What Would Kellen Do?: Explained

Someone asked me recently what does the WWKD expression mean too me.  This is what I wrote:

Kellen and I used to search out adventure in the mountains that we liked to call epic.  We would look for the hardest or most unique way up a mountain, the craziest way down a river, the most miles we could do in a day and hope that things would get tough and nature would throw everything at us.

This happened many times and as things got worse in the backcountry, we had even more fun.  Kellen had a rare ability to be in a trying situation but still have the time of his life.  The harder the wind was blowing, the more snow there was on the ground, the steeper the climb, the colder the air, the happier he got.  We would search for the epic experiences and hope the weather would turn on us or hope we would find something we were not aware was there. 

After a beautiful climb up Roaring Brook on
Giant Mountain in the Adirondacks 

I vividly remember (and I am sure you do too) days of slogging thought waist deep snow in Smugglers Notch, fighting the horizontal ice pellet filled wind on the Presidential Mountains in New Hampshire, and running through lightning storms in the Adirondack mountains trying to get below tree line, or crawling and picking our way through dense stunted alpine trees.  

We would work as hard as our bodies could, and push ourselves mentally to overcome these obstacles.  But it was never frustrating or too hard.  Kellen and I would laugh and even scream with joy.  You could find us laughing while tuck behind a boulder out of the driving wind, or shouting at the top of our lungs into the rain while climbing a rushing waterfall, you might spot us cracking jokes while we are both stuck chest deep in a snow drift, or smiling at each other while our near frozen hands barely cling onto our ice tools 

Through all this we always had fun.  We would search all over New England for “epicness”.  Therefore, the expression “What Would Kellen Do?” means for me what our friend Maggie Burke said best: “When the weather got worse Kellen became his best.”  WWKD helps me remember that in hard times there can still be laughter, friends, fun and a reason to keep going.  I often find myself, during hard times, looking down at my WWKD armband and thinking just that.  After this glimpse of Kellen, my perspective changes and I carry on.

What ever needed to be done is what Kellen would do.