Starting Over At 55

At the age of 55, I find myself starting over again.

Everyone has changes in their life; some are drastic (ie. moving, divorce, losing a loved one) and others are just a part of our daily lives that we have to deal with (ie. a new ache in our body, realizing our limitations in a new way). I have decided to take on this challenge of change and wrestle it into what I would like it to be.

Growing up I recall always loving the outdoors and all the activities that go with it!

Of late I find myself WAITING to arrive at a place in my life when I could begin to enjoy the outdoors once again. Well, I’m done with waiting!

This year I realized my body may not always let me do the things I love, (day hiking, backpacking, photography and shooting video), at the same level as I have enjoyed in the past.  So I’m embarking on a 10 year plan! That plan… recreates as many of the hiking trips and photo safaris from my past as I can. I want to do this before my body realizes what I’m doing and starts to protest.

This summer I began that process with my first backpacking trip back into the Sierra Nevada Mountains after many, many years. Two of my sons and I took on the Sequoia National Park Lakes Trail – which travels from Wolverton (near Lodgepole) to Pear Lake in the Central Sierra Nevada Mountain Range . This was a short 3 day yet, for me, very challenging hike.

I have started a blog and will record these adventures and share the photos from my trips, as I reconstruct the last 40 years of hiking in these beautiful mountains. The first blog for the Lakes Trail Hike is posted on GeneChamberlinPhotography.com website. I hope you will follow me as I head out on these adventures and photograph this wonderful State, and enjoy sharing in our stories of successes and failures along the way.

See you on the Trail!