I have always loved watching the first flowers of the year pop out of the ground and slowly, ever so slowly, make their way from infant hood into greenery, budding and then finally into the beauty that they have been concealing. My mom feels the same way about butterflies, but I love perennials. I get…

I lay in my bed, the sun shining through the windows and turning our nighttime fortress into an unavoidable brightness.  The heat is off, but the weather hasn’t quite warmed up yet and I really don’t want to get out from underneath the covers until the sun has actually warmed up the house.   But…

It was early in the day at Tuckerman Ravine and we had just finished breakfast over our small canister stove that we use for fast and light camping. It’s a tiny metal thing that opens up like a butterfly and screws into the top of a small canister of isopro fuel. It’s pretty neat actually,…

We didn’t have time to practice so this first time was going to have to be the best time. Well, you don’t get to really practice anyways because it’s not like you can go in and use the hibachi tables while no one is looking. The only experience you can garner is from watching the hibachi…

By Merisa Sherman Floating along, wiggling your body to the rhythm of the ridiculously buried natural features that only two days ago would have absolutely ripped a nasty core shot into your bases. But not today. Today, you cannot see any of that and are just floating through the woods, grabbing all the fresh, untouched…

By Merisa Sherman I stood there in my boots, my hands on the railings, while my dad and the boot tech giggled about how many drops of water they should put into the my foam liners. My face was red and I remember feeling like I was about to faint from the heat on my feet.…

By Merisa Sherman It’s scary, this new thing. This trail I have never been on before. For so many years of my life, this trail hasn’t changed and now, here it is, with a completely different pitch and angle from what Pres and Joe had created all those many years ago. The idea is the…

By Merisa Sherman Almost despairingly, I lifted my head. I could see the towers sticking up from the summit of Pico and they seemed so very small from so far away. I was worn out and frustrated, my skins sticking to the snow just enough to make each glide forward feel like a battle between…

By Merisa Sherman I hadn’t realized it was spring yet.  Only last week, we were freezing standing in the cold, skiing snow so firm that your entire body shuttered when you maneuvered away from the groomed trails. That was only last week right? Today my face is on fire and I am sweating. The sky…

By Merisa Sherman We all moved across the bridge together, probably over a thousand cars all creeping precariously across the Hudson or whereever. Sure, there were some moving in faster bursts in an attempt to get around and others just maintaining a constant speed, but we were indeed all moving together. An aerial photo would…

By Merisa Sherman I wiggle my legs back and forth underneath me, like a pendulum they swing as I meander along on the Great Eastern. Or what used to be called Great Eastern, I honestly cannot keep track of the name changes. Maybe it’s Bear Cub or something. Just the slightest bit of movement from…

By Merisa Sherman Ahhh, the New Year’s Resolution. The pressure to become a better version of yourself than you were last year and usually something that you will have forgotten about within the four weeks of January. Sure, we all want to recommit ourselves to our physical and mental health, but what does this mean…

By Merisa Sherman I have been and always shall be a ski bum. While throughout my life, the journey has varied greatly, the message has always been the same: there is no peace, no salvation, without the feeling of floating across the surface of the earth. This may appear in different forms, in varying forms…

By Merisa Sherman Pulling my hood over my head, I dove off the trail and under the tree branch, heavily laden with the snow from the past few days. Usually, the branch would be bent from the weight of heavy wet snow, but today it was only from the weight of so much snow falling…

By Merisa Sherman The last paddle of the season, a chilly float in December With the weather this ridiculously warm, we had both been on watch for quite some time. Most days, I would try to slow down as I drove by and even once I pulled into the parking lot to just sit and…