Alaska is home. I got a master's in elementary education, taught school for a bit and genuinely thought that was where my life was going.
Then packrafting showed up.
Getting deeper into paddling changed basically everything. I met people who pulled me farther into the outdoor world, started spending way more time on rivers and eventually realized this had become part of my work too.
I started TheGayCamper because I didn't see much outdoor media that actually looked like my life. The gay part was usually invisible, or it was the entire point. And a lot of outdoor content felt so polished that nobody seemed like a real person anymore.
I didn't really want either of those things.
So you'll see actual paddling here. Camping too. Gear I've beaten the shit out of. You'll also see bodies, little shorts, saunas and dumb jokes... because those were part of the day too.
That's intentional.
Outside of TheGayCamper, I work across the whitewater world in partnerships and community building, serve on the American Packrafting Association board and spend a lot of time trying to make the barrier to getting outside a little smaller for other people.
Mostly, though, this is just my corner of the outdoor internet. You don't have to make yourself less gay to belong outside.