I am in Alaska again!!! The mountain range and the weather is gorgerous. My purpose of being here this time […]

Dear Friends, In the coming August, I’ll be participating in a 3-day climb to attempt Grand Teton. This climb is

This entry is totally not related to the great outdoors. Purely personal. Tomorrow I’m going to do my doctoral dissertation

On Wednesday, March 7th, our Katahdin group was hauling sleds retreating from the Roaring Brook campsite in Baxter State Park toward Abol Bridge campground parking lot. The sky looked like a blue bird; the temperature was cold, -10 F perhaps; the air was crispy and our cheeks were rosy due to the chill. There was no wind; it was as quiet as if we could trace every step the red squirrels put on the snow; however, my heart was stormy, “this could have been our summit day! How come we had to encounter over 35 mph gusts and below -35 F of temperature due to wind chill effect?” I kept looking at the peak on our way down, “Katahdin, you awed me the other day, and why do you look so inviting now?”

After a long, uneventful drive home, I’ve been putting a lot of thoughts toward this trip. I understand a mountaineer must have more turn backs than summits over her whole career, but I couldn’t get rid of the slight disappointment – the fact deviated too much from the ideal situation I was hoping for in which each of our group members had a chance to push their limits and taste the sweetness of the summit after hard work. I started to analyze every other possible scenario and finally drew this conclusion: although the outcome didn’t fulfill my ideal expectation, experiencing harsh conditions and having to make a tough decision to abandon the summit attempt catalyzed the integration and growth of our group. And this can be difficult to accomplish if we were in perfect conditions and everybody made their way to the summit without sweat.

KATAHDIN, MAINE – MARCH 2nd-8th 2007

The road trip northward started on a rainy Friday morning. As I proceeded east on route 78 into New Jersey I had the first thoughts of what this drive might be like, slow and wet. Little did I know I would not make the destination until the next day? After fighting rain that changed to snow around the New Hampshire/Maine boarder, then finally to a moderate to heavy snow that covered the road north of Portland, ME I realized I needed to stop short of the destination. Thirteen hours after starting out I ended up in a motel in Bangor, Maine ready for some rest. After speaking to Szu-ting and Yaroslav who were coming from the west via New Hampshire, Alex, Heather and Pasha who were several hours behind me, we decided it best for all of us to stop when we had enough of the terrible driving. We would meet the next day in Millinocket, Maine.

This year I haven’t been blogging much. One reason is that I’m tyring to graduate and the other reason is

I ice climbed the weekend of January 20 at Lake Placid, New York. Technically, this was not my first time ice climbing; the first time was in some unnamed crevasse in Alaska during my NOLS mountaineering course. The first experience was great even though we weren’t offered formal instructions on how to swing the ice tools or how to kick the crampons. We simply did whatever moves we thought fit under the warm, bright sunlight – everybody had fun. I thought I loved ice climbing.

I started to doubt whether I really liked ice climbing immediately after I stood in the crazy wind on Saturday, January 20. The guide explained to us that we could have driven to a more sheltered area if not because our group had a car problem therefore we didn’t meet him until noon. Every available layer was on which made me look like a pumpkin but I still couldn’t neutralize the wind chill. “Let’s climb! We’ll warm up.” Well, if I were already an experienced ice climber, maybe; however, I was such a newbie that it took me a century long to manage tightening the leashes of the ice tools with my heavy gloves.

Dear Readers, Recently I have been very busy for various things, and that’s why I haven’t updated my blog for

Walt Disney world, Orlando, Florida. The happiest place on Earth? Maybe. The happiest marathon ever? Not exactly.

I have to admit that I didn’t train properly for this marathon, but the worst part was that I under-estimated how cruel the sun of the Sunshine State could be. Not as advertised or hoped we would have an average 40-50 degrees temperature in January, in fact, on Sunday January 7th, the marathon race day, runners had to run under almost 80 degrees and extreme humidity.

I stopped at every water stop and replenished myself with as much liquid as I could acquire; I ate some banana; I greeted to Mickey Mouse and seven dwarfs. I tried my best, but the weather defeated me and my legs almost failed me. I was happy at least when the race started with amazing fireworks; I was happy at least for the first half of the marathon when the sun wasn’t able to force my eyes shut and I managed to maintain my training pace. Then, my respiratory and perspiration rate skyrocketed along with the temperature. I believed that I saw steam coming out of the pavement. I was even convinced that the smile of the evil step-mother of Snow White was sincere. No wonder desperate desert travelers see mirages.

At least I reached the finish line with four hours, forty-six minutes, and thirty-eight seconds of struggle – all because of Mickey Mouse. The cute, golden, Mickey Mouse finish medal allured me more than the first apple did to Adam and Eve.

Here is the whole story:


他們說，佛羅里達最老牌的迪斯奈，是地球上最快樂的地方，嗯，也許。但這個馬拉松是最快樂的馬拉松？那可未必。

好啦！我是得先承認沒有針對這次的馬拉松，做好萬全的訓練，不過最失策的地方，還是在太太太小看陽光州陽光的威力了。和廣告的或是期盼的，說一月平均溫度大概在華式四五十度之間相左；事實上，星期天，一月七日，跑者必須在濕度極高，以及溫度接近華式八十度的情況下，跑完全程。

我已經在每個水站拼命地喝水，喝運動飲料，也吃了些香蕉，還和米老鼠、七矮人相見歡，互打招呼。已經很盡力了，卻還是被天氣整慘，腿也差點報廢了。哎呀，至少開幕的時候，那場漂亮的煙火讓我頂高興的；至少，前半段太陽的威力還不足以逼迫雙眼迷濛，還得以維持訓練的速度，我也是頂高興的。只是，很快的，呼吸和流汗的頻率，隨著溫度不合理的攀高，也直衝頂端。我發誓我看到從柏油路面發散出來的陣陣熱浪；甚至白雪公主的邪惡母后的笑容，也顯得相當誠懇。難怪，沙漠中絕望的旅人會看到海市蜃樓。

至少過了四小時、四十六分鐘、三十八秒的掙扎，我越過了終點線，全都為了米老鼠。那可愛的、黃澄澄的米老鼠完成獎牌，比伊甸園中那顆智慧的蘋果吸引夏娃，還要更吸引我，就這樣中計了。

以下就是迪斯奈馬拉松的全記錄：

A view from Chimney Pond; photo credit: Bill Steinmetz

Katahdin: last winter I learned this name the first time. I was sitting in a cozy restaurant surrounded by my fellow winter hikers, enjoying the early hot coffee with a giant blueberry pancake, I overheard that the hike leader, Bill, was to attempt Katahdin in a few weeks. “Katahdin? What is it? Is it a trail and…where is it?” I couldn’t suppress my curiosity arisen from my adventurous blood. “It seems like some nice place to go,” I drew this conclusion based on the mild commotion observed from the group, “and…it must be a place to go if it requires Bill to train for it.”

The second time I heard Katahdin, was on a bus ride to NOLS headquarters in Palmer, Alaska. The bus driver moved to Alaska many years ago from Maine. She described how much she was in love with the mountains in Alaska and she mentioned Katahdin when she laid Alaska and Maine in parallel for comparison. At that moment, Katahdin won its place in my to-do list. But not until I started to plan it last November, did I realize that this trip was to be a great one!


Katahdin，第一次聽到這名字，是去年冬天。被眾多冬季健行者圍繞著，我在一個略嫌擁擠的早餐店，啜飲著熱騰騰的咖啡，嚼著暖暖的藍莓蛋餅，耳邊傳來該日的雪鞋健行領隊Bill即將在數週後挑戰Katahdin的消息。「嗯，Katadin？什麼地方？是步道名稱嗎？好玩嗎？在哪裡？」體中滾著冒險血液的我，按捺不住洶湧的好奇心，批哩啪啦地問了自己好些問題。看著群眾因這消息而引起的些許騷動，我想，這Katahdin一定是個好地方，要不然Bill為什麼還要加強體能訓練呢？

第二次聽到Katahdin這個名字，在去年夏天。前往NOLS在Palmer, Alaska的根據地途中，和巴士司機對話，她數年前，從緬因州搬到阿拉斯加。她談著她是如何如何地愛著阿拉斯加的秀麗山色，比較家鄉和阿拉斯加的對話中，她提及Katahdin。我望著窗外的山景，想像著Katahdin該是怎麼個樣子，那一刻，Katahdin排進了個人要爬的山峰列表。不過，一直到去年十一月，真正開始計畫往Katahdin的行程，我才了解，Katahdin，其實是件大工程。