That's me on the summit of Mt. Shuksan (9127 ft) in Washington's North Cascades National Park, with Mt. Baker in the background (August 1997). For photos and stories from my outdoor adventures, along with information about ski mountaineering and online guidebooks to skiing the volcanoes of the Cascade Range and the Pacific Ring of Fire, visit my Ski Mountaineering and Climbing Site at www.skimountaineer.com.
		.. My greatly condensed life story (updated through late 2001)

I was born in India on September 5, 1972, and came to the United States with my parents at the age of three months. We lived in several cities throughout the East Coast, finally settling in the south suburbs of Boston in 1981. That winter on a trip to Maine I learned to ski, and it quickly became a lifelong passion. After completing high school at Milton Academy, I attended Princeton University from 1990 to 1994, majoring in physics (A.B., cum laude, 1994) and serving as an officer of Princeton Campus Club.

I moved to Seattle in September 1994, to attend graduate school in the University of Washington Physics Department. I received an M.S. in physics in 1996, and completed my Ph.D. in experimental atomic physics in June 2001, working in the lab of Prof. Norval Fortson investigating an intriguing new phenomenon known as spontaneous spin polarization. I am presently a postdoctoral Research Associate working in the same group, developing new possibilities for atomic parity non-conservation experiments.

Seattle is quite the mountaineering mecca, and by 1996 I had caught the mountaineering bug myself. On June 29, 1996, I climbed from Paradise to Camp Muir at 10000 ft on Mount Rainier, hauling up the onerous weight of my alpine skis and boots. After six exhausting hours of climbing in the brilliant sunshine, the magnificent half-hour ski descent all the way back to the car was a worthy reward. It was my first backcountry skiing experience, and my life was changed forever. Ski mountaineering soon became a passion, and in late 1997 I started my Ski Mountaineering and Climbing Site. Since 1999 I have been writing a guidebook to ski and snowboard mountaineering on the Cascade volcanoes, a majestic range which stretches from northern California through Oregon and Washington into southwestern British Columbia. A preliminary version of the book is currently available online on my website at www.skimountaineer.com, and I hope to complete the full written version for publication by late 2002 or 2003.

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	<---   My parents on the Olympic Coast           of Washington (July 1996)
	Our dog Max playing in the snow (Feb 1994). Sadly, Max died in March 1995.