It’s only a couple miles from my apartment to the Onion River, so I prefer not to drive there if I can help it.
I prefer not to drive if there is an inch of snow on the bike path, and I’m going to be pedaling through that snow carrying crampons and ice axes in my backpack. It’s all for the greater glory of the adventure, the doorstep adventure.
Doorstep adventure? That’s the term I’ve started using to describe any adventure that starts under my own power from the minute I leave the door. If I run from my apartment to the top of nearby Carlton Peak, that’s a doorstep adventure, but if I were to drive a couple miles up the road to the trailhead, than it’s not. The part where I was in my car wasn’t part of the adventure. That was driving.
Lately, I’ve been trying to make as many of my adventures into doorstep adventures as I can, whether it means running somewhere from my door, biking from my door or — eventually — skiing from my door.
It would be really cool if this blog were some influential publication that everybody read, because I think it would be neat to make the doorstep adventure into the hot new trend. It has that extra challenge of requiring people to cover more territory under their own power. Plus, it forces people to put more value on what is near to them, rather than coveting some far away place that they will need to burn many gallons of fuel to get to.
Little holes in this rock along the Onion River were caused by hot gasses in the lava before it cooled
By cutting cars, planes, aircraft carriers, whatever out of the adventure equation, the doorstep adventure keeps pollution out of the atmosphere. This, many would argue, should be kind of a goal for those who take the time to appreciate the natural beauty that pollution threatens.
For this particular adventure, I sought to fill a couple of hours traveling to the river, climbing up its frozen waterfalls, taking in some scenery and biking back from whence I came. Hardly a major expedition, it was far less of a commitment than some of the doorstep adventures of my past such as when I biked from the doorstep of the raft company where I’d worked in Utah and went out to Washington and Oregon; or more recently, when I left town with my girlfriend in October to spend five days on the Superior Hiking Trail. Kids’ stuff compared to the badassery of Göran Kropp who biked from home in Sweden to Mt. Everest, climbed it, and pedaled back.
Perhaps the greatest peril that I would face would be the ice patches along the bike path. Often people’s footprints or a tire tread coming out of a driveway would leave icy zones where I didn’t dare turn the handle bars or hit the brakes. Arguably, the breakdown lane on nearby Highway 61 would have been a safer travel option, but I was in no mood for huffing exhaust from semis or from all the non-doorstep adventurers traveling up the North Shore.
Progress was slow, but I made it to the trailhead without wiping out.
Reverse icicles as seen underneath a ledge along the falls
The Onion River carves a canyon a couple hundred feet deep through layers of dark gray basalt and pinkish rhyolite. Both types of stone are remnants of the billion-year-old lava flow that formed the basin where Lake Superior sits today.
The main trail went up and to the east ridge of this cut in the rock; my path was along the riverbed below.
Here I could look up at the gnarled cedars whose roots extracted their meager sustenance through cracks in the canyon walls, cedars that had grasped the walls in unreasonable over-leaning perches for centuries.
In places, the rock looked almost spongy, beset with tiny bubbles that had once been hot gasses fizzing out of the lava. When quartz or calcite sediment infiltrated these chambers, they left little stones within the stone: amygdaloids they call them. There were places where I could see constellations of these tiny gems embedded within the duller rock above my head.
The river itself was a scarce trickle beneath slabs of ice. There was the occasional place where the ice cracked and exposed a small piece of the rushing water beneath. Here, I would find animal tracks.
As I got further from the highway, I began to hear the murmurings of the hidden river. In places it thrummed like a drum, elsewhere, a quiet gurgle.
Icicles beneath a small overhanging ledge
I threw my pack off at the base of the frozen falls and dug out my gear. I made sure to sit on the pack, not the snow while attaching crampons to my feet.
It wasn’t a particularly steep climb, but going up the slick ice would have been next to impossible without the crampons and ice axes. I was wary of a couple places where I could see the water flowing beneath the curtain of ice. It would certainly suck to break through and get sprayed with cold water, or lose my grip and fall over backwards. Fortunately, there were other places where the ice was solid and the climbing was easy.
At the top of the first cascade was a plunge pool where the ice was a cracked, mushy yellow. Steep cliffs climbed up on both sides. I knew from swimming there in the summer that the water beneath that ice was well over my head, and was in no mood to go through with a backpack on my shoulders and a camera around my neck.
Either I would have to take my crampons off and Gollum-crawl along the steep ledge to get to the next falls, or I could trust the ice on the far left side, which was tilted slightly and looked sturdiest. I chose the later option, banging away at the ice in front of me with an axe before I trusted it with my weight.
The second set of falls was steeper and higher than the first. From the left side of the plunge pool, I had a somewhat awkward ascent between the weak ice where the water was flowing and an overhanging ledge — not a lot of elbowroom.
Stalagmites of clear ice lay beneath the ledge, including some that were wicked sharp at the point. Like some inlayed dagger, they shone with beauty and malice both.
I swung the axes into some solid holds and kicked my way up to the top of the ice, turned around to see the blue of Lake Superior shimmering above the birches.
Cedar trees along the canyon edge
That might have been a satisfying enough conclusion to the doorstep adventure. A spur-trail went back up to the main path and to where I’d left my bike. But I was curious about exploring further up the canyon.
While I had hiked along the top of the upper section here, I hadn’t gotten down to where the river moved between the narrow walls. Now the frozen water offered an easy way in.
Some things are worth waiting for. The canyon here had all the feeling of a sanctuary, the air still and soundless between the walls. The droning highway noise in the background as I climbed the icefalls was gone. One could well pretend that humanity itself had vanished in such a place. The only voice was the occasional gurgle that issued from some kettle beneath the ice.
A three-foot mound of frozen foam stood at the base of one falls. I nudged it with my axe and the blade moved through it as if through icy feathers.
Here and there, I saw overhangs, places where the canyon could offer shelter in poor weather (though the broken rocks at the bottom of these overhangs would make me think twice.)
Cedar needles dropped on the rock make for excellent moss-growing conditions
In another spot, a shallow cave lay a few feet above the riverbed. No doubt an earlier course of the river had carved that cave, its momentum coming down from the hills had brought it crashing down against the bedrock. I crunched up a small tongue of ice to crawl inside. I turned around to survey the scene from the cave mouth: tall, proud bulwarks of stone, the majesty of cedar and white pine growing out from the cliffs.
It was probably only a mile to the highway as the crow flies. Thousands of noisy, polluting cars went by here each day transferring people to the places they had to go, the places they thought they wanted to go.
Here in the canyon, I’d left the only set of human tracks.
A monument of frozen foam stands in the center of a plunge pool
A proper Thanksgiving, for me, has to start with a run.
Obviously, on a day that’s centered on consuming massive amounts of food, it makes sense to try to burn off some calories ahead of time. It is also helpful to get physically hungrier before sitting at a table where certain relatives will monitor your intake and ask questions like, “Are you sure you’re eating enough?”, when you don’t meet quota.
There is always something wholesome about getting out to breath the air, to take the scope of the land. But on a day like Thanksgiving, much of which is spent inside, sitting and watching other people play football, it is easy to fall into a daze of inactivity and cabin fever. I have an easier time accepting this when I’ve plopped a run into the bank a couple hours earlier.
My memorable Thanksgiving runs include the times in high school when I ran the 12 miles from home to my grandparents’ apartment with my dad. Later, I drove up to the 4.7-mile Manchester Road Race to spill my guts on the pavement against my college cross-country buddies. I also hit the roads at a local 5K when I lived in Wyoming. Even in a new place with new faces, it was comforting to keep the tradition going.
I left my apartment Thanksgiving 2014 with no plan in mind, one of my favorite ways to run.
There is plenty of territory to cover here on northern Minnesota’s north shore. The immense Superior National Forest, right outside my door, stretches up to the Boundary Waters and Canada. Some snowmobile trails in the nearby woods offered a good pathway to the wild. While there was some snow cover on them, there was not yet enough to accommodate the loud machines. The woods still belonged to the chittering squirrels, laughing woodpeckers and the hard breath of any runner who decided to puff up the grade from Lake Superior into the Sawtooth Mountains.
I thought about how the holiday had changed for me over the years. Once the kid who grabbed the turkey drumstick, I’d stopped eating meat in middle school. Some beloved faces left the dinner table as new ones joined.
Since I started living away from the New England in 2011, I haven’t been around for the family meals, though I’ve shared meals with new friends in new places and faithfully dropped a line to the old gang in Connecticut.
Unlike past years, I didn’t have an invite to anyone’s table (that’s what happens when you get to a new place, keep to yourself and read a lot.)
The tally of Grand Thanksgiving Traditions for 2014 stood thusly:
Thanksgiving Turkey? Nope.
Pumpkin Pie? Nope.
Macy’s Day Parade Viewing? Who cares?
Football Viewing? Ditto.
Shopping on Black Friday and or Thanksgiving Day itself? Hell no.
Sitting At The Family Table? Nope.
Sitting Amongst Friends? Nope.
Sitting At Any Table? Yes, a delightful meal for one consisting of butternut squash fresh-baked bread and stir-fry.
Calling in to The Family? Yes, I’d have a Skype chat with them later in the day.
Going Running? Hell yeah!
Seeing that running was one of the only common threads between past holidays made it feel even more important to observe the tradition.
Thanksgiving celebrates (among other things) the bounty of the harvest: think Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want” painting from the Four Freedoms series: a happy family gathered around the table brimming with food.
If I didn’t have the bursting table in front of me, I could feast my eyes upon bountiful landscape of Minnesota’s north woods in winter.
There were the immense cedars that had raised their twisted arms to the sun long before the Mayflower caught sight of Massachusetts; solemn stands of spruce and balsam fir; the aspen and birch whose bark flashed white against the late autumn illumination.
My tracks joined those of mice, voles and squirrels. Somewhere in that forest, packs of wolves were out, still stalking their native territory.
As for human souls, I might have run clear to Canada without seeing one.
Not caring to stop, I passed by the trails I’d known onto new territory. Every time I thought about turning around, some glint along the trail ahead that would tempt me further. The snow got deeper as I got further into the hills. Sometimes the crust held; sometimes it broke. I slowed to an awkward shuffle.
Eventually, I came to Six Hundred Road — a well-kept logging road that I’d biked on months earlier. I knew I could make a convenient loop by hooking right to the Sawbill Trail leading back to my apartment. Boring mashed potatoes. Turkey stuffing. I looked left to where dark spruce trees flanked the snowy lane. Yes, I could do with a helping of that.
I knew that there was an intersection with another logging road in a couple more miles, one that would lead me back to civilization. I’d be committing myself to about 16 miles of running though, longer than I’d gone since June. But I didn’t feel like I’d had my fill yet.
I took the road to the left, letting icicles accumulate on my beard and mustache. The road climbed steeply to the top of “Heartbreak Hill” so-named because it had been the heartbreak of old loggers who tried to sledge timber up the steep grade.
In another couple miles, I came to the intersection with the other logging road, where I could look all the way down (about five miles as the crow flies) to Lake Superior.
I ran downhill for a few miles, and then split off onto the Superior Hiking Trail along the frozen Temperance River. I indulged in several stops to look at icefalls and appreciate the meringue-like formations in the frozen foam.
For the last course of my run, I made a point of running the rest of the way down to Lake Superior.
The snow had almost disappeared along the lake’s edge, but the lakeside rocks were shellacked with ice. Wisps of steam climbed into the single-digit air, and obscured the horizon into a dreamy blur.
I walked out onto a dock and stood there tired in the sun.
I grab my paddle off the ramp, and prep for battle
I slid the red 16-foot sea kayak down the boat ramp as 8-foot rollers smashed into the break-wall at the edge of the tiny harbor.
A sudden rush of water snatched at the boat but I stomped it before it got away. You’re not going out there without me, buddy. I’d already committed to doing what others (and maybe this writer) might have considered the ultimate confluence of boredom, idiocy and pride.
Maybe the dark walls of water curling over and slamming the rocks in monolithic plumes of spray were nature’s way of saying, “Don’t mess with this.” Ditto the gale warning up on the National Weather Service or the fact that surface temps for Lake Superior’s North Shore in September had already dropped to 48-degrees. There wasn’t much margin for error.
On another milder day, I knew that I could swim to shore with a flipped kayak, or get back in. I’d practiced tipping my boat and getting back inside when there was 3-foot surf and executed Eskimo rolls, mostly successfully in the same conditions.
Looking at the raging lake, I had less confidence that I’d be able to do any of those things. If I flipped, I might have to surrender my boat and swim back through breaking waves as my body started going stupid and useless in the cold water.
My girlfriend had come along (Christ, if there were ever a reason to do something dumb) with my camera around her neck (there’s another one.) If this was about showing off, I deserved to flip, so I hoped I wasn’t.
I’d given her a line to throw and a lifejacket to wear in case I got close to shore, but couldn’t save myself. Not that this built much margin of safety. I thought about how it was selfish to give her this equipment, as it made someone else shoulder the risk I was taking.
The selfishness of going out also included the possibility of screwing up in such a way that an emergency call would send first responders over the dangerous lake to recover my dumb ass.
So now that I had established that I was a stupid, selfish person, it was time to get out there and do what I’d come for.
The breakwater took the brunt off the big stuff, but it also made for chaotic currents within the harbor.And to the breach …
I eased myself into the boat and popped my spray skirt on as quickly as I could. A couple of scoots down the concrete ramp and I could paddle forward.
The sea kayak, which normally feels bombproof in the waves, felt immediately unreliable, sensitive to the confused currents swirling around the harbor. I wasn’t even past the breakwater yet.
That jagged pile of quarried stones, was absorbing most of the fury from the waves. A concrete pier to my right further insulated me from the melee.
A wave roared up against the barrier and struck with surround-sound percussion as white spray erupted to the sky. The water surged through the rocks and at my boat, diminished but still powerful. I girded myself by thrusting the paddle down in the classic “low-brace” that kayakers use to stop their boats from turning turtle.
I paddled forward as the reflected waves and confused currents tugged at me, bracing myself now and again as more waves came in.
But I felt confident. Fear had made me hyper-vigilant. If I could stay afraid without panic, I had a chance.
As soon as I left the breakwater’s protection, I’d be in the zone where the waves were curling over. If I were going to flip, it would probably happen here.
I leave the sanctuary of the harbor.
As soon as I got out, I spun around to face the waves (this is important) before the boat tilted upward on the edge of an enormous breaker. I charged my attacker, and made it three-quarters of the way up, before it curled. The water splashed over my sprayskirt against my belly, but I made it through.
There was thunder in my ears as the wave exploded onto the jagged shoreline a dozen feet behind me. If I’d come through one second later, that would have been the end of the ride.
I sprinted forward a few more yards before the next wave came. This time, the kayak cleared the top before I came down the other side. The further I got from shore the less chaotic the waves were, giving me a better chance of staying upright. Of course, further from shore also meant further from safety.
The breakwater appeared and disappeared in my vision as the waves heaved around it. I realized that my boat was hidden from shore most of the time, concealed in the rolling canyons of agitated water.
As I went up and over another swell, a wind gust conjured a ghost of spray up off its dark back. The cold mist swirled around my cheeks in sinister caress. There was hardly time to look around, but when I did, I saw an endless battlefield. Wave regiments charged stone ramparts under banners of spray. Their explosions marched up and down the shore.
I knew I wanted to head back soon, but was afraid to turn the boat side-on into the waves. I gathered my wits for a minute, paddled further out, then jammed my paddle in and spun the boat quick as I could. One wave came up on me before I completely executed the turn. I lanced it with my paddle and thrust down against the flat of the blade, stabilizing the boat — barely.
I lean into the breaking wave with a low brace.
I paddled toward the harbor with extreme caution, sometimes back paddling to kill momentum. The swells coming up from behind me gave me the option to try to surf one in. A fun ride, but no thanks. Not with the waves detonating against the rocks.
Another wave pushed me forward and grabbed the back of my boat. I leaned into it and fought back with the paddle to avoid going sideways. Or under. The nose pointed up again and I paddled for the harbor with all I was worth.
The top of the wave curled over my boat and I had to go backwards to avoid being thrust forward into the break zone. I rocked sideways as it exploded onto shore right in front of me. Crap! The lake was pushing me into the bad place
I tried to spin my nose back into the waves, but only got so far before the next one caught me.
The wall of water lifted my boat and then exploded underneath as it curled over. I felt the kayak tilt sideways as the spray flew up. This is it, I’m going under, I thought. But instincts were on my side. I thrashed the water with a desperate high-brace, throwing my paddle out and down to fling myself back upright. This also jerked a spasm of pain through my shoulder blade. Yes, I could see how kayakers got dislocations from playing in the surf.
I barely had time to finish turning the boat into the waves, when the next one yanked my nose up and crashed over me. All I saw was white; the boat went sideways again; again, I saved myself with a high brace.
I came back up and turned myself around. The protected area behind the breakwater was tantalizingly close; only a couple yards away, but I didn’t dare turn my boat parallel to the waves. Instead, I started draw stroking — paddling the boat sideways toward safety. It was slow progress, but it was progress.
The outermost rocks took some of the edge off the next wave, though I still had to brace and the reflected waves within the harbor were nearly as treacherous as their progenitor.
I wrestled with the conflicting currents and spun my boat around amidst more reflecting waves. I saw the concrete ramp and sprinted in, driving the boat up. My hands went to the front strap of the spray skirt and yanked. I swung my legs out of the cockpit, and ran up the ramp, dragging the boat behind before the next wave pulled it back.
My girlfriend and I hugged each other through our lifejackets. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so grateful to be on land. My heart still thudded like a jackhammer and my limbs were tingling.
I noticed a pickup truck parked nearby with the window rolled down and an older guy behind the wheel wearing a strange expression.
Oh great, I thought. Here comes the ‘You are stupid’ speech.
Sure enough, the guy asked me something, but I couldn’t hear against the waves. I walked closer.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Why did you do it?”
Excellent question. I hadn’t exactly made up my mind about that one. It might have been too many slow days on the North Shore, guiding groups out on pancake-flat water. Maybe, I had worried that I still hadn’t earned my stripes as a “serious kayaker.” It also could have been that attractive power of dangerous things.
“I wanted to find my limits,” I answered.
“Well, did you find them?”
I let out a puff of breath.
“Yeah. I found them alright.”
He nodded and I might have seen something like respect in his expression.
“Good. I almost called Search and Rescue. You’re not going back out there are you?”
“No. No way I’m doing that again.”
“Good.” He said, and pulled away, leaving me dripping on the shore, just out of reach from the waves crashing in. They could rule the lake unchallenged.
I try to maneuver back into the harbor without flipping
I dipped the spoon in deep for a dollop of chocolate ice cream, brought it to my lips, and slurped it off the cold metal.
Damn. It had been too long.
A year had gone by since August 2013 when I stopped eating dairy and eggs, transitioning from mere vegetarian to full-on vegan.
Veganism: a life of plant-based everything, fortified by the occasional ration of vitamin B12. In this existence, most restaurant menus are lists of food I cannot eat. When I finally make an order, I might have to ask the chef to hold the cheese or creamy mayo sauce. To dine with new acquaintances is to step into a barrage of questions like, “Why would you want to stop eating bacon?” and “Do you feel sorry for the plants you eat?”
But hey, even we austere, pleasure-hating vegetable eaters need the occasional moment of release.
The ice cream is a marvelous substance, a halfway point between frozen crystals and syrup. It enters cold, and then melts down to sweet treacle, triggering the pleasure receptors usually reserved for carnal knowledge. Carnal, carne, meat.
I should mention that the stuff I was eating was also made with coconut cream, not dairy. It was completely vegan.
Maybe you thought this was going to be some weepy blog post about how I gave up my vegan diet, about how I just missed animal products too much and had to give in?
Sorry, assholes. I’m in this for the long haul.
But why? Why would I cut away these fundamentals like cheese or eggs from my diet? Why deny myself?
The simplest way I can answer this question is that I am trying to take and need less from this world. Some day I want to believe I give as much as I take, but for the past years I’ve felt like I’ve taken more than I can justify. Until I start paying back the debt that I owe, the best that I can do is cut my spending.
Veganism costs less for the planet than eating animal products because animals have to eat 10 pounds of food in order to yield one pound of meat, dairy or eggs. In other words, meat takes roughly 10 times the amount of energy to produce as other food.
I’m not making that up. Check any biology textbook. Google the Trophic Pyramid.
I’ve driven through the corn and soybean monoculture that defines the American Midwest, mile upon mile of desolate brown fields in May, soon to grow up and get their rations of pesticide and fertilizer. Some of that land goes to the corn on the cob I buy at checkout, some to soy burgers for vegans; most of it goes into the feeding trough of fattened livestock.
I’ve seen western landscapes torn up and eroded beneath the hooves of grazing livestock, their shit running into every creek. Meanwhile, the headlines buzz about ranchers shooting wolves and other native species so that they can protect the bottom line. I spent months tending chickens at a farm in New Mexico, feeding them enormous sacks of corn and wheat so they could yield a fraction of that nutritional value in eggs. None of these experiences have given me warm, fuzzy feeling about the livestock industry.
I’ve heard arguments about how meat, eggs, etc. can all be more sustainable. Maybe innovations like methane digesters and responsible grazing practices can bring down the environmental costs of these products. On the other hand, most meat doesn’t come this way. I don’t want to spend my time picking and choosing which hamburger caused slightly less pollution when I know that I can make a stronger statements by cutting hamburgers out of my diet right away. Rather than wait for the agriculture conglomerates to build a sustainable utopia of responsibly harvested meat, I’d prefer to cut their products out of my diet.
And hunting? I’m not foolish enough to declare that all hunting is wrong. Nor can I deny that many hunters develop a connection to nature by studying their game (not all the guys I saw cruising along the New Mexico roads with guns waiting so they could shoot things from the convenience of their pick up trucks.) As a personal decision, however, I still don’t like the idea of pulling a trigger on a living being unless it was absolutely necessary for my survival. The same argument goes for eating animals in general. If I don’t need to kill animals to live, why should I do it?
Am I compromising my health doing this? This sickly, malnourished vegan pulled off a 2:38 PR marathon this year. I built it on the most demanding running regiment that I’d subjected myself to.
I have regular bowel movements, feel good most days and get the food I need to continue to fuel a physically demanding kayak-guiding job.
Even if I’ve got my good health, others might ask whether I am depriving my soul of some excellent fare.
Actually, the more months that I stay vegan, the less I miss the old diet. Bacon strips and provolone slices don’t dance the Macarena in my head at night. I don’t clutch myself in the throes of hamburger withdrawal or gnash my teeth over the pizza I’m not eating.
There are inconveniences, mostly when it comes to visiting others’ places or sometimes going to a restaurant (most of the time, I can make it work out alright.)
I find such inconveniences necessary, even reassuring. They give my convictions meaning. I’d rather not be pampered all the time. Life can’t always be coconut ice cream and that’s OK. Too many Americans worship convenience and self-indulgence, spurred on by relentless advertising. They see the slow-mo close-up of cheese melting over ground beef in a TGI Fridays commercial while some unseen fat guy narrates: “Here it is. You want it. It’s your right to have it. This is what makes you free.”
I prefer the freedom to know that I don’t need something, rather than to always have it, and become dependent.
The question “why would you do that?” as it pertains to veganism, is really “why would you commit the heresy of depriving yourself of a pleasure?” I am arrogant enough to believe my convictions are worth more than the fact that something tastes good.
Whether or not I’ve made a sacrifice this past year, most of the time, I don’t imagine that I’m depriving myself.
I’ve doubled down on my stir-fries, relish every morning that I wake up with peanut butter oatmeal. I know that I still have some bad eating habits, and there are other decisions that I could make about food (and a lot of other things) in order to improve my impact on the environment. I’ve heard plenty of arguments that go something like, “You care enough to be vegan, BUT…” which actually teach me something about responsible food.
In fairness to the doubters, I also once thought that a vegan diet would be prohibitively demanding. As someone who once loved all things cheesy and (even further back) a good burger, I can understand why others would think that there is no way no how that they could cut animal products out of their diets.
I discovered how simple and satisfying the vegan diet could be by starting to eat like a vegan. For the skeptics, the best I can say is, ‘try it.’ You might find that it’s easier than you think.
The kayak bobbed up and down on rolling three-foot swells as I paddled along the basalt cliffs of Lake Superior.
It was almost 9 p.m. but at the end of June on the North Shore, that still left me at least a good hour of decent light before the darkness. The ostentatious lake homes to my right gave way to depopulated state forest, where raggedy birch and aspen flashed the underside of their leaves in the offshore wind.
Then I found my cool place. It’s a break in the cliffs where the millennia of pounding surf have blasted out an alcove. There’s a rock shelf, leading up to a living room-sized space, where a visitor can stand underneath an overhang, protected from any rainfall, wrapped up in the shadow of the stone.
I paddled closer.
Waves flew in at the rock and exploded up like fireworks. Water piled up on the shelf and then flowed backwards, creating a small outward current above the waves’ up-down motion.
Even bobbing in the surf, I could still make out the telltale patch of white in the alcove’s gloom. There was ice here.
Ice! And it was almost Independence Day.
The frigid legacy of the 2013-14 winter still lingered where the ledges protected it from the sun. Maybe 20 pounds of the stuff was left now, and it was vanishing drip by drip into the lake, which had pushed it up here.
Only a few months before, Superior had been completely frozen, all 32,000 thousand square miles of it. It was the first time this had happened since 1979.
I had to get out for a closer look.
I approached the rocks with the caution of someone coming up on a dangerous animal. I would need to get up on shore right behind a wave and get out quickly before the next one crashed over me.
I popped my spray skirt off at 10 feet away; then got my feet out of the cock pit, while my butt was still in the seat, ready to swing out of the boat with acrobatic ease. Of course, nothing works as prettily as it’s supposed to.
I landed in waist deep water on an algae-slick stone slope. I almost fell over right there, but managed to steady myself against the boat — just in time for the next wave to slam it against my hips. Using a set of ballerina steps, I managed to mince my way up the rock while keeping the boat perpendicular to the waves. I finally heaved it onto the rock in front of me and dragged myself up after it.
The waves were still grabbing up the boat several feet up the ledge, so I ended up pulling it even further, before I decided it was safe to let go.
The alcove is hardly the grandest place around, not even on Lake Superior, which boasts massive sea-caves around the Apostle Islands and Tettegouche State Park. Still I was pleased to walk past the curtain of drips from above into the darker recesses. There, I could look back over the miles of water to the horizon line. The silhouetted rock framed this beautifully.
The waves had wrought a pillar out of one section of the wall, which was a nice architectural flourish. Then there was the ice. It was mostly white, though there were some transparent parts along the edges. I photographed it next to a kayak paddle to remember it. Soon it would be gone, and this made me sad.
Some of the last ice left on Lake Superior, June 30
I was proud too. No one I’d talked to about the lakeshore had mentioned this little alcove. I’m sure I was the only one who knew that there was still ice here. The place was easy enough to overlook from a motorboat skipping along the waves at high speed.
As for accessing it from land, it would be difficult, dangerous work to try to descend the walls.
I found it. Maybe this could be my place.
No, I hadn’t carved the rock, or kept the ice sequestered there, but I still felt a strange sense of ownership. The feeling is familiar to anyone who “discovers” a dive bar, a band or maybe a continent and feels like he deserves some credit for appreciating it before his friends do.
Of course, I needed to bring said friends along so that they could appreciate it too. The problem is that then, the place is no longer undiscovered, it is no longer has the quality of being unique and unknown. Imagine John Wesley Powell revisiting the Grand Canyon to find tour buses and T-shirt vendors lining the south rim.
I wish I could say I was strong enough to be an exception to this trend. I’ve been guiding customers on kayak trips along the shoreline. Could I really keep this under my hat? Already, I thought about how cool it would be to show the people in my group the last ice on Lake Superior.
Sure enough, as soon as I got back to my apartment, one of my housemates asked what I’d been up to and I told him about the ice I’d found. I couldn’t resist showing photos of the alcove to the other guides, who — unlike me — had not discovered it yet.
I wondered if I’d keep my mouth shut for the next guided tour. When I found that I was with a stronger group and we still had plenty of time left at the turn-around point, I asked if anyone was interested in going to an interesting formation a bit further down the shoreline.
I pointed to the remaining ice in the alcove and got murmurs of appreciation mixed with wonder from the visitors. It was July 1 now and the ice wasn’t going to last much longer.
Satisfying as it was to see others enjoy the ice, I knew that it was just another part of the package for them. Rambling across it myself made me feel like I’d owned a part of it, though now the guests had a claim on it as well.
Well, sharing can be a virtue also, I suppose.
In any case, not many more got to say they saw the ice. The last of it melted off during the first hot days that rolled in ahead of the Fourth of July.
Looking out at the kayak from the back of the alcove
Other people who have run Grandma’s Marathon told me that the worst part about the race is that you can basically see where the race ends from 10 miles out.
The finish line is right next to Duluth, Minnesota’s classic lift bridge, a hulking steel behemoth that is easy to spot approaching town from the northeast on Lake Superior. Many runners see the bridge and it’s like the horse smelling the barn, so I’m told. They pick up the pace; it’s way too soon; and they pay for it over the last miles.
Other runners see the enormous bridge as a tiny blip in the distance and realize that they still have a loooong waaaaaay to go. This brutal fact seeps like poison into their brains, as sure as lactic acid will seep into their struggling muscles.
There would be a reprieve today however. The lakeshore was swallowed up in a soggy blanket of 45-degree fog. I wouldn’t see the bridge until I was downtown, chugging through the last example.
The lift bridge may sound like a silly thing to worry about, but the runners’ stories made sense to me. I know that the mind can go on weird loops when it’s under severe stress in a repetitive activity like marathon running. For me, this often takes the form of a question: “what if I dropped out now?” which I ask myself every quarter-mile or so. Doubt amplifies this.
What doubts would I have?
For starters, I knew there would be virtually no chance that I would set a personal record on the course. I simply hadn’t done the 80+-mile weeks and the speed work that had set me up for my 2:38:19 finish in Boston back in April. My longest run had been 18 miles, and I had felt pretty dead-legged at the end. I had deliberately avoided the marathon book and logging my miles because I figured that if I compared my last effort with this one, I would have lost all motivation. I hoped that I would finish in the 2:40s, that I wouldn’t bonk mid-race, or realize that I should have ditched running for the last couple of months and done something better with my time.
I think back to the oft-quoted line from 5K wunderkind/tragic figure Steve Prefontaine: “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift” — no doubt, inspiring words to the five-year old sewing them onto a T-shirt in a Bangladeshi sweatshop. Cynicism aside, I’m sure Pre was sincere about what he said. The sonofabitch showed it when he hit the track.
Pre’s immortal quote didn’t sit well with my actual Grandma’s Marathon training plan, which was to do what I wanted after Boston and then work out semi-diligently in the weeks leading up to the race without trampling over other life-commitments.
For starters, I had my adventures in Utah to take care of. After that, I drove north to Minnesota where I started work as a kayak guide on Lake Superior’s north shore. The job certainly doesn’t make it impossible to run, but sometimes, after a day of hauling boats and giving instructions, it can be nice to save some time for cooking a good dinner or catching up with reading – not lacing up for another 12-mile run with a 6-mile pick-up.
When I did run, I felt a stiffness and sluggishness no doubt left over from Boston training. The soles of my feet ached when I went downhill. Some days still felt strong, but there were fewer of these days than there had been earlier in the year when I was hungry for a Boston PR.
If I wasn’t going to put the same time and effort in that I had reserved for earlier races, maybe I would have been better served spending more time kayaking, hiking or writing. And yet, I still believe that running doesn’t have to be the center of one’s life in order for it to have value. I was interested to see how I incorporated a less demanding running regimen into my daily schedule.
I found myself taking time to enjoy some trails and to stop once or twice to admire views of waterfalls around Lake Superior, or the lake itself. I wondered if I should let Boston be my fastest marathon and move on to other life goals.
The start line was the usual horde of people in bright synthetic clothes, cloaked in garbage bags for warmth. The chill gray sky and drifting fog reminded me of so many autumn cross-country meets, so did the mud. Enormous speakers blatted out “Eye of The Tiger” and the “Rocky” theme, while runners spread plastic bags out on the sodden grass so there would be somewhere dry to sit.
At least half of the racers were lined up at the portable toilets at a given time. I went through one line, but relegated myself to the woods for subsequent trips. Yeah, it wasn’t what the race planners wanted. Maybe they should have rented some more fuckin’ toilets.
The race started with an airhorn. I took a shuffling start amidst the other runners. Since the race start was self-seeding, people were supposed to follow the honor system and line themselves up at the start according to what they thought they would run. Me, I put myself just in front of the 2:50 mark. Not everyone had been so honest, I thought as I weaved through the shufflers.
My first mile was 6:40. Conservative. I was pretty sure I could hold a faster pace on the way to the finish and started turning my feet over faster.
Over the next miles, I started drifting up through the ranks. I felt the first edge of fatigue come on around eight miles in. No doubt, that would hurt plenty by the time I got to 20 miles.
At least I didn’t have any hills to worry about. Grandma’s is mostly flat, with the only the gentlest of undulations as the course follows the shoreline. Race veterans (the same ones who warned about the lift-bridge) told me to look out for Lemon Drop Hill at around Mile 20. I drove over it the day before, and barely noticed the rise.
A slight tailwind nudged me along the course.
I waited for the death twinge in my muscles or a massive bonk to come down on my shoulders and crash my good times, but felt pretty with it. A few groups of runners passed me, but by the time I was 15 miles in, I was gaining more places than I was losing. I chugged a couple cups of Powerade so I’d be able to dodge the wall.
By 19 miles, I had to make a stop to void my holdings at a porta john.
I dropped a couple dozen places while I was busy, but got most of them back in the next miles.
Somewhere along the sidelines I heard a burst of radio and heard the words “course record,” but couldn’t put them into context.
I took on the much-feared Lemon Drop Hill without much pain and agony. The course wound into downtown Duluth, packed with screaming spectators.
I got a lot of “You can do it man!” and “Stick with it!” cheers, a sure sign that I looked like hell.
Well that was fine. I had more in the tank. I turned my legs over faster, letting myself scowl and grunt. At a certain point, I was sure my stride would buckle if I picked it up any more. That was probably the point where some real marathon training would have made the difference.
A sudden stitch poked into my side. I scowled as I fought to draw wind through the abdominal pain.
The course veered off Main Street around Mile 25 right next to a heavy metal band rocking into a brutal “Eye of The Tiger” riff. I gave them the metal sign and the beastliest scowl I could muster.
The last mile took me up an overpass, along the Lake Superior piers and down a final stretch past a phalanx of spectators. I threw down the best sprint I had left and finished in 2:45:10 for 130th place out of 6211 racers.
It was my sixth marathon, and third best time.
The winner? Dominic Ondoro of Kenya.
He not only won the race, but also set a new course record, beating out Dick Beardsly’s 1981 record by 31 seconds with a 2:09:06 finish.
I got in front of the top master’s female finisher, Valentyna Poltavska, 42, from NYC, on the final stretch. Right behind her, the top grandmaster, 64-year-old Tim Freeman of Port Angeles Washington brought it in for a time of 2:45:57. I only managed to catch up to him in the last mile. 18-year-old Jacob Young took the top of the minors’ division in 2:46:05.
I’d name the people who finished in front of me but memory escapes me now.
I got the ribbon around my neck, the space blanket and anesthetizing pint of beer.
Yeah, no P.R. but I still look back on the last miles with a kind of relish. I don’t often push myself that hard.
I’m not going to do another marathon any time soon. I’m going to spend some time messing around with other stuff. But I know damn well that after a couple of months of not training for anything, I’m going to get the itch again, and find myself right back on the start line somewhere.
Mount Emmons as seen from Middle Chain Lake in Utah’s Uintas Mountains
Start with ice: gray crystals laid out across the lake in a dull mat, splotches of deeper gray, tiny white sparks where the crystals reflect the sunlight just so.
A small line of translucent iridescence marks where ice meets the water’s edge. And there’s a small canal of open water between the freeze and the sun-warmed rocks that forced the ice back.
The surface scintillates in the shifting breeze. There isn’t enough room for waves, just oscillations that obscure the sky and clouds above and jostle stray ice fragments. Silent rocks sit unmolested beneath the agitation, wearing beards of algae. It’s a different story above water; only the faintest layer of lichen grows here, making it possible to appreciate the red orange striations on the stones.
Life doesn’t assert itself until at least a foot above the lake. First, there are the black clods of half-rotted moss. It oozes around the rocks, and smothers them like a dirty blanket. Not a very warm blanket. It’s saturated with snowmelt from above. Brownish rivulets run off onto shore. When I walk barefoot, the water squirts up from between my toes.
Brittle tufts of strawlike grass root by the lake edge, then the willows fill in. Their gray deathly branches have already shot out magenta shoots and buds. One of these has burst already, revealing a pea-sized catkin, coated with silken hairs. The willows only hold a small band of ground until the first pines push them out. The first of them are dwarves, their bundles of needles trembling in the wind. Further back they climb high and straight as rockets, leaving a fractal trail of green black branches behind them.
The needles on younger trees are a lighter green and seem softer as they huddle in amongst their mightier parents. They too will harden up after they see what the winter has to throw at them. Many trees didn’t make it; their dead trunks stand in place amidst the green or else bleach in full sun. My gaze moves across the lake to where the forest climbs a hill, defying the thinning air and winter’s wrath. But even they can only climb so far. Above them rise the mighty flanks of Mount Emmons.
A waste of shattered stone sterilized by frigid winds, ramparts of billion-tear-old Uinta Mountain Group stone defy the ravenous elements. Fields of snow march along their crests, rising to jagged cornices above an immense bowl. No sustenance in this bowl — five-hundred feet of snow and rock carved out by the violence of glaciations. I can see the place where a cornice has broken off and plunged down the side in an avalanche.
Ridges fly out from the mountain, blocking the trees’ advance. It is easy to imagine that the forest is under attack from on high, but in reality the mountain provides the spring melt necessary for the life below. Beyond the bowl, Emmons presents its eastern front, a wall of snow and broken rock that rises at least a thousand feet into the air. The place is its own, a clash of elemental forces, without the meddling interference of life. Or so I would have thought had I had not witnessed the tufts of grass and lichen eking out an existence there.
From where I sit, I can watch shadows march across the brutal stone and empty snow. I see that final peak stark in the face of the rending elements, a bulwark against the softening of spring and drifting clouds.
Andrew climbing up the east side of Utah’s Mount Emmons in May. The frozen Oke Doke Lake is below.
Amidst the chain stores, traffic and scalding asphalt that was Roosevelt, Utah on a late May afternoon, the snowy peaks of the Uintas Mountains to the north looked two-dimensional, a movie prop instead of a real landform.
The real world was an eternity of autos grinding down Highway 40, idling at the traffic lights, flashing blinding sun off their windshields. Stop. Go. Breathe the fumes.
I watched shoppers break sweat in the time it took for them to travel from air-conditioned truck cabs to air conditioned supermarket and fantasized about the high-country, that improbable territory where snow still lay on the slopes, ice on the lakes.
The Uinta River flows next to our trail in the Ashley National Forest in the Uintas Mountains.
The Uintas are the tallest range going east to west in the continental US. The peaks form a wall between northern Utah and southern Wyoming, blocking roads and creating sanctuary for moose, elk and black bear — not the kind of animals people typically associate with Utah. There are even miles of tundra and muskeg — landscapes that would look right at home in an Alaska photo-album. Crowds that flock to Rocky Mountain National Park or the Tetons don’t bother with the Uintas, probably haven’t even heard of them.
Andrew, Jon and I wanted to spend four days up there, including an ascent of the 13,440-foot Mount. Emmons. Our cart was stacked with cheap, dehydrated, high-calorie food; a cornucopia of wheat bread, nuts, dried cranberries, raisins, potato flakes, pasta and flatbread. Judging by the amount of beans and broccoli we’d be hauling, the trip was bound to be a celebration of flatulence.
The whole adventure from trailhead, to summit and back would be a mere 24 miles and about 5,000 feet of elevation gain. We would camp near tree line at the Chain Lakes, which lay at Emmons’s base. As for the conditions on and around the mountain, that was anyone’s guess.
No one had been up to the Lakes so far this season, the ranger at the National Forest headquarters in Duschene told me. We could expect to find deep snow, and a good number of downed trees across the trail, she said. The trail crews would clear things out after Memorial Day.
In the meantime, no one knew how many trees had come down, exactly how many inches of snow were on the ground (going east to west there was anything from a couple inches to a couple feet at other locations) or what the snow crust was like so far. That last bit of information would be key. A strong crust would mean easy travel above the snow; weak crust could mean an exhausting slog through powder or slush.
“I’d be really interested to know what you find up there,” the ranger told me.
Fresh buds emerge on the aspens of Uinta Canyon
The highway from the city into the foothills took us through irrigated cropland and cattle range to clumps of aspen and lodgepole pine. The trees closed in as we got higher, until they formed an undulating mat upon the hills. Clear, cold water from the Uinta River ran with snowmelt toward the farmer’s fields below. No longer did the mountain landscape seem like the two-dimensional abstraction on the Roosevelt skyline.
I stepped out of the car into crisp alpine air, rich with pinesap perfume. The campsite at the Uinta Canyon Trailhead was deserted, excepting a couple of pickups that turned around in the parking lot. Birds chirped quiet melodies from the trees. The Uinta River gurgled unseen from somewhere in the forest. Evening brought the whine of mosquitoes, persistent, rapacious. We swatted at them constantly as we went through our supplies.
I elected myself to carry dinner food, while Jon and Andrew took lunch and breakfast respectively. We sorted food and gear by headlamp, our efforts punctuated with slaps and vows against the insects.
I finished packing at 10 p.m.. I still had my tent and enormous negative 40-degree sleeping bag to take care of in the morning.
None of us would have light packs on this trip. After food, tent and clothes went in my pack, I lashed sleeping bag and water jug to the outside, pulling them tight with a shoelace. I cinched my snowshoes to the sides with nylon straps. They towered over my head like moose antlers. The whole conglomeration of stuff sagged outward like it wanted to fall apart already. I swung the pack up to my shoulders, almost fell over with the damn thing. The weight put steady pressure on my vertebrae. I was sure I’d be an inch shorter by the trip’s end.
Monster pack in all its glory
I carried the most monstrous sleeping bag in the group and heaviest tent. Jon’s pack, also weighted with snowshoes, looked heavy as hell, but seemed almost reasonable in proportions. Andrew took the cheese, though. He carried his backcountry skies, plus the weighty plastic boots.
A hot sun and muggy temperatures by 9 a.m. made the three of us look perfectly ridiculous tromping up the trail weighted down with winter gear.
We walked in silence. The compression on my spine and pack straps cutting into my shoulders like steel bands didn’t bring out the conversationalist in me. I was dimly aware of the new aspen leaves, which simmered like gold coins on the branches overhead, though aforementioned spine compression dimmed of my appreciation of the aesthetics.
The hazards of a downed tree
Fallen trunks and branches confirmed the ranger’s prediction about blow downs in the trail. Sometimes there would be space for us to walk around; more often, we would have to ease ourselves over the obstacles, watching out for limbs that wanted to spear our flesh and the weight on our backs that wanted to swing us, crashing into the mess of branches.
Two miles into the hike, my back and shoulders howled with pain. The real climb hadn’t even started. We rested by stream and ate food, less for energy, more for the psychological comfort against the grim toil of the pack slog.
A bridge above the river, marked the start of a thousand-foot climb out of the canyon along a series of switchbacks.
Sweat poured down my face, drenched my back. The first patches of snow appeared in the shadow of the trees.
Jon, who was walking in front, turned around and whipped a snowball. The missile flew over my head, flinging a couple ice crystals into my face. I raised my ski pole at him menacingly, but he was smiling.
“I got him!”
I looked behind me to where Andrew was brushing snow off his shirt. It had been a direct hit.
“Asshole,” he said.
The ocaissional snow patches became longer, deeper stretches along the trail after we crossed into the High Uintas Wilderness. We started sinking in.
Nylon gaiters above our boots helped keep snow out, but not forever. Melting slush near the ground found its way to our feet. Mine sloshed in an icy bath within half a mile.
We stopped briefly next to the roaring Krebs Creek where Jon discovered that the bottom of his boot had begun peeling off. We walked on.
Breaking near the Chain Lakes
Snow made the trail hard to see, and hindered progress. If the ground had been completely covered, we might have put snowshoes on, but there was still enough bare dirt and rock that we didn’t want to try it.
Andrew pointed out a stream that looked like the one on the map leading out of the Chain Lakes. If we left the trail to follow it, there would be less snow than we would find in the trees, which harbored troublesome drifts in their shade. At least that was the theory.
Unfortunately, even the bare ground around the stream was soggy with snowmelt. Pools and runoff lurked beneath the grasses, creating ice-water booby traps for our feet. We stumbled along snowy cobbles with brush slapping at our eyes.
We stopped more than once to check our position on the map. It was already getting on toward early evening and it seemed like we should be in the neighborhood of the Chain Lakes. A mountain of bare gray rock and desolate flanks of snow rose emerged from the pines in front of us. It could only have been Mount Emmons.
When we came to Lower Chain Lake, we found several dozen acres of dark blue waves and flat, white ice. The water was low, and the sun-warmed rocks along the shore had melted off most of the snow so we could walk easily there.
Unique rocks like these stood out along the lakeshore and along the streambeds
The grace period ended when we climbed up to Middle Chain Lake. We pushed through a grove of trees, sinking thigh-deep in snow, fighting branches and clambering over logs.
A pine branch whacked against the top of my pack. Down came snowshoes, sleeping bag and water jug. I loosed a string of profanity. My frustration with the hours of fighting drifts and terrain boiled over into fury at a low hanging branch, whose only crime was growing out at the perfect height to fuck up all my careful rigging. I fought to reattach the items quickly, angry that I was delaying the group. Of course I did a shitty job, and it all swung down again. I put the pack back on the ground, calling it many things that were unfair; tied everything properly, and set off to catch Andrew and Jon.
They were at Middle Chain Lake, making their way through the deep drifts gathered at the southern end. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the familiar sloshing sound behind me.
Christ! The water jug!
I had forgotten to reattach it.
I threw my pack down and went back into the woods, where I found it about 200 yards away. 26 years old and apparently, I’m already doddering on the precipice of senility.
Meanwhile, Andrew and Jon settled on a campsite on a dry area near the woods. We set up tents and cooked dinner on my stove. The game plan was to wake up early and start along the path to Emmons before the heat of the day softened up the snow crust.
Morning view of Emmons from Middle Chain Lake
We had an oatmeal breakfast and a late start. It was almost 9 a.m. by the time we set out. Jon and I wore our snowshoes, Andrew slid on his skis with skins on the bottom so that he could climb uphill. By the time we reached the north end of Upper Chain Lake, there wasn’t much now so we shifted out of our snowshoes. For Andrew this mean switching out of his skis and boots and putting their weight on his back, a lengthy process.
Approaching the mountain from Fourth Chain Lake
By the time we made it to Fourth Chain Lake, it was around 10 a.m. and we still hadn’t begun the main part of the climb. We’d had two ideas about how to get up the mountain. There was a southerly route up a bowl and then up the east face of the mountain. This was the route a Summit Post contributor recommended for the summer months, but I had my doubts as to whether we wanted to try the steep ascent in ice and snow. Our other option was a ridgeline to the north, which would involve a short, very steep ascent followed by a moderate ascent to the summit between two cliffs.
We’d been leaning toward the first option because the map showed a very steep climb to the top of the ridge. The climb looked more doable when we actually saw it. There would be a scramble up a tilted boulder field for about 500 feet to a steep cornice of hardened snow at the top. I thought I could see some moderate sections where we could climb over.
View of Emmons from the side of the ridge
Boulders the size of refrigerators shifted beneath my boots as I picked my way up the slope.
I heard a thunder fall of rocks down below, Jon’s cries, “Andrew! Look out! Look out!” Nobody was hurt, but it was a reminder that we walked upon uncertain ground.
The cornice was perhaps 10 feet tall, with a couple sections that were sloped gently enough to climb. I went to one of these spots and kick-stepped my way up the snow crust. Eventually the slope got steeper and I had to punch my fists in for more purchase. After I topped out, I made sure to get away from the edge right quick.
Andrew and Jon followed. The ridgeline afforded stunning views of the Uintas to the north, which included Kings Peak, the tallest mountain in Utah (Emmons is fourth, according to Peakbagger.com, and less than 100 feet shy of Kings in elevation, though much easier to access.)
We were well above the trees now, utterly exposed to the wind. I began to feel the altitude too. All of us slowed as we wound among the snowfields and up the rocks. More than once, I thought we had reached the top, only to find a false summit.
You can’t trust the ground you walk on
Almost two hours after we reached the ridge, we came upon the pile of rocks a battered wooden stick, and elk antlers that marked the highest point. There was a steel ammo can nearby containing a poncho, Gatorade powder and dehydrated food.
Take what you need, someone had written, feel free to donate your own stuff.
A ziplock bag held a logbook of past expeditions. The last entry was in September, 2013. Our entry: May 17. It had been about 9 months since anyone had summited, according to the records.
From on high we could gaze upon the slopes below us, down to the tundra wastes of grass and bog. I could replay our journey up from the Chain Lakes. The gutter of Uinta drained out to the green fields above Roosevelt, the gray-brown sage landscape south of Highway 40. Maybe someone in town was looking up at the movie set mountains, wondering if anything was up there.
Andrew and Jon consult the map at the summitView from Emmons looking down into a bowl to the south
Andrew who had hauled his backcountry skis this far, was determined to ride them down. Jon and I didn’t have this speedy option, but could still descend rapidly if we glissaded down the east face. I just didn’t want us to descend too rapidly — not falling end over end, not in an avalanche.
Andrew prepares for the ski descent
A couple miles away we could see streaks going down the side of a bowl, where a couple tons of snow had broken off and plunged toward the bottom. The incline was much steeper there, but it was still something to watch out for.
The two of us without skis walked carefully down the steepest, most hazardous part of the slope, while Andrew glided in a conservative traverse. When the slope lessened, he let her rip for several hundred yards, in a tight series of turns. Jon and I went straight down on our feet and butts, with kicking up trails of loose powder.
The slope became too gradual for sliding, so I ended up running with big sliding steps, chasing after Andrew who was already at the bottom of the pitch.
“My shoe came apart,” Jon said.
Jon walking down off the summit
Sure enough, the heel was completely detached from the rest. Fortunately the strap at the bottom of Jon’s gaiter helped hold it in place. I reinforced this with a shoelace cinched over top and bottom. It wasn’t pretty, but good enough to hold.
Shortly after, Andrew started back up the slope, looking for keys that had fallen out of his pack further up the slope. Shoe, keys, and water jug: none of us would walk away from the trip without owning some calamity.
Andrew found the keys about a third of the mile up the slope. We’d barely lost half an hour, but still faced the challenge of slopping through thigh-deep corn mush snow the remaining miles to camp.
A set of zig-zags and two parallel gouges marked our passage down the slope of the mountain behind us, the first tracks of the year.
Jon grabs hold of a boulder in the climb out of Bluejohn Canyon
The Subaru banged over the washboard road, headlights sweeping over plains of scrub and yucca. 35 degrees on the car thermometer. A green hint of dawn growing in the eastern sky. The stars began to fade. It would be another day of heat and dust.
Our path was not upon that desert plain, but beneath, in the recesses of Bluejohn Canyon. There we would pass through shadow and icy pool, squirm along narrow passages in the sandstone. Blue John gets its name from one of the many outlaws that hid out in central Utah’s Robber’s Roost during the frontier days. It’s also the place where a young adventurer named Aron Ralston famously dislodged a boulder onto his arm back in 2003, amputating his arm with a pocketknife in order to escape.
Not in our plans. We wanted to descend the same way Ralston went, headed north within the east fork of Bluejohn. But where Ralston continued down canyon with the intention of joining with the larger Horseshoe Canyon, we would split off early onto the main fork and ascend back to where we started. By cutting off this last section of canyon (and hopefully not any arms) we would have about fewer miles to cover than Ralston had planned, nor the miles of mountain biking that he shuttled before he even got to the canyon.
The sun came up to find Andrew, Jon and I still grinding along the dirt track. Though we had about 20 miles to cover, the rough roads in Robber’s Roost made sure we wouldn’t cover the distance in less than an hour. That same merry sun shining down on us now was bound to climb higher, and then sink to leave the world dark again. Hopefully we’d have made it through the canyon by then.
We passed a curious sign that read something to this effect: “These are not your cows! They are not wild animals! Leave them alone!”
I tried to imagine the provocation: some prankster canyoneers taking a break from their adventures to tip cattle? Neo-hunter-gatherers lashing bovines to the Thule rack on the way back to clans in Boulder or Taos?
We parked at the Granary Springs trailhead. An ominous ranch shed guarded the dusty lot. Someone had stenciled the Motel 6 logo onto the corrugated metal siding.
A couple hundred feet down the trail we came across a herd of beefs (not our cows!) grazing near a galvanized water tub, sun glinting off their dusky hides.
“Should we be careful around them?” Jon asked.
“Nah, they should be fine,” I said, grabbing a dirt clod to fling at the beasts.
“Fuck off!”
I didn’t expect anyone to take it personally, but the one that swung around, front hooves in the air seemed less than amused. The couple thousand pounds of bulk and trampling hooves made a strong case that perhaps I, not he, should be the one to take a hike.
I apologized. I guess that sign was meant for punks like me.
We walked north along an arroyo with cattle droppings and hoof prints all over the place. It didn’t seem likely that the biological soil present in Arches and other pristine parts of the Southwest could have survived under the trampling here.
Our course bent northeast toward a notch in a ridge, affording us a view of the snowy flanks of the La Sal rising in the distance. The next mile descended into a flatland, populated with desert scrub and mined with innumerable prickly pear cacti hiding in the grass.
I stepped carefully in my water shoes. No hiking boots today — not when plans called for wading, possibly swimming icy pools at the canyon bottom. I did wear thick socks on the inside to prevent blistering and for extra insulation.
The sock/water-shoe combo is just one example of how I’m a leader, not a follower when it comes to fashion. Take the boxers I wore outside of my wind pants. Not only were they glamorous, the plaid cotton underwear also covered the gaping hole I’d ripped in the seat on the way through Chambers Canyon last year. They would lend extra padding against the rough canyon walls — at least that’s what I hoped.
Other clothes included my fleece layer, windbreaker and space blanket for staying warm; cookies; first aid stuff; and the camera around my neck. Add the climbing shoes and harness for good measure. Oh, and let’s not forget the gallon of water sloshing inside an Arizona Iced Tea jug.
All this stuff came out to a good-sized bowling ball in my bag, a bowling ball that I would get to lug up and down the slots.
But why should I complain? Andrew and Jon traded off the burden of my enormous dry bag, stuffed with 200-odd feet of Andrew’s climbing rope, their climbing gear, clothes water, Gatorade and food. I still hadn’t fixed one of the straps that I’d busted biking through the northwest, leaving them to improvise a way to secure the weight onto their backs.
We hoped that our loads weren’t too cumbersome for the narrow canyon ahead of us, but that we would also have enough to make it through fed, secure, watered and warm.
As far as introductions go, Bluejohn was unimpressive. Desert runoff had carved a gentle V-shape into the sandstone, about 50-feet deep and at a gradual angle. I only had to put my hands down once on the descent, and only because there was some loose scree.
The three of us began an easy hike down the sandy canyon bottom. There was mud here and there, a couple of puddles. The first couple of these were easy enough to walk around, but as the canyon narrowed, we found ourselves hopping from rock to rock or bracing our feet and butts against the walls so that we could scoot over with dry feet. At one point we simply walked above the center slot until we got back to the dry sands.
Staying high and dry above some pools
We weren’t going to get many more options like that in the miles ahead. Indeed, it is the nature of these canyons to limit the explorers’ options, sequester then between walls so that they can only move up, down, forward. The option of turning back became less and less the move we down-climbed, evaporated at our first rappel.
The canyon bottom became a series of brownish pools. The walls became far enough apart that we could no longer climb above the water. We began a foot-numbing trod from one pool to the next, sinking knee to thigh deep. Only a couple of hours of sun could have reached down here each day, leaving the water incredibly cold.
I thought of the canyon guide, which said to expect deep wading or swimming in the canyon ahead. A couple hundred yards of this stuff above waist-level would be definite hypothermia risk.
Not so dry
Meanwhile, the walls on either side of us were at least 100 feet above our heads now — straight up, smooth, unclimbable. The sun retreated behind the red rock. Our world shrank into a tall, narrow slit, defined by curves of water-carved stone. We would need to be as adaptable as the water that rushed through — widening ourselves to fill the vacant spaces and climbing higher where the canyon narrowed.
Another passage of thigh-deep water took us to a 25-foot drop above a shadowed pool. How deep? Impossible to tell in this light. A bolt in the left-hand wall offered a place to secure a rope.
We rappelled from this notch in the wall
We took a quick food-break on the narrow ledge, watching a chunk of cow turd float listless in the water. I volunteered to make the first descent. Andrew worked the rope through the bolt and lowered it down to the water. I put my harness on, fit the rope into my belay device and stepped into the edge. I eased myself down gradually, preparing to unclip myself quickly when I reached the water.
“It would really suck to drown here,” I said.
“I hear drowning’s not such a bad way to go,” Jon said.
“Really? I hear it’s about the most painful way to die imaginable,” I said.
The wall went inward right above the water, causing me to swing around to the left. I eased myself part way into the water then unclipped myself. The pool was only about waist-deep, but that was deep enough to freeze my ass.
I lurched along the slippery rocks on the bottom with my jaw clenched in a rictus of cold. There was about 20 feet to go before I reached the end of the pool. I got out and watched shivering as Andrew and Jon prepared to descend. They would have to stay in the water longer in order to retrieve the rope. I got to move further down the canyon to a patch of sunlight.
We regrouped dripping wet, with Andrew bitching that he was soaked in shitwater. We all were.
There was more to come.
We sloshed our way through knee-deep puddles until we came to another ledge. A side canyon came in here, leaving a long pool of water stretched along the path before us.
First we needed to get down there. This drop was only about 12-feet, but there was no bolt in place for rope. We would have to be our own anchors. Jon and I braced ourselves against what purchase we could find up top and held the rope for Andrew as he climbed down. Then I held the rope for Jon. Since there was no one left to hold the rope for me, I slid a short ways on my backside, then got a foot down on Andrew’s shoulder where he was braced between the canyon walls.
I thought of Ralston going down the canyon solo wondering what he did when he got here. A natural anchor? Did he figure out a way to downclimb, or did he ease himself down as far as possible and then jump for it?
The channel of water at the canyon bottom was muddy brown — impossible to judge depth again. The water stretched out for 50 feet in front of us and disappeared around a corner. The walls were narrow enough that we could boogie above the first section, but alas, they widened out again. A huge boulder wedged between the canyon walls prevented anyone from continuing the route above the water. Either we were going back, or we were going in. Except we couldn’t go back. The two ledges we’d rappelled down had nixed that option.
Andrew clambered in first. It was a little over waist-deep. Jon and I stayed up on the walls, listening to a stream of splashes, shouts and profanity fading down the canyon. Something out of my sight provoked an especially strong oath. I wondered what the obstacle was.
I’d be the next to find out.
I climbed down to the water and immediate misery. Jaw clenched, I started the frozen march through the pool. With every step, I gifted a little bit more of my heat to the murky waters. I snorted and swore. Soon I was just making a series of grinding, chortling noises.
A mass of logs had wedged between the canyon walls a couple feet above the water’s surface. I pushed myself past as best I could, wanting to get out of the water as soon as possible.
Andrew was standing on dry land at the other end, laughing at me. I was laughing too, then swearing more.
I surged out of the water and immediately started putting on layers from the dry-bag. My jaw was clenched tight enough to hurt, mind starting to go reptilian from heat loss.
We were lucky enough to have some sun patches nearby, where we warmed ourselves as best as possible before moving on.
The canyon opened up. Soon our path was a wide-sandy bed in full sun. I was aware of the warmth outside me, but it would be a while before any of it reached the chill in my core.
Even the canyon walls, which I’d assumed to be impregnable, seemed to have a few slopes that might have been gentle enough for us to escape. We were still committed though. It was encouraging to take lunch on a warm slab of rock. The next couple miles were easy going on the sandy bed, with plenty of room for us to enjoy the tall red-rock formations hundreds of feet overhead. This part may have been easy, but not many people would make it down here to enjoy it.
An intersection brought us to the main fork of the canyon and our path out.
The first mile was the same pedestrian hike over sand, the walls slowly moving closer. Whiptail lizards darted here and there, racing over vertical canyon walls with incredible agility.
Log caught in main fork of Bluejohn
“Whoa! Hey! Check it out!”
Jon pointed to a two-foot rattler right next to my footprints, buzzing like a cicada. It hadn’t been too likely to bit me though, not with its head stretched around a whiptail lizard it had caught. The snake slithered under a rock where it watched us from the shadow, tail still buzzing, still trying to finish the lizard in its jaws.
No, we weren’t in a great place for a snakebite victim.
Soon we were scrambling on the walls again, shimming over pools. The canyon floor suddenly rose into a steep climb up a 10-foot ledge where a chockstone the size of an ATV blocked the path. Jon went first, chimneying off the canyon walls until he was a few feet off the ground and the scrambling the rest of the way up the ledge. Andrew and I waited as he grunted and clawed his way beneath the boulder.
“I don’t think you guys can make that,” Jon told us. Since he was the skinniest in the group, I weighed those words. The alternative to squirming under would be an attempt to climb over the boulder. The large drop off made this idea less than appealing.
The main fork narrowed further up canyon
I started chimneying further back than what Jon had started from, intending to go up the walls diagonally to the top of the ledge. The walls had other ideas, however. I found I could keep myself up better, by going up high where the canyon narrowed. Soon, I was on level with the top of the chockstone, 15 feet above the ground, suspending myself with friction.
“I think I might try to over this thing,” I said.
Doing so required me to twist and use some fancy footwork, cheap water shoes smeared against the rock. While I wriggled, inch by inch to the chockstone, I found the walls getting wider again, too wide for me to support myself. But the chockstone was right there. All I had to do was put my foot on it, trust that it would stay in place as it had doubtless stayed in place through the millennia, that this was not my unlucky day. Ralston had trusted a stone like this one and had it come crashing down on him.
Downclimbing at this point would have taken colossal energy though. I had already exhausted myself getting this high. What if I tried to go under the boulder and found out Jon was right and it was too tight for me to get through?
I put a hesitant foot on the rock, bracing as much weight as I could on the walls. Nothing moved. I put more weight down, then moved to the stable ground on the other side, quick as possible.
Andrew took a lower route than I, but he too went over the rock.
The walls narrowed and the floor went up. We chimneyed a couple dozen feet and kept working our way south. The canyon took a 90-degree turn, presenting us with abrupt 12-foot climb up a sandstone face. A much larger drop waited on the left side. I went first, finding a decent handhold on my right and a good place to kick out my legs on the wall behind. I froze briefly on the wall, felt someone grab onto my feet.
“No. I got this,” I said like I actually believed it.
I curled my fingers over a tiny ridge of rounded sandstone at the top of the ledge, used it to pull myself the rest of the way.
The other two passed the bags to me, then readied themselves for their own climbs.
Jon had more trouble with the handholds. I got ready to grab him from above if necessary. This meant kneeling in a shallow pool (thankfully, the water was warmer than in the first canyon) with my knees against the rock to get a decent brace. Jon froze with the top of the ledge at about shoulder height.
“Grab my hand,” I said.
“I’d just swing you over the edge,” he said. Maybe he was right.
He went down for a second attempt. I fixed myself deeper in the pool to get prepared.
Andrew climbs over an overhanging boulder in the canyon
And by prepare, I mean that I got my camera out, ready to shoot that dramatic moment when he got to the ledge.
Jon seemed a bit surprised to see my camera lens in from him instead of my outstretched hand.
“Hey. I need some help here.”
I put the camera down and grabbed him. Guess I’m not New York Post material yet.
Andrew was next. He too hesitated near the top, was probably going to make it, but Jon had already grabbed him. I snatched a pant leg and we flipped him out on the ledge.
We moved on to an even longer climb, to another ledge beneath a boulder. This time, we had to carry the bags with us. I threw the dry bag in front of me, letting it wedge in the canyon in front of me. The walls widened again, so I climbed on without the bags and Andrew climbed above them, passing them to me by hooking them with his foot. The three of us gathered beneath the enormous rock, trying to figure out what to do next.
The walls above the boulder were too wide to chimney over it. I decided to try getting past on the left side, even though I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after I got halfway up. I scooted between boulder and canyon wall, then reached over the top to a beautiful handhold.
The final climb was a 20-foot ledge. I went last this time, watching Andrew and Jon clamber up a corner between the walls. I scrambled after them, climbing out from the dark, back into the world of cowshit, blue sky, dust, sunshine on my face.
After we left Arches National Park, Andrew, Jon and I headed down to Robber’s Roost, to see if we couldn’t wedge our way through some of the area’s narrow slot canyons.
The isolated Roost, with its secretive passages through the bed rock, made an ideal hideaway for outlaws, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The land above is sagebrush scrub , cattle and mesas with views of the snowy Ragged Mountain and The Horn to the south and La Sal Mountains in the east. Things start to get interesting near the Dirty Devil River, which has carved a miles-wide gash into the ground. Between the canyon walls, lies a deserted moonscape of sun-bleached stone and shattered rock. Runoff from the rains has carved slots into this stone, narrow, deep.
View across the Dirty Devil River to southern peaks
Andrew and I were making our second visit to Chamber’s Canyon. To read about our trip last year go here: In The Master’s Chambers.
It would be an adventure in its own right, as well as something of a tune up for the longer Bluejohn Canyon that we would do the next day.
I definitely wasn’t expecting Chambers to be a breeze just because I’ve done it before. For one thing, we found more water on the canyon bottom this time. That meant not only that we would take a few freezing dips in pools, it also meant we’d have to take on the trickiest canyoneering sections in wet shoes.
Andrew maneuvering through an early part of the canyon
At one point, we took on a narrow section where we would have almost certainly gotten stuck if we’d tried walking through along the canyon floor. Instead, we had to chimney climb one or more times our height to get to a spot wide enough that we could pass horizontally. This wouldn’t have been so hard if the walls weren’t so damn close together. It took all my effort to generate the pressure to hold my body weight up between the walls. Wet shoes were no help.
Beginning a new descent
I flailed and struggled with the smooth-walls, taking what tiny handholds I could. Even raising myself half an inch took colossal effort. My muscles were sick of holding up my body weight, begged me to let up and ease myself into the narrow trap between the walls below. I felt my grip weaken, the drops of panic seeping into my blood, exhaustion . I fought back with rage: wild shouts of profanity against the canyon, my own weakness, whatever inertia that kept me hanging there.
I refused to accept that I’d lose this battle against gravity. With painful, tearing progress, I started to drag myself horizontally between the walls. The rough edges felt like a belt sander against my skin, tearing knees, elbows hands and ass as I fought my way through.
After about a hundred feet, the walls widened out by an alcove. I didn’t know if I was supposed to climb above. I knew there would be no way I could do it. I made my way across and down, let my feet sink into the soft sand.
