If you’re interested in just a slice of the Gracetopher, then you’ll find sites here dedicated to my creative and professional accomplishments, as well as my blog posts ranging through topics from gender to travel and beyond.

But, if you’ve got time to spare, why not pull up a chair? Let’s chat for a moment about life and laughter and strife. Every word on this website, even all combined, will give but the palest reflection of who I am, but regardless, let’s attempt a brief sketch.

In this retelling, it all comes down to an arbitrary ribbon of dirt stretching 2,850 miles from Mexico to Canada. A dirty ribbon that somehow led to Germany instead.

I want to touch the sky

It’s 1996 and a small child is high on the slopes of Mt. Hood with their parents, but really not nearly high enough. The adults see the clouds and know it’s time to turn back, but the child’s feet have found the dirty ribbon, and as it unspools before them, the glaciated peak looms large. “Gracetopher, we have to turn back” the father warns.

Not yet!

I want to touch the sky.

A Thru-Hiker’s Attempt

It’s 2018, and Gracetopher is now 25. The ribbon is broken halfway through and they cry to see the German hiker called Enterprise heading north again without them. This ankle better heal soon, what is there but the trail!

Off-Trail

Well, turns out there’s quite a lot. There are books of poetry to write, and races to run. Planes to jump out of, and cold Pacific waves to surf. And even in the weirdest of times, there are routes into Germany, and little German tuxedo cats to adopt with a certain German hiker, known as Marius off-trail.