Let’s chat: Sign up for my “office hours” (free)

Update (December 5, 10pm): We are no longer taking sign-ups for office hours, sorry. This program was much more popular that I could have imagined, and we will offer it again, but for now we’re full.

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Next week — Wednesday, December 8 through Friday, December 10 — we are hosting “office hours” (for free), and are inviting you to schedule a chat. We can talk about anything related to backpacking:

• Locations,
• Permitting,
• Likely conditions,
• Fitness,
• Gear selection,
• Meal planning,
• Skills,
• Women-specific considerations,
• And, of course, our 2022 guided trips and Plan Like A Pro courses.

If you’re a guided trip alumnus, you can schedule a session to just relive great times, too.

To start, we’re going with 15-minute one-on-one sessions. If that’s not long enough, we can reschedule another meeting or run long (if we don’t have another meeting immediately afterwards).

Who is available?

I’ve never offered this before and I’m hoping that it’s more than I can handle on my own. So I’ve also brought in Bec, Katie, and Joe, who are both guides and instructors for me. Importantly, they also have different perspectives and backgrounds than I do.

• Bec Bastian is a K-12 educator based in Bend, Ore. She is a Triple Crown thru-hiker (Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continetal Divide Trails), among others, and knows the Pacific Northwest well.
• Katie Gerber is a nutritional coach in Salida, Colo. She’s hiked the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide Trails, and most of the Appalachian; plus the Oregon Desert Trail, Colorado Trail, and Wind River High Route.
• Joe McConaughy (“Stringbean”) has set FKT’s for the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, Long, and Arizona Trails. Last month he ran 100 miles in 14 hours 13 minutes.
• Scott Christy, who divides his time between St. George, Utah, and Lander, Wyo, became the fifteenth person to hike the length of the Grand Canyon in January. He has spent over 200 weeks in the field as a guide.

How to sign up

This is a free service. To take advantage of it:

1. Check our current availability, in the table below, and identify a few dates and times that work for you.
2. Complete this form, which asks for your name, email, phone and availability.
3. When you receive a meeting invitation by email from Bec, Katie, Joe, or me, select “Confirm.”
4. If you need to reschedule, respond back to the email invitation and we’ll get it worked out.

This system is more manual than I’d prefer, but it’ll work. If this proves to be a good idea, we’ll have something slicker next time.

Our availability

This table should be generally accurate. It refreshes about every five minutes, but we need to manually update our appointments.

How to join the meeting

In the sign-up form you selected a preference: an online meeting or a phone call.

If you selected a phone call, we will call you.

If you selected an online meeting, use the Google Meet button in the email invitation.

Then, one of will send you an email invite for an appointment. To join the meeting, click on the Google Meet button or call in to the provided number.