2025 Year in Review

Lots of memories in 2025. Anecdotally, I’ll remember it as my best summer in memory. Family time, travels, adventures, work all balanced well for the meat of the summer. Including dozens of nights camped along amazing water bodies. And that doesn’t come through in the numbers. Which is fine with me. But there are numbers to crunch and share too.

Working stats.

• 120 days field guiding (14 year average is 114). 70 days of “other” work. Guiding admin, freelance writing, landlord stuff. Of course, in the ever-connected age, parts of virtually all of the year’s 175 “non work” days held some sort of productivity. The metric for whether a day “counts” as a work day is if I would need someone else to care for my child. If I need someone else to care for the child (wife, daycare) for the day, it is a full work day. If I can “multi task” as a parent (whether I do multi task like that or not), it does not count as a work day.

• 2784 hours worked. That’s everything: guiding, commuting, computer time, land-lording, etc. Including, while on a work expedition, 24 hours a day. For reference, 40 hours x 50 weeks is, of course, 2000 hours a year.

• 42 trips had a specific goal (peak or route) in mind. Of those, we made the summit and/or completed the route 31 times. That's a "sending percentage" of 74%. (14 year simple average is 72%)

• 32 days of alpine guiding. (14 year average is 37)

• 4 days of ice guiding. (14 year average is 7)

• 23 days of rock guiding. (14 year average is 26)

• 61 days of ski guiding. (14 year average is 44)

• 112 days as an employee of another company. That's 93%. (14 year average is 90%)

• 8 days working for my own company. That's 7%. (10 year average is 13%)

• 87 days were with returning clients or clients that came directly to me in some fashion. That's 73% of my volume. (14 year average is 61%)

• 93 days I worked in the field largely or entirely without a co-guide. That's 78%. (9 year average is 77%)

• 27 days I worked directly with at least one other co guide.

• 78 nights away from home/family for work. 9 year average is 68. This is creeping back up toward pre-covid and pre-kid years. A function, this time, of a choice to work in Washington much of the spring and early summer. Interestingly, we chose that as a family in the hopes it would be better for family life. Family liked it more, but the numbers aren’t as favorable. Shows that the numbers only go so far…

Athletic and Adventure Stats

All this is drawn from my “training” spreadsheet. So the focus is on athletic development and such.

• 939 hours of action (11 year average is 988)

• 483000 vertical feet ascended (8 year average is 530000)

• 589 climbing pitches (9 year average is 551)

• 207 days outside, active.

• 120 of them were work, as noted above.

• 31 alpine climbing days (11 year average is 28)

• 79 BC skiing days (11 year average is 85)

• 10 bicycling days (dedicated “exercise” cycling. Lots more errand cycling around town. 11 year average is 6.)

• 12 Rock Cragging days (11 year average 16)

• 26 Rock Multipitch days. (11 year average 26).

• 4 cross-country ski days (4 year average is 6)

• 7 hiking days (11 year average is 19. Of course, many climbing days of all kinds involve hiking. But days logged here are hiking for its own sake or without any climbing involved. Big departure from average has to do with the child being in that awkward size between “backpack carry” and walking on her own…)

• 29 climbing gym days (11 year average is 25). That’s 29 days in which the primary or only activity was at the climbing gym. I also went to the climbing gym (and/or lifted weights or went for a run or went to the ski area) on days that get logged with a different “primary” activity. For the climbing gym, that’s 8 more sessions. For a total of 37 visits to the climbing gym.

• 17 days Weight Training (11 year average 15). Plus 12 more times as a secondary activity. For a total of 29 weight training sessions.

• 17 ski resort days (11 year average 9).

• 9 Running (11 year average 7).

• 11 paddling days (4 year average is 4). Big bump, right? See above note about offspring and size between backpack carry and walking herself… Boats rule.

• 70 rest days (11 year average 82)

• 21 sick/injury days (11 year average 13).

• 20 travel days (11 year average 24)