Adventure, natural wonder, overcoming obstacles, celebration of failure, taking the first step, apprentice mindset—Hence was born of the language of wanderlust. It was born of story. It’s a place where language and imagery dance to the light of the fire to illuminate one’s commitment to fulfill their internal calling. 

In reaching out to storytellers from my past, I began to see the voice and tone of Hence twist and bloom. Collaborators from my past—folks who live to push the edges outdoors and tell the tales upon returning home. As we forge new relationships in the coming year, I am grateful to our long-time friends for helping us take the first step—for the opportunity to reconnect. Hence launched with voices both familiar and, after all these years, completely new. 

Voices like that of my longtime friend (and one-time editor) Andy Anderson.

I somehow persuaded Andy (Playing With Fire) to teach me to climb back in 2008. The offer on the table was a case of PBR and a promise that, if he would teach me, I would belay him to his heart’s content (he needed to teach me that too). He accepted, and high in the Cottonwoods of Utah, I would then dangle (precariously) and attempt to maneuver (awkwardly) as he egged (or taunted) me onward. Then it would be my turn to belay as he danced across the rock with grace and strength that both made me admire and hate this man. Eventually we found a shared fondness for cooking and through concocting culinary treats and amassing aprés crowds—those willing to brave Big Cottonwood’s windy, snow covered roads for communal gathering. 

An oft-time visitor of said gatherings was one Bethany Lopez (Uphill Battle). She—always fresh from a climb or a ski tour of her own—would regale us with stories of tackling and mastering new routes, harvesting waist-deep swaths of untracked, late-season joy, and surviving near-misses with agitated wildlife (the moose can be angry, my friends). She was usually up to some sort of mischief as well. After prepping, primping, and rallying, she would have us off on a moonlit hike to the Solitude resort hot tub. Donning our skivvies, we would navigate a precariously high and slippery fence to poach some of that good, good resort living. That spirit is Beth—a palpable, contagious joie de vivre. The same is found in another of our first-time contributors, Dwyer Haney.

Dwyer (Don Rodrigo the Magnificent) who, at the age of 25, sold nearly all of his belongings and headed to the northwest to shop for a sailboat to carry him to the farthest reaches of Patagonia. There was one small problem—he didn’t know how to sail. As with many aspects of the story to follow, Dwyer’s perspective would prove to be everything. Not knowing how to sail was a small problem, and he’s a problem-solver at heart. As he made his way southward along the western spine of North, Central, and South America, this ingenuity would prove fruitful again and again. Engine fire at sea, pirated “ghost” ships 200-miles from shore, “impassable” routes to the top of an otherwise “totally skiable” glacier—inevitable obstacles (or opportunities!) on the path to life untethered, freedom syncopated with the rhythm of the rolling waves. He was a man with a singular vision, to ski the nearly impossible. Adam Riser, on the other hand, was having a crisis of conscience.

I met Adam Riser (Conflict of Interests) in the hallowed halls of a budding little outdoor shop in the Utah mountains. Adam was recovering from some Type 3 fun gone awry. Rather than sitting dormant, he was finding a new rhythm, a new sense of freedom—in Whistler, on two wheels. This after a torrid, years-long love affair with climbing that began as a means of hanging out with friends (Type 1 fun) and led to total immersion—guiding on Mt. Rainier (Type 2 and 3 fun). He was so intensely devoted that he doubted if one could be in love with two disparate partners (climbing and mountain biking) at the same time. It’s this same devotion that still leads him ever onward from Denali to Aconcagua and back home to the Wasatch—where from time to time, he captivates us with a death-defying tale or two, and a few keenly framed photographs.

It’s in reconnecting with these adventurous souls that we launched our collective. It’s in this spirit that we will continue to publish and share the human stories behind the journey—stories from our community. Built on a foundation of connections forged long ago, we look forward to building new bonds in the new year—”next year’s words await another voice.” 

See you tomorrow.