Whenever I felt the first icy trickle of sea-water going down my leg, my first instinct was denial.
Water couldn’t be getting in! Hadn’t I just spent the better part of a day inhaling toxic fumes as I re-glued and re-taped my drysuit seams?
Surely it was just sweat, or else moisture that was already in the suit. But I knew I was deluding myself. There was a leak somewhere. The suspicion became certainty when I’d stand up later and feel a cup of water sloshing at the bottom of each leg.
Such was the story of this summer and into fall. Every time I thought I had finally walled off every entry point, water found a way. Then I would go back with glue and tape to find the weak point in the seams, refortifying the battlements. My war against the ravages of entropy would take up much of my physical and mental energy for the months I guided kayaks.
The perfection of the drysuit was the goal that I could never quite achieve nor quite let go of.
I knew that if I finally sealed it off, it would open new horizons for my kayaking. I would be able to knock out Eskimo rolls, perform aggressive leans with my torso half-submerged, to fall out of my boat and swim through rapids — while maintaining a dry set of clothes. The old enemies, Cold, Wet and Hypothermia, would still be a threat, but I would be able to hold them off for much longer.
The freedom and security that drysuits offer comes with a hefty price tag: often around $1,000. I got mine for free by way of my dad — who’d also gotten it for free from a friend. I am not sure how old the drysuit is, though I did see a picture of the same drysuit in a book from 1999. The bulk of the suit is made from breathable Gore-Tex fabric and getting in means opening up the large waterproof chest zipper, then forcing hands, feet and head through the five different latex gaskets. The process takes several minutes, and is like giving birth in reverse. There is a relief zipper at the crotch, which is very helpful, though not so much if you’ve had a breakfast of hot oatmeal and feel a movement coming on.
When I picked up the drysuit this spring, all of the gaskets were brittle and cracked. My first project was cutting them out and then gluing new ones in their place with a special marine-grade glue called Aquaseal. This meant creating forms that mimicked wrists, ankles and neck. The place where I worked as a kayak guide had an old neck form lying around, which helped immensely. I stuffed the sleeves and legs full of newspaper.
The Aquaseal was damnably sticky and had a sharp turpentine odor. The tube warned of cancer and reproductive harm. I did the work outside to ventilate. After a few minutes of working with the stuff, I felt a bit lighter and loopy. It was good to walk away. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it much.
I inaugurated the suit for its first test run in Port Angeles Harbor where I was teaching a friend how to Eskimo roll. The performance was spectacular. I’d put a heavy parka under the suit and was so warm that I wanted to roll over into the frigid water to cool down.
Remarkably, when I took the parka off later, I couldn’t find a drop of moisture on it! Success!
I began incorporating Eskimo rolls into my guided kayak tours. Gradually, I began to suspect that water was getting through. It’s just sweat, I tried to tell myself. Indeed, the suit was incredibly hot to work in before getting on the water, which was one reason it was good to roll over for a good soak.
Alas, my illusions vanished after a fateful run down the Elwha River. At a certain notorious rapids section, I found myself being tractor-beamed toward the exact standing wave that I had been determined to avoid. Over I went.
Though I tried desperately to come up into a roll, the thrashing water was having none of that. I pulled the sprayskirt and popped up just in time to fall over the first ledge. I spent several seconds inside a churning white room, then popped up again before yet another drop and another appointment with a white room. I came up gasping and saw a fallen tree right in my path. Swimming like mad, I almost cleared it, but not quite. I thudded against the end of the trunk with my live vest, and bounced around the last couple of feet. After I got on land and recovered my boat, I realized I was completely soaked.
It was time to twist open the tube of Aquaseal again.
Aquaseal, Tenacious Tape repair on a seam
My knowledgeable friend, Jarrett had a novel technique for finding the leak. Wearing the suit, I ran the tube of a bicycle pump into the ankle gasket and began inflating myself to sumo wrestler proportions. Then Jarrett walked around spraying the suit with a bottle full of soapy water. Sure enough, there were a couple places along the side of the suit where we could see tiny bubbles coming out.
The problem was in the seams, where the different pieces of waterproof Gore-Tex had been stitched together. The tape had begun to strip away.
I called up the people at Kokatat to ask how I might proceed. They put me through to the repair department, where a helpful man told me I was welcome to ship the suit to Arcata, California where they would take care of it. And no doubt they would do a beautiful job, but I was in no mood to wait a couple weeks.
What if I wanted to do it myself? I persisted.
The guy recommended stuff called Tenacious Tape which could be combined with Aquaseal (both products of the McNett Corporation) to make a fairly bomb-proof seam. He’d even heard of people re-taping seams with duct tape as a temporary measure.
I hung up the phone feeling encouraged. I turned my suit inside out and got to work, using scissors to cut away pieces of the peeling seam tape. I cleaned the area with alcohol and covered it over with the Tenacious Tape and Aquaseal.
The cool thing was that this worked at sealing off the area. The next time I rolled my kayak, I didn’t feel the water coming there.
However, I later discovered other leak points.
It usually took me a week or two of denying the problem to realize, yes, water was coming in through the ankle now, and then I would go back with the Tenacious Tape and Aquaseal. Both products are expensive, and I have no doubt that I spent well over a hundred dollars on them throughout the summer.
The kiss of death happened when a zipper pull tab came went off the rails. Both my boss at the kayak outfit and the people at Kokatat said that the suit was screwed. I could mail it to Kokatat and they would re-do it for $200. I had a suspicion that if I did this, they would take a look at the beater suit, laugh and tell me I should try a suit that had been manufactured in the last decade.
Meanwhile, a busted zipper meant that the drysuit was next to useless. I could buy a new one or I could go back to guiding in a Farmer John wetsuit as I had for two previous seasons. I did borrow a wetsuit for a couple of days, did an Eskimo roll, and realized that even my leaky drysuit was still way better then a Farmer John. I came up out of the water frigid, and determined to make the drysuit work.
I did a little searching online for zipper repair info with mixed results. I bought a zipper repair kit from the local outdoor store and realized that I could probably work with the zipper I had if I finagled it back on. Once I got it in place, I had to glob Aquaseal and some tape back onto the ends of the zipper to make my own stopper. The fix was crude, and it was questionable as to whether it would actually keep the water out, but the first results were encouraging. I also enjoyed having my friends ask me how the hell I’d managed to get the toasted zipper back together.
But later, I found more leakage coming in. Small amounts of moisture were infiltrating. Whether it was coming through the seams or through the zipper was a good question. I reinforced both with dollops of Aquaseal.
I also reflected on how I’d known multiple people who’d owned drysuits that leaked. Indeed, knowing that drysuits have a propensity to leak in one place or another had made me hesitate to buy one to begin with.
Another kayaking friends in Port Angeles explained that he basically assumed that any drysuit he’d owned was bound to leak at some point. They were sensitive. It was easy to mess up the seam tape or poke a hole somewhere. For that reason, he tended to wear his wetsuit on routine trips and only break out the drysuit on longer distance trips or on outings where capsizing posed a serious hypothermia threat.
Being a sensitive beast, the drysuit requires all kinds of delicate care, including applying and reapplying a substance called 303 to the different gaskets so that they don’t stiffen up and break (the way my neck gasket broke when I stuck my head through it earlier this year and forced me to replace it.) After any trip involving salt water, I’d blast the suit down with a hose to get the salt off. I’ve also reapplied waterproofing spray to the outside of the suit. Vaseline on zippers helps keep them waterproof and makes it more likely that the relief zipper will open during a moment of need.
Such mindfulness exercises have been helpful to me as I work to cultivate diligence in myself and resist the urge to throw the drysuit off in a soggy heap at the end of a long day on the water.
My attempts to fortify the suit have had some success but never perfection. Water is a pernicious and determined adversary, worthy of respect.
A medieval knight might have gazed fondly upon his armor, even treasured the dings and cracks that are reminders of old battles; so do I value this Gore-Tex and latex armor that protects me from life-destroying cold. The hours I’ve invested into repairing the suit has only increased its value
I think of all the time I’ve spent and the chemicals I’ve exposed myself to just to make repairs, and it makes me think about just how much more labor and resources are required to make one of these suits. Few people who wear a drysuit are going to see the machines and people who work to put them together, but by working to repair mine, I felt as though I got a small taste of this. How much work would I be flushing down the toilet if I were to scrap the suit and buy another one?
I haven’t put the suit on for a while. Most of my winter adventures have been off the water, but I can’t help but think it would be fun to go out and see the seals again, to tool around in some January waves.
There’s a drysuit in the basement, a tube of Aquaseal in the freezer. It looks like I’ve got work to do.
Aquaseal, Tenacious Tape repair to zipper. Hmm. Looks like it could use some reinforcement.
Getting food, medical supplies and other gear ready for my first 100K trail race (unsupported)
Preparation
The Plain 100 is an Ultra Marathon in the Cascade Mountains near Stevens Pass Washington. Runners can choose to compete in a 100-mile event or a 100-kilometer (62.1-mile) race. I signed up for the latter.
True to the name, Plain is plain. There are check in stations, but no volunteer or race staff will feed, water or otherwise aid you along the course (to accept aid is to drop out.) They won’t even tell you which way to go. You will have a map and directions and you should figure it out. The food you eat is what you carry in on your back, the water you drink is what you find along the trails.
The trails are almost entirely rugged single track, made for dirt bikes., The 100K has about 12,000 feet of elevation gain (about 24,000 feet of gain for the 100-miler.)
I knew that to do this race, I stood a high chance of becoming lost, miserable, exhausted, shattered — and there was a good chance I would drop out.
So why?
Good question. I wanted to push something and I wanted to see if I had the mettle to do a long distance mountain run. Having run a 50-mile race the last summer, I felt the need to go up a rung.
I have spent weekends this summer running trails in Olympic National Park, and have enjoyed figuring out how to run and power-hike the long switchbacks and how to turn my legs over quickly on the downhills. Some of my best runs were between 30 and 40 miles and included up to 8,000 feet of elevation change.
I planned on doing a 100K that had aid stations. A major mountain climb would be OK by me, though I’d hoped not to do over 10,000 feet of it. Unfortunately, several of the 100Ks in the Pacific Northwest were already booked up by the time that I decided to move. The Plain 100 was the only race left.
I sent an email to race director Tim Denhoff, asking if he thought a newbie ultra-runner like me had the chops to take on Plain — even the truncated 100K version of it. After he sent me an extensive description of the challenges of carrying food and water on a tugged course he wrote, “Tom, I want you to consider what I’m telling you, not discourage you from coming and giving it your best shot. Hope to see you at Plain!”
When I got to race headquarters at the Lake Wenatchee Rec Club for the mandatory meeting the day before, there were just over 30 participants who showed. Only eight of these were running the 100K. I felt Junior Varsity next to the 100-milers.
I spotted one or two longhaired distance gurus in the crowd, but they were the exception. Most of the runners had a sleek, efficient haircuts and the bearing of attendees at, say, a business management convention. The runners I talked to did seem to have well-paying professional jobs, such as mineralogist and lawyer. It is tempting to wonder whether the same competitive instinct that helped them succeed in business also motivates them to thrash their bodies in the primal competition of ultra running. But I’m just a kayak guide. What would I know?
The runners were at ease swapping war stories from previous races, commenting on notorious runners they’ve encountered through the years. Many pulled out their phones during their conversations to check out each others stats on the Ultra Sign Up website.
At my table, there was a man from British Columbia, from the UK, and Japan — who was based in Seattle now.
They pulled my name up and apparently the computers had already projected that I would win the 100K. The computers get it wrong a lot, I heard
Race directors Tim Stroh and Tim Dehnhoff gave us a war room-style briefing, complete with oversized maps on the table for us to pore over elevation differences and watering holes. There would be a few check in stations along the course to make sure the runners were coming along and not getting eaten by Bigfoot, but these would offer no assistance. We would give the stations our race numbers and tell them “I’m a warrior!” when they asked “What are you?”
I hadn’t studied the maps much beforehand and now I was playing catch up, marking my own map with a pen as the presentation went along.
There were two long waterless sections for eight miles and a 14 mile section that would include a 5,000 foot climb. I run further than this without water all the time on the roads. On the trails, I knew it would be another matter. Tim Stroh, said he personally carried a gallon up the mountain and drank all of it.
The water was just one piece of the gear, clothes food puzzle that I was putting together. The main question was how I would have everything I needed without an elephant on my back.
Here’s what I threw in my pack:
Food
It was bette to have too much than too little. I had bonked on a couple of previous runs when I tried to cut the pack weight down and came up short of fuel in the last miles. I was determined not to repeat the same mistake for the big race, but in retrospect, I went way overboard.
Six peanut butter flatbread burritos (two with raisins)
Twenty Oreos
Two Gerber baby food packets (bananna oatmeal)
One Clif Bar
Three chocolate bars
Six packs of sports gel
Eight sports drink tabs to add to water
Three Kind bars, hickory smoked with almonds (Thanks Mom and Dad!)
Two other energy bars from the pre-race goody bag.
Multiple empty Gatorade bottles and one half-full bottle of juice.
I ended up eating two of the burritos, one full chocolate bar, the cliff bar, 16 oreos, three or four gel packs, the granola bars, 1 gerber pack and two of the Kind bars.
Clothing
This was to be another crucial part of the game, especially because the forecast called for rain, and there were bound to be extreme changes in how warm or cold based on elevation or effort
I carried:
A synthetic T-shirt
Ball cap
A North Face shell
A fleece
My Fargo-style synthetic fur hat with ear flaps.
Compression shorts
Synthetic socks
Zero-drop Altra running shoes.
Other Stuff
A backpack to put everything in (borrowed from a friend as my normal pack tore a strap at the last minute)
A headlamp.
A Luci solar light (backup)
Extra batteries.
An SOL micro bivvy sack with heat reflective sides (for an unplanned night in the woods.)
A nylon pack cover.
A med kit that included gauze, band-aides, athletic tape and a small tub of petroleum jelly.
I ended up carrying map and directions in a see-through plastic portfolio that I carried in one hand for quick consultation along the trail. The system I had rigged seemed comprehensive, but I soon realized that it was amateur-hour compared to what other runners had.
When it came to mental preparation, I had some, from the 50-mile race I’d run last year, to numerous trail runs throughout the summer. But the fact remained that this was the longest, hilliest run I’d ever attempted. Also, I should have invested more time going over the maps, not just for the race course, but getting there.
Disaster
It was 5:00 a.m.: the race start time, but I was not at the starting line. I was driving way too fast over dark country roads, wondering where the hell the starting line was.
I loosed a steady stream of invective as I tried frantically to look at the map and drive at the same time, and then call a friend to get me better directions off the internet. The feeling of failure felt like a weight crushing down on my chest.
This is what you get for being sloppy and stupid and cocky and now you’ve wasted your whole summer running and you’ll have to tell all your friends that you didn’t run the race because you’re such an idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Just as I had begun to resign myself to the idea that I had really screwed the pooch, I saw a truck coming up from the other direction.
I flashed my lights and stuck my hand out the window.
The truck stopped and I saw a guy with a headlamp stick his head out the window.
“You know where the starting line is?” I asked.
“I was wondering the same thing.”
I decided to follow him. Somehow, within 15 minutes, we found the turn, which was on the other side of the road then the directions (because I’d gotten turned around somehow.) The runners were already on the course with headlamps shining in the dark. We were the assholes spraying them with dust as we drove by.
When we got to the start line, were 37 minutes late. The director allowed us to proceed ahead. It wasn’t the first time someone had started the race early. It was not a promising start, but it was a start.
Recovery
The two of us started running together in the dark. His name was Phil. As luck would have it, he was one of the six runners who were only doing 100 miles.
As our headlamps swung together through the dark, we talked about ourselves. He was 48 and administered psychological screenings. I talked about my travels and work as a guide. Talking about anything was far preferable then fixating on our late start. We also were able to coordinate navigation together with him looking at the written race directions and me looking at the race map. Eventually, we let ourselves talk about how freaked out we’d been that we were going to miss the race.
If I’d been running alone, I might have told myself that the race was hopeless and that it was stupid to go out and get lost in the woods for a race I wasn’t ready for. I might have been tempted to run hard up hills, trying to catch the competition. Though this would have felt satisfying at first it would have been bad for my energy long-term.
Instead, I ended up walking the steep hills along a switch-backed road into the mountains. I was going a little slower than I planned, but I didn’t know what was ahead and it seemed wise to go conservative at the start of the race. Phil guessed that we would be out there until around midnight. This seemed insanely late to me, even though it was close to the time that it had taken other ultra-runners to go that distance.
Yeah, but I was going to run down the hills faster than the other guys, I thought. I held onto this illusion that I was going to finish early for long into the race.
Dull illumination crept up behind the clouds as the morning spread over the land.
Soon we were at the top of Maverick Saddle, which was the first check-in station, and the beginning of the trail running.
“What’s your race number?”
“Three!”
“And what are you?”
“I’m a warrior!”
We left the roads for the Mad River Trail and the rocks and roots that would fill up the hours to come.
Striking out
We took our first water break out of the Mad River. I drank right from the source, raising my torso so that the water could run down my throat without choking me.
We turned onto the Hi Yu trail and climbed onto a ridge line. I was starting to feel energy from the trails, which was the thrill of moving myself over the rough terrain, maintaining momentum. I pointed out a few thimbleberries growing along the side of the trail and we grabbed them.
I sensed that Phil wanted to be more conservative and take more walks on the uphills than I did. He had more race experience than I did and maybe he was right to go slower. But it wasn’t right for me to push him to start his race faster than the race he wanted to run. I told him it had been awesome running together this far and then started running down the trail.
In a little while, I started catching runners.
The boost of confidence I got from passing people balanced out my nervousness that I would be on my own after I left Phil.
The other runners ran beneath ponchos to keep out of the rain. I waited to put on any rain protection because I worried about getting soaked from sweat. Still, I knew that it if it kept raining, I would eventually have to stop and put new layers on. The process would sacrifice time and sacrifice heat.
I drank from streams and lakes directly, not bothering to treat the water — most of the runners weren’t willing to sacrifice the time. These hydration stops were vital, especially leading up to the long mountain ridge section, which would go for miles without water sources. Nonetheless, I was keenly aware of the minutes going by as I stopped to fill bottles in my pack. I played leapfrog with other runners as I made these stops, and they made stops of there own. Every stop also put my body temperature into a tailspin; I would try to pull out by gunning my engines harder on the trail.
The veteran ultra runners were far more efficient with their re-watering and refueling than I was. They seemed able to drop their bottles or Camelbaks into streams and pluck them out without breaking stride. The fact that I had a rain cover on my pack added another layer of slowness that cut efficiency.
Cold
Cold finally caught up to me on the way to 6,820-foot Klone Peak. With the light rain falling, I knew it was only a matter of time before my core temperature took a dive. I shed my soaking shirt and put a windbreaker over my naked chest. The jacket kept the whipping winds at bay while the armpit zippers offered some ventilation to prevent things from getting overly clammy.
Some of the runners in front of me were already doubling back down from Klone. “The climb sucks, but the view is worth it,” one of them told me. Of course, when I got to the summit, all I saw was a cloud blanket.
Going back down the mountain, the trail went through burned out forest where there had been a wildfire the previous year. There had been no Plain 100 in 2015 due to the flames. Now acres of charred branches whistled ominously in the wind, a post-apocalyptic landscape worthy of The Road. The trail lead to a series of switchbacks on a long descent toward the Entiat River. Every turn was banked with concrete blocks for the dirt bikes who used the trails.
I’d read accounts of runners struggling not to slip on these blocks, and indeed I did feel as though I needed to pay more attention to my steps as I went through these sections. I was relieved to find they were far more manageable then I’d anticipated.
The narrow trail rut did cause some trouble, because my left foot always came down at a funky angle.
I focused on my running form, twisting my body so that my legs followed into the curves. The repetition of switchbacks distracted me from fatigue. I could see the Entiat River valley emerge through the fog, but it was still a long way down.
I passed two runners on the descent, then popped out at a paved road where there was another check in station. There were a couple of turns coming up that seemed ambiguous to me, and the other runners who had done the race before gave me guidance.
“How’s your race going?” I asked one man with a handlebar mustache. “I’m cold and wet and not having much fun,” he replied. He was doing the 100 miles. We were maybe 33 miles from the start.
Eventually, I got back on the single track and started going downhill.
I knew I could refill water at Tommy Creek, just a bit further ahead, and planned on stopping there, but wasn’t sure how far ahead it would be. I’d planned to delay eating until this refill point. But a sudden feeling of fatigue helped me decide to stop. This meant taking off my pack and messing with a bunch of stuff while other runners caught up to me. Of course, when I ran for a quarter mile further, I came right up to the Creek and had to stop again to fill my water stores before the long climb up Signal Peak.
“Noob move,” I muttered.
The Lonely Climb
Several other runners had picked there way down over mossy rocks to the river bank, and I got race news from them.
At least two of the top runners had gotten lost and wasted a bunch of time going down the wrong trail. The race directors had let several of the hundred-mile people know that they had a shot at finishing before the 36-hour cutoff, but there could be no lollygagging.
“I haven’t been lollygagging,” one women answered tersely. Indeed she hadn’t. I recognized her from much earlier on the race course moving at a much slower pace than me. She must not have broken her stride much at all in order to catch up.
“We’re probably going to finish the 100K around midnight,” another runner predicted.
Most of the runners seemed encouraged by this, though I felt the opposite way. The 100-mile runners were happy to take a break to refuel or nap in their cars, then slog out the remaining forty-odd miles. I was intimidated at the prospect of all those hours running in the dark.
The next 14 miles included a 5,000 foot climb to the top of Signal Peak and no water on the trail until Billy Creek. I remembered Tim Stroh saying he carried at least a gallon of water up the mountain. In the cold conditions, I decided to carry a little bit less.
I started up a long steep grade at a brisk hike. It was too steep to run it worth anything.
Switchback after switchback, I climbed alone. Despair began to show its ugly face.
What if I’m on the wrong trail?
The thought was unlikely, but carried deadly menace. A 5,000 foot climb in the wrong direction would almost certainly mean I would drop out of the race. I would have to carry my demoralized body to the last checkpoint and hope someone would still be there. My thoughts went to the tiny reflective mylar bag I’d stashed in the bottom of my backpack. That might be my home for the night, curled under a log somewhere, clenching myself for warmth.
I could see the jagged sides of the mountain ridge in front of me — there was plenty of hill left to climb. The sinking sun shimmered off of wet leaves in the valley below and cast a rainbow above the hills.
“That’s beautiful,” I said, waiting for the inspiration to carry me uphill. But the worries were stronger.
I’m through with this crap. What’s the point?This is physically damaging, mentally isolating and it doesn’t do a damn for anybody. There are a million other worthy things I could be doing right now.
Each time I thought I had reached the crest of the ridge, I found out that there was another switchback to climb. The wind became colder, making me put my jacket on.
The trail didn’t climb forever. It started going down where it merged with the Tyee Ridge Trail, the trail on the map. I was on course.
“Thank God!”
I immediately saw another racer in a blue jacket emerge from the trees. I recognized him from earlier in the course when he’d helped me with directions. He had gone to a spring a quarter-mile off the trail to refill his water stores. My relief grew. If there were someone else I could navigate the darkness with, I felt far more comfortable.
“I’m glad to see someone else out here,” I said.
“Yeah. Me too.” he replied.
“One thing I know is that I want to be off this damn ridge before nightfall,” I said.
We stuck together for about two miles until I felt a fresh surge of confidence and started running downhill faster. I used the written directions to take me onto Billy Creek Trail just as the orange light left the mountaintops and troubled grays began their creep across the landscape.
Slow Misery
I made my way past the next check in station station with a new burst of confidence. There were a number of switchbacks going down soft needles, that I was able to run aggressively. Soon I passed two other runners with their headlamps on, right as I went past two turns that I’d worried about missing earlier.
“Hey you might want that,” a runner warned me. The headlamp I’d been carrying in my map case had fallen out somehow.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling like a complete idiot.
When I announced that I was doing the 100K, the runners told me it must feel like I was the horse smelling the barn. Only about 14 miles left, one told me. That didn’t sound bad at all. I pictured the last segment of one of my training runs from the top of Hurricane Ridge to my apartment in Port Angeles, Washington. It had been about that far.
“There’s about a thousand-foot climb in four miles.” one of the runners remarked.
Details. I thought. Surely that was nothing compared to the 5,000 feet I had ascended earlier. I was about to find out.
The temperatures began to get warmer as we got deeper into the valley, boosting my confidence more.
The feeling of confidence first began to falter as I began pushing through thicker vegetation, that forced me to slow down and watch my step. I stopped for a quick drink and eat, allowing the two runners from earlier to pass me again.
The drop off into Jimmy Creek brought some of the steepest trail I had run yet that day. Under the narrow illumination of my headlamp, I ran down loose, jagged rocks, mindful of the drop-off on the other side. Switchbacks slowed me to an almost walk. I re-passed the two other runners shortly before we got to the creek below
It was no use though. I had to fumble in my pack to refill water for the first time in 14 miles; my two followers simply popped their bottles off their chest holsters and started running again.
At this point chafing in my shorts had worsened to the point that I had resorted to carrying my petroleum jelly in my jacket pocket. I reapplied, fumbled some more with clothes, and also with a headlamp strap that wouldn’t tighten properly. Eventually, I tied a knot in the thing, which seemed to work.
The trail left Jimmy Creek and started following the slow ascent through the Mad River Valley. The section where I had expected moderate difficulty was proving massively hard. The narrow confines of the headlamp beam only gave me so much time to anticipate and react to trail obstacles. Moreover, my muscles that had felt strong only half an hour ago, now seemed jelly-like and reluctant. I tried to run, but could only manage a fast walk.
Just four miles! I thought And then it’s literally all downhill. It was maddening to find my body, which had seemed to do so well on the downhill section earlier, suddenly rendered slow and stupid.
I heard the Mad River rushing below and desperately wanted to refill my bottles, but I found nowhere to get down its steep banks easily.
Eventually, the path crossed a small stream. I took off my headlamp and leaned over on my belly so that I could drink directly from the water. This required me to lift my head up periodically to get the water down. As I raised myself to swallow another mouthful, I found myself looking at a large toad sitting on a stone nearby.
I thought, I had drank enough, but at the next stream, I found myself drinking all over again. I was peeing plenty, but I couldn’t shake thirst.
I wouldn’t say I was hallucinating at this point, only that my mind was extremely motivated to see mundane things as things that were helpful to me. A circular cut through a log looked a lot like a trail sign announcing the end of the climb — until I got closer and saw it for what it was. Leafy branches looked like trail signs also. This happened several times.
I crossed the Mad River, drank again, peed again. I looked around a campsite for the road leading up to the last check in station at the top of Maverick Saddle.
The chafing was bad, causing me to tighten up my stride in fear of a bad rub causing fresh pain. I soon saw a jeep parked nearby and recognized the trailhead where I had started earlier in the morning. The check in was a couple hundred feet down the road, a Search and Rescue guy standing outside a truck. There were maybe four miles left in the race.
“Are you OK, Man?” he asked. That wasn’t exactly reassuring to mine ears. I must have looked worse than I thought. The last thing I wanted was to get pulled at the course this close to the finish line.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just hit a wall in the woods back there. I’ve come back from worse.”
Of course, I nearly wandered off in the wrong direction, before I stopped myself and forced myself to look at the map more carefully. I checked my compass to make sure I was going south (and I was!) and then started jogging awkwardly along the cobbled road, downhill toward the finish.
Soon I heard footsteps coming up from behind. The cool light of another headlamp beam splashed across the road in front of me, and I knew I had company.
Finisher
At first I started to run harder, but this felt pointless.
A glance over my shoulder into the bright light revealed about my pursuer.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to be the guy in the blue jacket from earlier?” I called.
“That’s me,” the man said. “The name’s Ray by the way.”
He ran up alongside me and I matched his pace. Since he was doing the 100-miler, not the 100K, he felt less like my competition. Soon I felt the funk that had slowed me down earlier start to lift. There was no way I wasn’t going to finish this race.
I told him about the crash I’d felt earlier when I was going up toward the Saddle.
“You probably went too long without eating,” Ray told me.
Indeed, I had lowered my food consumption for the long waterless stretch so that I wouldn’t have to drink so much. Another difference, was that running with someone else made me feel stronger, much in the same way that it had helped when I ran with Phil at the beginning of the race. Coincidentally or not, my lowest portions of the race had come when I’d been running alone.
Now, the two of our headlamps swept together across the gravel road, and the added light made me feel more confident about what was in the path. Ray also had a small flash light in one hand to reduce the distracting contrast between light and shadow.
We made the final turn that indicated we had about three miles left.
I felt more than able to run the rest of the way in, but I did make a few stops to walk with Ray, who had helped me with directions several times along the course. His headlamp had started flickering, and I would have felt crappy about leaving him to run the course behind me if I went ahead. The spare flashlight probably would have covered him, but still. Whatever minutes I could have shaved in the last few miles didn’t seem to matter after 18 hours on the trail.
At the top of a small rise, we started running again.
“I’m going to finish this race as a runner,” I said.
A lighted tent appeared. around the curve. We continued up toward the light where a couple of people were preparing soup and burgers.
“Is this the finish for the 100K?” I asked.
“This is it.”
I eased myself into a chair.
It was 12:12 am, a full 18 hours and 35 minutes from when I had started — 19 hours 12 minutes from official race start time. I was fourth place out of eight racers, two of whom had dropped out. Winner Kyle McCoy finished the 100K in only 14:45. Steve Slaby won the 100-mile race in 29:22.
I let the volunteers serve me some minestrone soup, while Ray had a burger.
Many of the 100-mile runners were sitting inside their cars parked nearby with the engines running, trying to warm themselves. Here and there a door would open, a headlight would flick on, another runner would start off down the gravel. They had miles to go before they slept.
Afterthoughts
From the comfort of the chair at the end of the race, it was easy enough to speculate as to whether I could have gone on to run those remaining miles with the rest of the 100-mile crowd. It is even easier to speculate from the comfort of my room as I type these words. Ultimately, however, that is a test that only the miles can prove — just as only the miles could prove whether I was capable of running 100 kilometers to begin with. The Plain does offer the option to 100K runners who want to upgrade to the 100-mile mid-race, but I was in no mood to find out that night. For one, my chafing was pretty bad. Not having studied the map for the last section of the race also left me vulnerable to getting really lost.
Going as far as I had did give me the luxury of learning from mistakes and trying to be better prepared and more efficient for the next competition.
Some lessons for me included the idea of managing water and food more efficiently with a rig that has front pouches available (or even stashing more stuff in jacket pockets)
I would be tempted to get a Camelbak or similar hydration system for my next race, though chest-mounted bottles would work nicely too. A laminated map with a chest lanyard would be another efficient thing to have in order to help navigation. Also, next time, I will remember that directions to the start can be just as important as directions on the race course.
Another lesson I took away is that it can be immensely helpful and enjoyable to share the miles with someone else instead of trying to push through alone.
I ended the race with an abundance of food, almost half the amount that I had started out with, including four smashed up Oreos, most of the gel packs, two chocolate bars, a baby food pack and four of the six burritos. I never used any of the drink mix tabs except for the ones that I had put at the bottom of my empty water bottles before the start. The amount I had would most likely have made it for a 100-mile race, and if I did another unsupported competition, I might use the about the same amount of everything.
I didn’t end up using either my spare fleece, the mico-bivvy sack, or any of the first aid stuff aside from the petroleum jelly, but I don’t regret bringing any one of those. In a race when anything could have happened, including a twisted ankle on a cold dark trail, it was nice to have a measure of security.
It is a quiet joy to see the flash of dress billow with her movements as she picks her way along the desert wash.
This is Utah.
The scale and severity of the landscape always halt me. Here are the ramparts of scorched red-rock, cutting me off from the table land. Here is the muddy Colorado, writhing between the canyon walls like some vast serpent. There lie the snow-topped mountains, half hidden in clouds. At my feet, a delicate flower emerges out of cactus thorns.
And then I must consider this extra splash of color, moving along the debris behind me.
I hadn’t seen LeAnn since November, and though we hadn’t officially been together for a while, I was thrilled when she agreed to join me on a trip to canyon country. Neither of us was seeing anyone at the time, and it is more fun to have a fellow traveller that you are in tune with.
By in tune, I don’t necessarily mean that we resonate at the same frequency — not exactly. LeAnn will wear dresses on the trail, talk about home health remedies, stop to coo over a toad that I’d practically stomped on because I was looking at the horizon, frequently calls me “The Old Man.”
I got the name because I tend to go on curmudgeonly rants about everything. It doesn’t take much to get me rolling about the insipidness of pop music, the shittyness of movies, the selfishness I see society encourage in people. The only thing missing is some heavy oaken cane for me to shake at the world in general disproval. The Old Man goes on rants, worries about safety, loses things, and dodders along the terrain, lost in thought.
Put me in a North Face advertisement
No, there are plenty of differences between us two, but often these different frequencies find odd harmonies. Each of us sees and thinks differently than if we went out by ourselves. We do share the common goal of trying to find some measure of freedom and joy in nature.
The sense of freedom is what I enjoy about seeing LeAnn take to the trails in colorful dresses. Not much is sacrificed in terms of practicality here, excepting the occasional snag from a sagebrush or juniper branch, an added difficulty for boulder scrambles. But then, sometimes the way we do a thing is as important as the thing in itself. The rhythm of the swishing skirt makes a fine contrapunto to the desert music and somehow seems as vital as the gallon jugs of water that I’d filled earlier.
“Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution?” writes naturalist philosopher Edward Abbey, in his book Desert Solitaire. “I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy, there can be no courage and without courage all other virtues are useless.”
Abbey was talking about desert toads that reveal themselves to predators with their loud songs. The trait is seemingly maladaptive, but has value in attracting mates. Whether or not the toads appreciate their songs and find that they give meaning to their lives — I leave that question to toad scholars. What I don’t doubt is that we humans enrich ourselves when we can express what we are.
Expressing what we are sounds simple enough on paper. But when you are an Old Man, you see plenty of complications. Truth is one. It is no good to shout from the rooftop if you are shouting lies. But some people are so quick to respond or react to events that I can’t believe that they really know whether they are shouting truth, gibberish or something worse. There is also the need to make your mode of expression your own, not carrying someone else’s banner, retweeting some cliche, ignorant of what it actuallystands for.
At least toads don’t have to worry about their sweet songs being co-opted into advertisements by a multinational corporation. Oh wait. Look at the beer shilling frogs in the ‘90s TV commercials. “Bud!” “Weis!” “Er!”
Expression is easy enough, but in order to make it into “self expression,” there needs to be some self involved, not just a collection of reactive impulses masquerading as a self.
I’ll leave open the possibility that self can be enormously complicated, likely inextricable from the world around. One of the beautiful things about being human, is that we can take others’ ideas, (art, literature, conversation or whatever) process those ideas and make them our own. We can eat a banana without becoming a banana, but still benefit from the nutrients within. The same goes for how we process nature. We can commune with it, and process it on our own terms.
What I see with modern communication is that it throws so much information at us, much of it manipulative, that our internal processor is hard-pressed to keep up. Internet access, social media, smart phones and corporate advertising beat at the doors to the self, pinging at us, pinging at us, dumping so much content that there is no time to it all absorb into self-ness. I picture a virus inserting a foreign strand of genetic code into our own identity. Suddenly, when we try to express our own ideas, we only have the tools to spew out more of the virus. And then the virus infects others. And revenue increases.
The hellish, confining nature of this system makes us long for something different, maybe a nice descent into addiction, or if that seems too extreme, a pleasant walk in nature, where we believe that we won’t hear the racket from the money-driven noise machine. Perhaps, in that place of contemplation, a clearer vision of the self will emerge.
But the advertisers and other purveyors of bullshit know how dangerous that is. When you run for the hills, they will be hot on your heels eager to subvert your desire for communion with nature into a desire to make purchases.
The purveyors tell you to snap your picture, tag yourself, and move on, making our interactions with the real world as superficial as they are in the virtual one. Perpetual distraction and dissatisfaction are good because they feed consumption and make dollars flow.
The purveyors take your warm feelings for natural beauty and redirect them into brand loyalty. They pervert the profile of Half Dome into the North Face logo; they repurpose the grandeur of El Capitan into Apple’s El Capitan operating system.
This year, Subaru clinched the title of “Sole automotive partner of the National Park Service’s Centennial”* Going to Yellowstone? Pollute it in a Subaru!
“Our national parks embody an undeniable sense of freedom,” reads the opening to Budweiser’s partnership statement/branding opportunity with the Parks Service.*
New advertising policy put out by Parks director Jonathan Jarvis will soon allow even more opportunities for major park donors like Coca Cola, Humana, and REI to fly high their banners from from Acadia to Joshua Tree. **
If the idea of festooning a National Park with corporate logos leaves a bad taste in your mouth, consider the hordes of tourists who already walk those trails decked out in their shiny Arc’teryx shells, or paramilitary Under Armour tops to take selfies, cybernetic music blasting out of earbuds. There is expression here alright, but not self expression. It is hard to see any concept of selfhood in those who drape themselves in symbols that belong to others.
Because they have not bothered to craft their own identities, they grab all the more desperately for some T -shirt with a Jeep Grand Cherokee, or list of Tweety Bird witticisms. There’s are plenty of prefab identities available for you to buy. You can pick one one up for $15 at your local Wal Mart.
And I’m not just picking on poor slobs who couldn’t afford the latest and greatest performance-wear.
Naturally, many of us begin to believe (but would never admit) that the more expensive the clothes we wrap ourselves in, the more value we accrue. Such walking retail advertisements have bought into a finer-crafted identity, with higher thread count and built in iPhone sleeve.
What seems especially crass to me about the omnipresence of corporate symbols in national parks, is that they remind me about the forces of money, still out there pillaging the environment I am now trying to enjoy. Even if they never get around to, say, fracking the Grand Canyon, human want, driven by relentless advertising, will ensure that there will be plenty of smog to go around, more bright lights, more pressure for billboards, helicopters and luxury lodging crowding out the natural world.
I shouldn’t let it get to me. I should just look at the canyons now. Watch the graceful eagle in flight — not the bro posturing in the camo Under Armour hoodie. Relax.
The problem is that this march of advertising, of posturing, self-important bullshit does not want me to not pay attention. It screams at me to seeit,to read its words, to acknowledge its existence, when I came out here to acknowledge the existence of something far more subtle and profound. It is hard to hear truths whispering like leaves of grass when a car salesman screams into your other ear.
And I do believe that many of us get so caught up in broadcasting ourselves (or rebroadcasting others) that we don’t spend enough time listening. We demand others see us and become addicted to their validation (some run for president.) If validation is the best thing that comes from self-expression, then the matter of whether such expression is a true expression of the self becomes secondary.
Above all, I think that people who want to escape the grind should quiet down for a minute out there instead of bringing the grind and all its tedium into nature. See what it feels like to walk a mere hour without saying a word or without looking at a screen. Note what thoughts arise.
I’m not the first person to complain about what people wear, whether on the golf course or in the wilderness.
In Backwood’s Ethics by east coast naturalists Guy and Laura Waterman, the authors suggest that people who seek out nature should tone down their wardrobes. A neutral-colored tent is better than a flashy orange one, they argue. A bright-colored tent stands out over long distances, and draws attention to itself, clashing, instead of harmonizing with the outside environment. The argument resonated with me, even though I’d recently bought a pair of day-glo ski pants partly because, hey, they looked cool.
Even as one part of me nodded along with the Waterman’s curmudgeonly wisdom, I also thought about how many animals are as vain, or far vainer than the Eddie Bauer acolytes or North Facers who walk the trails.
If a male cardinal (the bird, not the clergymen) struts out on a branch in his finest red feathers, shouldn’t we call him out on his vanity? If he insists on chirping his song from the highest branches, why should he be less annoying than that dude with the pocket speaker system playing Top 40 singles near the waterfall? If the birds sing because of some reel imprinted in genetic memory, it’s all the more reason to disdain their unoriginality. The same goes for those loud toads Abbey mentions. They are just another pack of attention mongers.
I’ll check myself before my argument becomes any more absurd. It is easier to acknowledge that there are times, when it is appropriate to call attention to ourselves in nature, just as there are times when it surely isn’t. Artists like Cristo and Jeanne-Claude who once erected thousands of orange gates to in Central Park, used a bold sense of style to complement the winter landscape, not diminish it.
We humans still rely on expression to project ourselves, sing ourselves, and build bonds between others of our kind. There is a time to shut up and let nature do the talking, and many people still need to learn how. Nonetheless, we humans are also entitled to do some talking of our own, especially if we are trying to express some understanding that we developed in the time that we shut up and listened.
LeAnn, who has taught me the names of many plants and animals, shown me wild edibles and explained the different life processes happening around me, has done plenty of listening to nature. She also understands, intuitively, the need for joy. Joy is the expression that I see in the dress moving through the desert. I see it, and believe it is her own. I permit myself to enjoy it also.
Joy need not deny that terrible things happen in the world or that difficult times can test the very core of what we believe in ourselves. It is not the unobtainable idea of a flawless world as dreamed by an advertising exec.
The desert won’t tolerate such fantasies for much time. Just keep walking into the canyons and away from your car. See how long you can believe the comforting platitudes.
You’ll learn to step carefully, if you’re going to make it through alive. You’ll need to learn how many ways the desert can kill you and how indifferent it is to your fate.
But if you are going to live, you might also learn to take joy at finding an oasis to drink from or finding a succulent prickly pear to ea., You would do well to create some kind of narrative that gives a purpose to your survival efforts.
Sometimes life needs to shine forth, unafraid and unapologetic amidst the landscape, and even bright colors can complement the world around, not detract from it.
While the sight of corporate logos on the trail speaks to me of commodification, the sight of the bright dress on the trail speaks to me of freedom. It reinforces the fact that a landscape, which offers hardship, danger and privation, can also be a place of joy — if we rise to meet it.
“To hell with it,” I announced, clicking out of my ski bindings so that I could kick up the icy slope in boots.
I had just started the trip, but was already fed up with the skis chittering every which way and the strain of setting the edges into snow crust so that they didn’t slip. The time and energy it took to fight the crust was taking away from the effort I’d need to spend in the miles ahead. So why not try to turn that crust to my advantage by just walking up it?
As soon as I put my boots on the snow, I found that I could get uphill easily. The crust held me above the snow as I beat a straight line up the ridge, skis cradled in my arms.
It’s a good thing I’m not a purist about staying in the bindings. Taking on the hill this way was much faster — even faster than when I was skiing with climbing skins.
The changing nature of the snow beneath my feet was a key player in deciding whether my all-day trip from doorstep (7,800 feet) to the top of Farwell Mountain (10,800 feet and about five miles of skiing distant) would be success or failure. Now that we were getting warm weather, the south slopes of the mountains were getting mushy beneath the afternoon sun, only to become tilted ice rinks at night when the cold temperatures refroze the snow. With the new day, the sun would work its magic again, and much like a tub of ice cream left outside the freezer, the crust would soften up, sometimes to the point of gloppification, whereupon it would stick to the ski bottoms.
Within this cycle was a theoretical sweet spot, a time when the snow would have perfect softness for skiing down, not too hard, not sticky mush. I hoped the time would be right when I started back down the mountain and that the snow would yield to the ski edges like ice cream to a spoon. If the window opened for a few hours in the afternoon, I’d have one chance to carve through softened snow without accelerating to terrifying speeds. The window would start to close even before the sun set. Once the sun was low enough in the sky, it would lose the power to hold back the cold below, and the cold would turn the surface back to ice.
Ski boots can walk too
The icy snow was very hard to carve in the morning
I gave myself a hard turn-around time: 2 p.m. If I didn’t start heading back by then, I figured, I would likely end up skiing on ice slopes.
I chastised myself for taking a 7:30 breakfast and not hitting the trail until 8. Probably, I wasn’t going to make it. The last time I’d tried a day trip to Farwell, I had started half an hour earlier and had been somewhere on the summit ridge when 2 p.m. rolled around, but it wasn’t the top.
Of course, white-out conditions had complicated navigation on that trip. The falling powder also made me slower going uphill, but it had also given me fairly good control going back down.
Now I puffed to the top of the ridge where I promptly fell through the crust to my knees.
I tried jogging a couple more steps and fell through a couple more times.
OK, time to put skis back on.
I skimmed up a more mild incline, along the rim of the col where I had my igloo, still standing nearly two months after I finished building it. The summit of Big Agnes glimmered in the far distance. Until we meet again, my friend.
Picture on summit ridge from my previous trip to Farwell
A heavy windstorm earlier in the month had knocked down several of the beetle-killed lodgepole pines, creating new obstacles for me to navigate. Detouring past one of these deadfalls took me down a wimpy slope that was still so icy that I almost fell face first. At a second ridge, I decided to try climbing in my boots again. Sure enough, the slope was rock-solid and easy to climb without post-holing. The extra-tilt had probably made the difference, since it meant that the winter sun would hit the snow at a right angle, creating more melt followed by more ice.
When I got to the top of this ridge, I put the skis back on and started going hard, following the ghost of my old tracks for a while, then cutting further west to try a new (I hoped) more gradual climb up the mountain.
I left my climbing skins on as I followed the ridge, to a third uphill section. This time, I climbed the hill in my skis. I could already feel the snow softening. It was getting warm out. When I got to a flat section, I went ahead and peeled off the skins along with a light jacket I’d been wearing.
Nordic rhythm
Fox tracks and ski
The backcountry Nordic skis on my feet were light and narrow enough so that I could maintain a decent stride and glide to eat up distance quickly. While not as light and delicate as track skis meant exclusively for groomed trail. These are not the skis most people would use on a mountain like Farwell. I knew good and well that if I would be hard-pressed to make them turn if I took them down an aggressive pitch.
Moreover, their free-heel bindings, connecting them to the boot via a single metal bar, are far more fragile than the clunky Tranformer-esque downhill ski boots and bindings designed to carve the gnar. The soft boots would not withstand the kind of torsion forces that a recreational downhill skier would put in on a lift-operated hill. There was higher risk of broken ski or broken skier.
With that in mind, a typical backcountry skier going out in short, heavy boards and monstro boots would have eaten my snow dust trying to catch me on the flats.
Daring downhill descents may get more GoPro coverage, but there is an equally worthy, if more subtle challenge for those who want to cover ground in cross country skis with efficiency and body awareness.
I concentrated on kicking hard off the back ski, letting it float into the air behind me, then bringing it back down to the snow tip to tail.The goal was to balance on one moving ski at a time— maximum thrust, minimum friction, minimum superfluous body movement. If I did well, my reward was a steady whooosh-click with poles and skis. I changed the rhythm to match the terrain, but there was always rhythm. If I got off kilter for a moment, or lost concentration, I felt my speed suffer and the rhythm disappear. It was jarring, like playing music off a scratched disk.
Aspens and sky on Farwell’s south slope
I hit pause as I came out of the trees to look at the mountain in my path. Farwell rose to the north, a 2,000-foot wall of snow, trees and rock. A massive bowl, ripe with avalanche potential lay dead center. On my earlier trip, I’d skinned up the trees on the east side of the bowl until the going had gotten steep enough for me to switch to snowshoes for the final push to the summit ridge. Here, I’d met fierce winds and whipping snow. Half an hour of snow globe climbing brought me to a rock outcrop, where I couldn’t see anything higher than I was (though I couldn’t really see more than 200 yards at this point.) I decided that though this probably wasn’t the summit, it was a great place to turn around.
Now, looking at the mountain again, I was convinced that my original plan, to go to the west of the bowl was the best way. This route would take me up through a steep aspen forest and to a ridge where I could (hopefully) skin up to the summit and then ski back down the same way. It was longer than my failed route, but I figured that I could make better time if I stayed in my skis. I didn’t even bring snowshoes this time.
Before I started climbing, I had to ski downhill into a basin. The slope here was north-facing, so it had powder instead of crust, but it was still fast snow.
I carved out a couple of telemark turns through a grove of pine saplings, and then realized that I was heading for a sunken log at high speed. I sailed over, picking up air, before landing in a lunge in a small drainage gully.
I pumped my fist in the air.
“Whooo! That’s what I’m talking about!” I shouted to the trees and squirrels.
Who knew if I would make the top today? I was glad I’d come out.
Skinning Farwell
Author taking a quick break to record what he looks like in new shades
Back on crusty snow in the drainage, I resumed skiing up a slight incline, following some fox tracks. The sky was deep blue, cut with pearl-white aspen boughs. A deep ravine loomed up in my path. Instead of losing elevation by going down it, I stayed patient and followed it uphill to the east until it receded into the mountain. I took a break to eat and drink, then put skins on my skis. I’d brought two pairs for the occasion so that I could cover almost the entire ski bottoms with the strips of synthetic hair. The hairs lie at an angle so that the ski slides going uphill, but resist sliding backward. This friction, would allow me to power up steep pitches that would have been impossible otherwise.
Even with skins, the climb would take a lot from me. I began making switchbacks that required wobbly kick turns with the skis. Soon my heart was pounding and a sweat zone was spreading between my pack and spine.
How easy to forget — even when there is a direct way up, even when there are no boulders to scale or avalanche zones to bisect — climbing the side of a mountain is hard.
Switchback after switchback, I watched the land drop away, revealing the Pearl Lake Reservoir, Hole In The Wall Canyon and the Colton Creek drainage. The tooth of Hahns Peak rose to the west. It had been too long since I’d climbed a real mountain. It is a fine way to take a new view of the world. Part of climbing’s thrill, is that it gives you the opportunity to imagine that you have transcended the paltry concerns of the world below. This isn’t true, but the perspective is refreshing and leaves the door open for other subversive thoughts. When I look out from high, it reminds me what a vast space we live in, and how much life and possibility exist to fill it.
Alpine scenery like this will keep me climbing mountains
The view up the mountain was less encouraging. The ridge I was aiming for seemed to get further back the more I climbed. I bargained with myself that it might be easier to take a more middle path up the mountain, closer to the bowl, even though this might mean steeper terrain, possibly greater avalanche risk (though unlikely in the old, compacted snow.)
The aspens thinned as I climbed, then gave way to dispersed evergreen groves. I noticed long stretches running down the slope, where nothing grew. That was where the avalanches had been, I thought, where they could happen again. A slip there on the hard-pan snow could mean a long, ugly fall. I did my best to avoid these places.
As in my earlier hike up Big Agnes, I stayed in trees as much as possible, or lined myself up beneath boulders as I climbed. Still, there were moments where I would ski out above one of these big empty corridors, anxiety welling in my gut, before I got back into the cover of some pines.
I found one area of disturbed snow, that I thought for sure had been the site of a slide. I looked closer and realized that I was looking at snowmobile tracks. The fact that noisy engines had barreled straight up the treeless pitch without triggering anything reassured me that the snow was stable, though I also wondered if the drivers had even considered the risk.
I got back into the cover of some pines, tackling trickier and tricker switchbacks with the skis. The snow up here had hardly softened a whit in the full sun, ski edges could barely scratch them.
Nearing the top of the ridge, I took the skis off again and started kicking up the slope.
A nice picnic spot that I found
Within a quarter mile, I was on the ridge, which was a quick ski away from the summit.
The exposure and the altitude gave the top of Farwell the grizzled alpine quality I love about mountain tops: gnarled trees, jagged boulders stripped bare by the elements. Hard winds had carved the snow into scale-like sastrugi, beautiful repeating shapes that were the music between the mountain and the wind — improvisational, yet rhythmic patterns riffing within some divine free jazz masterpiece.
Amidst this, stood an improbable wall of solar panels, antennae and a corrugated metal transmitter station, surrounded by snowmobile tracks. The panels, like the mountain face I had just climbed, were tilted at an extreme angle to maximize the sun’s input. Cell phone conversations and high definition television were no doubt passing through my body from the dish nearby. I wondered if there would be a place where I could eat lunch inside, or even grab a beer, but the lonely outpost offered no such accommodations.
View of mountains and snowmobile tracks on Farwell summit
Just as well. I skied over to a high ledge looking out over the valley I’d just climbed out of. The view was worth suffering a little wind. The stark plains of Wyoming lay to the north. I scanned east over the Zirkel Range, recognizing the snowfield that I’d taken (almost) to the top of Big Agnes. Was there any other way I could have climbed that mountain? None of the other routes I could see looked possible or free from serious avalanche risk and this made me feel a little better for not standing on the exact top of that mountain.
Going down slow, going down fast
This was the most badass line I carved on the trip. I was sliding down on my ass.
A more immediate concern was how I would get down off the mountain I was standing on now. It was about 12:45, well before my mandatory turnaround time. The hardpan snow that I had just climbed made me a little iffy about the ski down. If I went that way, I would take skis off and glissade (slide on my butt) over the steepest sections, then keep my skins on the skis so that I wouldn’t build up more momentum than I wanted.
If I took another tack, I could follow the summit ridge line east, and come down the way I’d gone on my last trip. If I could stay north of the ridge for a while, I would have a bit of powder to ski instead of hardpan. I scanned my surroundings for a while and double-checked my map, then decided that this was the way to go.
Leaving the skins on the skis for the descent felt awkward and jerky at times, but it did allow me to take on slopes that I wouldn’t have dared to try otherwise. Skiing in slo-mo, I cut bold lines down a small bowl, made a quick glissade down the steepest section, got back into my skis for a pretty fast set of turns through some trees.
The powder on the shadowed north face of the ridge was more enjoyable to ski than the ice snow and I felt good control in the skins. Unfortunately, the way back meant going south, and that meant I needed to take on the ice slopes at some point.
I followed the ridge through thick pine forest, then climbed back onto the south side where the aspens grew. Here, the snow had finally begun to soften. The pitch was still way too steep for me to ditch the skins in the skis that I had, so I contented myself with long traverses. In any case, I was making better time than I would if I were in snowshoes.
I swooped down to the top of a drainage and saw ghost tracks in the snow. A familiar-looking pine tree reminded me that this had been the exact spot where I had put my skis on when I’d been going down the mountain on my previous trip. This, I figured, was as good a place as any to ditch the skins and ski all out.
The crust was mostly melted now, which meant that I could carve, but I would still be moving above an icy layer, and moving fast — much faster than I had gone through the powder on the earlier trip.
I pointed the skis along the old tracks and started flying. Though I barely turned down the hill, it felt like I had rockets at the ends of my skis. I used the telemark position to absorb the shock of bumps, and to desperately turn into the hill to cut speed. I would come to a stop, adrenaline pumping, kick turn and fly down in the opposite direction.
I dropped into the drainage where the pitch began to get milder. I could see a couple of crisp turns in my old tracks and decided try and match them. Bad idea. I went ass over teakettle, landing hard. I felt a sharp pain in my hip and got up immediately before it could decide to be a serious injury. I was still miles from any help and it was a bad place to fuck up.
I started skiing again, more cautiously. I did get in a few turns I was proud of as the pitch mellowed. I also lost my balance a couple times. Finally, I spilled out at the base of a willow drainage at the base of the mountain.
There was a pine tree plantation to ski through, that afforded an impressive view of what I’d just climbed, the snow faces reflecting mid-afternoon sun.
I knew I hadn’t done anything too incredible in terms of skiing prowess, but the skis were a means to getting to the summit and getting back down. I was proud that I hadn’t felt the need to leave them on at all times. Nor was I ashamed that I had left the skins on the skis for the descent, because that had allowed me to use the light, narrow skis that minimized my approach time.
Now that I was heading back, I shed the downhill mentality and got back to thinking like a Nordic skier, searching for the rhythm that I needed to power over the flats. There would be the final set of ridges to come down before I got home and I wanted to get to them before the sun got low in the sky. I could feel the snow consolidate as the cold began to freeze the surface back to ice.
The window was closing. It looked like I’d make it through just in time.
Building shelter is one of those challenges that isn’t necessarily easy in the backcountry, but like starting a fire, gathering food or navigating off trail, it offers its own satisfaction.
We seek empty spaces as a way to commune with nature; what better communion than to sleep in a dwelling made from the elements of nature?
In the Routt Mountains in northern Colorado, the element I notice above all others is the several feet of snow on the ground, snow that an enterprising adventurer could stack, sculpt, or burrow into for warmth. The air trapped within creates insulating properties that my three-season tent doesn’t have. Plus, the snow is already there. I don’t have to haul it in on my back to make a home out of it — though a snow-shovel can be helpful.
So why have I bothered lugging my tent along when I go on a multi-day trip when I could build a better product out of snow? The fact that I can set the tent up in minutes rather than hours has something to do it. Then there is that fear that I could screw up at shelter building with no recourse except a night in the cold fury of the elements.
Therefore, when I decided to try my hand at igloo building, I chose to erect my first shelter up on a ridge, maybe a quarter mile away from the very solid, timber-built, central-heated structure where I actually sleep most nights. If I screwed up here, a warm bed would be just down the hill.
Champagne powder into snow boogers
Canoe paddle being used to quarry snow
I should make a note about what I’m talking about when I’m talking about igloo building.
When I tell locals that I’ve built an igloo in the woods, they will often ask if I have actually built a quinzee. In order to build this kind of structure, you build up a big mound of snow and dig it out. My dad and I built quinzees during some of Connecticut’s epic snow years.
To build an igloo, I planned to take blocks of snow and raise them up into a dome. Blocks of snow? This seemed impossible for this part of the Rockies where the snow has the consistency of baby powder.
Snow is a malleable medium, however.
I stumbled upon a eureka moment on my trip to Big Agnes in early January. While digging a pit for my tent, I could shovel snow out in large chunks if I went over it in snowshoes first and left some time for it to set up. The chunks weren’t blocks per say; they were more like irregular snow boogers. Still, I started thinking that these boogers might make a viable building material.
If I could build a shelter with this stuff, it would be a cheap alternative to an Icebox, which is an igloo making device that a Colorado company makes. I had pondered buying one of these so that I could leave my tent behind on trips. That said, many reviews I read online reported that it still took four hours or so for them to put the igloo together. Craig Connally, author of “The Mountaineering Handbook,” says it only took him two hours to build a decent structure. Connally, advises mountaineers to eschew four-season tents when there’s snow on the ground, and get an Icebox instead. He argues that there will not only be a weight savings, but also a time savings.
“Remember,” Connally writes. “…the people who spent the night in their tent will have the pleasure of digging out the frozen anchors, attempting to dry the frost and condensation in the tent, and packing the frosty tent away with a little extra weight to carry.”
This endorsement had me close to buying an Icebox, but then I started thinking that I might be able to build an Igloo without one if I compressed the powder with my snowshoes.
A week after I got down from Big Agnes, I went on a shorter trip up the ridge behind my living quarters. I scouted out a horseshoe-shaped ledge in the hillside where the snow was deep and the firs grew tall. This place would be in the shade most of the time, meaning colder nights, but also a longer lifespan for any structure that I built.
I started tromping circles in the fresh powder, pressing it down toward the earth. After I had compressed it to the max, I took my snowshoes off and started packing the snow in boots alone. I left to grab lunch, then came up a few hours later.
Working with the snow shovel, I dug out beachball-sized snow boogers and arranged them into a horseshoe about six feet in diameter. I kept building until the walls were about belly high. Then it was time to go in for dinner. I stomped out more powder so that there would be more building material for the time I came back.
Putting it together
View of ceiling under construction
I came back about a week later with my canoe paddle.
I’d just hauled the kayak to the top of the ridge and planned a to go for a fun-filled descent later on. In the meantime, I tried using the paddle to stab out snow blocks.
It turns out that the flat blade was able to extract a much better product than the curved head of the snow shovel. Most of the blocks were still irregular; a snow saw, the kind used by actual arctic natives, no doubt would have been the best tool for the job.
I compensated for my goofy building blocks by mortaring gaps with broken chunks of snow and loose powder. Snow is awesome to build with when you consider that you can squash different pieces together and make it one whole. It forgives plenty of mistakes.
The part that made me nervous was leaning the walls together. I had visions of myself cursing over the collapsed walls. Due to my reluctance to lean the blocks, the igloo was becoming more cone-shaped than dome. My early plan had been to leave one gap in the walls so that I could walk inside in order to lean the top blocks together to create the ceiling — but this wasn’t working. The gap made the whole structure unstable. I had to close the ring, and dig my way in later so I could put the top pieces on.
Digging my way in
When the walls got above shoulder height, I started scooping snow around the base, creating a step ladder from the powder so I could put the top blocks in. This fresh snow (I hoped) would also reinforce the walls for the big hole I was about to cut in the side.
I planned to dig under the walls as much as possible to avoid compromising the structure. There was maybe three feet of snow between the bottom block and the dirt. I started my burrow a couple feet away in the already-packed snow, making a mini-quinzee for the igloo foyer.
It took me about half an hour to stab my way through and excavate the rubble. I crawled through the tunnel to the cold blue sanctuary within. There was a manhole-sized gap in the ceiling — the last part of the job. I dug some boogers out of the hardpack beneath my feet and then I was closed in.
There was just enough room to stand, and I could lay flat with my feet jutting out into the entrance tunnel with room for a guest (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.)
The insulated walls created a stillness. It was calming to sit in the soft blue light coming in through the cracks between the slabs. It is that same calmness that follows a face-plant skiing. For one cold moment, you look down into that cold, still world beneath the snow, a place which is devoid of the noise and motion outside.
“I could stay here, a while” you think.
I spent some time filling in cracks with snow mortar. Then I went outside and broke a mess of branches off from a nearby fir tree. The flat needles made a perfect floor for my new dwelling.
I decided to leave the structure up one night to make sure it wouldn’t fall down for no good reason. Assuming this wouldn’t happen, I planned to spend the next night in my very own snow booger hotel.
Sleepover
The cozy finished product.
Pale moonlight filtered through the snow clouds as I tromped my way along the pathway up the ridge. Cold flakes melted on my brow as I climbed. A hush on the land. No wind.
From the top, the far flung points of orange light from different houses in the valley looked like ships on a dark sea. A leather slap beat of cowboy boots on hardwood echoed from a barn dance below, but I was in no mood to fumble through a botched set of promenades and dos-i-dos.
The noise faded as I retreated through the pines — the dark deep realm that seduced Robert Frost one snowy evening.
My igloo entrance beckoned out of the from gray snow. I got on hands and knees to crawl through to the womb I’d built for myself.
The scent of the fir boughs lent their crisp scent to the still air. Within minutes, my body warmth boosted the temperature inside my dwelling. I blocked the entrance with my backpack, zipped into the sleeping bag.
I kept the snow shovel close to my head just in case I needed to dig myself out of a collapse.
As my eyes adjusted in the dark, I could see the gray outlines of the blocks I’d built for myself. The ghostly, non-uniform shapes made good dream food.
I slept deep.
The next morning, I checked the water bottle I’d left next to the sleeping bag. No ice whatsoever, though the weather service had predicted the temperature would be 17 degrees that night. An inch of powder had fallen outside. I took a sled ride down the ridge and got to work on time.
Some notes on snow building
Snow boogers stuck together, as seen from within the shelter
I call it a snow booger hotel. Others might call it a rubble hut. I call it an igloo sometimes, but I know that I didn’t build it with the same craft as a true igloo. I guestimate that I spent about eight hours building the thing but I wasted time with a few mistakes that I wouldn’t repeat on a second go round.
Could I use something like this on a real trip and leave a tent behind? I’d be willing to try as long as I had a backup tarp, no bad weather was moving in and I got to camp by noonish.
One mistake I made in this project was that I spent way more time packing snow more than I needed to at first. I’ve found that tromping over the snow with snowshoes a few times with the snowshoes and waiting 10 minutes is a viable way to get snow chunks. I’ve also been able to dig up juicy chunks out of the half-melted snow near fire pits. Areas of wind-blown snow could also work (similar to what the arctic people would use to build) because wind will shatter snowflakes and create a denser medium. Snow that’s also been in the sun would also work. When I was camping at 10,000 feet the snow was deep enough that some of the bottom layers were naturally chunking up, but the base isn’t quite deep enough to get those benefits at my current elevation.
I dug some OK chunks out of a groomed snowmobile trail as an experiment. Building a snow shelter this way will make some snowmobilers unhappy, but in a survival situation…
I also built this snow shelter much larger than I needed to for strict survival purposes. If I did build something out on the trail, I would build a lower ceiling to save time and allow more room for warmth to accumulate. The shelter did sag a bit after a couple days, probably because my dome was sloppy, but I reinforced it with more snow and it seems OK so far.
Digging under the wall as opposed to leaving a gap in it throughout the building process worked well for my purposes.
I’d like to try using my stove or a candle inside to see just how well that works to warm the whole structure. Another challenge would be to see how well I could compress the snow for block making if I were using skis instead of snowshoes.
As for whether I will buy an Icebox, there is no question, that the product makes a better looking product, and I could probably build an igloo faster if I had one. I’m going to save my money though.
Considering how much snow is lying around northern Colorado, it might be fastest just to build a snow cave or a quinzee in order to make a shelter in a pinch. I’d like to try both before the winter is out. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The kayak barely moved at first. I had to wriggle back and forth to inch it forward on the snow ledge I’d created. I saw the chunks of crust break away as gravity grabbed hold of the bow. Then the boat tilted over and we started tearing down the gully.
White powder sprayed up into my face. I could barely see what was happening, only that I was moving very fast. My efforts to steer with the paddle hardly mattered; down was the only direction my boat was interested in going — and it was going that way faster and faster. I squinted ahead to the fast approaching tree stand, wondering how the hell I was going to thread my way through.
Something bumped beneath my hull. The world instantly flipped upside-down and went white. My head was buried in the snow.
The ride was over.
I flipped myself right-side up, observed that my boat was almost completely buried in powder and that my paddle had flung out several yards down slope from me. To retrieve it, I had to take my sprayskirt off and wade through waist-deep snow. I’d need that paddle to get the rest of the way down the hill.
In the traditional model, I would wait to go kayaking until the snowmelt.
The powder on the mountains here in Routt County will begin feeding the rivers in a couple of months. Rivulets beneath the crust will merge, feed into drainage gullies, streams and willow fens, down to the Elk River in the Colorado River system. From the Yampa, to the Green River and eventually the Grand Canyon, the melting white stuff will build standing waves and hydraulics for whitewater kayaks and rafts to play in.
But just because the snow hasn’t melted, doesn’t mean that I can’t kayak over it. All it takes is a steep enough hill and a lot of powder.
Climbing with a paddle
Kayak tow system for winter
Getting a kayak to that steep hill is the first challenge. My system involves snowshoes, a backpack, carabiner, rope, and a canoe paddle. I set the ascender bars on the snowshoes and start wallowing up the deep powder with the rope tied to the bow, clipped to the carabiner on my backpack. The first run is always the hardest because I’m breaking trail and pulling my kayak uphill through powder. I lean forward like some hobbled supplicant, praying that the kayak won’t yank me off my feet.
In some ways, the canoe paddle in my hands works even better than the hiking poles I typically use with snowshoes. Paddling the powder on flat sections gives me a decent momentum boost from my upper body. The paddle also balances me. I can brace the flat of the blade against the snow, much as I would use a high brace to prevent a kayak from capsizing in waves. When the going gets steeper, I use the paddle more like an ice axe, sinking it deep into the snow above me and using it to pull myself up.
I often fall when the snow gives out from under me or my snowshoes lose their grip. Here, I can get back on my feet, pushing off the flat of the snow, like I’m doing an Eskimo roll.
The paddle can even dig out steps for me when I get to the steepest sections of the slope.
Going up the hill this way is one of the most physically grueling workouts I’ve ever done — a full body punishment system. My heart pounds like an express train when I finally get to the top of the ridge, maybe 150 feet above my start point. It’s a lot quicker on the way down.
Set up
Kayak, pack and paddle
The climb was over. Finally.
I wiped sweat out of my eyes and surveyed the run. It was a south slope and the sun had just come out. Hence, a delicate crust was already forming on the powder.
I pulled my sprayskirt out from my jacket where I had stashed it in an attempt to keep it warm and stretchy.
There is something reassuring about this sprayskirt, a solid piece of neoprene that has stood up against the fury of waves and rivers. This pricey, “serious” piece of gear, helped me feel that, yes, I did know what I was doing up here, looking down a 35-degree snow slope through an aspen glen.
I used the paddle to dig out a notch in the slope where I could set the kayak down.
Getting the sprayskirt attached around the cockpit was a chore in the cold, even after I’d stashed it in my jacket to keep warm. The skirt wasn’t strictly necessary to go down the hill, but I did like how it kept the powder out of my lap. And I had that psychic comfort of knowing I was using a piece of gear that had served me well on past trips.
It did feel a little weird being in a kayak without a life vest however.
The backpack on my shoulders was another thing that was a little different from my standard kayak trip. I’d already given up trying to tie my snowshoes to the kayak for the way down. It was easier to put them into the nylon loops at the sides of my pack and fasten them together with a cam strap.
I put a ski helmet on and sunglasses. I wrapped a mesh t-shirt around my head like a burka to deflect all the powder that was about to come flying up at my face.
I looked at the canoe paddle, a cheap wood thing I’d bought in Minnesota. Having already busted up a couple kayak paddles last year, I decided that I wasn’t ready to invest in quality piece of equipment only to smash it in while jackassing in the snow.
Making it work
The mantra for this run was “Lean that mother!”
Just as I had leaned kayaks on edge to turn them in whitewater or waves, I planned to use the same principles to make the boat work on the snow. Adrenaline had helped me forget this principle on my earlier runs and I had tried turning by using the paddle alone. It wasn’t enough.
With that in mind, I planned to lean far enough to put my whole body against the snow if need be.
I pushed off and the kayak began grinding downhill at a slow crawl. I leaned the boat way to the left and dug the paddle in on that side. Sure enough, the boat began to turn that way. The sound of crust breaking beneath the bow accelerated at a slow grind to a faster swoosh. Snow began flying up into my face. Now, I was moving at a skier’s speed. I leaned right toward a gap in the scrub oak and the boat responded in a neat arc.
I was carving!
The boat responded to the powder exactly the way it was designed to turn on the river, the same way a skier would cut graceful curves into the alpine slope. I’d stumbled into a unified theory between snow and water.
I shot through the gap in the shrub and the powder started flying up in my face. The view throuh my sunglasses became dim, then obscure. Then I could see only see white. My hands clutched the paddle, unwilling to let go. The best I could do, while flying blind was to lean hard and hope to avoid hitting anything.
After a couple seconds the kayak stopped. I took the sunglasses off and saw that the lean had dug the kayak deep into the snow and basically thrown on the braking power that I’d needed — that along with the fact that I’d steered into some shrubs.
I put the sunglasses in a pocket and analyzed the route down the hill. I pushed off again and carved the rest of the way to where I’d started.
Buried kayak after a flip in snow
Can snow kayaking be the next hot sport?
Some witnesses have seen me going up and down the hill with my kayak and asked where I got the crazy idea.
No, I wasn’t the first person to think of it. There are some very entertaining online videos of others who have gone before me.
Nonetheless, this is hardly a popular sport yet. I’m enjoying something out which doesn’t necessarily have a large body of knowledge surrounding it and gives me the challenge of finding some things out on my own. Nor does snow kayaking (yet) have specialty products designed specifically for the job.
Note: If I were designing a kayak specifically for going down snow slopes, I would probably build metal edges into the sides for better carving. But that would subtract from the fun of doing something goofy in inadequate gear.
Snow kayaking is also a learning opportunity for boat technique
Many similarities between boating and snow sports became apparent after I started launching my down the hill.
Leaning for instance. I plan to steer with same aggressive edge that I used to carve the snow the next time I kayak in whitewater.
On the flip side, now that I have tried using a canoe paddle with snowshoes, I’m considering ditching poles on my next snowshoe trip with steep hills. Being able to brace against the powder without plunging deep into it (as with poles) is a huge advantage while climbing. So is being able to carve steps quickly.
The paddle also proved instrumental an igloo building project that I will describe in a future post.
Kayak vs. Skis
When the fresh snow falls on the hills and I have to decide whether I’d rather strap boards to my feet or go rambling in my yak, there are considerations to weigh:
Kayaks are slower to move uphill
When it comes to kayaking down a hill vs skiing, the former is obviously far more laborious to haul up to the top, at least if ski lifts aren’t a part of the equation. This is however, a killer workout that I’d would recommend to anyone who wants to get in shape for mountain climbing or trail running.
Kayak gear is tougher to work with in winter
Other changes that I had to make to kayak the snow vs. on water included moving the foot pedals way back so that I could fit inside the boat it wearing winter boots. A sprayskirt is nice for keeping the snow out, but getting it on and off in the cold is a bear.
Because snow kayaking only puts my head a couple feet above the slope, even more powder flies up in my face than what I’d encounter skiing. I’d probably do well to invest in some ski goggles before snow kayaking full time.
Kayaks are more forgiving when they hit stuff, but will hit more stuff
One advantage of the low body position is that I can’t get knocked off my feet like I can skiing, though a flip is definitely possible.
If I hit a tree in a kayak, it will go better than if I hit a tree on skis because I’ll have a bunch of plastic protecting me. The fact that the kayak doesn’t steer as well as skis means that collisions are harder to avoid.
Kayaks excel when terrain is deep and steep
The kayak’s extra volume means that it floats very well on snow. I got some decent runs on a powder day when some of my friends snowboarding friends could barely move. They ended up using the kayak tracks to pick up speed.
On groomed trails, snowboards or skis are definitely faster and more exciting than a kayak run. If I put glide wax on the bottom of my boat, it may change the equation.
Without deep powder, steering is possible, but sketchier. I took a run down a south slope that had crusted over and found myself going down the hill backwards with next to no control.
So far, deep powder and steep slopes have equaled the most fun for me, including one run where I went down slope in a chest-deep mass of churning snow.
While deep and steep snow has made for the best kayak runs for me, that stuff is also the hardest to drag a kayak through.
What I’d like to try next:
At some point I’d like to graduate to a double-bladed kayak paddle, though I doubt I’ll find anything cheap enough that I’d be willing to sacrifice anytime soon.
I’d also like to try setting a luge track in the hill and build banked turns with a shovel. It’d be fun to get up some speed without having to worry about steering so much.
I’m both excited and terrified to see what happens when I finally melt some glide wax onto the bottom of the kayak. I have a feeling that it will be a wild ride.
Fresh cherry tomatoes ripen on the vine within in my small garden
I’m not a huge fan of the caterpillar holes in my kale, the little green turds that the caterpillars leave, or the sight of their fat, green bodies crawling around the leaves as they chew out sections.
I pluck the leaves anyway, washing them thoroughly before I chop them into my stir-fry.
I’m such a half-assed gardener.
I take my bike out in the morning, peddling over to the greenhouse that my neighbor built, fill watering cans in the rain-barrels and wave them recklessly over the tumbled greenery. If I should cross an unlucky caterpillar, I’ll crush it between my fingers. I acknowledge the invasive Canada thistle and the inroads that it has made among the useful plants. I should take care of that before it gets out of hand.
Two-thirds of the greenhouse is actually weeds. My neighbor, who set up most of the infrastructure I’m using, is taking a year off from organic farming so that he can catch up with other business commitments. I have commitments too: to work, to the ultra marathon training earlier this summer, as well as my recreation and leisure time. The latter can be demanding.
Hence, I’d thought it wise not to try and take the entire greenhouse under my management. The weeds get their portion and I work to make a decent garden out of mine.
Maintaining a small empire allows me to improve on domestic policy rather than wage costly (in effort) foreign wars on the weeds outside my borders. I provide my subjects with water, pruning and some weeding and insect pulling. I tax them by harvesting their leaves and fruit.
I walk among the ranks of kale when I get back from work in the early evening.
If my garden were Dubai, the kale would be the oil coming out of the ground. It keeps on giving. I’d emptied out the entire packet of kale seeds at the start of the season when I figured that this would be the best way to make sure that something grew. Also, I don’t mind eating kale all the time. In fact, I eat it almost every night.
Behind the kale in productivity, I have my cherry tomatoes, which add color and panache to my cooking. The fruit grows in orange clusters — and I’m not just using the technical sense of the word when I call it fruit. It is deliciously sweet, the way an orange or apricot is sweet, but in its own tomato-y way. I’ll eat them off the vine, or put them in a stir-fry, leaving them whole in the frying pan to trap the flavor beneath the skin.
The peppers are small and few, an occasional treat. Small cantaloupes and muskmelons fatten on the vine.There were about a dozen ears of sweet corn also. Not the best yield by Monsanto’s standards, indeed not a great yield for the standards a dedicated gardener, but for I’ll take what I have.
It can be hard to find the chance to tend garden when you live life on the move. Because I rent in this state, haven’t been here long, and plan to move again soon, it is hard to motivate myself to build soil beds, erect fences, or undertake any such long-range improvements that can only benefit me for one season.
If I stayed in one place, I could allow improvement to build upon improvement. The work put into bettering the soil one year can improve yields for years to come.
On the flip side, it is harder to build on success when you are starting over each season. There are the many hours of repeat work that goes into new fencing, new pots, new work clearing a plot of land for planting. The gardener who stays rooted in one place has more time to learn the challenges and character of the land.
The rooted gardner is also in a better position to comment about the changing environment. Such people have an investment to protect. They develop what naturalist Aldo Leopold describes as a “Land Ethic,” wherein farmers, hunters and gatherers learn to protect the land not only because they profit from it, but of the love they develop for it over time. That relationship drives them to stay and fight where others would look for new soil to dig up.
It is easy for rooted folks to distrust the drifter, someone who could chop down the family orchard for a quick buck, and move on to the next venture.
Now, more than ever, our money and our sense of gratification, move at light speed. A package from Amazon arrives far quicker than the time it takes a flower to become a fruit. We can reward ourselves with a thousand clicks online with less effort than it takes to cook dinner.
I realize, though I loathe admitting it, that this impatience is very much a part of me. Many times, when I was digging the ground or putting seeds in, I wondered if I would get distracted by something and let the garden fall by the wayside.
It was the sight of those first green shoots pushing up through the dirt that built my commitment. If I neglected the garden then, I would be failing the life that I had propagated. I needed to keep it around long enough so I could eat it.
One blessing I found in the garden, was that the plants I’d put in the ground had their own interest in being alive. As the plants began asserting themselves, I had less work to do. Perhaps, I had put the kale seedlings a little closer together than ideal for growth, but this helped crowd out the weeds.
And eventually, even my half-assed gardening yielded food, mostly the kale, which has come in fast enough so that I can eat it every night. And why not? It tastes great in stir-fry, it’s healthy, and a few bug holes don’t ruin it.
Fresh veggies are expensive here in Northeast Minnesota. Taking this one expensive item off my grocery list has saved me hundreds of dollars without compromising healthy eating. The cherry tomatoes, which develop quicker than full-sized ones, are a nice investment too. If one cherry tomato goes bad, it’s far less of a loss, than if it had been a beefsteak.
Which isn’t to say that I don’t think about how much more the garden could have given if I’d put more time into it. The other day, I helped tend a garden at a nearby home where potatoes, beets and onions grew in abundance. Such root vegetables, seemed like a pretty good investment for a small amount of time.
I can look at that well-manicured garden and think, “good job,” reflecting that hard work was rewarded in kind by nice yields. Those fruits are worth more than mine, because they were tended with an abundance of love, focus and dedication.
My garden could be a parable of human failure, how our throwaway society has instilled in us the fallacy of expecting much reward for little work. But I am in no mood to expound upon the garden I don’t have. The treasures from the real garden, however modest, motivate me better. It is a lazy yield, but it is my own. Therefore, I will take that bite of caterpillar-damaged kale, stir-fried with cherry tomato, and I’ll think, “Not bad.”
Photo from “Watch Your Step,” a 2010 Tom’s On The Move post about a trip to Yannapaccha in Peru’s Cordilleras Blancas.
Pop some bubbly, throw confetti; drink enough of the bubbly to get teary-eyed over the speeches; give some one else the car keys.
It’s the fifth anniversary of Tom’s On The Move.
When a wildly successful media outlet such as mine has been in the business long enough, celebration is in order. I started Tom’s on The Move as some guy who went on small-scale adventures — climbed mountains here and there, liked running, went kayaking and skiing and on overnight trips. The launch of the website not only kickstarted a lucrative career as a paid outdoor writer, it also financed several international expeditions with sponsors breaking down the doors to get on board. There have been those amazing new species of plants and animals I discovered, the late night television appearances. Then there is the influence that comes with my memberships on various government and corporate boards who lean on my expertise to make sound decisions on outdoor and environmental matters.
I’ve also been lying for several sentences now, a great way to spice up otherwise mundane travel accounts.
When I wonder what has kept me posting five years worth of irregular dispatches from this irregular life, I hope doesn’t account for all of it. No. Because, I can look at where I’ve been and what I’ve done, smile and then let the truth fall: I’m dissatisfied.
If I actually expected fame and fortune to emerge from authoring small adventure blog, then I richly deserve dissatisfaction. Rather, I am dissatisfied because I can put all these blogs together and see a series of disjointed movements that failed to carry me decisively in one direction.
There are individual efforts against mountain peaks or the last miles toward the finish line. After Point A, many trials and tribulations, moments of doubt, until —at last!— Point B.
I’ve lurched out for many of these Point B’s, which are there, because, well, if there is no Point B, then it’s pointless. I’ve tried to discipline my entries into this format so that readers know what they are getting into, what’s at stake.
What I haven’t defined is the larger Point B. Where is Tom (and Tom’s On The Move) ultimately moving? Where should it go?
Over the mountain, through the canyon
Finding physical challenges have been one journey. I like pushing my body, especially when it comes to endurance. That motivation might be as simple as, ‘I can do this, but other people can’t.’
I also like the feeling of doing something hard, feeling mind and muscle working together. Challenges like mountains, or else long days on the trail or the water reveal what is possible, force us to become aware of limits.
While I have enjoyed getting better at things like running, and even getting into cross-country skiing this year, I know that I am still nowhere near the limits of what I can do, especially if I devoted more time, effort and knowledge to pushing myself.
My tent at a mountain lake in the Wyoming Big Horns.
To know what’s there
Adventures are a great way to build awareness of nature. Again, I have much to learn. I read science news about ecology, thumb through nature guides, read works about how humans have been destroying a fabric of life they hardly understand. Yet, I am a long way from being able to look at a pond scene or forest canopy, and understand even a fraction of what is going on. Such ignorance makes me wonder how we can justify traveling beyond our backyards if we can’t even name all the flowers growing there.
A couple years back, I noticed that most of my favorite writers were very strong when it came to descriptions of the natural world, whether I read Cormac McCarthy, Edward Abbey, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky or Robert Frost.
My appreciation of this is no doubt linked to biologist E.O. Wilson’s concept of biophillia, an innate love of nature that comes hardwired into our brains. Even the writers that we don’t commonly think of as nature writers often draw profundity in natural beauty.
I took a canoe out in the Boundary Waters the other day and let myself drift out in the middle of a big lake with no man-made objects in sight. No distractions but my own thoughts. It was amazing how that act changed my self-conception, calmed me, quieted the inner turmoil of disjointed thought. How much more valuable that time would have been, if I could have lost myself for a week instead of half a day.
It is hard to overlook how contemporary society is dissociated from nature, unable to understand how it works or how to survive in it, and the environmentally destructive choices that this society makes.
Mud nests in a Badlands canyon,
Becoming a better writer
Contemplation isn’t the end goal, however. It is only a tool that helps build understanding. Writing thoughts down is the best way that I’ve found to build clearer thinking.
An English professor of mine once said that learning writing is actually learning how to think. I often don’t realize contradictions in my thoughts, until I write them. Often, solving the contradiction is a process of going through the grammar and editing sentences.
The act of writing about an experience builds upon it. Without writing, I could be a passive consumer of events. When I know that I plan to write about something, I think differently about it. I try to be a more studious observer and I try to be more aware of my thoughts. I also imagine, you, dear reader, nodding along when you agree with what I’m thinking, or calling bullshit, when I write something that’s bullshit.
Some would argue that this is too self aware and risks creating artifice. I suspect that most of us already live through experiences self-consciously, whether we acknowledge it or not. We think about how we will caption the photos in Facebook albums (and who will like and comment on the post), think about how we will spin a heroic story to our friends when we get back from an adventure. We instinctively imitate the convenient archetypes that movies and books provide.
You’ll never see an entry on this site that goes like: “When I saw the bird take wing from the branch, it was the only thing I was aware of, the only thing that mattered.”
Bullshit.
I was actually thinking about how I could write that sentence in a way that would impress the readership, but subtle enough to avoid getting called out for pretense. I’ll stop being self-conscious when I’m unconscious, a state that is not conducive to productive writing.
My outdoor writing is a way to claim a stake in personal experience.
I could have all kinds of interesting thoughts sitting in a canoe in the middle of the lake, and I can be endlessly entertained by reading what great writer’s have to say about lakes and that’s nice. But, the real growth comes out of working with these inputs, repurposing them into an understanding I can call my own. If I am humble, I will acknowledge how much I owe the understanding to outside experience, the wisdom of forebears.
If I can put together an understanding that is persuasive enough enough, perhaps others will want to absorb it into their own.
We social mammals strive to be accepted, loved, understood. I want my writing to be a springboard for my values, to have a value that people can take away with them.
Thus, it is always a pleasure, when I hear that people have been reading my stuff, that they might have actually, enjoyed it. That keeps me from just saying, ‘To hell with it,’ and keeping a journal.
Ice formations I photographed in the Onion River Canyon this winter
Self-Discovery
There is still the risk that everything that comes out of my introspection and observation will be trite, cliched and obvious.
Yet, if I arrive at conclusions as the result of careful thinking, hours of writing, then at least I will feel the satisfaction of knowing that I own those values. I didn’t just pick them up at checkout and take them home with me. I got my fingers in the dirt, examining, questioning, cultivating.
If I can write about what I do, perhaps it will help me to better understand what makes me tick, better understand what the world around me is, how I am supposed to behave in it.
Alarm bells should go off whenever, I find myself writing about getaways. There is always something to get away from. More interesting to me, is finding a way to get a footing in the “real world” full of all its messy relationships, money transactions, positions of power, injustices and constant compromise.
The temptation to imagine that wilderness is some fantasia apart from our supermarket aisles and gas stations is dangerous because these are on the same planet, suffused with the same atmosphere, built on the same dirt. The car we drive despoils someone else’s eden with oil derricks. The more repulsive our mini-malls and office cubicles become to us, the more we feel the need to embrace the quiet lake.
But even on the quiet lake, the cacophony of our civilized white noise buzzes on through my head, even if nature helps to quiet it. The seemingly separate worlds permeate each other.
Both spheres have new challenges for me to face.
In the stories we read, it is challenge that reveals a character’s true nature. What decisions does the character make? What does the character learn about his/her nature?
If my true character has not become clear to me, it is because I have left too many challenges unanswered, or I haven’t picked the right one yet.
Again, looking over my own words helps guide my insight (and my internal editor warns me that the change in tone is too abrupt, too deus ex machina.) Now it seems that I can only ignore their message through willful blindness The quiet lakes and still un-despoiled mountains which have given me so much, deserve more from me. They deserve someone who doesn’t just write about them, but fights for them.
After all this thinking, there comes the the tough part, I must find a way to do what I believe in.
This is an open letter to you runners that I see out there on the same roads and trails that I run on, runners who wear the same running shoes, and some of the same clothes, who I will nod to in recognition of our kinship but who seem to deliberately ignore my friendly gesture, whose faces are stone and your hearts cold to a fellow runner.
What’s the deal with you guys?
When I say “hey,” or give some small but solemn nod that recognizes you for being out there, you just keep on trucking, like you never saw me or wish you hadn’t. It kind of hurts.
I’m the one who extended the simple gesture of courtesy and respect. And somehow, I’m the one who feels like the asshole after you run by with (can I risk stereotyping here?) your Under Armour tank top and earbuds. I am usually not in the mind to feel like an asshole, and transcend the negative feelings by hating you intensely. This is still not healthy, and running is about health. Thus, I will attempt to work my way out of this dark pit of anger by examining possible explanations for why you snubbed me.
1. You were way too in the zone
Of course! I see it now. You were just sooo in the zone baby, that you couldn’t spare the minutest energy for anything besides running your hardcore best. Nope, not even a nod. Was someone coming the other way? Whoa, sorry Brah, I was getting my cardio on too hard to even notice.
Well, sorry Brah, I totally can’t accept this one. If you were so totally in that zone that you didn’t register another human being coming up the road —probably the first in miles where I live — you’d have tripped over yourself a long time ago, or even swerved into a semi truck. I’d give you a pass if we were on a track, but these are the roads and you wouldn’t last long without some capacity to notice what’s around you.
FYI, I can push myself hard too, and guess what? Even in the most brutal, blistering workout I’ve still been able to make some kind of nod of acknowledgement to a runner coming from the other direction.
The point about awareness being necessary for survival runs both ways. If you literally couldn’t see me coming because you were completely wrapped up in the Jason Mraz playlist blowing through your earbuds, there are going to be problems when that truck backs out of the driveway in front of you.
2. You’re too badass to nod.
Nod to another runner? Hah! No other runner is worthy of my nod. The roads are where men crush each other to win glory. To nod is weakness. Glorious competitive men show no weakness. NEVER!
So this sport definitely gets its share of the Type A crowd. I’ve also seen many of the same very competitive people shake hands with their competitors at start lines of innumerable races, hang out with each other and even share a cool down jog afterwards. Respect need not be obliterated by competition. Such gestures like the ones I just mentioned and the nod add a layer of meaningfulness to the sport, and make it more appealing to me then if it were merely about sprinting to the front of the pack and to hell with the rest of ’em.
3. You’re too cool to nod.
I suspect that there’s another faction, though I lack direct evidence, that has an iconoclastic bent. These are the people who make a point of not saying “how are you?” because they know that statistically most of us don’t actually give a damn when we ask the question.
Is the nod a gesture with very little effort behind it? Guilty as charged.
It’s just a gesture, just like saying, “Have a nice day” or “I’m sorry for your loss” are gestures. However, such gestures are also conspicuous by their absence. When you leave me hanging after I give the nod, I feel cold inside. It’s the same as if you told me, “Have a bad day. Dick.”
You can keep running feeling cool about yourself, but you could also listen to the Beatles who would tell you, “it’s a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder.”
4. You think I’m trying to hit on you.
Hey, sorry to burst your bubble, but this nod’s not just for you; it’s for everyone out enjoying the fresh air like I am. It has nothing to do with how attractive anyone appears in form-fitting runner’s apparel. I’m not asking for a phone number or a too-long hug. Just a damn nod.
5. You’re just a terrible human being.
This is what I assume by default, when some one denies a nod, whether it’s true or not. Hopefully it’s not true. If it were, I would suggest that you look deep within your withered soul and try to find some good so you can cultivate it. Maybe some day you will realize that your fellow humans have as much claim on your attention as the heart rate metrics streaming from your performance watch.
6. You legitimately don’t know that nodding is the right thing to do.
I think a lot of you nod-less plodders look kind of new to running, so maybe I should cut you some slack. I won’t tell you the absolute worst things that I’ve thought about you.
But I will say this: Running ain’t just a way to work on cardio before you hit the weight room, and it’s not just about beating everyone to the finish-line (though it’s nice to try.)
You can also add color and enjoyment to your experience by noticing your fellow travelers in fitness. I dunno, maybe you could even run with one of them sometime.
The nod is really just an opening to a much larger, communal aspect of running, the kind that you see at cross-country meets, over post-race drinks and through the years of fellowship between groups of friends that get together for weekly runs year after year.
When I nod to you, even that brief acknowledgement should tell you that we do share something as we run across this disconnected/ connected world.
I woke up with the sound of howling wind bending the tree branches, the patter of rainfall on the roof of my Minnesota apartment. Temps were supposed to be in the high thirties that day. I was also planning to hit the trails for a weekly long run, putting in the miles that I’d need to compete in a 50-mile trail run on July 25.
If I was going to race this thing, I was going to have to train ruthlessly, to laugh at rainy days, hail, heat and other obstacles that stood in my way. I ate my large oatmeal breakfast and procrastinated the next couple hours inside reading Robert Frost poems.
Finally, at 11:30 am, I knew I could wait no longer, lurched outside with my guts sloshing from the big meal and started jogging up the pavement towards the woods. Nothing cramped or puked, so that was a good start.
I wore my Boston Marathon tech shirt, running shorts, a thin balaclava and my iridescent orange shell. I placed a small tube of Vaseline in the right pocket, along with some athletic tape (to prevent chafing and to splint any catastrophic ankle sprains respectively.) For the left pocket, I put a small baggie full of Trisquits. There was a compass strung around my neck too. It was probably unnecessary, but what the hell?
Soon I was cooking underneath all of my gear as I ran uphill.The rain had turned even the tiny streams into torrents, surging brown and furious as they flushed sediment down the slopes. One of these would almost be good for a kayak run, I thought, thinking of my new eight-foot whitewater boat that I was itching to use.
I traded the pavement for a logging road leading up into the woods, felt the ground squelch beneath my feet. The shoes would get soaked real thorough-like on this trip.
I kept running uphill for about a half a mile until I reached the Superior Hiking Trail (Also called the SHT or SHiT.) I turned north,towards nearby Leveaux Mountain and Oberg Mountain. I planned to run up the two of them and loop back home. This particular section of woods had a lot of maple trees growing and that meant that it was prime territory for wild leaks. I saw huge clumps of them, glowing radioactive green amidst the dull colors of the leaf litter.
I also saw puddles. Sections of the trail were completely submerged. It was possible to scamper delicately from root to rock to board and cross these areas with dry feet. This took too much time and there were too many puddles so I adopted a “fuck it” attitude for them.
The water splashing up my legs was cold, but not frigid and a nice antidote to the sweaty heat I was building up inside my shell.
I scrambled beneath the cedars at the base of Leveaux Mountain where the roots made for fancy footwork, jumped a fallen tree and bombed down a steep hillside to the Onion River, which was wild with rapids. Newly submerged boulders seethed with foam.
I ran up the other side and through another mile of puddles until I got to the parking lot at the base of Oberg. There was the loop I was planning to run; there was the sign pointing to the Lutsen Mountains ski resort in 6.8 miles on the SHT. I had to climb over Moose Mountain on the way. How ambitious was I feeling?
I pulled the Triscuits out of my left pocket and munched them while I pondered this. The run left a few permutations, including just going as far as Moose Mountain in less than three miles and turning back, or running down the ski slopes and down to the bike trail that could take me back to my apartment in eight miles.
I decided I’d figure these things out as I went.
Going past Oberg took me beneath two-hundred foot basalt cliffs on a windy downslope.
Trail running sometimes feels less like running and more like skipping and dancing. It really does.
I find myself putting my feet down to a weird rhythm and flinging my body around in a way that — well it isn’t dancing — but it feels like I’ve tapped into the harmony of the trail. You can call that a bunch of sentimental bullshit, but I mean it. The trail is my dance partner.
I know I look far from graceful out there, I flail my arms and I fall down plenty, but I love trail running for its weird contortions. There’s the stutter step before hopping a log, there’s twisting a foot at a weird angle to land perfectly between two roots while angling my body to divert my momentum away from the tree trunk. How satisfying it is to use mind and body together in order to navigate a sudden dip in the trail. The same principles apply to mountain biking, sking — well pretty much all the sports, but with running it’s just you and the shoes doing the work.
The trails are a nice change from road running where consistency of form is crucial to success. Out on the the trails, I feel at liberty to be delightfully irregular. I will jut an arm out to balance myself on a steep curve or drop into a crouch after a steep jump. I will swing my head out of the path of a tree branch before it slaps me in the face. I even switch to power hiking on the steepest hills, where I find that I can keep the same speed at a walk as I can hold running and with less effort.
Trails are obviously much slower for me than the roads, but I also feel like I can stick it out for longer on trails where there is plenty of variation in form an intensity. Those windy trails only let me go so fast in places and sometimes I’m happy for the enforced break.
The summit of Moose Mountain was draped in freezing fog, buffeted by wind. I found shelter in a ski patrol cabin where I ate more of my Trisquits and left some crumbs for psychological sustenance down the trail. When I stepped outside,I discovered an untied shoelace and barely had the strength in my freezing hands to re-knot it. The trail wound beneath basalt overhangs, then it crossed some of the black diamond ski runs. The machine-made snow hadn’t melted yet, was still packed firm against the slope. I was loathe to take that ride to the bare rock and brush waiting at the bottom. I broke a tree branch and used it as an ice axe (well, more of a dagger) and kick steps into the snow. I was able to cross two slopes like this no problem, but met my match on a patch of wet brush. The reeds all pointed downhill and down I went.
I descended the rest of the way down the mountain with greater caution. In the disorienting fog without a map, I used my compass to point myself north in the direction of the ski lodge.
Up from the valley below came the roar of the Poplar River. And lo! What a beautiful stretch of whitewater. The rapids looked like a healthy Class III with no obvious hazards (at least until the deadly canyon narrows that waited further downstream.) I feasted my eyes and even took some time out to do a bit of scouting.
Verily, there was a bounty of exciting opportunities for my new kayak and I, but that is a story for another day.
The trail switched back over various bridges, so I could drool into the whitewater, then I veered off to climb a miserable scrub hill in the direction of the road I wanted. In a short while, this road goes back to the SHT right where it crosses the river again at the place I like to call You Will Die Falls. There are a series of cascades here, boiling with angry water. Maybe a real pro could take this on, but on a high water day like this the name definitely fit.
I went back to grooving and jiving my way up Moose Mountain when the hunger hit. I drank my remaining Trisquit fragments and licked the precious salt off my fingers. I drank out of a creek halfway between Moose and Oberg, putting my head down in the silty flow. I wouldn’t have done this a year ago, but I’ve heard from many authorities that the risks of contaminated water in the wilderness have been greatly exaggerated.
Soon after, I found a half-trampled wild leak lying in the trail where a forager must have dropped it. I ate the bulb. ‘Wonder how long I could live on these things if I stayed out here,’ I found myself thinking.
The bonk was definitely coming on now. I knew the slightly out of body, fairly stupid feeling that comes at the end of a long workout where I haven’t refueled enough. Basically, the exercise had stolen the glucose that my brain would have been using otherwise, and now my brain was taking a vacation in La La Land.
“La la la,” I sang to myself.
I pictured someone paddling on the easy stretch of river leading up to You Will Die Falls.
“La la laaaAaaughh!”
The brain was draining, but I was familiar with the feeling, and this made it easier to deal with. I tried not to think hard about anything and pooled all my mental resources onto the Tripping and Falling Avoidance line item.
There were still miles of muck to spat through before I finished. It would be at least a 20-mile day and would take up about four and a half hours. Though I was tired, I knew from experience that I had enough to make it through.
I crashed through puddle after puddle and the cold water splashed up to my knees. I was long past giving a damn.
