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.

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