your hiking company

05/19/2026

05/15/2026

See you out there!

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05/13/2026

Memorial Day Sale!

$59.99 for peace of mind — knowing that if something goes sideways on an adventure, you won’t come home to a pile of bills.

Overwatch x Rescue handles everything.

You never see a bill, and they take care of the logistics too: getting your car from the trailhead to your home, arranging care for your kid while you receive medical attention, flying a loved one to the hospital where you’ve been admitted.

The details you can’t think about in an emergency? They’ve got it.

Hiking Guy has a great video breaking down exactly how it works — worth a watch before you hit the trail this season.

Hopefully you never need it. But if you do…

Our Memorial Day Sale is officially live!

From today, May 11 through May 25th, take 25% off your OxR plan. Secure your coverage today and head into your Memorial Day adventures with total confidence.

With 45.1 million travelers heading out for the holiday weekend, the trails, roads, and waterways will be at their busiest. No matter where adventure takes you, the best way to head out is with the peace of mind that a professional team has your back.

Get prepared before you head out for the holiday. Claim your 25% off discount and secure your backup at the link below. https://www.overwatchxrescue.com/ecomm/

05/13/2026

Museum 13 of 52 ✔️ — Harpers Ferry National Historical Park | Harpers Ferry, WV

I brought people here three times in one week. And every single time, it got more beautiful. The light changed, the river changed, the stories got deeper. That’s what a place like this does when you slow down enough to let it.

But before we talk history, let’s talk about whose land we’re standing on. The confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers has been a gathering and traveling place for Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. This land is the ancestral territory of the Shawnee, Lenape, and Piscataway peoples, among others who moved through and called this river corridor home long before any European set foot here. We honor them and their continued presence.

Now. John Brown.
If you know one name from Harpers Ferry, it’s his, and you should know why. On October 16, 1859, Brown led a raid of 21 men on the federal armory here, hoping to seize weapons and ignite a large-scale uprising against slavery. It was desperate. And it shook the nation to its core. Before the raid, Brown and his men spent months hiding and planning at the Kennedy Farm, drilling, waiting, preparing for something most people thought was impossible or insane.

It didn’t go as planned. U.S. Marines under Colonel Robert E. Lee stormed the armory’s fire engine house, where Brown had barricaded himself with hostages. He was captured, tried for treason and murder, and hanged on December 2, 1859.

But here’s the thing: his ex*****on didn’t end the conversation. It ignited it. Less than two years later, the Civil War began. Union soldiers marched south singing John Brown’s Body. Frederick Douglass, who had known Brown personally, said he had lived for the slave but died for the slave too.

Don’t Miss:
🏛️ John Brown’s Fort: The actual fire engine house where he made his last stand. You can walk right up to it.
📍 The John Brown Museum: One of the best interpretive spaces in the park. Context, complexity, and courage all in one room.
🚗 Kennedy Farm (a short drive into Maryland): Where it was all planned. Small, quiet, and absolutely worth it.

And then just stand at the overlook. Look at those two rivers meeting. Look at the mountains. Think about everything that happened here and everything it set in motion.

Harpers Ferry isn’t just a historic site. It’s a reckoning. And it’s gorgeous.

05/11/2026

05/08/2026

Tonight will be a big one for bird migration!

Please turn off all outside lights from dark to dawn and close your curtains. Give these night-flying, insect-eating migrants a better chance to make it to their nesting territories.

If you want to see some animals up close, the Mason Neck Eagle Festival is from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm tomorrow, May 9, at Mason Neck State Park. There will be lots of activities for all ages!

05/08/2026

Some hikes you teach. Some hikes teach you.

Last Friday night we watched the sun go down and the full moon come around from the ridge at Old Rag, and I’m still turning the whole thing over in my mind.

We took the Berry Hollow route again and it was the right call in every way. No shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on the trail. Just the slow build of elevation, the shift in light through the trees, and the moment the rock scramble opens up and the whole world gets bigger than you expected.
Old Rag sits at 3,291 feet in Shenandoah National Park and the summit earns every bit of its reputation. Some folks in our group found their edges up there. The kind of edges you don’t know you have until a granite wall is asking you to figure it out.

There was struggle for some on this trip. Real struggle. And I want to sit with that honestly, because it wasn’t just theirs. Leading a group through hard moments is its own kind of learning, and I’ve got a lot to think about. It was really hard to not solve everything for them, to be quiet so they could learn from their own errors. That’s the deal with outdoor education: the mountain doesn’t adjust. We have to.

Old Rag requires a timed entry day-use permit through Recreation.gov — plan ahead, especially for weekends. It’s worth every step of the process.

We hike on the ancestral homeland of the Manahoac people, a Siouan-speaking confederacy who knew these mountains long before they had names on a map. I carry that with me on every ascent.

Until next time, Old Rag 🫶🏻

04/29/2026

Museum 12✔️ of 52: Museum of Illusions — Washington, DC 🌸

Some of my students have been wanting in on my museum project and then side-eyed me hard when I suggested this one. “Uh… can we go to a different one?” Reader, they had the time of their lives. They always do.

I’ve been to the Museum of Illusions before, but I’m going back because right now through May 10th the museum has been taken over by a cherry blossom installation, a collaboration with DC-based artist Hiba Alyawer () that weaves spring blooms right into the illusion rooms themselves. It’s a whole new experience inside a place that already bends your brain.
Here’s what I’ll tell you the same thing I tell every group: do ALL the exhibits. Every single one. Don’t rush. Don’t skip. The rooms build on each other and the payoff is worth every minute.

And here’s the other thing: let the staff help you. These folks are pros. They know exactly where to stand, which angle to shoot, how to set up the shot. You think you know how to photograph yourself feeding yourself a snack? You do not. Not until someone who does this every day shows you. That’s when the magic actually happens.

My museum project applies the broadest possible definition of “museum” — any place that preserves and tells a story. The Museum of Illusions tells the story of how beautifully our own perception can be fooled. That’s worth 12 out of 52.

🌸 Through May 10 | 927 H Street NW, Washington, DC

04/28/2026

Mary’s Rock didn’t make it easy on us.

We watched the radar together. We made the call together. And we timed it perfectly, arriving at the summit just as the last storm system pushed through, the winds clearing the clouds like a curtain being pulled back. One moment we were standing in the clouds. The next, the entire Shenandoah Valley was suddenly there.

It was cold. It was windy. I may have taken the fewest photos I’ve ever taken on a student trip (my frozen fingers can explain that). But my students? They took a million. They were electric.

We walk these trails in the Blue Ridge on land that has been home to the Manahoac people for thousands of years. This is a landscape that has always demanded attention, respect, and presence. It asked that of us today, too.

The trust that was required, in the weather, in the process, in each other, that’s the stuff that doesn’t show up in a selfie. But it shows up in who you are afterwards 🫶🏻

P.S. The next Old Rag hike filled up immediately after this!

Mary’s Rock via Appalachian Trail North Approach, Shenandoah National Park
4 miles
1,257’

04/24/2026

2:30am pickups.
4:30am trailhead.
Old Rag at sunrise. 🌅

I’m not gonna lie — most of my students said hard pass on this one. FAIR. But the brave souls who showed up got something special.

This was a first-time adventure in basically every way: first dark hike, first time peeing outdoors for one, first time summiting Old Rag. We dodged approximately 5,987 deer and Virginia possums on the way (my Mario Kart driving skills were essential in a 15-passenger vehicle), climbed trees along the trail, made fancy sandwiches, and sipped the hottest hot chocolate on the summit as the sun broke over the mountains.

Old Rag, located in Shenandoah National Park, sits on land that is central to Monacan, Tutelo, and other indigenous peoples’ histories. Hiking here means we’re walking on ground that holds deep cultural significance.

If you’re thinking about visiting: you’ll need a recreation.gov ticket to access the park. Book it early — Old Rag is popular for good reason.
To the students who came: you showed up in the dark, pushed through discomfort, and discovered something about yourselves. That’s the whole point. 🥾🏔️

04/24/2026

🌿 Today marks the beginning of the City Nature Challenge! If you haven’t jumped in yet, here’s your sign:

📱 Download the FREE iNaturalist app

✨ Create an account

📸 Photograph every living thing you encounter this weekend (birds, bugs, plants, fungi, all of it!)

I genuinely use iNaturalist every single day when I’m outside and I use it as a tool to help teach my students on every outing — it’s become part of how I see the world.

The app turns a casual walk into an adventure of discovery, and your observations actually contribute to real scientific data!

Whether you’re in the city or exploring nearby green spaces, this weekend is the perfect chance to document the incredible biodiversity around you. You might be surprised by what you find!

Who’s joining the challenge? 🔍🌍