I started writing to bring back the creativity drive in my self to to chronicle my personal adventurers and observations. Your comments are welcome and possible at the bottom of each page. They will be approved before being posted.
I grew up in Northern California, learning to backpack and climb during the summers at Yosemite, Trinity Mountains and Mt Shasta. My mom and dad seperated when I was a baby. Mom was a hippey from NYC who went on to get her Doctorate in education. Dad was born and raised in northern California, was UDT/SEAL in the navy and went on to be a sculptor and artist in the mountains of coastal northern California.
Fall of 1992 I headed to boarding school at The White Mountain School in New Hampshire honing my outdoor skills. White Mt School had a mandatory sports program, I did rock climbing after school EVERYDAY from 2-6 when there was no snow on the ground. In the winter it was snowboarding from 12-5pm at Cannon Mountain.
Returning to California for college, I lasted two years before I could not take California anymore. In 1994 I moved to Alaska on a whim with Chris Watson (designer of this blog system and founder of Fitness Journal) I worked and climbed Alaska as much as I could. At UAA I met my first wife.
After six years in Alaska I returned to California to work in dot.com boom, where I worked as Web Developer and Photographer for TAGE.com. Once the boom began to cool I was hired as an IT manager and moved to Tennessee. In Tennessee I had my first child; Chance Cougar Appel, born in Knoxville, TN.
Not finding the south agreeable, I returned to California and just after 9/11/2001 joined the Army. I enlisted as 18B in the Special Forces career path and made it to SFAS (don't admit to migraines; point of fact: show no weakness at all) and was released from my contract. After the Army I worked as a security contractor (guarding a rail depo) for about 4 months, I found that was not really for me.
I returned to Alaska and worked as a truck driver and joined the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group while I waited for my DHS application and SF86 to clear. I had six months with the Dept. Homeland Security. During this time I met my wife Michelle. I realized quickly the DHS was not for me as married (If I had not met Michelle I might have stayed in and gone overseas or down to South America) Upon leaving DHS my wife and I purchased For Fun Alaska and TidBits and in our first year increased business by 400% and had a baby.
Early in 2007 we purchased 7 acres on the Big Island of Hawaii and opened Paliuli Luxury camp. Still in the building phase.
In November 2007 I sold TidBits of South Central Alaska and began to refocus on photography and writing. I started this blog in mid-October and I will continue to work on my two businesses and consulting.
- Adam Appel