The unDefined Blog

Inspiration and stories from the mountains, cultures, peoples, and perspectives of our world.

Morromico Bay, Chocó, Colombia | July, 2018

Featured Posts & Collections

Trek Virtually to Everest (and more)

I had just been revisiting photos from my time with him in Khumbu in 2012 when I heard the news that Jim Whittaker sadly passed away on April 7 at age 97. I'd been going through photos, looking for a specific one, of a specific peak, when I went down a rabbit hole. Photos of […]

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Big Jim Whittaker: 1929-2026

Big Jim. A gentle giant. A gem of a human, and a loss that will be missed. Jim Whittaker, who passed away at 97 on April 7, was - to say the least - an amazing person. Like his twin brother - Lou Whittaker, who passed two years back - Jim was a massive man, […]

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Earning Respect

“Don’t get happy!” came the thundering voice from the sidelines. It was a classic saying of the late Norm Walker, my football coach, English teacher, poet, wisdom-giver, and wonderful man in high school at Holderness School. It sounded strange at first blush, but made sense the longer one played for Coach Walker: he hated cockiness, […]

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More articles and essays…

Deep in the Pickets

September 6, 2014, on Luna Col, Northern Pickets Range, North Cascades, Washington. Scroll to the bottom to see the view in a full VR panorama. The evening was about as peaceful as could be imagined, which was a welcome break from the preceding days. Four of us - Dave Morton, Sid Pattison, Jeremiah Watt, and […]

ESSAYS & INSPIRATION MOUNTAINS OF MEMORIES PHOTOGRAPHY

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Troublesome

October 21, 2020, Juniper Pass, Colorado The clouds didn't make sense. They were rising in the north, high above skyline, towering into the upper atmosphere as I drove my kids to school along Evergreen Parkway. We got to the S-curves and it finally made sense. Those weren't clouds in the colloquial sense, they were towering […]

MOUNTAINS OF MEMORIES PHOTOGRAPHY

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Twin Floods

September 12, 2013, on the banks of the Bhagirathi, Gangotri, Uttarakhand, India "The river is insane," Wende texted via satellite. I was confused: She couldn't know that, at that moment, I was sitting on the bank of a raging Bhagirathi River in the hamlet of Gangotri. Sure, she of course knew I was in India, […]

MOUNTAINS & ADVENTURE MOUNTAINS OF MEMORIES TRAVEL

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Kancha Sherpa, 1933-2025

The world lost a legend yesterday with the passing of Kancha Sherpa, the last living member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition and, along with Jim Whittaker, the only living members of the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition. I didn't know Kancha well, but was fortunate to spend a couple days with him in […]

MOUNTAINS & ADVENTURE NEWS

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