Finn + Mountains @finn-mountains - Tumblr Blog

Off Route 108, Sonora Pass, CA (April 2020)

Are you working towards your goals?

What do you do to accomplish your goals? Do you put it on a white board, and have it hung up somewhere where you see it every day? Do you have a notebook with them written down? I often have to remind myself to write down my goals or pull up my excel document with my goals and the steps I need to take to achieve certain ones.

We often make goals, but we truly don’t figure out steps 1-10 to achieve the goal we set at some point and we can begin to feel frustrated with oneself. With the in-depth steps on how to achieve your ultimate goal it gives you motivation to accomplish one step at a time as it can be a smaller goal to the overall goal. I have many goals in my life from owning a house, having a family to owning a bar one day. Some are higher on my list and some are more of we will see where life takes me.

Goals such as earning my bachelor’s degree in Operational Management and master’s in organizational management by 2023 is durable if I take 10, 5-week classes a year. It’s possible to earn my degree and have a successful high paying job after the military. I have to remind myself of the good paying job so I can afford the house I want, I can afford the space to have a woodworking shop and make things with my hands and live a life full of exploring mountains, skiing, and starting a YouTube channel on my life after the military and to show my renovations I make at the house and my adventures with a future dog I dream of owning one day.

This all starts with using my time wisely to my advantage and making the most of the opportunities I have and are given while in service. To remember I need the degree to get the job I want to have the things I dream of having. This takes time and patience. I need patience to learn new skills, gather information and use them to my advantage and become better than I was yesterday. This all takes time and I know with time and perseverance I will earn my degree and move to the town I fell with on the west coast and be able to do all the things I have dreamed of doing 2 years ago when I fell in love with the place I call home now.

These are just some of my goals that I do my best to keep in my sights. I do this to remind myself from time to time when things get tough or I lack an interest in it because other things get in the way. I remind myself I need my education to get the job I want and to be paid what I deserve I should be paid for with the degrees I have and experience. Write down your goals in excel that can be from fitness, running a marathon, earning a degree, opening up a business, to writing a book, but figure out what steps you need to take to achieve it. Do you need education, a loan, or write an 100 words a day to finish that book you dreamed of writing for years really would only take you 6 months maybe more if you just stick to 100 to 200 words a day and not overwhelm yourself but take your goal in stages instead of trying to swallow it whole and become overwhelmed with it and the other goals you set out to accomplish.

Not sure if this helps anyone but this is something I enjoyed writing about and will get better at writing and become more interesting over time in my blog. I’ll struggle keeping my mind focused on the prize but lately I feel with where I’m going in life and eliminating distractions it’s making things more clearly for me and if someone is out there stuggling with their goals. Reach out.

A swinging bench at the original entrance to the base that was established in 1951.

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T6i

Location: U.S Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, Bridgeport, CA

Bridgeport, CA off route 108 (2019)

#nature #landscape photography #landscape #photography #mountians #sunsets #light #sunlight #NorthernCalifornia #california #Bridgeport #route108 #108 #pass #tree #forest

Why I love the Outdoors July 5, 2020

Today we are going to talk about why and how I fell in love with the outdoors. It all started when I was a kid. My dad and I would go on camping trips with a father and son group called Indian Guides. We would learn about the tribes that were in the area of Illinois and do research projects on the people that lived in the land before us. It made me apperciate the land I was walking on and would do my best to imagine the battlefields that happend in areas we would camp. We did that for a couple of years till we moved out to the east coast.

It was there I really fell in love with the mountains and submitting peaks. My father, his co-worker, and I would hike up mountains in New Hampshire. This time was my first real time hiking up mountains and got a real taste on how it felt reaching the summit and being able to see miles all around and feeling so free and one with the mountain. The feeling of accomplishment.

I continued climbing mountains in the white mountains area for a couple of years and even volunteered in a summer going into my senior year to do trail work on the appliation trial. This was my first time on my own as a 17 year old. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Carrying a ton of food up to a base camp site off the trail we would be working on. Learning how far food has to be from camp and how far the bathroom has to be to learning how to hang up the food bag in a tree to keep it away from animals, mostly the bears. I learned how to cut logs in half to make two flat services while making wedges to put them in place to have it where hikers were not walking all in the mud and doing more damage to the trail. I learned the hard work that goes into maintaining the trails that so many people attempt to do every year and had a deeper apperciation for the outdoor community. I would wake up with the sun and watch the sun rise and shine on my face. Hearing the wind run through the trees, the birds chirpping and flying from tree to tree. It was so quite and peaceful. Those moments I fell in love with for nature.

Fly forward 5 years from that I was now in Northern California. I was amongts some of the most beautiful mountains that our founder John Muir help saved and express his love and beauty for the area that we have today. This is where I submitted my first fourteener with my mentor Chunks. He served 30 years in the Marines and retired with his wife in the area. He is a ski instructor, rock climber, runner, mounteaineer, and a all out warrior. He has showed me all of these things and have fallen in love with all. He took me to Mt. Shasta and that an undertaking as it was my first fourteener, first glaciar travel, first ice axe, first time putting on crampons, and first time roping up. It was truly a memeobalbe experince and it was on that mountain I fell deeper in love with mountains and wanted to do everything you can do in mountaineering. I’m excited to keep mentoring him in a couple years and truly be under his wing again to grasp all of knowledge on telemark sking, rock climbing, and mountaineering in general. Truly someone I look up to as a second father, friend and mentor.

These next few years I want to learn more skills and fill my brain with mountaineering knowledge from books and experinces. I look forward to living on the west coast in a few years where I truly fell in love with everything to do in the mountains.

A new fresh start, Introduction

Hello All,

My name is Spenser, people call me Finn. I haven’t been on here in years but I want to start over again on here and begin a real blog and see where it takes me but to overall have a platform to express my thoughts and show my photography and possibly do reviews of gear and begin a new journey on my fitness as well.

I’m a guy that enjoys the outdoors, dogs, hiking, mountaineering, skiing, rock climbing, running, traveling, coffee, beer, books, photography, woodworking, metal work, and CrossFit. I’m a man that has big dreams and wants a lot out of the life I live. I have many aspiriations and goals I want to do in life and would love to see them through.