Our pasture session was just the latest in a string of skiing adventures shaped by the especially thin-cover conditions prevailing in Northeast US, and in many parts of the lower 48, this season. And while the snowpack has been thin and the deep powder might be in short supply, it continues to be a great season – a season that has forced us to be more creative than usual, to scramble when even a few snow flakes started to fly, and to slow down and simply enjoy what we’ve got.

Here are some highlights of the season to share:

It finally got cold enough to snow in late October, and thanks in part to our edgeless, go anywhere, ski anything Marquette Skis, we were enjoying our first sweet turns of the season on little more than a heavy frost…

A few days later, just before Halloween, the giant storm that knocked out power to thousands of homes across southern New England had us sliding shin deep into some of our favorite runs near Mount Killington, VT…

The Halloween snow didn’t last long, however, and before long, we were back to typical early November conditions…

Thanksgiving delivered, however, with nearly a foot of snow that was dense enough to allow us to slide into some of our favorite tree lines for the first time this season…

But even the Thanksgiving snow didn’t last, and before long, we were making sacrificial turns for the snow gods, in the rain….in December….

Word on the street over the holidays was that Lake Champlain was still ice free and warmer than usual, and right after Christmas, the lake-induced Champlain Powder machine turned on. And it dumped…

Our local mountains were treated to a solid foot of fluff from that first blast of Champlain Pow, just enough to allow Vermont’s Mad River Glen to open for the busy New Year’s weekend. And although a cycle of warm air, light rain and then cold turned our powder to crust on New Year’s Day, mountain snow showers over the last week have been covering up that crust, with conditions improving by the day…

Some higher elevations areas have picked up more than a foot of fresh snow in the last week, and although the snowpack is still very thin and riddled with stumps, hidden branches and stray rocks, we’ve been sliding very carefully into some very tasty zones…

Still, especially at lower elevations, there’s only so much snow to go around. But with just enough snow to tempt us into ripping our neighborhood pastures, we’ve been skiing locally. At times, we don’t even start the cars…

Still, as much as we’ve learned to love the thin-cover season upon us right now, a few feet of fresh snow would make this season even sweeter. Snow is in the forecast for the Northeast and many parts of the country right now… Think snow.

Brian and Emily
EmberPhoto.com
AdventureSkier.com

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In 2008, the province of Buenos Aires banned the used of plastic bags. In 2004, the province of Mendoza prohibited the use of non-biodegradable bags. In 2005, the province of Chubut, in Patagonia, prohibited the use of polyethylene bags. The same happened in the Patagonian tourist towns of El Bolson in Chubut, (2006) and El Calafate in Santa Cruz (2007).

Yet, as of today, only the town of Calafate is known to have enforced the law. Grocery stores in Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Chubut and all over Argentina still use plastic bags in monumental numbers. But there is no other place where “breaking the law” is more evident than in “pristine” Patagonia. In an area known as “the land of the wind” the prevailing westerlies blow across the Andean peaks,  over the vast empty steppes. The winds carry plastic bags from open garbage fields, from every pueblo, and every town, to the Atlantic ocean. From these palaces of our consumption, and for kilometers around, plastic reigns. Trees and bushes transformed into polyethylene sculptures, product of an oil era. And for the ocean and its inhabitants, god knowns how many of these eternal deadly ghosts have soiled its beaches and waters.

Click here to get an up-close look at the panorama above.

Disclaimer - GRAPHIC and DISTURBING images (see the full entry here )

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” Henry David Thoreau

It seems that lately, I have been writing more about the tragedies I am witnessing than the beauties of exploring this incredible planet. Unless you find yourself secluded in the middle of nowhere – but again, our pollution and destruction has no limits – you are bound to witness and feel the “savage” nature humans possess. “Shot for a fish”  the story of a seal killed by a fisherman was written when I went to Uruguay. “Refuge”, the story of a jaguar left with no teeth, was written when I went to Misiones. “W.H. Hudson”, the story on how disconnected farm people have become, was written earlier on this trip. And now, I am left with no choice but to conclude Patagonia 2011 with another tragic story.

According to Wikipedia, the word “savage” or “barbarian is: “a term used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization viewed as inferior. In idiomatic or figurative usage, a “savage” may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person.”

I actually believe we have gotten it totally wrong. The definition should rather be the following: “savage” or “barbarian” is known to be associated with an industrialized and modern society, also called civilized, where its inhabitants suffer from existential egoism. The unsustainable behavior is characterized by a deep lack of respect and care for the environment and a desire to radically exterminate anything that seems to be a threat to its existence. These threats are, in general, unfounded and come from a lack of inner security. The inhabitants are usually insecure with the idea of other species sharing what they believe to be their land. Extreme greed is often referred to as a form of savage nature.” 

The quest to explicitly exterminate animals is a modern invention. What we—us, humans—did to the buffalo, to the wolf, and so to many others, and keep doing, like to the shark is nothing less than savage. Killing is nothing new, but the scale and purpose of eradication is. Even worse is the sense of righteousness that the perpetrators are taking.

In Argentina, and more precisely in Patagonia, sheep farming is big business. It is not what it used to be, the golden days are long gone, but it is still the biggest industry in  the area. Since 1889, almost every square meter of steppe has been turned into pasture for sheep and therefore, fenced. And worse, every single animal that is not a sheep is seen as a nuisance and consequently needs to be exterminated. Guanacos, the wild ancestor of the llama, used to roam South America in huge numbers—estimated at around 50 million in the 1500s. But with the arrival of the Europeans and the beginning of sheep farming, their numbers were reduced to near extinction until they were put on the CITES list. Today, although their population is bouncing back—1 million more or less–it is a far cry from what it used to be. Still, since they eat twice as much grass than the sheep, for the estancias, Guanacos are simply “stealing” the food from their land. Even if hunting them is now prohibited, with little or no enforcement, they still kill them every week or so. And here is where the atrocity begins. Because their hunt is illegal, the dead animals are left in the field to rot. Nothing is done with their precious fur, nothing is done with their skin, nothing is done with their cholesterol-free delicious meat. The only utility a shot guanaco has is to spread death. Estancias use their carcasses to kill the others, especially the pumas and foxes. By cutting their guts open and pouring powerful poison over them, they create nothing else than a “Fountain of Death.” It is common to find around a dead guanaco: skunks, foxes, armadillos, and birds of pre,  and most likely pumas dead in their lair. Anything that eats meat or scavenges is at risk. And they themselves continue to contaminate the chain. Since the poison doesn’t disappear, it is passed over from one carcass to another. For each dead animal, dozens of others have had to die.

Pumas and foxes are the axis of evil of sheep farming. By taking out the guanacos, the farmers gave these predators no choice but to go after the woolly easy-to-catch mammal. Even though their predation is insignificant in numbers—it is the same for the wolf and the shark, the retribution applied was and is still of catastrophic proportion. During a previous trip, I learned of one estancia that killed 140 pumas in 7 years. Today, even though it is prohibited by law since 1996, the fox and the puma continue to be hunted and trapped. The consensus is simple, no predators will be allowed to live on a sheep farm. None, whatsoever. So every time they see tracks or a kill made by one of them, they send the dogs after them and eradicate the menace.

So who is savage? The Cherokee who feared that the unjust killing of a wolf would bring about the vengeance of its pack mates, and that the weapon used for the deed would be useless in the future unless exorcized by a medicine man? The Kwakiutl, who when killing a wolf, would lay out the animal on a blanket and have portions of its flesh eaten by the perpetrators, and who would express regret at the act before burying it? The Ahtna who would take the dead wolf to a hut, where it would be propped in a sitting position with a banquet made by a shaman set before it? The Eskimos who, when killing a wolf, would walk around their houses four times, expressing repent and abstaining from sexual relations with their wives for four days?

Or us, the pinnacle of evolution, God’s creature, the center of the universe, the planet’s savior? 

“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” -Albert Einstein

This land has been many things to many people. For Magellan and Drake, it was the land of giants. For FitzRoy, it was the beginning of the end. For Darwin, it was a trip that would change his life. For Jeremy Button, it was his home, then his curse. For St-Exupery, Patagonia was his muse. And for Chatwin and Theroux, it became their salvation. For me, this vast land, this million kilometer square of mountains, rivers, canyons, steppes, ocean coasts, and unbelievable skies, Patagonia is where my story began.

For more than 10 years, I tried to follow a path that was unfortunately, doomed from the beginning. You see, back in my childhood days, I would either spend my days on the shore of the St-Lawrence River, meticulously examining each and every tide pool or roaming the forest in search of small and bizarre critters. I was always down on my knees, my head in the water, or digging under a tree or a rock. On my 16th birthday, I received two of my most cherished childhood gifts, two photos, framed, from the famous photographer Talbot—“Flight”, the iconic photo of two dolphins jumping in front of a cargo ship, and “Megaptera”, the amazing tail of  a humpback whale. Back then, if you would have asked me what I wanted to do when I grow up, my answer was, and had been the same for a very long time: “I want to sail around the world and study whales!” In fact, the first time I applied for university was in Marine Biology at the University of British Columbia. On a funny note, I used to watch Miami Vice in the late 80’s and envy Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) because he lived in a marina, on his Endeavor sailboat.

Then, like so many young dreamers, I was told to “wise up” and get serious with my life. Listening to the senior council, I put aside those “infantile” ideas of traveling the world’s oceans looking for swimming mammals and enrolled in business and marketing! I still regard that day as the day that I sold my soul. I spent the next 15 years pushing my way into a world that never seemed quite right for me. Every time I felt the weight of the system bringing me down, I would leave everything behind and escape for months on end, disappearing somewhere, closer to nature. Closer to what deep down I was longing for. One time, I spent a summer at Isla Guadalupe in Mexican waters, diving with white sharks.

The last and final straw came in New York in 2008. After a disastrous short-lived marriage, I finally did what I should have done a long time ago. I was 34-years-old and had wasted enough of my precious life. It was time to set the clock back, rewind the tape and press play again. I sold everything, geared up with camping equipment and picked a destination—a far one, far, far away! Although initially I wanted to land in the Falklands, with my budget, Patagonia was more of a realistic choice. So in January 2009, I arrived at the Valdes Peninsula, in the Chubut Province, located in northern Patagonia. There, for the first time in over 20 years, I felt alive. And then the most bizarre thing happened. I remember standing on the beach, facing out, it was a particular windy day and no one could be seen anywhere. I started to feel choked and out of air. So I took a real deep breath, like none I had ever taken before. I felt the air travelling down to my lungs as if it was the first time I was breathing. I felt my lungs opening up, as if it was for the first time. And this sudden feeling of awareness, as if I was unexpectedly waking up after decades of hibernation.

Since then, I have been back every year to this “lugar salvaje”. And as it turns out, precisely every 14 months! Don’t ask me why, I don’t know, it is only a coincidence. I think so!  Anyhow, this year, I went back with my partner, photographer Jasmine Rossi. Her own story with Patagonia is also quite something. Working in the financial world of London, she developed a chronic tendinitis and reluctantly took a year off. Fluent in spanish, she decided to visit South America. As she says: “I wanted to get as far away as possible from the intrusions of what we call ‘civilization,’ so I canoed through jungle rivers and rode along Andean trails from Venezuela to Chile…”  Two years later, Jasmine published the first ever in-depth book on the wildlife of the Valdes Peninsula, The Wild Shores of Patagonia.

Jasmine needed to photograph certain winter landscapes for the re-edition of her book The Spirit of Patagonia. So after persuading Volkswagen to lend us their new Amarok, we drove south for another 6 weeks of adventure. Overall the trip was a success. We got the shots we were after. But the disappointing part was, and it is always the case on most of my trips, to see man’s impact on nature.

“I had become incapable of reflection; my mind had suddenly transformed itself from  a thinking machine  into a machine for some unknown purpose. To think was like setting in motion a noisy engine in my brain; and there was something there which bade me still, and I was forced to obey. My state was one of suspense and watchfulness: yet I had no expectation of meeting with an adventure, and felt as free from apprehension as I feel now when sitting in a room in London… I was powerless to wonder at or speculate about it; the state seemed familiar rather than strange, and although accompanied by a strong feeling of elation, I did not know it—did not know that something had come between me and my intellect – until I lost it and returned to my former self—to thinking, and the old insipid existence.”  W.H. Hudson, famous naturalist

I have always loved the life on a ranch. I have always felt connected to Life, and its cycle. You wake up in the morning and from the moment you open you eyes, you follow Nature’s rhythm, until you retire at night, having participated once again in a ritual several thousands of years old. You learn to understand the value of what the Earth gives you. The relationship between you, the animals, the plants, the insects, and the land could not be stronger – everyone and everything is interconnected, intertwined in a deep network of independencies. You need the land and the land needs you. You need the animals and the animals need you. It is a symphony orchestrated by nature, and I, am only one of the participants. Everything I need is given to me through a complex yet simple and delicate ecosystem. The bees, the cattle, the horses, the pigs, the chickens, the flies, the trees, the sheep, the wind, the sun, the frost, the pond, the fish, the river, the frogs, the birds, the rabbits, the wolves, the ducks and me, we all play a role and our survival is tied to one another. It is a ritual that I have always felt honored and proud of taking part in.

Unfortunately, in our industrialized society, ranching and farming have become anything but “connected to the Land”. Independently if you are a gaucho (cowboy), a rancher, or an owner, the fact that one spends his or her days working the land has no indication whatsoever of his or her relationship to Nature. A fact that even surprised me when meeting several wildlife photographers, filmmakers, scientists, and biologists – it is not because one works in or with nature that necessarily he or she is close or connected to it. The last week has only reinforced this reality.

What we used to see as a privilege—believing it was a gift from the universe to allow us to harvest the earth, we now see as a given and a due. The land is a resource to be exploited and so are the animals. And if one species is an obstacle, or a burden to our means, then we eliminate it. The more you can yield out of an acre, the better. No matter the consequences, we bully ourselves through life, thinking that it is our destiny to plow the Earth as if it was our personal galley.

Not only have we transformed our fertile lands into monoculture deserts, but we also have turned our society into a monoculture landscape. We live in a world where individuals are asked to grow up specializing in one particular thing and forget about general knowledge. As early as thirteen years old, a teen is asked what he or she wants to focus on, undermining the idea to acquire a broad foundation before deciding what to become. Every time I think of this issue, I think back of Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps one of the finest politicians in the world, in the last 200 years. A naturalist, a hunter, a rancher, a military man, a scientist, a writer, an explorer and a politician, he was solid in geography and well-read in history, strong in biology, French, and German, but interestingly enough, deficient in mathematics, Latin and Greek. What can be said of today’s political or business elite, bred to excel in one thing only.

I have never been afraid of death or killing. I have always understood the dynamics of life and the ramifications of its complexity. The idea that death is bad is only a modern invention. Nature not only does not value one over the other, but each is a necessity to the universal equilibrium. The death or destruction of one, is the birth and proliferation of another. When working on a farm, or a ranch, death is just part of life.  In fact, the farmed animals have evolved into trading the assurance of their survival for the price of their death. For me, to respect and honor the food on my plate, I need to understand and fully participate in what it takes to get there. I completely understand when hunters and fishermen claim to be more in touch with nature that the city dwellers. I have had on my hands the blood of fish, game and farm animals, and each time I have felt more connected to Earth than going to the supermarket. Every time I have honored the moment, the animal and thanked the universe for its grace. It was obviously with great enthusiasm that I agreed to tag along to lasso a cow that had a broken leg and needed to be put down. It was my understanding that I was going to participate in a dignified ritual. Here I was, in an estancia (ranch) surrounded by mountains and lakes, where cattle still roam free and horses are the main means of transportation. I wanted to respect what the cow had lived for. I wanted to be there and honor her death and the legacy she would leave behind. Instead, what I witnessed, was a brutal and perverted act of barbary. From the kill to the skinning, everything was done with disdain. I found myself sad, not for her death, but for us, humans and how, even in the most remote places imaginable, where one would expect the deepest communion with nature, we have become disconnected.

And then I was reminded of the passage on W.H.Hudson in Chris Moss’s Patagonia: A Cultural History, when he went to London, leaving Patagonia behind:

“He was outraged at the way industry and its processes had usurped nature in his ancestral homeland, and would later describe his adopted England a glorified poultry farm … Somehow, while swatting away troublesome thoughts, the idler had reached a firm conclusion, that the biblically sanctioned notion of a natural world created for man to conquer and dispose of at will was simply unsustainable. To Hudson, the natural world, the environment, was sacred and not there solely be exploited. He contrasted nature’s richness with the artificial pleasures that most men valued – newspapers, finances, current affairs, city life—and which he despised. He viewed nature as a way  out of the tiresome, very English town-and-country dichotomy, and as a means to finding health as well as moral well-being.”

See more photos here: W.H. Hudson on Kontain

Movie Star Siile

RK is the Head Technician at Sherpa Adventure Gear; which means he’s the main authority on garment construction, pattern making, as well as overseeing the quality control for production. He has an uncanny knowledge for proper garment fit and construction that can only be the product of decades of experience and study. It’s really been a joy to work with him, and he embodies much of the sense of pride in workmanship and humble attitude that we’ve come to appreciate with working in Kathmandu. Not to mention that he has the looks of a Bollywood movie star. We interrupted his busy day in the sample room to joke around and ask a few questions (we told him it would only appear in US Weekly and Teen People, not to worry).

Learning from the Master

5 questions with RK: Garment Guru

CP: Favorite Food?

RK:  Dal Bhat

CP: Typical. Favorite Music?

RK: Classic Indi or Classic Nepali Music.

CP: I’ll bet you’re a good dancer.

RK: Scared smile (Joke lost in translation)

CP: Ok, serious now. How long have you been working in garment manufacturing?

RK: 29 years. But doing everything. Tailor, sampleman, supervisor, now head technician (garment guru).

CP: What’s your favorite part about working on TREW Gear?

RK: Lots of technical processes… it brings a lot of challenges and learning.

CP: Which TREW Jkt would you wear?

RK: Hmmm. (lots of thinking) Cosmic. Because the pockets are nice. Simple, clean. PowFunk has too much colors, crazy.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 ”TREW Gear, an apparel company based in Hood River, OR, is in its first
year of manufacturing technical jackets and pants in Nepal. Product Manager,
Chris Pew, and Photographer, Lance Koudele, are in location in Kathmandu
sharing thoughts and photos from their unique journey. All photos taken by Lance Koudele.”

Namaste

Going into our third season of manufacturing backcountry ski/snowboard apparel, we’re producing our full line of technical jackets and pants in Kathmandu, Nepal. Our trip is as much about working with the staff here on our Fall production and product development, as it is about understanding the context and culture of the Nepali people.  In our short experience in running an outerwear brand–three years of manufacturing in three different countries—we’ve found that the quality and consistency of our garments has as much to do with the people and a shared understanding as it does to do with the latest technologies and training tools.

Sharing a Laugh in the Sampling Department or Tsedo Making Fun of Me Again in Nepali

A baseline of technology and training is necessary, yes. Our category of outerwear is “technical apparel,” which I think in a broad sense refers to any garment produced with certain technologies that cater directly to the end-use. In our case, seam-sealing, 3-layer laminate fabrics, welded construction, are all key technologies that keep the end-user, backcountry skier or snowboarder bro, dry and protected. With the right machines and trained staff and sewers, any great facility can create successful and consistent technical outerwear; but with a shared understanding and vision comes a higher standard of quality, workmanship, and accountability that is the goal of any growing apparel brand (bigger brands too, but it’s generally easier to achieve this harmony when you own the factory, fabric mill, and the competitor’s too).

In Nepal, at this small factory producing technical mountaineering and outdoor gear for its own brand Sherpa Adventure Gear (www.sherpaadventuregear.com product plug! Check it out yo!), we’re excited to develop this understanding, study their own methods of production and development, and learn from their deep roots in the Kathmandu Valley and the Sherpa people of the Himalayas.

Ram Kamur, a Master Tailor and Head Technician at SAG, Inspecting a Garment

Nepal has a rich history in manufacturing apparel, and, in fact, not just the hippie hoodies that you can find in incense shops. There are many skilled tailors in the valley, and Kathmandu at times in the 80’s and 90’s was home to some 600 factories producing ready-to-wear lifestyle garments for the likes of Old Navy, The Gap, and (insert generic cargo short brand here). I think political instability, Maoist rebel-inspired labor unions, and inconsistent power supplies (to name a few hurdles) disturbed the manufacturing base here; and the big operations chasing the cheapest, most reliable labor and infrastructure support went elsewhere.

Stock Thread Colors

Tashi Sherpa, President and Founder of Sherpa Adventure Gear, and his staff (most are family too) seem to be singularly focused on bringing industry and jobs to the valley; as well as grounding his brand with the heritage of the Sherpa people (portions of his sales benefit education and Sherpa communities).  We find ourselves very fortunate to work with these skilled manufacturers and genuine people.

Right now I’m just excited to get out of my basement office in Portland or our garage headquarters in Hood River and onto the factory floor. There’s nothing that I’ve experienced in my life as exciting as watching in person hundreds of jackets and pants – the objects of months of work and years of dreaming–come alive; and I think there’s no better place, that I’ve been, to be a part of this crazy process than Kathmandu, Nepal.

Street Snap: Continuing an Ancient Craft in Bhaktapur, "Old Khatmandu"

TREW Gear, an apparel company based in Hood River, OR, is in its first year of manufacturing technical jackets and pants in Nepal. Product Manager, Chris Pew, and Photographer, Lance Koudele, are in location in Kathmandu sharing thoughts and photos from their unique journey. All photos taken by Lance Koudele. || www.trewgear.com ||

The Gore-Tex TransRockies Run is a fully supported, six-day stage race that takes participants (in teams of two) 120-miles through Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Runners start at the town of Buena Vista and run singletrack and dirt roads through Leadville and Vail to the finish line at Beaver Creek. In the evenings between stages, runners stay in a tent city, but it’s not as primitive as it sounds. Hot showers are available at each stop, food was provided by the amazing Gourmet Cowboy company (grilled Portobello? yes, please!), and sports massage and a medic tent are all available to keep participants healthy and running.

Tent city in Leadville. Photo by Billy Brown

When I first committed to running, I thought it was a 6-man relay. No problem. When I finally committed, I thought it was a two-man relay. Daunting, but doable. By the time the flight was booked, I found out that my partner and I would have to run the whole dang thing.

After a frantic summer of mountain running to get ready, I showed up in Buena Vista and met my partner. As we packed our bags, I mentally prepared myself to be intimidated for the next six days by 400 uber-athletes and speedy genetic freaks. Turns out, there was none of the alpha posturing and prison yard stare downs that I was anticipating. There was a wide range of fitness levels and speeds, and everyone involved was excited to be there, from the runners to the staff, whose job it was to disassemble the tent city and starting line and reassemble them at the finish line of each day’s stage.

It quickly became obvious why everyone seemed so excited about being there. The race is full of memories that will run in the “Best Of” section when my life flashes before my eyes: icing down my cramping muscles in a nearby river after running stage one; seeing 200 moonlit tents on the first night; looking back down at the valley after summiting Mt. Hope; high-fiving my partner after we sprinted through the finish line on stage three; staring up at the vertigo-inducing array of stars at Camp Hale; chowing down on fish tacos and margaritas at Mangos in Red Cliff… and I only made it through the first three stages.

The improvised ice bath at Stage 1. Photo by Kevin Fonger

Despite all of the natural beauty that I ran through, TransRockies Run wasn’t just about running through the mountains. Once I started talking to the runners around me, it turned out that the mountain running was just the icing on the cake.

After the first day or two, groups of people who run similar speed start to congeal into small herds and you can’t help but start talking with the people running next to you. As it turns out, people who voluntarily choose to run across a mountain range are nothing if not interesting.

Runners head up the switchbacks to the summit of Mt. Hope. Photo by Billy Brown

From Jeff, the lawyer who retired to open a beer pub, to Kelly, the girl who had a metal plate put in her hand the three days before the race to the Alabama housewife who decided to pack a host of creature comforts that made number 38 the most notorious duffel bag among the bag handlers, there was no lack of personality in the crowd. No lack of encouragment, either. You couldn’t pass someone or be passed without hearing “good job” or “keep it up,” no matter how winded everyone was.

While each person was a very distinct individual, they all seemed to coalesce into a whole. Everyone involved seemed to share the same two goals – to finish the race and have a great time.

Everyone had a great time, at least.  After pulling my hamstring on stage 2, I chugged through the 24-mile third stage and had to drop out, joining quite a few a growing number of wounded runners. Others were banged and bruised, but pulled through to the end. Every day people would cross the finish line covered in dirt, knees bleeding from a downhill running mishap. Ryan Bak was more stubborn than most – he broke his big toe and had to get stitches in his hip after a fall on day four. He and his partner Max King still ended up finishing second in the Men’s Open Division.

Ryan Bak after crossing the Stage 6 finish line. Note the end of the left shoe is removed to accommodate his swollen toe. Photo by Billy Brown

Many runners crossed the finish line bruised, battered, or bleeding, and everyone was exhausted. And almost every single runner was grinning.

At breakfast on the last day, many runners had their cell phones out on the tables, swapping contact information, looking new friends up on Facebook, and promising a place to stay whenever someone was in their neck of the woods.

I came away from the race with couches to sleep on in five more states than I had in the beginning of the week. I saw a girl named Robin puke on stage one, then watched as her boyfriend Adam proposed to her five days later after they crossed the finish line together. I fought muscle cramps and high altitudes; I pulled a hamstring and spent a week sleeping in fitful two-hour bursts.

I’m already training for next year.

Photo by Chris Hunter/TransRockies Run

The Adventure Racing Season for us this year has been quite a huge feat. This summer we teamed up with GearJunkie to create Team YogaSlackers/GearJunkie. Our mission is to test the crap out of all our gear, go fast, take chances and have as much fun as humanly possible.  So far we have done all of the above… plus a little more.

After our first 7 day race in British Columbia called Raid the North Extreme…

Click here to view the embedded video.

my digestion system decided to take a strike. About a week after the race, I was nauseas, and couldn’t eat anything but rice and yogurt without getting doubled over pains in my stomach. This lasted into the start of the next big race: Expedition Idaho. On the start line, I was still having cramps, but I thought if I just pushed through, maybe by day three I would go numb and just not feel anything. Three hours into the race, I still couldn’t keep anything down without crazy knife stabbing pain—so I bid a sad farewell to my team and headed into the doctors to see what was wrong with me. The guys pressed on for the next six days, while I tried everything from eating kitchari (an Indian dish) for three straight days to drinking aloe and apple cider vinegar. In the end, I think my system just needed a rest! The guys did amazing, and ended up with a fourth place finish! Here is an awesome video from the race:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I am now back on board and ready for our next and last expedition race before Nationals—Gold Rush Mother Lode. This one takes place in the Yosemite area and is sure to be an amazing, beautiful suffer fest.

For 2011, our team has been doing awesome even with me having to drop out of Idaho. We have been placing in the top 5 in all of our races so far, and for taking on all the Expedition Races within two weeks of each other… that is pretty good! Most importantly though, we have been learning so much about racing technique and ways to recover after the race.  Our newest decompression method after a long race is long lining…  check out our longest walk yet!

Click here to view the embedded video.

One unofficial job of a ridgerunner is playing messenger. It is a sometimes stressful (wait… who was I supposed to tell that to again?), sometimes rewarding task.

Recall a recent encounter of the adorable variety:

One morning I pass an elderly gentleman who thru-hiked way back when and is now doing a section hike with one of his old thru-hiking buddies. We stop to chat, and I find out that they both spent the night at the last shelter but his friend had yet to begin packing up to leave by the time he was heading out.

“When you see Farmer, can you tell him Klipspringer says ‘mush’?” he asks me.

A couple miles down the trail I pass another hiker of about the same age. “Are you Farmer?” I ask him.

“Yes…” he replies.

“Klipspringer says MUSH!” I tell him. To which he throws his head back and lets out a giant laugh.

“I haven’t heard that in years!” he says with a smile. And he starts hiking a little faster to catch up with his old friend.

[Photo Via: Compass Points Media]

The Mami 'taote' (doctor) and her pet shark, Tamaro.

When the Lau family caught wind of my ciguateric state, they quickly reported the news to ‘Mami’, their Tahitian grandmother who was rich with knowledge of traditional Tahitian medicine or ‘raaou’.

Twice the first day, and once for the following three days, ‘Mami’ prepared the local remedy for me to drink. Despite its unappealing pea-green color and potent taste, I sucked down each glass, willing to try anything that would take away that terrible muscular pain. She explained that unlike the Western ciguatera remedies, I would be able to eat fish in a few weeks rather than a few months.

… When finally I felt well enough to make my way over to thank the Mami, and find out what exactly I had been drinking…

The ciguatera 'raaou' ingredients...

She explained that the remedy called for three ‘free-standing’, above-ground pandanus roots and the bottom half of a large, mature coconut. As the pandanus plant grows taller, it pushes new roots out from its trunk, which grow down in the direction of the ground. These roots, before they reach the ground, are those that are cut from the trunk to prepare the ‘raaou’, at about a forearm’s length each. She then took one large mature coconut, and after shucking the husk and splitting it in two, using only the bottom half (the part without the three holes) to grate and press into coconut milk. Next she skinned the roots and pounded them flat with a hammer, and finally twisted each one until its brownish-green sap dripped down into the coconut milk.

I was fascinated by the process. I’d spoken with a French doctor in Tahiti who told me to take calcium tablets, but if I had none, I should eat a lot of cheese. But he’d obviously never had ciguatera, because the Mami was horrified when she found out I had been eating lots of cheese, as the animal protein in cheese exacerbated ciguatera symptoms. The Lau’s couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better quicker… alas, it could have been the cheese!

It’s part of coming from western civilization to naturally think that we have all the answers; that modern science always knows better. This situation was a good reminder to respect local knowledge, especially that of the elders who lived here before there were planes and French hospitals. It seemed both tragic and scary, that in maybe just one more generation, traditional Tahitian medicine might virtually disappear. There seemed to be a scarce few locals interested in learning from the elders. And unfortunately, modern science doesn’t seem to help–often turning up its nose to local knowledge, when with respectful collaboration of information everyone would win…

But change is inevitable, the world is getting smaller and smaller, and more and more homogenized. But with a little attention and respect for the past, hopefully we can carry some of the best of the old ways forward.

Jim Holm (far left), founder of The Clean Oceans Project, at the Plastic-to-Oil demonstration in San Diego.

“Nothing but intense love for what you want will enable you to surmount the obstacles in your path…” –Joe Vitale

My few weeks in California went by faster than ever… The memorial was fantastic and I left Santa Barbara feeling even more inspired than ever by the man who had helped me with the tools I needed to fulfill my dreams…

With the help of Patrick at North Sails in San Diego, and the generosity of Steve Waterloo and others of the Cal 40 fleet, I’d managed to track down a few used headsails. I would be heading back to Swell with plenty of Dacron to keep her gliding over the high seas a while longer…

What could be better than making turning plastic into a resource, and at the same time cleaning up shorelines and our oceans!?

The day before my flight, I was graced by the serendipity that Jim Holm, founder of The Clean Oceans Project, would be in San Diego to demonstrate the Blest Plastic to Oil machine! This was a Japanese technology I had seen on YouTube earlier in the year. I8 had instantly sent out a fleet of emails, hoping to arrange to carry the ‘desktop unit’ of the machine aboard Swell. I envisioned sailing around collecting plastic all over the pacific and turning it into usable diesel or gasoline for my voyage and for the locals. After ample research, it was clear that the desktop unit was not super practical for Swell due to its weight and efficiency. With another solar panel or two and some muscular crew, I could probably do it… but space is so limited! Not discouraged, I had kept in touch with Jim Holm over the last few months, in hopes of finding an alternative way of introducing this technology to the Pacific islands, where limited if any recycling facilities exist, and plastic litters every shoreline from the most populated to the most remote.

… So I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to meet Jim and see this technology in person… In a back corner of the Driscoll Boatyard on Shelter Island, Jim and his fellow demonstrators stuffed the machine full of random plastic trash while explaining the incineration process, the products, by-products, and limitations of this incredible machine.

Jim’s positivity and determination was almost palpable. He exuded motivation to clean up the sea with this technology and explained his eventual dream to get a large machine put aboard a ship that was capable of extracting the plastic from the ‘North Pacific Garbage Patch’. He was doing all the touring and raising awareness of the technology out of his own pocket, but I was certain that his unyielding enthusiasm with such powerful science behind it, would eventually lead him to the right people, and the necessary funding to make his dream of cleaning up our oceans come true.

Love is the secret ingredient to alchemy, even if in this case, it’s turning plastic into combustibles! … Be encouraged, Jim! Thank you for having the passion, courage, creativity, and energy to affront our plastic mess!

It’s more than halfway through the season and I’ve begun to notice a pattern: the amount of red-headed male thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail… is disproportionately high.

I find freckles cute and sunburns endearing, thus in everyday life I have found myself wondering, “Where are all the red-headed boys?” They’re not at the gas station or the grocery store, the library or the corner cafe.

And then I started work on the Appalachian Trail and I realized—it’s because they’re all out hiking.

As a ridgerunner, I keep track of the number of thru-hikers, overnight hikers, and day hikers I pass on the trail. But recently I’ve added a new sub-category beneath thru-hikers: red-headed males.

At least one in four men that I meet on the trail has red hair, while the national average for red-heads (male and female) falls somewhere between two and six percent.

What could explain this disparate percentage? “I think it’s our fiery passion for life,” says Sniffer, an undeniably ginger thru-hiker from Maine. Um, okay. But I have another theory.

Almost all of the men hiking from Georgia to Maine have beards. This makes sense, as there are few opportunities to shave on the trail. Almost all of these beards are noticeably more vibrant than their accompanying head-hair.

In this way, borderline auburns become distinct red-heads and strawberry-blondes become just plain strawberry. It is almost as if the red hue of the beard reflects itself across the rest of their head, and their persona.

If this theory proves correct… if all the men in the “real world” decided to grow beards, the world would be a noticeably rosier place.

… I decided I’d hang out with the kids from then on. Although they still looked at me googly-eyed from time to time, they usually just wanted candy. As school was out for ‘winter break’, we held geography and eco-talks aboard Swell, rewarding good answers with “bonbon Californie” (Californian candy) as they liked to call it.

After nearly a week at the quay, the surf was fading, and I readied Swell to make the crossing to the check out the rumored haul-out yard.

“But you can’t go today,” Tumata pleaded. He was one of my favorites. Bright, polite, and soft-spoken. “There’s a party at school tonight.” Later when his mom came by to round up he and his cousins, she explained that, yes, there was a fundraiser for the school.

So when I heard the singing commence, I wandered the 100 yards down to the school and peered in the gates. Some of the kids recognized me, pulling me inside, where I sat on a bench among them, watching the families and friends all take their turn on the stage. I didn’t quite understand the format–it seemed a bit like karaoke night–as different groups and even a few solos went up and took their turn singing or playing ukulele for the crowd. No need for a screen with the words floating by, everyone knew the words to the local songs. I imagined it to be a bit like their version of ‘American idol’… a chance to show-off their talents for the other townspeople. It was all in fine humor, too, and the microphone refused to work from time to time. Laughter and cheers filled the still night air.

Then an official-looking woman took the microphone, and speaking in Tahitian, pulled a prize off of the raffle table, shuffled her hand into the ticket stubs, and called out a few numbers.

“Huit, quatre, zero!”

A young woman raced up to claim her prize. So it was a raffle! Of course!

Once the singing got going again, I wandered toward the back, finding a woman at table with loads of home-baked cakes and a sign saying: Gateau (cake) 300F, Coco Glace (cold coconuts) 200F, Ticket Tombola (raffle ticket) 500F.

“Bonne soir, madame. Cinq tickets tombola et un coco glace, sil vous plait.” I said. (Good evening, madame, five raffle tickets and a cold coconut, please.)

She looked at me apologetically. There were no more raffle tickets. “C’est bonne (it’s ok),” I said, passing her the equivalent of the raffle tickets anyway. “Pour l’ecole (for the school).”

At first she didn’t understand. She turned to her friend uncertain of what to do. It was the equivalent of 30 or so dollars. She was shocked. She handed me the ice-cold coconut and insisted I take a piece of cake, too, thanking me profusely.

It was the least I could do, really. I’d wished I could give more, but with no ATM machine for a few hundred miles around, my cash was limited.

I stayed to watch a few more singing numbers, and then snuck out the back, waving goodbye to Tumata and the little group of scholars. The next morning, I woke up to find a stock of bananas and papayas on my deck, as precious as gold in a place with hardly any arable soil!

You never know when a little can mean a whole lot…

The wind was 15-20 knots hard on the nose as I beat my way 10 miles across the atoll. Sure enough, at a few miles out, I spotted masts sticking up through the coconut trees!?!

“It’s true! There really is a haul-out yard out here in the middle of nowhere!?!” I cheered into the wind. A smiling young man met me in a dinghy to guide Swell between the numerous coral heads to one of four mooring balls.

“Welcome,” he said. “Come ashore and check it out when you feel like it.”

Later that day, I went ashore to find the loveliest place imaginable to haul a boat. The ground was covered with round coral stones, the lagoon was sparkling turquoise, the coconut trees rustled in the breeze, and five or six boats were propped up across the wide expanse of land they’d cleared for storing boats.

Alfred Lau and his family ran this outback enterprise, a courageous endeavor I had to admit. But for the wandering sailor like me, the downside of lacking an easy place to purchase parts and materials seemed to be well outweighed by the upsides of having a lovely working environment, virtually zero possibility of theft, and a casual, family-run operation. Plus, they carried the bare necessities–antifouling paint, brushes and rollers, tape and the likes. It was a three-generational family effort: Grandpa, father and wife, and son and daughter, Asam, Alfred and Pauline, Tony and Nancy, respectively, although grandpa stuck mostly to his own affairs–tending to his 200 egg-laying hens or splitting coconuts with his enormous hatchet to dry and sell as ‘copra’ to the large coconut oil refinery in Papeete. Despite knowing little about sailboats, I was largely impressed with their operation…

Alfred invited me for dinner that evening, and every evening up to my departure, for that matter, and it was clear that this haul-out experience would be bit different than my last…

“For Tahitians and Poumotu,” Alfred spoke seriously over dinner one night, “Our family land is the ‘pito’ (the Tahitian word for ‘belly-button’). Without your land and you are lost. The land is you and you are the land.” He picked up some of the rocks underfoot, and raised them to his lips as he spoke. He told that he had left the island to work in the city in Papeete as a young man. Some years later, his grandmother had threatened to give the island to someone who would use it, rather than see the land go unused. So he had decided to come back and start a pearl farm. But now, with the flooded pearl market, and the current state of the economy, they’d drawn on the advice of a French sailor and bought a hydraulic trailer to haul-out boats…

As I let the night breeze push the dinghy back towards Swell after dinner, I looked up at the wide Tuamotu sky and pondered that my ‘pito’ must be made of saltwater and wind and stars and fiberglass… ?

Over the next few days, I prepared Swell for my departure and then the three Lau generations hauled her out few days later, propping her up amongst the palms. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I would have peace of mind to leave Swell alone when I hopped the next plane back to California for Barry’s memorial…

The two major trail towns in Connecticut are Kent and Salisbury, and they can only be described as quintessentially “New England” (white picket fences, Volvos in the driveway, etc.).

Unfortunately, as a smelly backpacker among the showered and powdered upper-middle class, I feel like I’m trespassing even when I step into the frozen food section of the grocery store.

To combat my poorly-groomed persona, I try to be as friendly as possible. Smiles, waves, door-holding, etc. And it works. I’ve talked to a bunch of people about my job (general reply: “I’m so jealous”), and possibly even convinced a few to become AMC members.

Problem: Coffee Shop Guy is apparently immune to my charm.

The Roast in Salisbury in my favorite resting place (good coffee and shady outdoor seating), and I thought it would be cool to get to know the people who worked there, perhaps develop a “will you be wanting your usual blueberry muffin today?” type relationship. So early on in the summer I introduced myself to the guy behind the counter…

“Hi, I’m Rachel.” [SMILE] “I’m working on a nearby section of the Appalachian Trail this summer and I love coffee, so I’ll be stopping in often… I hope I don’t smell too bad.” (Okay, so a little awkward. But full of good intentions.)

Coffee Shop Guy’s response? “Oh. Hi.” After an awkward pause and an “okay… see you around then” (on my part, not his) I returned defeatedly to my spot outside. We haven’t talked since.

I evaded the second lunch with Jacques the following day when a customs boat circled outside the quay around midday…

They launched their tender, and a group of uniformed men came speeding toward the quay. The captain scrambled out of the dinghy, then stormed over to Swell.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a fuss in French. “This dock is for cargo ships and official French vessels ONLY!”

“I’m so sorry, sir.” I replied. “The villagers told me that the next ship wouldn’t be in until Thursday. And in fact, I think we can both fit here…”

“Where is your husband?” he demanded. “You’ll have to move this boat right now!”

“I don’t have one.” I replied.

“You’re alone?!”

“Yes, sir.”

He went quiet for a moment, his face morphing from anger to surprise. His brow then softened entirely.

“Yes, I believe you’re right.” He chirped accommodatingly. “We can both fit if we move you forward…” He and the other officials handled the lines while I drove Swell up against the outgoing current, and shortly after, the battleship-looking customs boat came alongside the quay behind Swell.

The captain shook my hand before walking back to his ship. “You’re welcome to join us for dinner tonight,” he said, squeezing my hand for an uncomfortably long pause while looking me deeply in the eyes…

I smiled bleakly, and thanked him for the invitation… What was it this week? Where was Marine Man when I needed him!?

When the door to the propeller plane closed, I was alone again… but not for long. I sat under the shaded airport waiting area for less than a minute before an old man teetered over to greet me. I was used to being approached by the locals here; it was just part of being a new face in a town of less 200 inhabitants.

The old man hardly breached four feet. In fact, some of the nine year-old girls that were dotting on me to my right were about his size. He looked to be in his mid-seventies or so and of Asian rather than Tahitian descent. Wisps of his long gray hair fluttered at his shoulders while he took my hand in his.

“I Jacques, whas you name?” He asked.
“Leeeez,” I replied, (the easiest French pronunciation).
“Oh, Leeees! Is very prity name. I Chinese doctor. I live here 14 years. You like here?” He almost trembled with excitement as he spoke.
“Oui, c’est fantastique.”
“Oh, tu parle Frances! (Oh you speak French!)”
“Oui”
“Ok, tu vien a ma maison, mangeeeeer? (You come to my house to eeeeeeeeeat?)”
“Ummmm, ok?” … I replied, despite knowing that what I really needed was a nap it appeared as though I would crush his very soul if I refused, though, and Chinese medicine had always interested me. And I didn’t feel much like cooking… so why not?
“Ok, you come 12 o’clock… Okaaaaaaaay?” And proceeded to describe where to find his house. There were only three roads, and everybody knew everybody… so I knew it wouldn’t be tough…

A few hours later, I located his house, across from the Protestant church, and lifted the cord off the nail that held his gate closed.

“Jacques?” I called, pushing my way inside.
“Ouuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Vien. Vien! (Yeesssssssss, Come. Come!)”

He led me through the barren sideyard and pushed past a red curtain and into his home. He led me into the living room where there was a bed and a chair and one of those cats with one paw in the air sitting on a shelf, along with an enormous sea turtle shell and a red-tasseled Chinese calendar. I couldn’t put my finger on the smell that tinged the air—something between iodine and oyster sauce. I tried to take small breaths as he led me past the bare plywood division into the dark kitchen area, where he pulled out a small plastic chair for me and then promptly kissed me on both cheeks, with more saliva than I appreciated. I figured he was just overly excited to have company. His words leapt like musical notes as he served me some powdered juice in an empty yogurt container. Scanning the clutter that he’d pushed to the other end of the table, I noticed various packs of pills, liquid viles, and a revolting morsel of used cotton–brown and twisted—jutting out from the teeth of those medical scissors with the little grippy teeth at the end. My already wavering appetite promptly hit the deck.

I tried to shrug it off, and asked him to tell me how he wound up out here in the outer islands. He had left China with his parents to live in France at only four years old and was now 74. He’d come to French Polynesia during the era of nuclear bomb testing, where he’d been a doctor on the one of the main atoll testing sites. I didn’t quite catch what had happened between then and now, but I decided not to pry, and changed the subject to medicine. It soon became clear that he was not a doctor of Chinese medicine; he was schooled as a doctor in France, but was of Chinese descent. Ok, I guess in another sense he was still a ‘Chinese doctor’… but his other responses to my questions didn’t seem to be adding up either… He talked of his houses in both Papeete and France, “big land, biiiiiiiiiiig house!” He said. Looking around I wondered why he chose to stay there, but that wasn’t my business…

I managed to stomach a polite majority of my plate of rice and steamed, despite the horrid spout of used cotton lingering in my peripherals all the while. I told him my need of a safe place to leave Swell while I went back to California for Barry’s memorial, and his eyes lit up.
“Ma cherieeeeeeeeee go to Californieeeeeeeeeeeeee?”
“Yes, I must leave in less than two weeks,” I explained.
“Oh, don’t worry. I help ma cheriiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee!”

Following a helping of cake that he’d baked himself, he kissed my cheeks again and insisted that we go talk to his friends about a safe place to leave Swell. The truth was that I had already made a thorough scan of the village area. There was no secure spot. With the fetch of 10 miles across the atoll, the wind waves made anchoring near town inarguably too dangerous, and Swell drew too much water to fit inside the tiny marina. The quay to which Swell was currently tied had to be vacated at the arrival of the weekly cargo ships. I mentioned the new boatyard across the way, but he insisted it was much too expensive…

“I pay, ma cherieeeeeeeeee.” Him pay? What? This was getting weird…?

Following lunch, Jacques led me proudly around the village, introducing me as his ‘cherie’ (darling or ‘sweetheart’) in a long drawl of excitement. “Voila ma cheriiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeee!” He’d say to those we passed. Oh dear, this was getting a bit uncomfortable. I realized that he thought I was now his girlfriend!! I did find it remarkable that in the last year or so, it seemed that men of any age found it appropriate to pick up on me, but Jacques could have been my grandfather!

Finally, I made my escape suffering through two more wet cheek kisses, as long as I agreed to come for lunch the following day!

“Ok, I see you 12 o’clock toooomorrow, cheeerriiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee?!!”

R.I.P., boots.

 Sweet watch tan?

Trunk chaos.

Poor nutrition.

So many paperbacks.

 Thru-hiker’s digitz.

And laundromat parties.

While the break was enjoyable, Dave and I both were more than happy to start paddling again. We left Southend on a windy day. Yes, that wind happened to be a headwind. Since we departed late in the day, we only made it eight miles to the Whitesand Dam. Here we marveled at how well-kept the portage trail was. It is actually designed to haul fishing boats across. There were even boat trailers and an ATV to aid in hauling boats across. This is a popular fishing spot too. We saw two parties catching walleye below the dam.

On Saturday, we got to know the Reindeer River. We launched below the dam and immediately enjoyed the scenery. The river was lined by high hills and bare rock was visible here and there. The area must have burned a few years ago. The landscape was mostly the bright green of aspen and birch, dotted with a darker green of the spruces and jack pine that had survived the fire. We have spotted pelicans frequently, along with the usual loons, ducks and gulls.

Above the first rapids, Devil’s Rapids, we saw the biggest beaver dam either of us had ever seen. After stopping for a picture, we paddled through the rapids with no problem, wondering why it had such an intimidating name. The river wound through a marshy area. As the river turned, our headwind eventually became a tailwind. We actually sailed for a while.

As we were enjoying our tailwind, we came across another party of canoeists. Six people were heading upstream to Southend. They were just launching after a lunch break and told us about abundant blueberries. We couldn’t resist taking a short break to pick our first hand full of blueberries of the season.

Sunday was another good day on the river. The wind stayed mellow all day and the sun baked us as we paddled. We had one portage, the Steephill Portage. Although there is a wooden ramp for hauling bigger boats across, I doubt that it has been used in a while. The trail was good, but alder and aspen saplings were growing between the logs of the ramp.

By the time we finished paddling on Sunday, we reached the halfway point between Southend and Pelican Narrows. How strange to not have another month between towns. I suppose we’ll get used to the shorter week-long gaps in between towns.

Dinosaurs. One of the many typical dangers of the road.

Perhaps it’s because I know we won’t be riding any more after today. Perhaps it’s because it’s about 60 degrees and drizzling, but our ride is easy, quiet, calming and disaster-free. We don’t even see any road kill. We’re both feeling strong and despite the fog, which makes me nervous, I’m certain the cars and trucks can see us because we’re both sporting our ridiculously vibrant neon Pearl Izumi jackets. They’re so bright they nearly glow in the dark and–I kid you not–can be spotted from about half a mile away.

Today, I’m grateful for being mentally clear and able to think about what I want to. About what I’m doing with my life and what I want to be doing with it. The best part about that is I’m able to fully appreciate that on the smallest scale, I’m doing precisely what I want right now. I’m pedaling along the Oregon Coast with the man who taught me most of what I know. I’m strong, I’m healthy, I’m happy. And I’m quietly reveling in the beauty of living three days of life that is structured so simply. We wake up early, fuel the body with good food, use that energy to power through a few hours of movement, fuel again, power again and then relax with conversation, slow walking, literature and fire-making. In today’s society–where boredom is tantamount to illness and people seek out entertainment and distraction at all costs–I’m grateful for this opportunity to unplug and get back to my hunter-gatherer roots.

We weave in and out of the mountains. One minute we’re whizzing past the beach, the next we’re pedaling up a steep hill and find ourselves amid mountainous thicket. Since I’m less zombie-like and more alert today, I can finally appreciate how significant sleep is to a person’s daily functioning–something I take for granted normally. I tell my dad this and he reminds me that he knows it all too well.

At about 6 p.m., after about six miles of thinking we’re “almost there,” we do, finally, reach Brookings–the final stop. My dad is smiling more than I’ve seen him do over the course of the last year. Contrastingly, I’ve got a raging fire burning my buns, which makes me feel again, like a child–this time with diaper rash–but aside from the saddle sores, I’m in good shape and smiling, too. We find the only busy spot in town, a pizza shop called Zola’s in the port portion of Brookings and order a gigantic veggie pizza, a salad and, in our slightly dehydrated state, just one beer to share. That beer–Great White–is so good it makes me smile. And after 60 miles of riding, it also makes my muscles tingle and relax.

Mesmerized by the flames of the fire.

Bellies full of pizza at about 8 p.m., we head to the closest camp spot we can find, an RV camp about a mile away. It’s no forested campground but it’s got an entire lawn prepped for tents and, most importantly, free hot showers. We settle into camp, clean up and enjoy the beauty of the river that runs through town and next to our spot for the night. Again, we make a fire and relax by it. We’ve used our energy reserves for the day and showered off all the resulting sweat, which leaves us with a sense of calmness and peaceful joy.

The next morning we try out MoJoes Coffee, waiting for and then thoroughly enjoying a couple of hot scones minutes after they’re taken out of the oven. We have nowhere to go until 11:50, when we’ll catch the Coastal Express back to North Bend, so we spend three leisurely hours relaxing in the sun outside of the cafe. While doing so, we encounter 11 small dogs (mostly dachshunds and Chihuahuas) and a woman walking them all at once down the sidewalk. Her apparent eccentricity, she tells us, has kept her alive in times of deep depression. In the same way we pedaled on in the face of adversity during our short but intense trip, she walks on–dogs in tow–in the face of lifelong struggles. We humans are lovely, strange creatures.

One woman. Eleven small dogs.

Later we catch the bus and enjoy the view of the route we just rode from the other side of the highway, inside the assumed safety of the bus. Our bikes rest safely in the back of it and we comment on all of the hills we climbed up and down along the way. They look much easier from this vantage point than they felt.

In an anticlimactic finish, the bus cruises into the parking lot of the Mill Casino nearly three hours later and, here we are, finished. We slowly attach our bikes to the roof rack and, that’s it. But it’s here I notice that it’s not the action of finishing the trip that means much, if anything. Because while there’s little significance in driving away after having ridden 130 miles, there’s big meaning in the way the Padre and I both feel. We’re tired, of course, but we’re also invigorated emotionally. We’re proud, too because this trip has a lot more meaning for both of us than most people, friends and family included, realize. We’ve overcome a lot in the past two years and somehow I now see that this trip is a microcosm of our lives.

We’ve gone through moments of pure excitement and joy, as well as hellish times of doubt. We’ve encountered death and learned to move forward in the face of it. We’ve hit bumps in the road, unexpected and undeniably rough twists and turns. We’ve had to move forward with makeshift solutions. We have worked hard and become stronger. And, most amazingly, we’ve been there for each other throughout it all. Now that’s what life—and a bike trip—is all about.

An anticlimactic--but contemplative--drive home.

Post-Seven Devils Road.

About half a mile out we encounter a 45-degree hill that stretches up for another half mile. I huff, puff and blow up the hill at a slow clip in an effort to motivate myself and shake the nerves. Uncharacteristically, my dad decides to walk it. We make our way out of the city and quickly begin to wend our way along Seven Devils Road. Its hills may not strike 45-degree angles but they’re as hellish as the name suggests. I hate hills, but I enjoy this because we’re off of Highway 101 and up in the mountains. There are no cars, at all, and all I can hear is the whooshing cadence of my breath and the chirping of birds. We’re high above the water and it’s so peaceful here that I can’t stop smiling. After two hours and immediately following a good downhill stretch, we see the sign for Bullards Beach State Park and cruise in. It’s still light out and–first’s first–we made it! I’m ecstatic, tired and sweaty. Peanut butter-filled pretzels never tasted so good.

I’ve only been camping a handful of times (yes, this is absurd and ridiculous and yes, I do intend to change that statistic over the rest of my life). But because my dad and I are two organized, slightly neurotic peas in a pod, we’ve practiced setting up the MSR Mutha Hubba tent at home while watching the company’s awesome instructional video… so here, we appear to be pros. We whip out our teeny tiny (1.9 ounce) Snow Peak stove and boil water for some good ‘ol freeze-dried mac ‘n cheese and chicken salad. Eating with the company of our interested neighbors–a teacher and principal couple from San Diego–we discuss cycling, life choices and education. I’m intrigued by their passion and motivation as educators and bike riders. Unlike most of us cycling the Oregon Coast Bike Route, they battled headwinds from Brookings north to here and–also unlike most of us in the hiker biker campsite–are doing the roundtrip ride back.

As I quickly learn, a camper’s bedtime is about 9:30 p.m. I’m tired but my mind is rushing with ideas and excitement. Cannery Row slows my brain for a bit but when I try to go to sleep–I can’t. Six hours of tossing and turning and two hours of sleep later, it’s time to get up and ride 40 miles. This should be interesting, I surmise.

For this trip, home sweet home.

In contrast to the night prior, today I can’t think. I’m too tired. We pack everything up into our panniers and ride into the Old Town portion of Bandon for bagels and coffee. Soon after, we’re off for 40 miles of Highway 101. I’m feeling a dangerous combination of totally brain dead and nervous but there’s not a thing to do but pedal. My dad, despite not having slept well for six months and one night, thanks to the crescendo of me shifting in my sleeping bag, is surprisingly excited and eager to go.

We pedal strongly for about 15 miles before I hear my dad yell the expletive reserved only for the bad or the ugly. He stops and I see that his pedal’s Power Strap is dangling off. Once screw came off somewhere down the road and he’s left with a lame pedal. We’re standing three feet shy of the white line that separates us from Highway 101 and its continual stream of cars, SUVs, gravel trucks and what I see as my potential nemesis on this trip: log trucks. My dad gets his tools out and fashions a feasible fix for the strap that’ll do until we get into town. As he picks up a wrench on the rocky ground we both see the bones of some supposed road kill.

About two miles down the road, I start to feel a little queasy; I’m starving, hot, tired and terrified because the traffic is non-stop. It’s about at this point that my dad sees road kill number ten or eleven to our right and shouts, “This is like the highway of death!” I can tell he’s smiling as he jokes but I’m not laughing.

The highway may be terrifying, but the scenery is beautiful.

Between Bandon and Port Orford we’ve seen bones, as well as a deceased raccoon, squirrel, deer and skunk. We’ve also spotted four or five dead dragon flies on the shoulder over which we ride, which I can only see as a bad omen. But we continue until we spot a Tru Value in Port Orford where my dad’s able to buy a screw and fix his Power Strap. Next, we treat ourselves to a handmade pizza and a turkey avocado sandwich for lunch at the Siren’s Cove Cafe. We buy scones for later and then head the ten miles down the road to our day’s final destination, Humbug Mountain.

When we’re nearly there in physical locale, my dad and I are in two totally different realms. I’m so fried mentally and physically I’m afraid I might actually tip over into the traffic to my left. My dad’s pushing to make the twenty-mile ride to Gold Beach; he feels“Great!”

It’s at this point that I realize how different this trip is than anything I’ve ever done. In a marathon, for example, it’s easy to think you can’t go on, that you’re too tired. And yes, you might trip, but you won’t put yourself in serious danger if you do because you’ll probably just topple over awkwardly and get skinned knees. In essence, you can keep going… and going… far past your predicted limit. On a bike, however, once you “hit the wall” so to speak, you have to be cautious, especially if you’ve got two thirty pound packs attached to your bike’s rear; especially if you’re riding alongside mondo trucks that won’t stop if you do tip over. With these thoughts slowly coming in and out of my focus, I tell my dad I’m done for the day. Let’s roll into Humbug Mountain, set up camp and take a freaking nap.

This is what six hours of sun does to a pair of mesh glove-covered hands.

After a shower, that’s exactly what I do–utterly giving my body up to the cushiony goodness of my Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad. I don’t mean to, really, but I’m so sleepy I feel like a child in daycare after six hours of playing in the sun. Once I’ve recovered some mental capacity, we make an early dinner from our freeze-dried stash. We also realize our friends from San Diego are here, too, which provides some comfort in the overriding unknown of this trip.

Then we address my dad’s pre-trip question of what does one do at camp for five hours? We read, we go for a walk, we go for another walk to the beach, we sit on the beach, we walk back to camp, we read and we go for another walk. On one said walk we collect tiny little sticks and leftover charred wood bits and create a makeshift fire for the fun of it. I end up staring at and attempting to keep alive this fire for about an hour. All of this is followed by a camp-wide silence–the bedtime cue–at 9:30 p.m.

About nine hours later, after a goodbye to our San Diego friends, we depart for our biggest day yet, 60 miles. I start pedaling, silently praying my agnostic ass off that we make it.

The Padre and I (circa 1991).

When I was about four, my dad and I started biking together. Once, he took me to the Alpenrose velodrome to watch the grown-ups race. In the subsequent kids’ event, I rode and placed third behind two grade-schoolers who cycled sans training wheels; I had pedaled my Corvette-red tricycle to victory.

Throughout elementary school, I tagged along with my dad to local biathlons and triathlons where I always competed in the kids’ size events. Once, in an effort to outrace an older kid, I skidded out in the gravel, knocking him, his bike and mine to the ground–on top of me. I shredded my tights and my knees and immediately burst into wailing tears. Then I had a volunteer put my chain back on and give me a push to get back going. The kid I’d successfully rattled took off ahead of me, but I finished the race as the battered bad-ass I knew I was and, being that I was slower than usual, found my dad waiting anxiously at the finish line.

About a year and a half ago, I became the proud owner of a Bianchi hybrid commuter bike, replete with a pedal-generated front light and, as of two months ago, a nicely padded female-specific saddle (thank the good agnostic Lord). With my mature bike and no car to drive came longer bike rides, stronger legs and more opportunities to meet up with the Padre for a 20-or-30-mile ride here and there. And it was on one of those rides–33 miles from Portland to Gladstone and back–that he said, cracking open a rare tooth-filled grin, “Let’s do a bike trip down the Oregon Coast.” I smiled, too. Most of my close friends don’t ride very much, and my boyfriend, a soccer-obsessed lover of cats who prefers a good dinner out to a night of camping, simply doesn’t have a bike and doesn’t much care. My dad and I had been biking (and running, surfing, skiing and traveling) together for my entire life, so who better to go with? I was in.

Another type of coast trip (circa 1995).

Soon after this Gladstone ride, my dad’s grin fades. He’s having doubts about this trip. Speaking candidly, he’s having doubts about everything in life because 2011 is the culmination of two very rough years for the Ewers family and my dad in particular. The abrupt and abridged version of these years goes like this:

On June 20th, 2009–my dad’s birthday–his mom had a heart attack. She survived thanks to modern medicine and several stents in her arteries, but now lives in Newport’s only nursing home and has lost the use of her legs due to constant bed rest.

In January of 2010, my dad’s closest sibling, Paul, parked his ODOT vehicle on the side of an overpass off I-84, leaving the door open and the lights flashing. He then mysteriously fell from the top of the overpass, where construction on it had left a gaping hole, into a dry creek bed. He died immediately, leaving a gaping hole in our family.

In a quick and unexpected turn of events just months later, my pragmatic, thoughtful and utterly un-lovey-dovey adult father turned into a giggling care bear of a creature when he met a woman and fell in love for the first time in 25 years. “I think I might be able to spend the rest of my life with her,” he once said to me, about 36 days into the relationship. He was so enamored with who he now calls you-know-who that he’d sit down to Dancing With the Stars instead of Charlie Rose; listen to the Dave Matthews Band’s cooing songs instead of Elvis Costello’s classic tracks and drink blended margaritas–if it was with her.

About 120 days after his momentous statement about a life to be spent with her, he’d be at my doorstep crying; the relationship had ended. The only other time I’d ever seen my dad cry was 1. After completing each of the eight marathons he’s run and 2. At the death of Paul. And so, with all of these events, my dad’s emotion, psyche and mental stability were unusually and uncharacteristically–different. He began having trouble sleeping, worrying about his health and questioning the meaning of life. “I’m having an existential life crisis,” he declared. Soon, the man who refused Tylenol for a headache was getting a prescription for Ambien. The Padre who was always the most physically fit and health conscious had lost twelve pounds and was garnering comments from my friends who saw him such as, “He looks like he’s about to cry.”

My dad (left), Aunt Jean (middle) and Paul (right) in the mid-70s.

This is where we’re at when, in July, we’re supposed to be prepping for this so-called bike trip. Bluntly put, I ultimately convince my dad that we’ve committed; we’re going. In other words–I didn’t get the word persist tattooed on my back for no good reason.

Three days before leaving, it’s July 15, and we’ve got everything we need packed into our panniers. We’ve even both loaded them on and ridden around town to get a feel for the added weight. In spite of our hyper-organized packs, our maps and our to-the-tee plan, my dad’s still not excited–At all. “What are we supposed to do at the campground all evening, in this weather?” He says, and points to the drizzle and grey outside. My mom (the Padre’s new confidante and best friend right now despite their legally divorced status) looks at me with questioning eyes, waiting. The best answer I can come up with is that we’ll certainly find out.

The sun comes out on the mid-August Sunday morning of our departure. At this point, I’m a bit nervous, too because I realize a few things. We’ve never actually ridden more than 35 miles together, never camped together and never ridden on a highway during summertime traffic with a three-foot shoulder. Nonetheless, I pick my dad up and we load our panniers into my trunk, our bikes on my rooftop rack.

Later on, cruising, still via car, on Highway 101, we encounter a long back up near Lincoln City that causes us to stop for thirty minutes with the engine turned off and realize it’s due to a major accident up the road. When we finally pass the two cars involved, we see that both have been smashed, accordion style, in to nearly half their original sizes. Until now I’ve been blissfully unaware of what cycling Highway 101 may entail. And I realize that those cars are resting in peace where we’re supposed to be biking. For the first time while embarking on a journey with my father, I question my own safety.

The look on my face reads what my dad says: "Why are we doing this?"

Road delays and a stop for afternoon coffee in Florence mean we drive into our starting point, the North Bend casino parking lot, at about 5 p.m. We still have four hours to make it the 28 miles to our first camp but the window of light that threatens to close in on us at about 9 tonight makes me slightly nervous. It means we better get going, which we do. At 5:30 we’re parked, changed and standing next to our heavy ass bikes. We’ve both got two loaded back panniers that threaten to pull our bikes down at any unbalanced opportunity. Keeping in mind that, exactly one week ago, I made a sharp, pannier-free turn on my bike and quickly smacked down–hard–on the pavement, bruising the hell out of the inside of my right knee and scraping the skin off of the other, I clip in. In the same tone my dad uses prior to running 26.2 miles he says, apprehensively, “Why are we doing this?” We simultaneously stride forward–a bit wobbly–to find out the answer to that question.

I’m not the only ridgerunner in my section…

Tristan Sprenkle (a.k.a. T. Sprinkle) hails from the small town of Kramer, Pennsylvania. “We have a gas station and a pizza place,” he says. “If you want anything that’s not there you have to drive to the next town. But the pizza is pretty awesome.”

This statement illustrates Sprenkle’s optimistic, if sometimes contradictory, take on life: Sprenkle is a vegan hunter who won’t eat cheese but will eat squirrels if he killed them himself, and he has a giant Optimus Prime tattoo across his stomach but hates the Transformers movies. “I grew up watching the cartoons and I have the comic books,” he says. “They ruined my childhood with those movies.”

Sprenkle embraces an ultra-lightweight approach to hiking by designing and sewing his own pack and sleeping bag that weighs only 13.8 ounces… but carries around an 1,444 page copy of War and Peace. “I’m determined to finish it by the end of the summer,” he says.

An avid reader, Sprenkle has read every work of fiction by Edward Abbey at least three times, and he was almost an English major (and a photography major, and an informational technology major) before he eventually graduated with a degree in environmental science. He is certified to install solar panels in homes, and he spent a summer surveying invasive asian beetle populations.

“I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up,” Sprenkle says. But in the meantime, he is enjoying his summer spent in the woods. “I get to live outside,” he says. “This is the perfect job.”

On his days off, Sprenkle recovers from hiking 16 miles a day by exercising as little as possible. “I once watched the first fifteen minutes of Biker Boys—the worst movie ever—because I didn’t have a remote.”

Sprenkle is preparing for post-season by ordering dried food in bulk from Mormon websites. “I just want to make sure I don’t starve.”

FUN FACTS

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Favorite Hiking Food: Berry Blast Oreos

Favorite Biggie Song: “Gimme the Loot.’”

Least Favorite Article of Clothing: Socks. “They make my feet feel claustrophobic.”

Best moment on the trail this summer: “Going to sleep listening to a pack of howling coyotes,” he says. “That was a great night.”

After rising to our great challenge, the sea rewarded us with smooth sailing through the afternoon until the wind dropped off entirely and we motored on into the calmest, starriest night I could ever remember in this wind-worn belt of the Pacific.

Rotating on 3-hour watches, I relieved Crystal just after 3 a.m. Swell plowed on into the moonless galaxy of twinkling starlight and bubbling phosphorescence. I felt Barry there with me… He surely wouldn’t have missed out on a night so spectacular… Oh the shooting stars!

At 5:02 am, Venus, the morning star, rose out of the sea. Light followed her. I woke Crystal, but couldn’t resist watching the sunrise before I laid down to rest. We turned off the motor and let Swell drift in the succulent silence. We curled up against the wad of broken sail, tucked under our blankets, and dissolved into the Peace… the ubiquitous, all-encompassing Peace… that was floating on that miraculously calm, open sea…

As we entered the deep, easy entrance to the next atoll destination a few hours later, our timing appeared flawless. The sea surface began to wrinkle as the trades gusted from the east, and the swell was most certainly filling in! We watched it move north along the atoll’s coral rim where it peeled off along the shallows of a long, flat lay of reef… thus, Crystal’s last 36 hours became a salty blur. We wondered where and when we’d meet again as she stepped up into the tiny prop plane, leaving me there with more waves than I knew what to do with!

Many people dream of the day when they will complete a successful thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, when they will look out from the summit of Mt. Katahdin and know they have traversed essentially the entire length of the East Coast on foot.

Unfortunately, as a broke college student I currently lack the time and resources to fulfill this particular dream, as well as the audacity to put my education on hold to acquire said time and resources. So, when I had the opportunity to spend the summer between my junior and senior years working as a ridgerunner for the Appalachian Mountain Club, I couldn’t think of a better compromise.

And that is how this season, instead of hiking the 2,181 miles from Georgia to Maine, I share the 65-mile section of trail that runs through Connecticut and southern Massachusetts with three co-workers.

Each day at work, I hike from one shelter or campsite to another about 12 miles north or south. Along the way I perform light trail maintenance such as clearing trees that have fallen across the trail, picking up trash, and talking to any hikers I pass, especially in situations where I can teach them how to minimize their impact on the wilderness (benefit: I have to pick up less trash).

I love my job, but sometimes I get jealous. Sometimes, while sweeping out a particularly pungent privy, I cannot help but envy the thru-hikers that pass effortlessly by me with their singular purpose to push further north, from the lush valleys of Shenandoah to the snow-capped peaks of the White Mountains, while I am forced to check in at every campsite I pass by and to turn around when I reach the end of my section.

While I still admire the thru-hikers’ ultra-light packs, bulging calf muscles, and scruffy yet simultaneously glamorous beards, I realize that my mindset has changed from the beginning of the summer. I am always looking to try new things, to go new places, but I have come to appreciate the value of slowing down and stopping to really spend time in a place and recognizing its subtle, unique beauty.

I now look forward to the view from the top of Bear Mountain after the surprisingly steep ascent up its northern slope, and to sunset swims in the tucked-away Guilder Pond when I’m scheduled to spend the night at Glen Brook Shelter. And just the other day I caught a deer using the trail for its own personal travels and it was the coolest thing ever.

I still eagerly anticipate the day when I can call myself a thru-hiker and stand on top of Katahdin with a paramount sense of accomplishment (and the slightest semblance of cockiness), but for now, I am proud of the work I am doing to make that dream possible for those who are currently taking the trek.

But perhaps even more so, I am proud of the work I am doing to help enrich the experience of the many more who escape to the trail for a few precious hours after a long day at the office. Unlike me, not everyone is lucky enough to spend a summer getting paid—to go hiking.

We’d both hardly taken a breath upon setting the sails, when… POP!!!! The headsail let go at the mast head and tumbled down into the sea?!!

What!?

I scrambled to the bow, followed by Crystal, and we heaved the wet mess aboard. Swell proceeded to drift quietly in the light wind, while Crystal and I stood there holding the sail, rather dazed…

Upon inspection, it was clear that the threads of the strapping that held up the top of the sail had simply given out, probably thanks to a year and a half in the tropical sun… The sail itself was on its last leg anyway—the non-Dacron material delaminating in all the high-wear areas. I had a few smaller sails we could put up, but the problem was that when the sail fell, it left the halyard swivel for the roller furler at the top of the mast. This meant one thing: someone had to go up and get it.

Being so close to the pass, and thus the calm interior of the lagoon, I didn’t think twice. “We have to turn back,” I told Crystal sadly. “I have to go up the mast and we’re be better off to go back and get resituated and then restart again tomorrow… but we’ll have to wait
until the tide changes to get back in.”

I turned Swell around and we drifted slowly back in the direction of the pass. I sat down on the deck to think…”This weather won’t last long. If we wait another day, we might not be able to go at all. I know Crystal is looking forward to seeing another island, and the swell that is on the way will touch there, but not here…”

As the minutes passed, I realized how relatively calm it was with the main up and shadowed from swell in our proximity to the atoll.
Confidence spouted up from my intuition.

“I think I can do it.”  I said.

“Do what?” Crystal replied.

“Go up the mast.” I affirmed. “I’ve never done it at sea, but these are about the calmest conditions I can imagine. That way we can put up another sail, and continue on our way…”

After some re-assuring, Crystal liked the plan, so we dug the bosun’s chair out of the lazerette and set it up for my trip to higher elevations.

“Crick. Criiiiiiiiiiiick. Criiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.” Screeched the ratchet of the block and tackle, my feet suddenly lifted off the deck and I scrambled to clutch the stays as the boat swung to port. “Crick, criiiiiiiiick, criiiiiiick…” We worked together, Crystal pulling on the falls line and me easing the weight with my arms and legs as I monkeyed up the mast. Suddenly I looked around at my bird’s eye view, the sea was a sheet of royal satin and the palm-lined coral stretched both east and west as far as I could see. Lovely, but I didn’t spend much time pontificating as my hands trembled and body clung to the mast. The roll of the swell that was felt down on deck had to be quadrupled up there. I worked quickly and with adrenaline-enhanced precision as nausea crept up my core. One last
glance at what my feathered friends see, and I was on my way down with the halyard swivel…

Crystal steadied me the last few feet and soon I was back on deck—sea-sick, sweaty, but thrilled that it was successfully over. I dug out the sail that my brother had brought down a year earlier, and we pointed Swell into the wind, and hauled it up the furler track.

Two solid hours later, we were spent, thirsty, and sun-burned, but the simple joy of forward motion towards our destination was enough to keep us smiling.

With a brief window of calm winds, Crystal and I readied Swell to move east among the atolls. With the news of Barry’s passing, I wanted to check out what was rumored to be a new boatyard on an obscure strip of coral a few atolls east, plus with a swell on the way, we might arrive just in time to catch a few juicier waves before Crystal flew home…

Swell caught the flow of the outgoing tidal current as we steered around the coral embankment and into the open draw of the pass. The sun pierced the cloudless morning air, illuminating the deep blue river that carried us out to sea.

Through the binoculars, I could see the sea churning up ahead. “Oh, no…” I bellowed. I knew what we were in for: standing waves and sea dorapids where the flow of the tidal river met the ocean. It was too late to turn around, the outward flow was too strong to fight… I made a firm mental note to get some better tide information!

Swell’s stern began to slide right and left as we entered the 300-yard stretch of turbulent water. The waves grew taller and closer together and mixed with swell undulations. I spun the wheel maniacally, but Swell lifted and crashed and spun about helplessly. Despite the bucking, dipping, and twisting, I managed to keep her bow mostly pointed into the seas. Crystal remained completely calm, and her certainty was assuring, although my palms were sweating like faucets and I must have had eyes as round as a fish’s. Swell did one final skid-out to starboard, and I revved the engine and cut right into stable water as the atoll finally spit us out. Just then a dolphin leapt off the port bow.

“Look, your dolphin friend came to say goodbye!” Crystal said. “Yay! Goodbyyeeeeeeeeeeeee!!” I called to him, a tone of fear still lingering in my voice.

With a few deep breaths, I realized we’d run the rapid. All was well and we pointed the bow east, running along the atoll’s northern rim. We set the sails for a lovely close reach in the 8 or so knots of wind, let out the fishing lines, and breathed in the joy and excitement of our next adventure.

Little did we know, more excitement was quickly on the way…

A few days later, my friend and fellow Patagonia Surf Ambassador stepped off the plane onto the airstrip just a half-mile south of where Swell was anchored inside the atoll. A year prior, Crystal showed me two weeks of unforgettable fun at her North Shore residence, so I was anxious to give her the best of life aboard Swell. After dissolving the disbelief that she’d truly arrived, we toted her bags (which included two new Fletcher Chouinard sticks for me!) to where my dinghy was tied across the road in a flood of excited chatter and putt off toward the mothership.

It wasn’t every day I had a friend around with whom to enjoy the Swell life!  Loving the ocean in so many common ways, Crystal’s presence magnified the beauty around us. Her gentle, positive demeanor yet extreme water-woman experience was the perfect recipe for the maximum enjoyment of our location. Our first week together blurred by in a haze of oceanic fun. Employing our full spectrum of sea-faring utensils, we hauled a variety of boards to the spot to glide on, we bodysurfed with and without Blakeney’s marvelous hand planer, we laughed until we cried riding waves on her inflatable surf mats, we donned masks and fins to free dive both passes with the manta rays, eagle rays, tunas and barracudas, lots of sharks, and all our other fishy friends…We leapt off Swell after breakfast under raindrops or rainbows, just to feel the sea on our skin…

And after a day’s adventure, there was never a lack of enthusiasm in the galley. Crystal and her husband Dave had inspired and taught me loads about eating and living healthily. I’d adopted their philosophy of making whole food and natural products a priority. As a result, Swell was always stocked with any fresh fruit and veggies available, along with all the healthy tidbits I hauled back with me from trips to California: bulgar wheat (despite J.B.’s song), quinoa, gogi berries, maca powder (Thanks to Sol Raiz Organics!), raw nuts, mung beans and alfalfa seeds for sprouting, ground flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, sunflower seeds, spirulina, etc. Crystal grows her own array of greens and veggies (check out her blog at www.cravegreens.blogspot.com) and focuses on clean, conscious living. It’s always comforting to be with someone who sees the world a lot like you, so we took advantage of rich conversations, mornings listening to Gil Fronsdal and Thich Nhat Hanh lectures, yoga sessions and contemplative star parties…

For such an isolated destination, we met a variety of interesting characters, including a group of ten French runners who were attempting to run/swim/walk/crawl around the roughly 60-mile perimeter of the coral atoll over 6 days(!?). We hitched a ride on their chase boat one day to explore an area of the atoll too dangerous to attempt in Swell. While the runners continued on their impressive yet not so coral-friendly feat, Crystal and I lost ourselves on beaches one would imagine only to exist on postcards, and then found ourselves being circled by hordes of blacktip reef sharks while freediving in the tourist shark feeding area! We nearly drowned in fits of fear and laughter clinging to each other amidst the revolving pack… We spent the day drinking young coconuts, talking to birds, and watching the clouds drift across the wide South Pacific sky… We were so fortunate, so grateful, so happy, so free… and so in love with the pristine, natural world that surrounded us…

Thanks to Patagonia for supporting Crystal’s visit!!