When I’m not strategizing and storytelling, I’m either hunched over a sketchpad making custom artwork, or have a pair of skis on my feet (I have yet to figure out how to do both at the same time).

I love going into the backcountry, feeling small, and tossing around big questions. It’s about skiing, sure — but being in the backcountry, to me, is also an allegory for the hard stuff in life.

It’s where you stand tall in the face of an excruciatingly demanding physical task. It’s where it can be disorienting to parse your own desires and interests from the gatekeepers and old guards who aren’t exactly happy to welcome someone new into their sport. It’s where you figure out how to navigate situations where the margins for error are nonexistent.

But it also teaches you to stretch the limits of your own capacity and see yourself in a new way. In my eyes, the best way to pursue life is with the same ethereal reverence and curiosity that we pursue outdoor adventures with. You lose yourself. You find yourself. You come back to your own awareness with a newfound sense of gratitude, strength, and capability.