Deep Calls to Deep: Please, Make Way for My Ego

Every year between March and August, I work out at the Mill Race Park lookout tower in Columbus, Indiana. I walk up and down this architecturally designed 84-foot tower to train for the backpacking trips I take each August. For vertically-challenged Columbus’ cornfield flat terrain, which rarely varies in elevation from 630-feet above sea level, this is the easiest way to get quick elevation to strengthen the legs.

With only five days before my next backpacking trip to the Wind River Rang...