It’s the perfect time to plant. My wife, Emily, and I have been cutting over-wintered spinach from under the cold frames since early March, but now, in mid-April, Popeye’s favorite is starting to bolt. We drop a package of carrot seeds at the edge of the bed.
My eyes wander toward the sound of a woodpecker above the woodshed. We have at least six cords of hardwood split and stacked—two winters’ worth for our cozy home—and another six cords are standing in trees still needing to be dropped. The woodpecker is feasting on the bugs burrowing into one of them, an old elm.
Our bicycles stand handsomely against the woodpiles. Fresh off yesterday’s test mission to one of our local ski hills in Vermont’s Mad River Valley, the bikes leave us scheming about only a few simple modifications. We need a couple of cord loops for strapping the skis to the trailers at just the right angle. And we need bike bells. Bike bells make people smile.
We’re just two days from setting off on a monthlong, pedal-powered skiing adventure through Arctic Norway—a dream trip of sorts that’s been on our minds for 10 years. If we are lucky, we’ll dodge a hard May frost and return from Norway to an abundance of fresh greens and sugar snaps. I notice some newly tilled soil at my feet. Emily has already harvested the spinach for a batch of pesto. I pass her the carrot seeds.
“What if we pass on this trip altogether, never get on a plane again, and bike to the coast with our surfboards instead?” I pose. “We can visit friends along the way … ”
“Don’t even go there.” Emily gives me the stink eye, while reminding me that the ocean is butt-cold right now and the surf unreliable. “Why don’t you finish prepping the bikes?”
As I tinker with my bike, the thoughts I expressed to Emily linger. Since meeting in 1998, we’ve built our lives and our business as photographers and storytellers around our shared passion for human-powered exploration through some of our planet’s wildest places—be it East Greenland’s Scwheizerland Alps, Chile’s Rio Baker Valley or the hidden gems of our ancient Green Mountains close to home. Collectively, we’ve spent two years of our lives together camping, and we’ve logged countless miles on skis, by bicycle, in a canoe and on foot. While much of our adventuring and assignment work involves travel to spectacular places—off the grid and far from home—this travel is losing its luster, especially for me. The jet fuel, the time away from our community and the urge to simplify are all factors. Our biological clocks are ticking. And I’ve become convinced that the greatest adventures can happen anywhere—especially right out the back door.
I wander inside to grab some water, and I notice Emily’s gear neatly arranged along one side of our living room. There’s a list sitting out, with all but just a few small items crossed off. I’m envious of how ready she is to go. My eyes drift back to Emily in the garden. She’s poking the soil with her fingers, planting a new bed of carrots.
~
We gather that afternoon with our friends Forrest Twombly and Tom Hite to finalize our packing and gear plans. Forrest, who has biked and skied with abandon for most of his life, signed up for this adventure upon our first mention of it. It’s a dream trip he couldn’t refuse, and just the thing he needs before spending a busy summer and fall building a house for himself and his sweetie in Vermont. Tom is an aspiring professional ski bum who could not possibly think of a better way to spend the next month of his life. We’ve come to know Tom since he moved here from Maine two winters ago. Just last week, only hours after we learned that another friend of ours was out of commission due to an injury, Tom rolled up to the ski hill on his bike—with his skis in tow. His presence was an omen. He was in.
As usual, Emily and I spend the last 24 hours before departure scrambling to close up the office for the month, putting finishing touches on our bikes and gear, and packing. No matter how hard we try to leave some breathing room before a big trip, I feel like we are always in a rush. It’s a ritual that I seem to have less and less patience for these days.
At some point before sunrise, we finish wrapping the bikes in cardboard. Emily sneaks in a few hours of sleep. I walk into the woods above the house and sit down. Our home glows like the fire-lit cabin in the story of Hansel and Gretel.
Why are we venturing so far from home? I wonder. Mountains we can ski from October into May stretch endlessly all around us. We begin many of our skiing adventures right out the back door. World-class whitewater and mountain bike trails course through our valley and beyond. And we can wake up at dawn and be at the ocean by breakfast. We love it here.
