Sunday, June 17, 2007
Anticipation and Remembrance
In the best cases, a good adventure pays dividends long before the trip, in the form of delicious anticipation, and for years following the trip, via memories and stories told.
As I write this, I am nearing the end of the anticipation phase, and it’s interesting how it progressed this time around.
I first proposed this trip in August of last year (it is now June). From then through around December, I lived in a blissful fantasy. The gear list was merely a twinkle in my eye. We hadn’t yet locked in on the logistics of travel and the progression of gear evaluation. We hadn’t spent much money on anything. And most importantly, I hadn’t dipped into the endless morass of Internet based stories, photos and videos on the trip. The trip was every fantasy I dreamed it to be – just riding light, sleeping in the huts, eating and drinking a bit and then riding some more. And there were mountains and wildflowers and mountain streams and wood nymphs and forest creatures and savage tans.
From the start of the new year until around April, I lived in the euphoria of gear acquisition and planning. Plane tickets were arranged (then altered by the apparatchiks at United Airlines FIVE times). Don landed rental cars. We found hotels and massages. We learned where to ship the bikes and how to ship them back. I bombarded my companions with a hailstorm of emails and phone calls, peppering them relentlessly with updated gear lists and advice and trivia.
In April, it then began to seem real. The term “two months from now” began to creep into conversations with people about the trip. I had most of the stuff on my list. I had done a trial run of packing the panniers and putting the rack on the bike. And that stayed fun until about a week before I shipped the bike. At that point, I was planned out. I wanted to finish the damn list. I just wanted to ride. I couldn’t WAIT to get the bike and panniers into the box and out of here. And the day, I took the stuff to Fed Ex about two weeks ago brought a feeling of massive relief. Once that was on the way, I was down to my daypack and the few personal things I would take on the plane. Nice.
So, the planning was over, for the most part, and momentum took over. I am now taking what I am taking, and I’ll have to trust that I made good decisions and live with any mistakes I made that I don’t catch between now and the trip.
Enter the waiting game. Life between now and next Wednesday is anticlimactic. I’ll get through the last items on my to-do list, help our where I can around the house and then fly. And then ride.
I unwittingly made a mistake during the anticipation stage – and succumbed to too much curiosity about the route, the huts and the experiences of those who came before us on the trip. The blessing and the curse of the Web is that it offers endless answers to any question. In this case, the hut system is profiled in major newspaper articles, and memorialized in dozens of journal postings from those who traveled those miles. And I read WAY too many of these.
On the positive side, I’ve seen photos of the area that make me totally psyched to be there, especially at this time of year. Its greener than I would have expected, the vistas of the surrounding mountain ranges are truly spectacular, the huts themselves are very cool and the food selection seems truly extraordinary. Mundane food tastes amazing in the mountains to begin with, and to have fresh ingredients and lots of options will be a treat. And cold beer – what else do I need to say about cold beer?
But too often those who write about their adventures online tend to dull recitations of what happened day by day – what they ate and what happened at what mileage point or elevation. Sometimes you learn something from this (such as the effects of deep snow on the trail), but more often than not, that type of writing can make a trip sound dull. I’ve read too much of this kind of writing, and now comes the time to make the trail ours. We’ll be touched by beauty. We’ll laugh. We’ll eat and drink. We’ll meet interesting people. Things will go wrong . . . but hopefully not too wrong.
I am reminded by a quote from one of my favorite travel writers, Tim Cahill. Tim was a founding editor of Outside magazine, and for much of his career, Outside and other publications would send Tim, who was not perhaps the most athletic person in the world, off on outlandish assignments involving outdoor adventure. His said:
“Misfortune is the travel writers best friend.”
It is true. Without weird weather, equipment failure, idiot border guards, strange bedfellows, group conflict, bad food and the vagaries of fate, travel narratives would be dull and lifeless.
So, I guess when I plan a trip that I also plan to write about, the goal is to allow for some amount of misfortune, but not too much. Little misfortunes can be exaggerated about later, but big misfortunes cause problems. Let’s not have these.
You’ll hear from me again when we reach the end of the trail. Ride on.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The List: Obsessive Gearhead versus Procrastinating Slacker
When we had made the plan to do this trip, a very major part of me sadly cared little about being out in nature for a week. About the camaraderie with Don and Julian. The great eats. The thrill of riding so far, so high and being in shape to do so. The mind-numbing beauty. The adventure.
When I looked through the “hut bible” provided by the SJHS, that part of me gave little attention to the description of the terrain, the dangers we would face or the formidable logistics.
About ten pages into the document, I found what I really wanted to see. A gear list. A long, detailed, shopping trip generating gear list.
We needed bike parts. Our bikes needed to be in top-notch shape. We needed tools. And Gore Tex. A new wilderness coffee-making system. Perhaps a GPS. MAYBE one of those really cool cycle computer GPS! Lightweight gear. Cool gear. State of the art gear. This gear, that gear, the other gear. Sweet, delicious gear.
I am the outdoor industry’s dream customer. I own scads of gear – much of it totally necessary, as I cycle, kayak, ski or hike nearly every day of the year. Over the years, I have learned in many cases to evaluate whether I own something that DOES what the cool new item does and then make a good decision about whether I need to buy it. But, it remains easy to convince myself that I don’t have something that meets a particular need, and then I fall off the wagon. New fleece makes my nipples hard.
So I began work on the definitive list for the trip. We needed to be warm and dry – and it could snow. We needed to be safe and to be able to respond to injury. We would be a long way from a bike shop, and we needed tools and parts to repair the range of things that can go wrong with three different bikes over a week on dirt. We needed to carry things. We needed personal gear like clothes and soap and books and cameras and journals. And, being modern Americans, we needed our electronics – iPods and cell phones and a video camera and the chargers that go with them.
And a damn Hummer to carry it all in.
But when it all came together in a big plastic box in our living room, it wasn’t really THAT much stuff. I then attempted to cram it all into a daypack, as the guidebook we have showed pictures of riders wearing ONLY daypacks and no panniers.
Wrong. It took about a minute to bag that idea, as a single breath of air would have knocked the top-heavy me right over.
So panniers it was – and of course, a rack to go with it. Or actually three, as the first two I deemed inadequate for the task and returned to L.L. Bean via their generous return policy.
In the end, I’ve ended up with two small (and very old) panniers, each weighing about ten pounds, and a 100-ounce hydration backpack weighing about ten pounds before water (that much water weighs in at six pounds). It doesn’t feel bad . . . he says at sea level riding on level ground.
So, on this list, we have stuff I think we really need. I’ve been through my list over and over, and with the exception of some small stuff that came in the pre-packaged first aid kit I used as a starting point, I have a good reason for everything on the list. I don’t have THAT much clothing, and the bike parts and tools will save our asses big time should certain problems arise.
But somewhere on this trip, we will encounter the Procrastinating Slacker, and I will be insanely jealous. We’ll meet him on the trail riding an old Schwinn five-speed, carrying a daypack with an old college windbreaker, and having NOT ONE THING from my 158-item gear list. He decided to go on the trip at the last minute. Grabbed a Power Bar on the way out the door, and hitched a ride to the trailhead in the back of a pickup truck. He’ll figure out how to get home when he gets to the other end.
He will not have obsessed over anything. He spent little or nothing. He looked at no websites and no catalogs. He didn’t have to return anything, as he didn’t buy anything. There was no perverse joy at making recommendations to his friends that caused them to spend hundreds of dollars.
And at the end of those 210 miles on dirt, he’ll have the same smile on his face and the same joy of accomplishment we do.
I run into the Procrastinating Slacker nearly every time, and I am envious. But I will never change.
Shown below, in no particular order, is the final version of the gear list:
Bandana, Bike helmet, Camera/charger/batteries/memory card, Cell phone/charger, Coffee, Coffee cup, Coffee filter, Coffee grinder, Comb, Contact lenses, Cotton balls, Cycle socks (2), Cycling shoes, Cycling shorts, Earplugs, Energy Drink, Fingerless cycling gloves, Fleece jacket, Flipflops, Glasses, Hut key, Hydration backpack, Journal/pen, Lightweight rope for panniers, Lightweight shorts, Lunch for first day, One silkweight shirt, Personal medications, Sleep mask, Sunglasses, Thermometer, Toothbrush, TP, Book, Maps, Guidebook, Route information, Bike repair book, Local emergency information (in Hut Bible), Emergency contact information, Insurance information, Flight paperwork, Inventory list, Cables – brake and derailleur (have 2 each), Cable housings, Chain spares (8 and 9 speed), Rotor spare, Tubes, Axels, Bike pump, Bracket spares, Brake pads (for 6700s only), Chain lube (have wet only), Chain tool, Chain whip, Crescent wrench, Derailleur spare, Extra tire, Hardware, Hub tool, Lube rag, Multi-tool, Needle nose pliers, Patch kits (3), Pedal spares, Pedal wrenches, Screwdrivers, Spoke wrench, Spokes and nipples, Tire levers, Wire, Ace bandage (small), Antibiotic ointment (3 packets), Antifungal cream (tube), Antimicrobial hand wipe (in bag with latex gloves), Aquaseal, Band-Aids, Benzoin tincture swabs (2), Cold pills – daytime (12), Cotton applicators (1 packet), Diphen (cold symptom) tablets (2), Duct tape, First aid book, First aid pads (with Lidocane), Gauze rolls (2), Hydrocortisone cream (tube), Ibuprofen (in bag), Irrigation syringe, Latex gloves (light blue), Life-threatening injury pamphlet, Matches, Moleskin (1 sheet), Pads – 3x4 (2), Pads – gauze – 2x2 (2), Pads – gauze – 4x4 (2), Patent assessment form, Pencil, Safety pins, Scissors, Space blanket, Steri strips/Secure strips (1 packet), Sting relief (pads), Stretch wrap, Tape – 1 ¼”, Tweezers, Tylenol (in bag), Wire splint, Aloe Vera, Compass, Contact lens solution, Deodorant, Duct tape,Floss, Headlamp/batteries, Hut key spare, Insect repellant, Lip balm, Nail clippers, Personal soap, Razor, Saddle sore stuff, Sewing Kit, Sunscreen, Swiss army knife, Tiger balm stuff, Toothpaste, Vaseline, Vytorin, Wasabi, Wire splint, Balaclava, Baseball hat, Cable ties, Cycling gloves – full finger, Drybags, Firestarter, Garbage bags, Handwarmers, Long underwear bottoms (2), Long underwear top, MatchesPack coverPacktowelRopeShell pants Shell top – heavy Shell top – light, Sleeping bag liner, Socks (2 pair), Triangular bandage, T-Shirt – nylon (1), Underwear (2) Warm gloves, Wool hat
When I looked through the “hut bible” provided by the SJHS, that part of me gave little attention to the description of the terrain, the dangers we would face or the formidable logistics.
About ten pages into the document, I found what I really wanted to see. A gear list. A long, detailed, shopping trip generating gear list.
We needed bike parts. Our bikes needed to be in top-notch shape. We needed tools. And Gore Tex. A new wilderness coffee-making system. Perhaps a GPS. MAYBE one of those really cool cycle computer GPS! Lightweight gear. Cool gear. State of the art gear. This gear, that gear, the other gear. Sweet, delicious gear.
I am the outdoor industry’s dream customer. I own scads of gear – much of it totally necessary, as I cycle, kayak, ski or hike nearly every day of the year. Over the years, I have learned in many cases to evaluate whether I own something that DOES what the cool new item does and then make a good decision about whether I need to buy it. But, it remains easy to convince myself that I don’t have something that meets a particular need, and then I fall off the wagon. New fleece makes my nipples hard.
So I began work on the definitive list for the trip. We needed to be warm and dry – and it could snow. We needed to be safe and to be able to respond to injury. We would be a long way from a bike shop, and we needed tools and parts to repair the range of things that can go wrong with three different bikes over a week on dirt. We needed to carry things. We needed personal gear like clothes and soap and books and cameras and journals. And, being modern Americans, we needed our electronics – iPods and cell phones and a video camera and the chargers that go with them.
And a damn Hummer to carry it all in.
But when it all came together in a big plastic box in our living room, it wasn’t really THAT much stuff. I then attempted to cram it all into a daypack, as the guidebook we have showed pictures of riders wearing ONLY daypacks and no panniers.
Wrong. It took about a minute to bag that idea, as a single breath of air would have knocked the top-heavy me right over.
So panniers it was – and of course, a rack to go with it. Or actually three, as the first two I deemed inadequate for the task and returned to L.L. Bean via their generous return policy.
In the end, I’ve ended up with two small (and very old) panniers, each weighing about ten pounds, and a 100-ounce hydration backpack weighing about ten pounds before water (that much water weighs in at six pounds). It doesn’t feel bad . . . he says at sea level riding on level ground.
So, on this list, we have stuff I think we really need. I’ve been through my list over and over, and with the exception of some small stuff that came in the pre-packaged first aid kit I used as a starting point, I have a good reason for everything on the list. I don’t have THAT much clothing, and the bike parts and tools will save our asses big time should certain problems arise.
But somewhere on this trip, we will encounter the Procrastinating Slacker, and I will be insanely jealous. We’ll meet him on the trail riding an old Schwinn five-speed, carrying a daypack with an old college windbreaker, and having NOT ONE THING from my 158-item gear list. He decided to go on the trip at the last minute. Grabbed a Power Bar on the way out the door, and hitched a ride to the trailhead in the back of a pickup truck. He’ll figure out how to get home when he gets to the other end.
He will not have obsessed over anything. He spent little or nothing. He looked at no websites and no catalogs. He didn’t have to return anything, as he didn’t buy anything. There was no perverse joy at making recommendations to his friends that caused them to spend hundreds of dollars.
And at the end of those 210 miles on dirt, he’ll have the same smile on his face and the same joy of accomplishment we do.
I run into the Procrastinating Slacker nearly every time, and I am envious. But I will never change.
Shown below, in no particular order, is the final version of the gear list:
Bandana, Bike helmet, Camera/charger/batteries/memory card, Cell phone/charger, Coffee, Coffee cup, Coffee filter, Coffee grinder, Comb, Contact lenses, Cotton balls, Cycle socks (2), Cycling shoes, Cycling shorts, Earplugs, Energy Drink, Fingerless cycling gloves, Fleece jacket, Flipflops, Glasses, Hut key, Hydration backpack, Journal/pen, Lightweight rope for panniers, Lightweight shorts, Lunch for first day, One silkweight shirt, Personal medications, Sleep mask, Sunglasses, Thermometer, Toothbrush, TP, Book, Maps, Guidebook, Route information, Bike repair book, Local emergency information (in Hut Bible), Emergency contact information, Insurance information, Flight paperwork, Inventory list, Cables – brake and derailleur (have 2 each), Cable housings, Chain spares (8 and 9 speed), Rotor spare, Tubes, Axels, Bike pump, Bracket spares, Brake pads (for 6700s only), Chain lube (have wet only), Chain tool, Chain whip, Crescent wrench, Derailleur spare, Extra tire, Hardware, Hub tool, Lube rag, Multi-tool, Needle nose pliers, Patch kits (3), Pedal spares, Pedal wrenches, Screwdrivers, Spoke wrench, Spokes and nipples, Tire levers, Wire, Ace bandage (small), Antibiotic ointment (3 packets), Antifungal cream (tube), Antimicrobial hand wipe (in bag with latex gloves), Aquaseal, Band-Aids, Benzoin tincture swabs (2), Cold pills – daytime (12), Cotton applicators (1 packet), Diphen (cold symptom) tablets (2), Duct tape, First aid book, First aid pads (with Lidocane), Gauze rolls (2), Hydrocortisone cream (tube), Ibuprofen (in bag), Irrigation syringe, Latex gloves (light blue), Life-threatening injury pamphlet, Matches, Moleskin (1 sheet), Pads – 3x4 (2), Pads – gauze – 2x2 (2), Pads – gauze – 4x4 (2), Patent assessment form, Pencil, Safety pins, Scissors, Space blanket, Steri strips/Secure strips (1 packet), Sting relief (pads), Stretch wrap, Tape – 1 ¼”, Tweezers, Tylenol (in bag), Wire splint, Aloe Vera, Compass, Contact lens solution, Deodorant, Duct tape,Floss, Headlamp/batteries, Hut key spare, Insect repellant, Lip balm, Nail clippers, Personal soap, Razor, Saddle sore stuff, Sewing Kit, Sunscreen, Swiss army knife, Tiger balm stuff, Toothpaste, Vaseline, Vytorin, Wasabi, Wire splint, Balaclava, Baseball hat, Cable ties, Cycling gloves – full finger, Drybags, Firestarter, Garbage bags, Handwarmers, Long underwear bottoms (2), Long underwear top, MatchesPack coverPacktowelRopeShell pants Shell top – heavy Shell top – light, Sleeping bag liner, Socks (2 pair), Triangular bandage, T-Shirt – nylon (1), Underwear (2) Warm gloves, Wool hat
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The Companions
Adventures fly or fall based on one's choice of travelling companion. Good companions laugh at your jokes, drink at the same pace you do, light up at the cool things you see and share the pure zen of what you are doing in the great outdoors.
I don't have a lot to say about bad companions, because I have been very, very fortunate to know a few dozen intrepid souls in my life who love adventuring in the same way I do.
My favorite part of sharing an adventure is the moments in which I am completely one with nature, where the place and the experience reach into my soul and take hold and I glance over at my companion, catch his or her eye and know that at that moment, nature got them in the same way it got me. At moments like that, nothing else matters - and I know when I hit that search key and find the next one, these are the people I'll call.
Don and Julian are those kind of people.
I've known Don for thirty years now, and I first met him within an extraordinary group of Frisbee players at Sonoma State University, where I spent my formative years. That was such a fun group of people, and I know all of us still feel that way about each other. Every now and then, I'll see one of this group of 40-50 people, and we all have the same black and white group picture, taken at a tournament in about 1977.
I think Don must smile all the time, and he's got a spirit that doesn't quit. He's a great athlete, and he meets the prerequsites of an appreciation for nearly any kind of bad humor, a taste for beer and owning a servicable mountain bike.
Don did me an amazing favor last year. When I moved east about ten years ago from Marin Country, I had in many ways given up on mountain biking. To leave Mt. Tam and its hundreds of miles of trail and dirt roads was a bummer, and I resisted mountain biking here in favor of the road. I always kept cycling, but I left behind something that was a true passion. Last spring, while I was on a business trip to San Diego, Don borrowed a mountain bike for me from a friend, and took me out into the high desert for a ride. It was like being born again. A week after getting home, I had ordered a new bike. Two weeks later I was back riding every day. A month later I ordered another bike. And now, I can't get it out of my system. Thanks, man.
Don is the star of one of my other blogs, The Big Lemon Tour of Southern Mexico.
Julian is a refugee from New Zealand, now living in New York and dividing his time between is vocation as an ace software designer and his avocation as a filmmaker, African drummer and tribal dancer. He too rides a mountain bike every day, but the path he travels, through downtown traffic with a thirty-pound drum on his back, are far more trecherous than the trails Don and I ride.
I met Julian many years ago through his partner Kate, who I had met in the early eighties while doing my mid-college Eurail trip through Europe. I discovered their love of hiking, and for years, I would entice them to come West for trips into the intense beauty of the Eastern Sierra.
Somewhere in the midst of all these trips, Julian and I learned of the stunning John Muir Trail, and in 1999, we spent an intoxicating three weeks hiking the JMT in celebration of our 40th birthdays. That trip is chronicled here.
This will be a good combination, I think.
I don't have a lot to say about bad companions, because I have been very, very fortunate to know a few dozen intrepid souls in my life who love adventuring in the same way I do.
My favorite part of sharing an adventure is the moments in which I am completely one with nature, where the place and the experience reach into my soul and take hold and I glance over at my companion, catch his or her eye and know that at that moment, nature got them in the same way it got me. At moments like that, nothing else matters - and I know when I hit that search key and find the next one, these are the people I'll call.
Don and Julian are those kind of people.
I've known Don for thirty years now, and I first met him within an extraordinary group of Frisbee players at Sonoma State University, where I spent my formative years. That was such a fun group of people, and I know all of us still feel that way about each other. Every now and then, I'll see one of this group of 40-50 people, and we all have the same black and white group picture, taken at a tournament in about 1977.
I think Don must smile all the time, and he's got a spirit that doesn't quit. He's a great athlete, and he meets the prerequsites of an appreciation for nearly any kind of bad humor, a taste for beer and owning a servicable mountain bike.
Don did me an amazing favor last year. When I moved east about ten years ago from Marin Country, I had in many ways given up on mountain biking. To leave Mt. Tam and its hundreds of miles of trail and dirt roads was a bummer, and I resisted mountain biking here in favor of the road. I always kept cycling, but I left behind something that was a true passion. Last spring, while I was on a business trip to San Diego, Don borrowed a mountain bike for me from a friend, and took me out into the high desert for a ride. It was like being born again. A week after getting home, I had ordered a new bike. Two weeks later I was back riding every day. A month later I ordered another bike. And now, I can't get it out of my system. Thanks, man.
Don is the star of one of my other blogs, The Big Lemon Tour of Southern Mexico.
Julian is a refugee from New Zealand, now living in New York and dividing his time between is vocation as an ace software designer and his avocation as a filmmaker, African drummer and tribal dancer. He too rides a mountain bike every day, but the path he travels, through downtown traffic with a thirty-pound drum on his back, are far more trecherous than the trails Don and I ride.
I met Julian many years ago through his partner Kate, who I had met in the early eighties while doing my mid-college Eurail trip through Europe. I discovered their love of hiking, and for years, I would entice them to come West for trips into the intense beauty of the Eastern Sierra.
Somewhere in the midst of all these trips, Julian and I learned of the stunning John Muir Trail, and in 1999, we spent an intoxicating three weeks hiking the JMT in celebration of our 40th birthdays. That trip is chronicled here.
This will be a good combination, I think.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Route
When I entered that search, I was literally thinking in my mind of a trip somewhere REALLY cool, like Telluride or Moab, and a trip where the heavy lifting would be done by someone else. I like traveling by bike, but the idea of schlepping fully-loaded panniers is simply a drag.
The San Juan Hut System is actually two hut systems, one along the route from Telluride, Colorado to Moab, Utah, and the other (the newer of the two) serving Durango, Colorado to Moab. The Telluride route has been described in the popular press as "The Most Spectacular Ride in America," and from all the online journals and articles I've read (including major articles in National Geographic, the New York Times, Backpacker and (shudder) Men's Journal), the reputation is well deserved.
The trip spans 206 miles, starting in the mountain ski village of Telluride. It courses through the San Juan Mountains, across the 100-mile Uncompahgre Plateau, then the La Sal Range of Utah and ends near the Slickrock Trail mountain bike Mecca in Moab. Accommodations are provided in six eight-person huts stocked with food, beer (with limes!), sleeping bags and firewood. This combination means that one can travel light, making the 35 mile days with thousands of feet of elevation change reasonably accessible for a cyclist in decent condition.
But, the trip demands respect. It is a long distance, and you must be in good shape. The combination of elevation and constant sun presents a serious risk of dehydration - and you have to drink a lot of water. There is only one town en route (Gateway, Colorado), so you have to carry tools and bike parts and know how to use them. Altitudes range as high as 11,500 feet, and aclimitization is important. And there are snakes and scorpions and lightning and flash storms and snowfall in every month of the year.
Cool.
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Beginning - Where Vacations Come From
Adventure:: 1ad·ven·ture 
Pronunciation: &d-'ven-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English aventure, chance, risk, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin *adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come
1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks
2 : an exciting or remarkable experienceadventure in exotic dining
I'm not sure exactly how my love of adventure crept into my being, but it has been there for a long time, and it never goes away. When I was little, we lived near a long canyon near Berkeley, California - now a regional park. Within walking distance of our house (albeit a long walk) was a retired Nike missile base, numerous run down and abandoned farm buildings, an active earthquake fault, an old National Guard shooting range and dozens of square miles of woodland, trails and dirt roads. And while other kids in our neighborhood played stickball, my friends and I had adventures.
We scavanged the old tunnels at the missile base. We swam in the running muddy streams after it rained. We'd pick a direction between our houses and a nearby shopping center and travel in that direction only - straight through the yards of every house in our path. We climbed trees. We got lost. We rode dirt roads on our bikes, long before anyone ever invented the mountain bike.
These adventures were the result of pure improvisation - often hatched with little more than someone's answer to the question: "what do you guys want to do today?"
A good adventure was defined by coming home too late for dinner. Having your mom make you take your clothes off at the door was a plus. Getting grounded was a badge of honor. Getting brought home by the police in the dark made you a hero.
And being a guilable kid, sometimes I was caused to have an adventure when I didn't want one. The worst example of this was the night some older kids invited me to sneak out of the house and play capture the flag. I did not quite grasp the improbability of a four-person capture the flag game in an area the size of Central Park until I heard my father's concerned voice wafting over the trees . . . at 2:00 in the morning while I sat atop a tall tree awaiting orders from my team captain. Stupid me.
So here I sit, nearly 50, and I can't get adventuring out of my soul. I spend vacations cycling or hiking or kayaking and always have. I love getting lost. I love bad weather. The best mornings of my life are spent on my mountain bike, trying to find new ways to ride the wonderful state park near our home in Maine.
But the responsibilities of adulthood affect my adventures. I have a full time job. I have two wonderful sons. I have a partner and a house. And I like this side of life. But part of me wants to live another life as a merry nomad, living out of the back of a van, climbing and skiing and cycling the world . . .
It was in the context of this collision of adventure and responsibility that one day I went on to Google and typed in the search phrase: "mountain bike hut to hut."
The first hit on the screen was my dream come true and before I had finished the first paragraph of the description on the website, I had sent emails to my friends Don and Julian with the link and the simple message: "we MUST do this trip."
They agreed, and we fly five weeks from today.
Pronunciation: &d-'ven-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English aventure, chance, risk, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin *adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come
1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks
2 : an exciting or remarkable experience
I'm not sure exactly how my love of adventure crept into my being, but it has been there for a long time, and it never goes away. When I was little, we lived near a long canyon near Berkeley, California - now a regional park. Within walking distance of our house (albeit a long walk) was a retired Nike missile base, numerous run down and abandoned farm buildings, an active earthquake fault, an old National Guard shooting range and dozens of square miles of woodland, trails and dirt roads. And while other kids in our neighborhood played stickball, my friends and I had adventures.
We scavanged the old tunnels at the missile base. We swam in the running muddy streams after it rained. We'd pick a direction between our houses and a nearby shopping center and travel in that direction only - straight through the yards of every house in our path. We climbed trees. We got lost. We rode dirt roads on our bikes, long before anyone ever invented the mountain bike.
These adventures were the result of pure improvisation - often hatched with little more than someone's answer to the question: "what do you guys want to do today?"
A good adventure was defined by coming home too late for dinner. Having your mom make you take your clothes off at the door was a plus. Getting grounded was a badge of honor. Getting brought home by the police in the dark made you a hero.
And being a guilable kid, sometimes I was caused to have an adventure when I didn't want one. The worst example of this was the night some older kids invited me to sneak out of the house and play capture the flag. I did not quite grasp the improbability of a four-person capture the flag game in an area the size of Central Park until I heard my father's concerned voice wafting over the trees . . . at 2:00 in the morning while I sat atop a tall tree awaiting orders from my team captain. Stupid me.
So here I sit, nearly 50, and I can't get adventuring out of my soul. I spend vacations cycling or hiking or kayaking and always have. I love getting lost. I love bad weather. The best mornings of my life are spent on my mountain bike, trying to find new ways to ride the wonderful state park near our home in Maine.
But the responsibilities of adulthood affect my adventures. I have a full time job. I have two wonderful sons. I have a partner and a house. And I like this side of life. But part of me wants to live another life as a merry nomad, living out of the back of a van, climbing and skiing and cycling the world . . .
It was in the context of this collision of adventure and responsibility that one day I went on to Google and typed in the search phrase: "mountain bike hut to hut."
The first hit on the screen was my dream come true and before I had finished the first paragraph of the description on the website, I had sent emails to my friends Don and Julian with the link and the simple message: "we MUST do this trip."
They agreed, and we fly five weeks from today.
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