Moving to Powder Mountain
I’m wheels up at JFK, saying goodbye to New York City once again, this time heading West.
It’s a New Year, and I have a new mountain to climb — it’s the start of an incredible adventure that’s been many years in the making...
June 2012 marked my fifth year in NYC (minus 6 months in Buenos Aires). I was a tech journalist who loved robots, startups, and wearables. Then one afternoon, the grass looked greener as they say; I grew tired of being “the blogger everybody knows” and falling asleep with my face in my laptop monitoring Techmeme. I thought about leaving New York, and I accepted the opportunity to help launch General Assembly’s first international campus in the UK.
But really, I moved to London because of love.
Trusted mentors told me not to go. And I felt pretty anxious even at my leaving-do (see what I did there?). Then an awesome fellow Sandboxer (now HQer) named Kane Sarhan put his hands on my shoulders and said,
“The world is global, baby… New York will be here when you get back!”
I landed in the middle of the Queen’s Jubilee and the Olympics. London seemed like the place to be. Then there were the days when it wasn’t, like when it rained an entire summer and I wore a peacoat in June. I was a golden retriever puppy in an antique store — a bit too loud, too happy, and usually knocking into things both old and fragile.
I traveled a lot, and found a group of human beings from both Berlin and London who became partners in crime, inspiring each other with a sense of boundless creativity and tenacity.
In fact, on a ski trip with these (ICE) cats in March 2013, I was encouraged to start audience.io, a marketing and business development company that has since worked with a handful of very cool tech companies like Fueled, Shyp, TaskRabbit, Transferwise, Percolate, Makeshift, and Geckoboard. We’re a “boutique” group of four energetic women in New York and London (plus an intern named Bacon) who share a very healthy obsession with Hustle and Kale.
After two years living in London, I had lost the love I moved an ocean for and felt it was time to go home. In late April 2014, on a very strange night indeed, I received a call from my friend Elliott Bisnow, CEO of Summit:
“I just want to run an opportunity by you… Would you be interested in working with the Summit Series team on Powder Mountain?”
And just like that, before one door had closed, another opened.
I returned to London to say goodbye and pack my bags. With laptop in tow, I visited New York, Eden, LA, Berlin (with the audience.io ladies), Ibiza, Cape Cod, Montauk, Fire Island, Boston, Connecticut, San Francisco, Black Rock City, and stopped back in London to say a few more goodbyes.
Over the course of the following few months, I tried to write a post on Medium titled “Goodbye London, New York, I’m Home.” But instead I went to Berlin and London again, Eden, the Dominican Republic, Paris, Stockholm, Tallinn, Miami, Tulum, and even Naples, Florida (working all the while). I did a terrible job of moving back to New York, instead becoming a devoted Makespace customer, placing my belongings in bright green storage bins.
I love New York — I love its people, its culture, its yoga, its food, and I love my office, the Fueled Collective, which is more my home in the city than anywhere else. But I just can’t figure out exactly how to fit back into New York.
My friend was right, New York was there for me when I got back, but neither of us was the same anymore. We’d both shifted, expanded. I like to think I’ve grown from a golden retriever to a lioness, and lions don’t like concrete cages. But truthfully, I still need some space to work on my roar.
Powder Mountain is 10,000 feet in elevation, and provides 500 inches of fresh powder each year. The mountain, located in Eden, Utah, is home to and owned by the Summit Series team. Summit (as it’s often shortened to) is well known for its major events such as Summit at Sea, Basecamp, and Summit Outside, which have brought together thousands of the world’s top entrepreneurs and cultural leaders in an effort to make the world a more joyful place.
Funny enough, I first heard about Summit after a few friends told me they were attending Summit at Sea in 2011. I wrote a short and (somewhat snarky) post on the event from an outsider’s perspective. It wasn’t long before Thayer Walker, Summit’s Chief Reconnaissance Officer, called me up, and invited me to their next event in February 2012.
On top of the entertainment, environment, food, and awe-inspiring production, it’s the friendships I formed at Basecamp and subsequent Summit events like Outside that have positively impacted my life more than any other party, networking group, or conference in the world.
I first visited Powder Mountain in September 2012, a few months after the Summit Series team raised $45 million to purchase the 40-year old resort, embarking on one of the most impressive entrepreneurial projects of our generation.
Two years later in September 2014, I began work with Summit as a Curator, helping to build and shape the community on a global level by meeting with entrepreneurs, explorers, musicians, artists, authors, and inviting them to come visit Powder Mountain, or join us for the trip of a lifetime on Summit at Sea.
In addition to curation, I’ll be working with Summit to expand its efforts in social media, storytelling, partnerships, and digital marketing. And over the next year with the audience.io team, we’ll continue working with our members Fueled, Shyp, Geckoboard, Gordon & Eden, and a handful of great new companies, keeping a toe in both New York and London with 3460 Miles. And watch out for a redesign and shop coming soon on our health and wellness blog, Hustle and Kale.
Pilots say flying is the second greatest thrill known to man, and landing is the first. As a passenger, landing is also a thrill, in fact — whether it’s the start of a new journey or it’s just returning home —some people even clap.
Landing in SLC this time was a bit of both. While I waited at baggage claim, a young man who worked for a shuttle service pitched me his adventure travel startup called “Crazy Monkeys”. We exchanged emails and I wished him good luck. And so it appears, I thought, that I’ve found myself once again in a place thirsty for innovation, and plump with potential.
From today, I‘ll be living in Eden, Utah until the snow melts, and returning to climb its rocks, surf its lakes, and watch the leaves turn orange for seasons to come. There’s something about Eden, just town over from Paradise, Utah, that feels like home for almost everyone who comes to visit. Summit Powder Mountain is a place where everything that I love is celebrated, and not just merely accepted. It is a destination where thoughts become things, and ideas are given wings.
When you travel enough, the world feels like your backyard, the sky your roof, where you put your shoes feels like home, and the people you meet along the way become family.
For a mix of business and pleasure (always), I will return to New York, Europe, and London (where you should come hang out at Second Home). And of course, there are plenty of adventures in the making to far flung places as well as journeys back to where we’re always welcomed home. This is, after all, the very nature of many forms of migration.
Tonight, I’ll fall asleep on Powder Mountain, and tomorrow that’s where I’ll wake up. I’m jumping into a pile of love — feeling energized and incredibly grateful — and yes, strong enough to move a mountain (or at the very least move to one!).
Background Photo Credit: Jake Nelson
