Who we are & What we are doing


Monday, January 1, 2018

About Pilot & Glide

Hi, This is Todd "Pilot" Herzog with Mary "Glide" Speer.

We are a retired Sexagenarian couple preparing for our first long distance hike. We both hail from Ohio but relocated to Salida CO in 2019.

  

Pilot did a four year stint at the University of Denver in the 1970's. I've been a hiker all my life, starting as a young child, on what, at the time, seemed like forced marches with my father. Ultimately this morphed into a lifelong passion for hiking.

Glide on the other hand, has led a more typical Midwestern city life with relatively limited outdoor exposure for most of her life. She picked up the hiking bug after we met in 2015.

Pilot is no stranger to the outdoors. I started hiking and camping as a young child with my family. But later as I got into my early teens, I did extended multi week, canoe trips in Minnesota and Canada. In my late teens, I spent six weeks in the Wind River range in Wyoming.

While while attending college in Colorado, I continued my outdoor pursuits and began climbing all of the 14'ers in Colorado. The 14'er  endeavor was spread out over 10 plus years. Many of them were climbed in what could be considered winter conditions, as I was attending school out there and would climb them in the fall and some of them through the winter and into the spring. However, number we're done in early summer conditions, which still can have significant snow challenges.

So in the end, I'm hardly a novice at this and are more than adequately prepared for at least the hiking technical challenges that the Colorado trail is coming to throw at us.

What Glide lacks and experience she makes up for enthusiasm for this hike. She will shoulder any pack that's given to her and will tirelessly soldier on through even the longest days without a complaint.

Pilot spent his professional years doing computer and IT work. Glide on the other hand, worked as an officer manager and CFO for a mid size sheet metal and HVAC contracting company.

One would think that given our computer backgrounds, we would be gun-ho for all the high tech wizardry to navigate our way through the Colorado trail. But truth be told, I'd like to get rid of all of that. And stick to map and compass skills for our navigation. That being said, I am certain will reach a point in place where we'll reach for the GPS and try to navigate us out of whatever miss direction we've taken.

In the end, our goal for this hike are simple:
  • Have fun, 
  • Be safe, 
  • Enjoy the trip. 
  • And lastly, Complete the Trail.