Author: daniellegoold

National Parks

Mammoth Cave – Thoughts from 300 feet Under.

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Something just doesn’t feel right about sitting on stadium bleachers with 100 other people when you’re 300 feet underground.

My Mom always tells people that I am her child that saw everything as either black or white and my brother tended to see things a little more grey.  When you look at things as only right or wrong, it makes life easy, you don’t have to think, you just do the right thing.  Recently though, I’ve been finding myself in a world that’s turning more and more grey, and to be honest it’s kind of uncomfortable.  It feels as if I’m in a constant state of searching for answers, but there isn’t always a right answer. (more…)

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Fat Biking the AZT

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Fat Biking the AZT

We stood huddled between two pines trying to stay out of the cold, wind and rain.  I gazed out to the west and heard what sounded like a freight train barreling toward us, I turned and raised an eyebrow at my friend Joee as he said, “That sounds aggressive.”  As soon as the words left his mouth we were getting pelted by marble sized hail.  Soon we were drowning in a sea of hail as a wave of white marbles overtook us.  We grabbed our bikes and sprinted to a nearby tent at the Nordic Center, grateful to make it out alive.  Safely under the cover of a tent we did what any Phoenician would do in a hail storm, start playing with the hail and taking pictures! #hailedit (more…)

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It Takes a Village to Raise an Ironman

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Ryan and I at the IMCDA finish.
My Mom and I at the IMCDA finish.
My Dad and I at the IMCDA finish.
Ashley cheering me on at our favorite race in Rocky Point!
My sister even made the Coeur D’Alene newspaper for being such a great supporter,
My racelab team cheering me on at IMAZ.

Lately I have been reading a lot about Scott Jurek’s thru hike on the Appalachian Trail. He recently broke the record for the fastest known time to thru hike the entire 2,189 mile trail, hiking from Georgia to Maine in forty-six days, eight hours and seven minutes. I can’t stop reading about it because it combines two things I’m passionate about, endurance sports and outdoor adventures. There are a lot of interesting articles chronicling all the adversity Jurek overcame and other articles explaining how an endeavor like this makes an athlete go deeper than they ever dreamed they could. (more…)

National Parks

Petrified Forest National Park

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Before we started this blog, Ryan and I would sometimes bring a journal on our trips to the National Parks so we could remember our visit.  On July 27, 2013 we went to Petrified Forest National Park, our first park since we started on our journey to visit all of them.  Here is an excerpt from Ryan’s journal entry. (more…)

National Parks

Glacier National Park Part 3: The Highline Trail

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I read a lot about the Highline Trail when planning our trip to Glacier. Most guide books classify this trail as a “must see” for all park visitors. Every picture I saw of the Highline Trail looked amazing, but sadly I came to the conclusion that I would not get to see it for myself due to my fear of heights. Despite all my research on the trail, the night before our last day in the park, I decided the pros (it doesn’t have a lot of climbing, it’s easily accessible, and makes a nice point to point hike by using the park shuttle) outweighed the cons (sheer drop-offs), and I decided to face my fears and tackle the Highline trail. (more…)

National Parks

Glacier National Park Part 2: Going to the Sun Road, Logan Pass & Many Glacier

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Glacier National Park – Hidden Lake

On our second day at GNP the whole family piled into our Tahoe and drove the Going to the Sun Road.  Any book about National Parks highlights the Going to the Sun Road as one of the most scenic drives in North America.  The road is 52 miles long and starts out like many other park roads, winding through trees along the lakes and rivers.  After passing the Avalanche trailhead the road starts to get pretty amazing and quite intense.  You gain a lot of elevation in a short time, which means there is a steep drop off on one side of the car at all times.  The drive is not for the faint of heart or people with vertigo, there are many sharp turns and there is no guardrail to separate your car from the glacier carved valley below. (more…)