frame pack revolutionized my trail experience. We each had stories of carrying forty to fifty pound packs and never hiking longer than a ten mile day. Those days are gone, hello freedom!

Favorite Wind River campsites

There are two winners. #1 For sheer beauty, the Sound of Music valley (unofficial name) was the hands down winner. #2 I love rugged inhospitable places where it appears unlikely you can find comfort, Iceberg Lakes at 11,800 feet. Ironically, we hunted around for twenty minutes looking for a flat soft place to rest our heads. I prayed and found this sandy bottomed oasis.

Biggest Surprise

Everyday was harder than the day before. I’ve heard that the Navy Seals say, “Yesterday was the only easy day.”

Best Beer and Burger

The Gannett Grill downtown Lander, WY with outdoor picnic table settings underneath tall cottonwoods and tableside conversation of everyone’s recent adventure endeavours. 126 Main St, Lander, WY 82520.

Thank you’s

I’m told there are many great pioneers to thank for the Wind River High Route, and so we thank each of the unknown thankless journeymen who dreamed up this significant route. We personally owe a big thank you to Andrew Skurka. He’s created a set of modern resources that enable this route to be re-traced. Thank you, Andrew. Check out Andrew’s full collection of resources available on the Wind River High Route here.

Choose To Play the Long Game

Two games are being played concurrently. The short game, quick, impulsive, and driven by the polls while being measured at the moment. The long game is rooted in meaning, substance, and impact and can only be measured in decades. Most of our society stays focused on the short game who’s ahead, who’s behind, the latest viral amusement, the newest diet, the latest drama, and trend. I find the short game exhausting. The rules of the game are always bending, and the winners are sensational, but rarely worthy of our grand children’s admiration.

The long game is boring to watch. It is slow and methodical, and calculated and intentional. Winners are difficult to judge because the finish line is off in the distance. The long game is more forgiving leaving room for course corrections and mistakes. Become part of the solution, choose to look beyond the short game and become the kind of person who values building long-term substance and value.

The world is waiting for you to make a lasting impact by playing the long game.

Necks and Shoulders: Which Do You Stand On?

We have two choices: 1) We can stand on the shoulders of the giants who’ve gone before us paving the way for our accomplishments. We’re proud and humbled in appreciation as we sit a little taller and gain a head start as we go further.

2) We stand on other’s necks instead of their shoulders to get ahead, we thrust others down so we can fight our way to the front or to the top. We technically “win,” but we inwardly feel ashamed, or should feel ashamed for our dastardly deeds.

If you’re in a game where the person who steps on the most necks win, you’re in a game not worth playing. Become the kind of person who searches for opportunities to be lifted onto the shoulders of those giants who’ve paved the way. Stand taller, be earnest and risk losing the games where weak neck breakers rule.

The Choice of Congruence

I’ve listened to dozens of stories recently from Moscow, Istambul, London, Chicago, L.A., New York to Colorado Springs about the heartburn that’s produced inside of us when we live incongruent lives. What do I mean by congruence? Do your beliefs, values, and behaviors all lineup or do you do something very different than what you hold true?

I heard a story this week about a friend contemplating a job five states away requiring him to travel every week away from the family he loves. By the end of the story, he was hoping the situation won’t materialize knowing it will produce a gap between the value he holds, being present with his family, and the requirement of living five days a week in another state.

Another story from a leader carrying a company message that she knew was not entirely accurate. She understood the hard realities that require leaders to withhold information from team members like when an acquisition isn’t final, or people are being made “redundant.” What she was having a hard time with was her personal truth meter. She wasn’t sure she could keep paying the personal cost, the knots in her stomach and her soulful discontent.

I’m returning home after traveling for seven of the last eight weeks, mostly away from my family. I’m heading back out again Sunday evening through Friday. I know this intentional stretch of the week over week travel is not congruent with my value of being engaged with my wife and daughter in our daily shared life together. Temporarily, I’m choosing incongruence believing that I’ll get back in line again.

My friends, how congruent are you right now?

The choices your making, the obligations you are engaged in, are they producing the life you want? I find a lot of people ignore the question of congruence, but I know we would prefer keeping it real and even if we can’t resolve it quickly, we’d rather face the facts and acknowledge that we’re out of sync.

When we are aware, we can choose something different.

Keep going-
Aaron

Advice on Extending Your Summer Adventures

Hey friends, I thought you’d enjoy some advice on how to maximize the rest of your summer.

If you’re in the city and have an hour to kill, rent a bike or a controversial electric scooter before they’re gone. No matter where you are, you can find a Stand Up Paddle board to rent.

If you’re dreaming about a road trip, buy a Wildsam City Guide. They just released Denver to add to their list: Austin, L.A., Charleston, Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, and more.

I’m buying this ultra-light headlamp by Petzl (only weighs 35 grams). Perfect for business travel microadventures. I made a joybucket to carry all my adventure gear in my car. Check out my gear list.

Mountain bike the cool of the Northern coast of California in the Redwoods above Santa Cruz.

When traveling for business, here’s how to cheat and sneak in a little play and adventure before and after work. I also put together a list of my favorite runs across the globe.

When I get home it’s always a bit of a buzz kill. Here’s some advice on how to live with a vacation mindset after the holiday is over. I discovered walking conference calls and I log around 1K miles each year while on the phone.

If you are stuck at home this summer and can’t travel, here’s my advice on how to discover fun in your backyard. If you want to be like Laird Hamilton, here’s a great adventure if you’re near the ocean or a deep pool.

Last July we discovered Penticton wine region in British Columbia. We lingered in orchards and found a lazy pace of life at the Joy Farm. If you love wine, but don’t want the crowds of Napa Valley, you’ll enjoy the affordable and intimate setting of this region.

Keep going friends and drink deep from life,

-Aaron

Do You Know How to Celebrate?

After working on a startup for six years, my friend decided he was done. He sold enough of his shares to be financially comfortable. To celebrate his departure, he decided to plan something crazy, memorable and epic. Read his full day below of driving race cars to jumping off a building-for real!

I have another friend who deposited a similar sized big check after a decade of startup work. How did he celebrate? He went and bought enough underwear for every day of the week to avoid the necessity of doing laundry. He retold me his depressing story and acknowledged that he needed bigger dreams than a stockpile of clean underwear. Fast forward five years and he’s living some amazing stories because he upgraded his dreams and visions. Now he can name what he loves, what he wants and he regularly celebrates his well earned freedom.

Do you know what you want?

A lot of people know what they don’t want, but very few people can name what the DO WANT. If I handed you a big check, the kind where you don’t have to go to work tomorrow or next year, would you know how to celebrate?

Here’s my friends email to me about his big day.

“I decided to do something cool on my first day post-company, so, as a male that remembers the 80s fondly, I planned a crazy day and did it.

I drive Lamborghini and McClaren supercars on a racetrack at full speed (well over 100 mph). It was quite scary and very cool. It took some getting used to, since a normal car would spin out on turns and flip over to go that fast, but I started to get the hang of it a tiny bit. Ever since the 80s, those exotic cars have intrigued me on some level. I am not even a car guy, but it was really cool to actually touch and drive them in person instead of just on a poster.

I also rode along with a professional drifter that basically ran the track full speed, mostly sideways. Definitely an experience. Ever the analyzer, I remember a significant portion of my stress being “this cannot be good for the tires or the suspension!”

Then I went to a gun range that had every weapon known to man it seemed. I shot fully automatic guns enough to lose the use of my shoulder where the butt of the gun sits heh. They included an Uzi, AK47, and several other interesting firearms.

Then I went to the top of a building that was ~100 stories or so and jumped off (with a cable attached to my back). The moment that you stand on the outside of that perfectly good building looking out at the city is an interesting one for sure. But I didn’t hesitate and that was cool too.

Overall, the day was sort of a sensory overload, but successful in being one I will remember.”

How will you celebrate your big accomplishments?

The Silent Play Experiment in LA

I’ve slept in my bed fewer than eleven days last month. I’m a good tired, and I’m invigorated by a good story I want to tell you about a play date I had on the beach. A young woman silently motioned for us to read this one-sheet instruction, “for the next 60 minutes, we invite you to turn off your cell phone, take off your shoes, rest your voice, and return to your 7-year old self.” There were 140 of us at a corporate day retreat, type-A’s, left-brainers at the silent PLAY experiment on the beach.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
George Bernard Shaw

7-year-old playfulness

Our first game was to free our captured co-workers, buried in the sand. Their ransom payment? Turn them into art using tools, props, toys, and sand. “Words of wisdom before you begin: by design, this is a strange, unconventional and stretching experience. Feeling insecure or resistant is normal. we encourage you to quiet your inner critic and push yourself to your own degree of comfortable discomfort. the more you dive in and find the joy in the experience, the more you’ll get out of it!”

Picture your co-workers barefoot, with face paint, making sand castles, dancing to drum beats, playing charades and impromptu acting in silence. Picture Peter Pan, Wendy and the Lost Boys playing on the beach “Never grow up.” It was one of the most delightful and playful hours I’ve experienced in my business career. Here’s their tagline, “no shoes. no judgment. no voices. just Play.”

I’m so intrigued by the Silent Play experiment that I promise to track someone down for a podcast interview to share with us the story behind their original experiment. Risking further plagiarism, here is their mission statement on their website.

Why Play frees us to become more creative

“PLAY is a non-profit with one mission: make the world a more playful place.
we all played as children. it’s how we learn, create, and relate to others. for whatever reason, at a certain point in our lives, we decide we’re “too old,” “too cool,” “too professional,” or “too whatever” to play. we may engage in competitive sports, grab drinks with friends, go to a concert, or do any number of other recreational activities during which we’re often following a conventional script of behavior.

but for most of us, pure social and imaginative play is sorely lacking.
this kind of play is the missing piece in our technology, work, and goal-dominated existence and we create experiences to bring more of it into your life.”

This summer in LA GO PLAY

Here’s how you can unhinge and detangle into your own play experiment. Detail here. “we have transformed a secret downtown warehouse into a utopian playground! come explore our majestic space in an immersive experience that will stretch your imagination, stimulate your creativity and spawn inspired social interactions – in silence.”

“IMMERSIVE, IMMEDIATE AND IMPECCABLE. WANT AN EPIPHANY? SEE THIS SHOW!”
– Huffington Post Art Critic – James Scarborough.

Rent a Bike For a Big City Adventure

Today, I rented a CitiBike for the second time in New York City for a whopping $13.56. My friend Jack and I rode from Long Island City, across the 59th Street Bridge, up to 91st and into Central Park. We parked our bikes, jogged around the reservoir, had a conversation about God and “Higher Power” and rode back to his apartment.

Round trip, we were less than two hours. It was an amazing way to see NYC. Download the Mobile app here.

In a world of endless choice, it is easy to choose to do nothing new. Next time you’re in Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and New York rent a bike for a quick, easy, convenient, simple, local, and exhilarating adventure.

Big City Bike Rental Resources:

Chicago Divvy Bike share program

Ford GoBike rentals in San Francisco

Lime Bikes in Denver area

CitiBike in New York City

Bonus adventure addition: Redondo Beach

The Value of Having a Dream

Two drivers and a janitor taught me about the value of having a dream. When I jump into an Uber around the world, I always ask “How long have you been driving? Do you like it?” Brian said, “I’m an accountant by day, Uber driver by night.” Unlike his friends, he doesn’t want a $100K loan to pay back after graduation. After three years, he’s three months away from his debt-free graduation with an MBA in Finance. He exuded happiness.

Domnic’s driving Lyft to pay tuition for his two college kids. He believes his first-generation college students shouldn’t carry the burden of debt. He wants to “lighten their life’s burden” by working his day job 9 am to 2 pm then like Clark Kent, finds a phone booth to pivot into a Lyft driver until midnight.

Keneil was stacking chairs and running the vacuum cleaner when he told me about his evil plan using his janitor job to fund his reggae music career.

These fellow humans were incredibly clear on why they go to work every day and the dream their work is funding. Dreams give fuel and power to our resolve, our actions, and even numb our pain receptors. When the going get’s tough-our dreams kick in to remind us why it’s worth the temporary setback. Work can become a grind when you don’t have a vision. No matter how small or how big, dream a dream to bring you clarity and purpose to your work.