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Where We Goin’ Today?

The “Where We Goin’ Today?” podcast—mindfulness, mountains, mishaps and minimalism!
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08/31/2023

Need I say more?

Actually, I probably do.

Founded in the 1970s, and now regarded as one of Bangkok’s finest restaurants, Cabbages & Condoms started as a locals’ vegetable stand that also sold contraceptives. Eventually, the owner expanded the enterprise into a restaurant whose aim was to encourage social progress, including HIV/AIDS prevention and family planning.

08/30/2023

Golden Mount Temple is a unique landmark in temple-studded Bangkok, as it has a commanding view of the city from atop a small hill amidst the otherwise flat expanses of this part of central Thailand. With lovely gardens, man-made waterfalls and a man-made cave, this beautiful Buddhist temple is easily accessed by water taxi from Pratunam Pier.

08/28/2023

Although I’ve long been a “nature boy,” the fact remains that I’ve always hated living in the country and yearned for big city life. I’d eventually spend 17 years in Las Vegas, but that’s not a big city—it’s sprawling suburbia.

When I first spent time in Thailand, I was discouraged by practically everyone to avoid Bangkok—a character-less mega-city that had lost touch with the “real” Thailand. Eventually, though, I started to spend time in this massive city of nearly 15 million people.

And guess what? I love it. It’s culturally rich, the food is outrageously diverse, delicious and inexpensive, the city is architecturally fascinating, it has a nice variety of huge green spaces that are charming and inviting, and there’s a ton of stuff to do here. Plus, Bangkok’s inhabitants—like elsewhere in Thailand—are typically kind and likable.

08/27/2023

I’ve enjoyed many memorable encounters with these cute and curious creatures over the years. I’ve had them follow me up a mountain trail (and then investigate the climbing gear I stashed beneath a bush) in Washington; I’ve had a standoff with a mom and her baby on a snowfield in Colorado; I’ve been led by them up a treacherous and puzzling mountain face in Montana; I had one loitering outside my tent as I awoke one dawn on a glacier in the North Cascades; and I enjoyed a group of them posturing for tourist photos in Alaska.

There has always been a crowd of them atop Mount Evans in Colorado whenever I’ve been, and I’ve been bullied by them in Glacier National Park. Good stuff! I adore them and always appreciate encountering them.

08/25/2023

Ascending Mount Shuksan in a whiteout. Although this high peak of the North Cascades is one of most photographed mountains in Washington State (USA), I don’t think we got to enjoy any views during our two days on the mountain.

08/23/2023

I’ve benefited in many ways from my association with Buddhist monks. One of the ways is that they will often take me to special places. During a recent excursion into the jungles of rural northern Thailand, a monk-friend took me to a wild cave he’d last visited many years earlier. The smell of bats was strong as we neared the gaping entrance to the cave. Bees were buzzing, the jungle was thick, and anticipation was high.

08/21/2023

It took me three tries to reach the top of Magic Rabbit Peak. This airy perch above lower Zion Canyon in Utah put up a solid fight until Dangerous Dan, me and my buddy Aron finally solved the remainder of the puzzle.

Magic Rabbit Peak has a highly unique feature amongst Zion summits—a gnarly, narrow ridge of gendarmes leading to a summit spire. I can’t recall seeing another like it in all my wanderings of the park. Desert alpine!

Just before the top is a spicy slab with horrific exposure. Dan masterfully nailed the crux—despite vomiting up the previous night’s pork burrito at the beginning of the route’s technical climbing—and dragged me up.

That was an 11-hour day.

08/20/2023

What the heck’s going on here?!

Thanakha is a paste made from ground tree bark. With a cooling effect on the skin, it is a distinctive feature of Burmese culture, where men and women alike commonly apply it to their faces.

08/18/2023

We are in a village in northern Thailand. We arrived yesterday after an absence of four years.

While walking through a hilltop monastery this morning, a Buddhist monk approached me and asked, “Are you Mr. Courtney?”

It was a monk I’d met only briefly during my last visit to the village in 2019. It was endearing to be recognized after a long absence. But it wasn’t him who’d recognized me. It was his colleague sitting next to him.

What are the chances that a monk from Santa Barbara would be sitting in that very spot in a hilltop monastery in rural northern Thailand at the very moment I happened to walk by?!

It’s a small world, indeed.

08/16/2023

It’s not every day you get to eat Egyptian food…unless you’re in Egypt. We’re not.

A great metropolitan city like Bangkok affords opportunities to sample cuisine from exotic corners of the globe. In my neighborhood alone, there is Halal, Indian, Thai, Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Burmese, Nigerian, Lebanese, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Philippine, Jain, Chinese, and Argentine.

08/15/2023

Seven years ago, I spent a glorious 3.5 months in the mountains of Alaska. After 14 years based in Las Vegas, I’d been in the market for a new place to call home. Las Vegas had been a great launching-point for year-round, world-class recreation. It had allowed me to flow with the seasons: desert peaks in the winter, Utah and Grand Canyon in the spring and fall, and weekly trips to the Sierra in the summer. But it was time to build a new nest.

My short-list of prospective communities included Canmore, Jackson, Boulder and Bellingham. Unable to decide on the “perfect” fit for me, I’d put together a list of 14 attributes of an attractive community.

Guess where I was living six months later?

Answer: Santa Barbara.

SB was a surprising clear winner, as it possessed a whopping 13 of the 14 attributes on my wishlist.

What did it lack? (This photo is a clue.)

Answer: Big alpine mountains.

Then I had an epiphany. To my shock and delight, it took no longer to get to the fabulous Eastern Sierra from SB than it had from LV. Yay!

Problem solved! 14/14: check!

08/14/2023

For those interested in the behind-the-scenes story of the song “It’s Just a Scramble,” check out the latest episode of my “Where We Goin’ Today?” podcast.

I’ll post a link in the comments.

08/12/2023

A week in the Swiss Alps offered little more than heavy rain and expensive food. Finally, a single clear day in the forecast dawned, so I marched up an easy snow peak above Zermatt called Breithorn. It was a casual romp but I got contemptuous looks from more than a few guided parties on the route for my solo stroll in sneakers. Not the first time, nor likely the last.

08/11/2023

I want to tell you a fun story.

Do you remember the Scottish folk singer Donovan? He wrote that groovy song “Mellow Yellow.” He was a personal friend and mentor to the Beatles. His early session players were Led Zeppelin. He started the “Flower Power” movement. He had quite the counter-culture resume.

Donovan also happened to be my friend Dangerous Dan’s songwriting mentor.

Under the effect of Donovan’s expert tutelage, Dangerous Dan would eventually record and publish a brilliant song (about climbing mountains) using seasoned studio players, including Barry Manilow’s bass player, Britney Spears’ drummer, and—gasp—an engineer who’s worked with The Rolling Stones and Elton John.

Here’s the fun part: the song was about me.

“It’s Just a Scramble” is a love song set against a playful backdrop of “CP’s” tendency to under-inflate route difficulties while mountain climbing.

You might like to check it out. It’s quite good. I’ll post a link in the comments.

08/09/2023

I took this photo of my dear friend Dangerous Dan on the summit of Red Tooth back around 2016.

Dan has an astonishing (& colorful) climbing resume, including first ascents of some incredibly visionary (& sketchy) summit routes in Zion. It’s important to bear in mind that Dan—like me—was (is!) a pioneer; these routes were pieced together over months (& sometimes years) of reconnaissance trips and failed attempts. Subsequent generations have the beta today because someone like Dan already did the work.

Dan’s a super-creative, unique guy. Since he won’t toot his own horn—including his wide range of other talents that go far beyond climbing—maybe I should do a podcast episode about Dan and toot it for him.

08/07/2023

Me and a random stranger had a conversation about celebrities recently. It got me reflecting on my own encounters with the highs and lows of Hollywood and beyond.

https://anchor.fm/courtney-purcell/episodes/Rubbing-Shoulders-e27jf6j

08/05/2023

Looking south from Mount Hood (Oregon, USA) upon a sea of clouds. I started too early from the car and reached the summit before daybreak. Fortunately, I still had this marvelous view during my descent.

08/02/2023

Playing around in the slots of Utah with my buddies Jason and Aron.

08/01/2023

It’s time for another great adventure.

Since retiring in our 40s in 2014, we’ve enjoyed a 6-month vacation, a 5-month vacation, and numerous 2-3 month vacations.

“How’s he do it??!”

This question has been asked so many times. Lifestyle design. Living simply. You have to want to live outside the mainstream.

Now, we’ve sold the car, given up our cute little apartment in the most beautiful city in the world, tucked a trunk load of stuff into a spacious 5’ by 5’ storage unit, and bought one-way tickets to the other side of the world.

Wish us well…!

https://anchor.fm/courtney-purcell/episodes/Hows-He-Do-It-e27icvo

07/31/2023

Nearing the summit of Mexico’s third-highest mountain—Iztaccihuatl (17,159 ft.)—on a bitterly cold morning. As we reached the top an hour later, a storm was quickly forming and we made a hasty retreat.

In the upper-right is the active volcano Popocatepetl (17,694 ft.), which is Mexico’s second-highest mountain.

07/28/2023

My life thus far has tended to ebb and flow in chapters. At the end of the last chapter (“the mountain climber”), I gifted a vast amount of climbing and outdoor gear to a couple of young guys who were just beginning their own new chapters. In the mound of stuff I passed off were these two guides and something else that felt a little precious—a topographic map of Zion National Park, on which I’d traced in ink hundreds of miles of my wanderings and explorations in this sublime place.

07/27/2023

Crossing a glacier in Jasper National Park on the way to the top of a mountain along the Columbia Icefield in the Canadian Rockies.

See those giant cracks in the ice below the two climbers in front of us?!? You want to avoid falling into those. But even more sketchy are the giant, precariously-perched blocks of ice out of view but above us on the route. It’s prudent to move quickly through this area to avoid potential catastrophe.

07/25/2023

Ascending the ice staircase just below the top.

Anyone recognize this classic spot?

Hint: It’s a very popular route in the North Cascades (Washington, USA).

07/23/2023

You’d probably never guess that this photo was taken in the desert. Around 2004, me and a few buddies attempted to climb Nevada’s highest mountain—Boundary Peak (13,147 feet)—in blizzard conditions.

We didn’t succeed but I came back a few months later and climbed it and neighboring Montgomery Peak in perfect, blue-sky conditions.

07/22/2023

It’s been a lot of years since I’ve been to the beautiful area of the Utah desert called Indian Creek. My long-time buddies—the Andy’s (left and right)—joined me and the man in the middle of the photo (whose name I forget) for a few days of adventure, including this fun outing that put us atop a mellow tower called South Six-Shooter.

07/20/2023

Peering into a crevasse while navigating a small glacier in northern Washington.

07/18/2023

Somewhere in Colorado, not far from the top of one of the 14ers.

Depending on who you ask, there are as many as 59 mountains in Colorado that rise at least 14,000 feet above sea level. Many years ago, I went through a “14er phase,” during which I climbed about half of them, including some of the classics like Capitol, Pyramid, Longs and the Maroon Bells.

Then, as was my preference, I shifted my focus back to more obscure objectives in Colorado and elsewhere.

I’ve always liked the underdog, the unfavored, the maladjusted. In any case, I’d like to spend more time in Colorado; perhaps tick off a few more of those high peaks. It’s a beautiful state.

07/17/2023

Almost 20 years ago—during the early years of an obsessive 15-year peakbagging frenzy that often took me to the mountains for 250+ days a year—I first conceived of a guidebook detailing routes to the mountainous ripples in the vast emptiness of the desert-choked western US.

I soon entered into a contract with a publisher to create the book, which I initially gave the working title “Zzyzx to Zion,” as the scope of the book included mountain peaks ranging from those near an obscure California outpost called Zzyzx to southern Utah’s Zion National Park. It wasn’t long before the publisher convinced me that Zion National Park deserved its own book. I concurred.

And so, around 2009—several years after the publisher and I parted ways—the first edition of “Zion National Park: Summit Routes” was released. Six years later, a vastly expanded second edition was published.

In the meantime, I’d also been working on the original desert guidebook concept. Coinciding with the release of the two editions of the Zion guide, I also released the desert guide. It had a new name: “Rambles & Scrambles.”

The first edition of “Rambles” was modest in scope (with routes to fewer than 100 desert summits included), but the second edition featured routes that I had personally taken to around 950 summits across the vast expanse of the Mojave, Great Basin, and Sonoran deserts. The route descriptions were spartan, and the summits were of variable quality—everything from iconic desert peaks like Baboquivari, near the Mexican border in southern Arizona, to the ultra-lame and contrived, such as the official-named Death Valley National Park summit called Mars Hill (which rises perhaps only 6 feet above the sprawling flat desert at its base).

Being the insatiable peakbagger that I was at the time, I added a ticklist to the back of the second edition of “Rambles” for other peakbaggers to enjoy. It was offered as a challenge to see how many of these 950 summits others might try to reach.

I’ve been told in recent months that a number of people are close to completing all of the peaks in “Rambles & Scrambles.” I’m not sure if anyone has actually done it yet, but I hear that my friend Bob Burd—an extraordinarily motivated peakbagger—may be the closest one to completing the list. It’s a nail-biter. (Not really.)

07/15/2023

Not Antarctica.

07/14/2023

I’m a creative person lacking talent. Somehow, during the last 22 years, my typing skills have churned out 11 books. There’s no need to be impressed, though. Most of them are mediocre-to-poor. There is, however, a four-fingered handful of those books that I am proud of.

A few years ago, there was an experience where much of the world’s human population stayed indoors for a while. It was during that time that I wrote one of the books that I am most proud of. I called it “Just Practice.”

Many years earlier—purely for my own benefit—I’d started to compile some of my meditation teacher’s instructions on the cultivation of mindfulness and the Buddhist way of life. But during that recent period of isolation, I decided to expand the project into a full-length book to share with others.

I hadn’t told my teacher what my plans were, but instead decided to surprise him with the gift of his own teachings—a printed, bound and ready-for-distribution book that he could give away for free to his students or anyone else who was interested. Once complete, “Just Practice” was a 430-page book with detailed information about Buddhist life and instructions in the art, skill and practice of mindfulness.

I love this book. I am proud to have dedicated the time and heart to it.

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Santa Barbara, CA

Website

http://www.iheart.com/podcast/112440849

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Videos

These last two months in Asia have been wild and wonderful. One never knows what will drop out of the sky. Rodents! Snakes! I’ve seen both. This huge snake materialized in the middle of a busy Bangkok street then came right toward me as I ate breakfast at my favorite Halal restaurant. Days later, officials were asking for a copy of my video of the incident. Now you get to see it. Check out the “Asia Diaries” series of the podcast to hear what we’ve been up to over here in the Land of Smiles: https://anchor.fm/courtney-purcell

In Episode 6 of the “Asia Diaries” series, I talked about a deep and gloomy cave in the Marble Mountains next to the coast of central Vietnam. With hell as the theme, the cave was filled with macabre statuary and sketchy passages. Check out the episode here: https://anchor.fm/courtney-purcell/episodes/The-Asia-Diaries-Ep-6-Hai-Van-Pass--Hue--Hoi-An-e24053q

Guided kayaking amongst the limestone crags and tunnels of Hong Island, exploring a beautiful cavern on a nearby island, lots of monkeys, an isolated Muslim village for lunch, the famous “James Bond Island” rock, and a walk on a tranquil beach as a storm approached. A solid day out from Phuket—9.5 hours for a 5-island tour and outrageous scenery—all for $100 a person from a small vendor in Phuket Old Town. Check out the recent episode—“The Asia Diaries (Ep.4): Islands of the Andaman Sea, Patong & A Return to Bangkok”—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and iHeart.