Year Review: 2025

Posted January 2026

Background

With 2025 over, I want to solidify my “year review” as an annual tradition. I've pondered themes, but often forgotten about the task of writing. I finally made time to begin the project on the last day of the year. For many reasons which I’ll explain below, 2025 stands out as a tough year, perhaps the worst year I’ve had in a while. But it feels strange and wrong to call it that, because I lived so many highlights too. Years are complex, let’s dive in.

By the numbers

In 2025 I logged:

• 28 days of personal backpacking trips, including a 6 day trip

• 34 days of paddling, including only three overnight trips

• At least 1036 miles on foot (was without watch for 2.5 months)

• At least 290 miles on bike

• At least 283,576 feet of elevation gain

• 13 logs cleared from trails

• 5 days of skiing, 3 of which were just one lap

• 44 days guiding backpacking trips

Behind the numbers

2025 saw me spending much less time on multiday adventures, and doing more running than any prior year. This is largely attributable to Joelle's injury in April, which had me seeking to minimize long periods of time doing things she couldn't do. But in summer, I prioritized whitewater, and it was easiest to find partners for short runs. This meant I did many more single-day activities, and because I often did them alone or with other partners, they were more often at a caliber that was strenuous and stimulating for me. Increasing the caliber of my activities was a stated goal for me at the end of my last year review, and I’m glad I was able to do that, although it wasn’t completely intentional.

By the stories

2025 began dry, and stayed dry for a long time. In January, we had no snow in Flagstaff and pleasant weather for desert activities. We had a few nice day trips to Sedona, and an excellent long weekend in the Superstition.  At the end of the month, I did the Hermit Loop for my first run in Grand Canyon and got out for a paddle on a remote stretch of the Verde. In early February we did a great desert hot spring packraft linkup, and I went back to the Canyon to run the Boucher Loop. I recerted my WFR, then went back to explore more of the Superstition with Miles. It was great to visit this place more intentionally than ever before. Throughout this early part of the year, I took advantage of the relatively uninspiring conditions to work on car maintenance and a few writing projects, and I went to many pool sessions to dial in my roll.

March was a great month for weekend adventures. We did a great multisport on the San Juan, and I visited the South Bass trailhead on three separate weekends, getting into this remote part of the Canyon more thoroughly than I ever had. Two of them were to support friends on their own rad goals, and my longest trip was hiking the Gems section with Joelle, a highlight of the year! I also found time to demo a half-slice on the Verde and got more stoked on kayaking, but it would be a while before I could pursue it further.

I was able to do enough hiking in March that I didn’t run much, but in April I caught a window of cool weather to go for a quick Escalante Route, which was my running goal for the season. Then we did the Crystal Loop, an amazing trip which could’ve been my favorite of the year but which ended horribly with Joelle’s severe ankle injury. My life became mostly dedicated to taking care of her and trying to bring her little moments of joy in what was otherwise a miserable existence. I was able to pull away for a quick run of the Upper Animas, a longtime paddling goal, but my role as caretaker dominated my life through May. 

I went on a nice canyoneering and packrafting day, and I finally got to guide my only trip of the spring, a lovely Hermit Loop which affirmed my need to return to working outdoors. At the end of May we went on a trip to Colorado to visit friends and I did some paddling, with Joelle mostly relaxing. Besides caretaking, the  other big theme of my month was getting to the top of Elden by 8am every day I was in town, for the annual Giro d’Elden event. Since I first heard about the event many years ago, it had been a goal to do it every day, and I finally took advantage of living at the base and being home often to go for it. I got to do a few different routes with fun people and I’m glad I did, but the combination of exercise volume, caretaking, and working full time made me very tired, and I gave myself shin splints from the overtraining. They flared up on the last day, which was June 1st, and kept me from running for three weeks, which just turned into me not running until September.

Early June was my final  work as a production sewist at Rogue Panda, which had been my primary work for a year and a half. I learned a lot and I’m grateful for my time, it was an incredibly convenient job. It was flexible and decent paying, never getting in the way of weekend trips or weekday activity. But in 2025 I realized that it just wasn’t compatible with the amount of guiding I want to do. I was lucky to be able to take occasional weeks off for trips, but that made it harder to take time off for my own trips. I also wanted to leave in the summer, and they could no longer allow me to do that and hold my position, understandably. I decided I was okay with that. In 2025 working as a sewist had begun to make me sad. I spent a lot of hours doing monotonous work, alone, grasping for entertainment from the internet through my earbuds. And perhaps most importantly, I didn’t see a future in it. Time to move on.

After a two weeks of light activity and hanging with Joelle, we toured through Cedar Breaks together, then I dropped her off with a friend in SLC and drove straight to Bend to buy a half-slice and go paddling! I met some nice locals who were willing to show me down Meadowcamp in my Valkyrie. I loved it, and squeezed in another lap before heading to packraft the wonderful Lower Crooked the next day. My third day in Bend was the solstice, and also the day of the Meadowcamp race which has free shuttles. I wasn’t quite confident enough in the kayak so after three more training laps I raced my Valkyrie and almost didn't get last. Then I went to the White Salmon for a day of laps, and stuck to sections within my comfort zone so I could get used to the kayak.

I guided two fabulous trips in Washington, with a brief trip to the Sky and Sauk in between. Then in early July headed to Idaho for some of the fullest days of my life at the APA Roundup on the Payettes. I paddled lovely whitewater to my heart’s content and socialized my heart out. A big highlight was running the Lower 5, the most demanding section of river I had done yet. I also visited my great aunt, Barbara, who at 81 is a total legend to me and still gets around outdoors very well. She set me up with a South Fork Salmon shuttle I couldn’t refuse, so I soloed it, meeting her at her backcountry cabin at the end.

I met Daniel for our annual great mountain walkabout on the Suiattle Circle and we saw the most beautiful Cascadian alpine I’ve ever seen. Then it was back to work, for more beautiful places! I had three more trips to guide, two of which were new routes to me. In August, I squeezed in a hike of Mt Adams, and four more days on a river I love dearly, the White Salmon.

I intentionally ended my northwest summer early; on the 17th I met Joelle back in SLC (no, she hadn’t been stuck there the whole time) and we headed home. But after only a few days, we drove to California for a wonderful multi-destination trip. After a very dry summer everywhere, the beauty of rain coincided perfectly with our days frollicking in Yosemite, visiting a friend and getting her back into the backcountry. Then we went to Santa Barbara where her brother took us on an amazing multisport trip to Santa Cruz Island.

When we returned to Flagstaff for September, the rains continued - the beginning of an unusual trend for the fall. We soaked up monsoon season on the trails around home, many of which had trees down. I decided to level up my ability to help by buying a chainsaw and managed to clear a good number of logs throughout the rest of the year. After the tragic Dragon Bravo fire in July, and the ongoing waterline construction, Grand Canyon continued to have significant trail closures. I had three of my work trips canceled, panicked, picked up work at the local used gear store SMR, then had two trips re-book for a fall total of five.

Thanks to this kerfuffle, I ended up working a lot in October. But I was grateful to have plenty of fun work, and I still managed to get out. I ran a bit, and in the middle of the month we were gifted massive floods from Hurricane Priscilla. I got to paddle a very high Verde and a rare Sedona wash. The end of the month featured some awesome long weekends like a new San Juan packraft route and a phenomenal Cataract Canyon trip, which I felt happy to be invited on by Dan and Liz, two friends I really look up to and have visited a few times at their summer home in Darrington.

My November work schedule was even fuller, which made for a pretty basic month except for a thrilling storm cycle in the middle. I did a low lap of the Verde before the weather hit, then Daniel and I skied a fabulous first day in the Humphreys Cirque. A good group of us paddled the Verde again, then out of desperation to experience the combo of fall colors and runnable flows I rallied friends again and squeezed in sunrise Oak Creek run on a workday. 

For about a month now, Joelle had been able to return to some moderate activities like hiking Elden, which was very exciting. But her ankle’s range of motion had begun to plateau, and we started pursuing options for more intervention. In December she returned to Grand Canyon for a nice hike we did together, and I taught her to roll my kayak. We had a big weekend with her family, then time in the Sonoran became my theme. I went on a nice scrambling and biking trip, then we got to enjoy the desert at Christmas time while visiting my family. I ended my year with a long day at work and a long night with friends.

Hardship

As I said at the beginning, this year was filled with unexpected and significant hardship. It began with a lack of snow, to which we were able to adapt and still have a good time, but which certainly  kept me away from my favorite sports. Then there was Joelle’s ankle injury, which was traumatic and derailed many plans and dreams for both of us. That wasn’t so easy to adapt to. We did the best we could, but suffered a lot of sadness as a result.

From nearly the very beginning of the year ran a theme of political hardship. The election of the Trump administration caused me to personally feel the impacts of politics more than I ever have before. My dominant concerns were with the destruction of environmental regulations, and massive funding cuts and layoffs to federal agencies. While the former admittedly is intangible this year, it absolutely will become so in the future. Meanwhile, the evisceration of agencies like the BLM, NPS, and USFS cause deep and disturbing impacts to the livelihood of people I am close with and to my own. Many of my friends temporarily lost their jobs, and when they returned their work life was so dysfunctional and abusive that some had to leave. 

The large reductions of funding to hire seasonal employees disrupted the function of the USFS and NPS more than other government agencies, and I saw this impact firsthand in my guiding work. Parks were understaffed and uncared for, and areas had to close. This was exaggerated at Grand Canyon by the ongoing waterline project and the Dragon Bravo fire which destroyed much of the civilization on the North Rim, including a trail that my company and many others depend on for business and thousands of people use each fall for their own recreation. This fire could not have come at a worse time, given the dysfunction of the government in 2025.

News about all of the land managment chaos was delivered to me amidst a slurry of headlines about other major issues including pertaining to sexism, racism, and authoritarianism to name a few. It’s been very depressing, and it hasn’t ended. But I often think about the Yvon Chouinard quote “the solution to depression is action”. Many of the actions I use to stave off depression are distr-actions, and I believe that is okay. But each year, I try to increase my acti-vism (and community service too), and this year was a real kick in the ass. 

If I can put any positive spin on the national-scale  hardship of this year, for me it is the amount I dove into learning about the political process, writing public comments and contacting representatives, sharing important messages both broadly and in personal relationships, and doing work myself to take care of public lands. This occurred amidst a background of action that comes more naturally to me and I still do believe has a positive impact on the world: creating media and sharing information about outdoor recreation, and helping my friends and clients get outdoors for beautiful, epic experiences. People need to feel joy and connection to the land in times like these.

Hope

My main source of hope for 2026? Well, simply that it would take a lot for it to dish out more troubles than this year. Today, on January 4th, the climate has been wetter in Flagstaff than it was a year ago, (although it’s very warm). Joelle is recovering from an arthroscopy, which is a temporary source of pain but which according to the doctor is a massive step in her return to normalcy. The Trump Administration is unraveling and seems  decreasingly supported by the public and too dysfunctional themselves to continue bringing havoc to society at the rate they began. The Grand Canyon corridor is working towards reopening.

I don't know how 2026 will play out, but I plan to work towards improving myself, my life, and the communities I care about. The first being my marriage, and supporting Joelle to finally return to full strength will be a huge factor. That will hopefully help us to do more multiday trips than we did last year, a distinct goal of mine. My heart longs to be in the backcountry for extended periods of time as much as it ever has.

I want to learn to paddle with more style, and I want to paddle more class IV and V, ideally in remote settings. I believe I can, but I want to do this safely and with good partners. Boating has become  my favorite technical challenge, source of outright joy, and vehicle for seeing places that are otherwise hard to access.

Combining my love for rivers with my natural inclination for teaching leads me to want to pursue guiding paddlesports for the first time. I finally have the skill to do so and need to follow the dream. I also want to change up the style that I guide backpacking trips. For a long time my personal capabilities have wildly exceeded the type of guiding that I do, but I've remained with it because it is easy and comfortable. Instead, I want to lead trips that are more adventurous and education-focused. I hope to do this by working for another company or consider starting my own. 

As I said above, I'm content with the amount of activism and community service that I did this year. Each year I walk to increase it at a gradual rate. Right now, if someone looks at my life they may perceive my endeavors as selfish, and I'm okay with that. I want to spend my young life establishing a solid relationship with my body and my homelands. But when I'm old, I want to be known for what I contribute to environmentalism and outdoor culture. I plan to get there via steady practice.

That's all for this year,

-Landon