TO: FNAME  LNAME

 

(Allegra, I re-read this document I wrote in 1998 before sending to you.

I wrote this document as a Xmas letter deluding myself into believing that the people I knew and sent it  to would be interested. I am not sure they did. I really did it to flatter and reassure myself,  I suspect.

It gives insight to my earlier Reunion reactions and to me generally - since we have chatted about that  before also.

If it bores you, skip down to the Reunion portion and be done with it. :-)

I have added some ‘update’ comments. Scott 4-9-17)

  Dear Folks:

  Introduction:

Often when traveling I wonder whether I'm running away or just anxious to see new places. Perhaps its in the American genes. Where else would  several hundred thousand people gather spontaneously without formal government proclamation from all locations and walks of life to travel across 2000 miles of wilderness? ....... the Oregon Trail.

 

I have apparently given the impression that my adventures are dangerous and risky requiring courage and perhaps great skill. That I am somehow intrepid, highly skilled in wilderness craft, ocean & river kayaking and mountaineering. This is not true. I need to dispel that illusion now. This allusion must die for three reasons.

First, it is false.

Second, their are those who are vastly more skilled and committed than I. Three examples.

1) Hehgan Heaney-Grier's

If at 40 ft she reaches her "buoyancy point" and no longer moves a muscle as she falls like an anvil head first toward the 210ft depth to be the first women "free diver" to do so. her equalizing ears and her female metabolism which she will slow

2) 54 yr. Angelika Castenada & twin sister Barbara Warrenover the last 13 years they "scorched the ultra endurance racing world 1-2 at Triple Ironman Trialthalon ( 421 miles in 46 hr.); tying for 1st twice at the Badwter 146 ( from Death Valley to 8,800 ft Mt. Whitney and 2&3rd at Marathon des Sables ( across the Sahara on foot in 7 days)

3) In 1953 Egon Kuhn & two friends paddled kayaks from Ulm, Germany to Australia 15M & 3 years

 

Third, and vastly more important, such a misperception hampers one of my important goals in writing this letter which is to dispel the fear many of us have for challenges we feel we may no longer pursue. And, in the broader sense, to illustrate that great potential exists in our Later Years to achieve past & present goals -- physical and intellectual.

 

Life's time has grown more important to me in the last few years principally because of the death of my father and Mary Mead. Life was always important, but my priorities have changed from the occupational & professional pursuit of financial success to intrinsically fulfilling personal goals.

For years now I have been mildly plagued by the fear that I would lie on my death bed not having done the things I had always wanted to do. Somehow attempting those goals now in this Autumn of life, even if only partially or poorly achieved, is OK.

 

At 29 I wanted to be an actor, studied at Columbia Studios, took singing lessons and held the lead in a small theater production. Then, in one day, I quit it all because I could not guarantee that future. While I still fantasize what might have been, I am reasonably content with what was.

 

My ever increasing collection of goals is a concern as I begin my approach to the edge of the eternal abyss. If this sounds morbid perhaps it is. But the continuing deaths of society’s icons -- Jimmy Stewart,  drives home life's finiteness.

 

Today, as I write, I am 58 years old plus 3 days. (Guess how longI have been working on this? ) If lucky, I have 20 years of reasonably active life. ( Jan 1, 2018 I turn 78) Each month my body seems to further chronicle its inexorable mental & physical deterioration. Muscles ache all day, profoundly so after strenuous exercise. Memory lapses and mental drift sneaks in.  So why do I burden you with this depressing perspective. Because so there go you also.  You and I and all mankind go inexorably to the abyss. So why rub it in? Perhaps because I am trying to convince myself.

  Perhaps because we may still have time to achieve our dreams. Time to create a prioritized list of goals. Achieve goals we have let dangle lazily in front of our minds as we fashioned a false eternity right down to the pension plan annuity and the prepaid funeral package. Time to recoup losses. Dilute enemies rancor. Reconnect with old friends. Give something back. Time yet to create a strategy that will challenge and inspire yet anticipate and accommodate our decline. 

  Months before my father died he told me that he wished he had more slides of his yearly travels out West. Yet this summer as I rummaged through his effects. There were hundreds, if not thousands of slides. So what did he mean? Perhaps he meant that in life's final twilight you can't relive life enough. But did he also mean that you had to have something to relive? Perhaps review of life is somewhat analogous to the instantaneous life flashbacks of near death experiences. In the final years we may hold ourselves sorely accountable for the valuable time we had …. and wasted. (By analogy, I have hundreds of hours & gigabytes of video footage of all my travel trips: US & foreign which I edit to ‘re-live’ the trips / my life)

So what kind of skills, experience and training do I have for the physical goals I have?

  Wilderness skills:

  My wilderness skills are average. I camp with a mix of high tech & low tech stuff. My water purifier is the edge and my sleeping system is ahead of the edge; not even available to the public. In contrast, my cooking stove & backpack are at least 20+ years old. I camped as a Boy Scout, then 2-3 times 20 years later after law school and, of course, recently in the Tetons and on Wyoming's  Oregon Trail.

  My map and direction skills are marginal. Other than the Oregon Trail and this year's Boundary Waters Canoe Area trip, the routes are either well marked and mapped ( National Parks ), obvious ( 2 foot wide, 1 foot deep groove through the woods ) or fool proof ( the Yukon only flows one way-- downstream). Guided trips eliminate the need for these skills.

  Anyone can gain most of this experience by reading some backpacking books and spending a few weekends backpacking near your home. Or, the easiest way is to take a guided trip. Tours can access and complement your skills & equipment and legitimately neutralize your fears.

  Kayak Skills:

  I started river kayaking at 55 on a San Juan Island, WA guided 3 day tour with people in such bad condition that their most arduous task was getting in and out of the kayak. All survived , all enjoyed and it was my springboard to the Yukon River adventure.

  Guided or self guided , you define the level of challenge you wish. Where the line is is an individual judgment. I try very hard not to create undue risk. I have no wish to die early.

  Mountain Biking:

  Any of us who rode a bike as a youth and is in good heath now can ride a bike even if we will always lack the incredible rock jumping, airborne reflexes of youth. I walk my bike down rock infested hills, particularly when I am alone. I can't/won't take unnecessary risks.

  A woman friend of mine with bad knees took a month long, guided bike tour through China. Guided through China or solo across remote Wyoming's Oregon Trail, the choice is yours. 

  Trip Selection & Research:

  I choose my trips carefully insuring that either there are no significant risks or, if there are risks,  they are manageable or avoidable. I researched the Oregon Trail exhaustively reading books, diaries, commercial map series, a unique BLM map report and explored the route in part by vehicle. For the Yukon's dangers, history and routes,  I read diaries, out of print solo accounts and old steamer boat river guide books. But if all that bores you, call a guide service in Whitehorse , YT and book a trip.

  General Dangers:

  There are always dangers to any human activity including the cliché "Getting Out of Bed in the Morning." to possible loss of self worth. Most terminal dangers we can avoid or cope with; sometimes not.  More optimistically, most dangers can be anticipated. Drive defensively, look before you jump out of bed and " Don't take no shortcuts." (Virginia Reed, Donner Party (think ‘cannibalism’) survivor )

  Summary:

  Mary Mead's daughter Muffy commented that I “do the things others would like to do but don't. “ Yet what I do, most could do in some form or another.

  More importantly, goals need not be just physical. I am presently ( last 10 years ) writing a birding book, an irreverent teaching book and two fictions. (Never finished or was preempted by Internet)

My goal is to publish one thing for money. So expand your list of goals. Finally, each goal you accomplish is a springboard to the next challenge. So start your goals at your comfort level and grow. Before long you will have so many goals that as a man over 100 years old commented in National Geographic Magazine, " I have too much to do to die."

  Life is short, so push your own envelope now.

  QUOTE: ”the moving hand having writ, moves on

  Nor all your wit nor piety can cancel half a line" Omar Kahyam.

  NOTE: If outdoor activity does intrigue you, call Travel Adventurer bookstore at 1-800- for a free catalog of travel and adventure books or jump on the Internet.

  New Subjects:

40th Reunion:

  The Prelude:

  Aug 15, 97 5:30 p.m. Filled with excitement and trepidation and dressed in Hawaiian shirt and khakis backpacking slacks, I drove to my 40th Reunion in Rochester, NY. What memories would spring from the clouded past? How would I be received? What would be my reaction to these old acquaintances; some friends, some not. Would my good friend Larry Webster be there? What could he tell me about myself? Looking back at myself  through his eyes would surely be a revelation compared to the self serving, perhaps, false images I created of myself. What of those who pretended to be friends, but were not. Will that lingering shadow cloud the reception or be lost in the mists. Were my classmates equally anxious and paranoid? Could I neutralize the clever defenses I had developed and refined over the years? Could I be myself whatever that is? What of Joannie Matthews -- my unrequited true love? (We still are communicating friends. She and her husband dropped by on way thru Jackson Hole.)

  How would the lost opportunities of my early years nag at the What Might Have Been’s of the last 40 years? Unlike recent mistakes, we may not be able to easily correct the old ones. The very substance of our lives may have changed too much. If high school was a life's benchmark, will I have succeeded or not? My mother's denigration embedded that paranoia. But hey!  Who cares?    I? ………Yes

  My anxiety culminates in a fantasy:   the super star, returning home to the adulation of  a  home town crowd – Oh how much easier that preordained acceptance would have been. Oh, how deep my insecurity reaches.

  The Reunion:

  The first faces I saw were of those who were the social organizers in high school. They actually recognized me. Caz LeShander who I have never forgotten because she visited me in the hospital after I broke my leg and Jeannie Carnahan who introduced me to the music of Johnny Mathis. Music that became the background of all my early romances.

  Other faces I recognized as familiar, but could attach no name until a tone of voice, a unique facial expression or  an out right hint gave it away. Some toyed playfully with me. “do you know who I am Scott ?”, they asked covering up their name tags. I stammered until they said their name. Instantly, my brain's floodgates spewed forth the memories. The hints switched to their early look and I knew the person. The floodgates were opening.

  Some I recognized immediately; Jack Curchin the athletic & social superstar that only now would I realize had been and was also very intelligent. We learned little of each other. Whether humble or self conscious, most spoke of family or career. Some careers were inherently applauded, Bill- the Army Major General; Jack, the Eastern Airlines pilot and George the 747 pilot. Most profiles were understated yet I truly longed to know the depths. The self authored profiles we submitted for the reunion's booklet were thin. Some spoke of family, careers

  Larry Webster wasn’t there. One old friend lay dying of MS in a New Jersey hospital. A poignant reminder of the score keeping innuendo of reunions. Another old friend seemed to distant to say more than Hello to. Apparently the past did not hide in the mists. Jack Curchin, star football player and swimmer exuded the same healthy exuberance and charisma that I had revered almost a century before. Months later I would learn that he had suffered 3 heart attacks. (Jack died earlier this year.)  For forty years every time I walked into a bar, a party , a Thanksgiving dinner , a new college class or a ski resort’s warming hut I fantasized that I would meet the woman of my life. I met such a woman, but the last 40 years had made us both wary and cautious. (She has died in the interim.)

  Someone had made a video of old photos: the Friday afternoon dances, the football games , the proms, Kay & Jerry’s Dairy Bar after school and the sunburned beach bodies that first day of summer vacation.

  I burned out early from the excitement of hard to remember faces remolded and puffed by time and the memories of early intersections I had turned at for good or ill. Each one fabricating the human I would face the worlds as. Each one predetermining my reactions 1000 times in the later years. How many women had I run from because my high school loves went unfulfilled. How many obsessive romantic quests, long hard work hours and real estate risks because I could not bear to fail again?  How strong the competitiveness borne of the failure to make the basket ball team because I missed my single attempted basket during try outs? All these issues and a dozen more that influenced my life.  The mental catharsis, self examination and overload was to  draining. I left early. I would have the next morning’s visit to the school to engage again.

  The School Visit:

  40 years ago Charlotte High School was a three story marble front building rising stately from the huge green lawn that surrounded it. A building whose size and drama rivaled the large civic buildings of its day. Like the icing flowing down the cake in MacArthur Park - the song-- , the curved, cascading front steps seemed to flow out of the huge front doors onto the dark green lawn. Steps that we clustered about on endless school day mornings oblivious to the 40 year deja vu we would one day confront.

  Now, a wide circular driveway arcs past the front steps severing the lawn into two nondescript patches --  giving unnecessary  instant vehicle access. Now, the bright marble front is a tawdry off white, with long, vertical, rusty exclamation marks. Now, two huge cracked and weathered light globes flank the front door’s entrance on eroding carved monuments.

  I passed with eerie reverence through the heavy oak doors into the entrance lobby. The heavily carved doors and entrance panels were battered and distressed, yet some how still imposing. Their massive brass hinges demeaned with the collection of  rusty, zinc plated screws and small bolts. In the center of the foyer’s floor the inlaid marble compass rose remained unblemished. The slightly worn paths on either side a passive tribute to an ancient tradition. The walls were covered with a cheap wallboard imitation of colored marble. A mocking effort to recapture the lost beauty that the wall board now covered.

  The hallways radiating to the right and left were the arms of a cross whose long supporting beam stretched down the hallway before me. Just vaguely I remembered the first scary day that I had climbed the front steps for the 7th grade,  stood on this very spot and walked down the long hallway before me. Almost 40 years had passed, forty years down range from the launch pad. Like some science fiction time warp, I had returned to a shadow of my past to look for the lost colors and muted sounds of vague memories.

  I wandered the halls lost in my past. Searching, probing the shadows for glimpses of memories unvisited for so long. She was decrepit in her winter years. I climbed the stairs to my homeroom classroom. The cement stair treads with embedded brass leading edges were worn concave by the 50 years of scuffling shoes. Curiously, my mind flashed back 25 years to my walk along  Rome’s stoned Apian Way. I remember  sensing that I might in some real , physical way be touching the great Roman General and statesmen who plied this same road because I was touching the same stones they had trod. On the Oregon Trail I remember thinking that perhaps in breathing in the dust my horse’s feet were kicking up I was breathing in the sweat salts dropped by those early pioneers. 42 years ago I had touched these cement stairs and railings.  Were my hands and feet touching remnants of me embedded in them. Was the school reaching out to touch me? Weird thoughts.

  The plate on my homeroom’s door handle swung loosely askew accenting the chunks of wooden door molding that had been broken away in abortive attempts to break in. Inside the room seemed too small. Her dark tarnished brass framed, pivoting black boards hung disheveled in the corner. A fist size chunk of  slate chipped away by some random act of insensitive force. I sat down in the undersized school chair and stared at the blackboard. Surely I written and erased on those boards, sat in those seats and gazed out those windows. Did I ever try to imagine a future. If only I could pull the ancient vibrations of my voice hidden within these walls. (Two years ago on a 3 month Eastern Canada and Eastern US seaboard driving trip I visited Ulysses S Grant’s small grade school classroom, sat in a small desk and looked at the blackboard with similar musings.)

  I wandered down the hall to the library. Definitely much smaller, yet still filled with knowledge I found so worthless years ago. Now I sometimes roam the Jackson Hole Public Library stacks and Internet randomly searching for stimulation. Who/what killed my early innate intellectual curiosity? Parents? Schools? Not until 2 years after college did it return. How much the same are the teaching methods of today’s school’s. Is it any surprise that an unchanging system buried within our dramatically changed world bores today’s youths also. Why do we tolerate a school system that bores while the real world is chocked full of Stephen Spielberg/Steven Hawken excitement?

  At the top of Charlotte school is an octagonal two story music room. I climbed up the narrow stairway and stood inside.  Once again as I had so many times,  I remembered the only lesson I can remember learning in high school. I learned to create a mental story that fit the back drop of the classical music I was hearing.  No wonder that today as a teacher I have little respect for the dry, short term accumulation of facts without the drama that surrounds them.

  Unnerving at near 60 it was to face the very stage on which I played my youth. If time were a stack of 4th dimensions playing cards, each shuffled randomly beside the others,  how strange if,  could I as a youth in that classroom or library have sensed my own return as an older man?  Did I sense the opportunities before me or the challenges I would face, surmount or succumb to. Reunions are more than mental, they often rattle the physical senses.

  Mexico: Spring Break:

  Generally the myths I had taken to Baja at Xmas break were emasculated. I was covering old ground mentally and in fact. I tested this new found confidence with a drive from Puerticitos to Bahia de Gonzaga a long a rock strewn dirt road so generally considered impassable that it is on none of the maps. Its greatest challenges are its remoteness,  fear of breakdown and lack of gas. But the drive was well worth it.

  Spectacular ocean views from remote sites all the way to Sophia’s small encampment at Bahia de Gonzaga which fortunately had lots of gas. Its lovely, clean restaurant & bar straddle a sand bar leading to an large island between two bays. If you fly a small plane, there are 2 runways reached easily from the US for lunch. I kayaked from one side of the sand bar out into the ocean, around the island and back through the other bay.  The ocean always seems scary to me because of the huge rolling waves. Though once I quash my fears giant killer squids lurking beneath I am fine. More experience needed on this skill. 

  On then to Bahia de Los Angeles. A bay of large and small islands that sit like a large flotilla of naval ships in the huge bay. I spent 3 days camped in an abandoned campground, kayaking around the islands and relaxing in the sun. Valhalla. Often are the military police stops and searches, but as usual, professionally done and more reassuring than offensive.

  Topock Canyon

  Topock Canyon is a beautiful, 18 mile stretch of the Colorado River. I spend the night in a wildlife refuge a few miles away from the Colorado. Then early in the morning drop my van off  with a man who will drive it down river for me, load up the kayak and push off into the rising sun. The river itself is relatively calm at Xmas time as it winds through layered red sandstone and the occasional extinct volcano that had pushed up through some thousands of years ago.

  Along side the river are small side channels and back bays that are fun to slide quietly into in search of wildlife and birds. Sometimes I pick up a floating piece of litter to remove from this “protected waterway “. In fact protected is relative. Power boats and jet skis ply the river sometimes at frightening speeds as seen from a slow moving small fragile kayak. Our country is awash with small lakes and calm river sections that welcome the silent ghosting kayaks into their recesses.

  Canyonlands National Park:

  White Rim Trail, Green and Colorado River

For many years I have looked down on the White Rim Trail from the high sheer walls of Canyonland’s North campground. Always was the challenge to mountain bike the 100 mile trail devoid of fresh water and blistering in the summer’s 110 degrees and then kayak down the Green River into the Colorado River. I decided to do it as soon as school ended.

  6/10/97 Diary Entry:

  I bum a ride from Moab, UT to the White Rim Trail Head, swing my leg over the pile of gear strapped to the bike and start down the trail into Shaffer Canyon. I pause briefly at the top to look over the Park’s landscape. Edward Abbey observed that on the East Coast the landforms are often cloaked in forest, while in the West landscapes lie naked, their structure exposed.

  The entire Park is a sandstone desert of immense plateaued vistas punctuated with vertical monuments. Huge multi-layered mesas, buttes and spires carved by wind, rain, radically changing temperatures, and the Colorado and Green Rivers.

  I start down the Trail. The weight of my  fully loaded bike, and the trail’s steepness almost overcome the hand brakes. I clench them so tightly that my hand muscles knot and my arm muscles begin to spasm. Every several hundred yards I have to stop and relax my muscles.

  Every several hundred yards I pass through layers of sandstone. I am dropping through a colossal layer cake of colored sand. Sand that came from eroded mountain ranges 80 million years ago. Sand carried during the wet epochs by eroding rivers far out into North America's ancient inland sea, settling gently to the sea floor as would dirt mixed in a glass of water. Thousands upon thousands of feet of this sediment deposited at vastly different times and slowly continuously compressed under its own weight into different colored layers.

  The dominant color of these layers is the red of oxidized iron but each layer contains a slightly different chemical composition depending on the composition of the eroded mountain range it came from. Curiously, one ancient eroded mountain source must have been  devoid of iron because its layer is whitish. It is from this  obvious 100 ft thick white layer that the White Rim Trail gets its name.

  Finally, the sea evaporated away, except for Utah's Salt Lake, and  rivers meandered across the dry sea bed carving down into the soft sandstone. During this same vast period the entire continent rose as the huge glaciers melted back north. This added to the downward carving of the rivers. Changes in rainfall patterns caused the river to sometimes change direction creating the mix of deep canyons, plateaus, mesas, buttes, spires and monuments.

  The White Rim Trail is really a 110 mile dirt road that starts high on a plateau above the Colorado & Green Rivers. From the trailhead the narrow 4 wheel drive dirt road carved by the mining industry switchbacks down near vertical walls of a 1200 foot deep amphitheater --  a giant coffee cup. I am camped near the bottom of the amphitheater yet still within its walls. Perched on a ledge my tent overlooks a rocky gorge that continues down to the Colorado River. I am alone.

  The stark beauty of the desert, apparently devoid of all but green cactus and the occasional small bird,  seems at once inaccessible and intimate. Inaccessible because it lacks almost all the resources I need to survive: clean water, shelter, protection from nasty snakes & insects and food. It mocks my fear & civilized weaknesses. A fear that demands all the supplies & gewgaws I have piled on the bike. Yet, intimate because once I sweat my precious water profusely into her searing heat, burn out my energy on her steep terrains and sleep peacefully in her still nights she casts aside her veils and flaunts her rare ambiance. I sense she welcomes my frail efforts.

  6/11/97

  On the trail at 6am, I have retraced two up hill miles to the main trail. The euphoria  of the cool clear morning air and my well warmed muscles is one of the key exhilaration’s of outdoor adventures. I am alive and I feel it.

  At about 8am I hide my bike off trail and hike a small rise to overlook the Colorado River. Certainly one of Nature's greatest contradictions is these watered ribbons meandering through this most fiery dry landscape.

  I pop open a can of apricots and humbly recognize how arrogant my species has become with its technology. So arrogant that it can enter this harsh environment with near impunity and believe that it has achieved greatness by doing so. Even as I strike for a balance between self sufficiency and technology I create redundant survival strategies to contain my fear. Where is the reverence for the gods? Where is the humility in the stare of  these immeasurable forces? Will only deep space exploration once again bring man contritely to his knees?

  By noon the heat is almost overwhelming. It burns and evaporates at my sweated shirt, radiates from the ground and searches for a niche between my hat brim and sun glasses. Curiously, in some perverse way, I seem to relish this hellish challenge and keep going forward. Finally, I pull off trail beneath two scraggly bushes themselves wedged between two large boulders and snack on water, granola and fruit strips. The harder I work the less food I need for the first few days. Thereafter I gorge without waistline evidence.

  Gutting uphill then cooling in the downhill wind chill,  I reach Gooseberry campgrounds: 60 campsites; 58 empty,  2 separate campgrounds; one of us in each campground. I am alone again. Near my campsite I find refuge from the sun under the only tree, moving every so often to stay hidden in the tree’s shadow until the sun drops beneath the mountain ridge I will hike up before making dinner. Dinner whose main treat before going to bed was the refreshing, ice cream-like Carnation Instant Breakfast. How wonderful are the simple treats we take for granted at home. In all,  a demanding, but rewarding day.

  6/13/97

  I wave Hello to a young couple with baby cruising the road in a new 4 wheel. A man and son stop to insure my well being and offer water. I cordially refuse. I was packing almost 5 gallons of water at approximately 40 #'s and wanted to remain self sufficient. I had declined a friend’s cell phone here and in the Yukon for the same reason.

  The most demanding part of the White Rim Trail is climbing the steep sided hog back ridges. Murphy's Hogback was the most difficult. Preceded by four ever steeper hills the trail over Murphy's traverses a rakish 400 yards up its side. It so steep that I could not ride up it. Instead, I either held both handlebars and pushed or grabbed the back of the seat and hauled it up. But at best under the intense heat and waning energy,  I could only grunt the bike forward 10-15 yards then clench the brakes to prevent a roll back. Sometimes in a fit of frustration I would run the bike a few yards then back to the grind.

  Toward the top I felt a bit faint but I kept going. Heat exhaustion is a real possibility and I did not ignore it.  But most frustrating are the small pebbles and rocks kicked loose by 4 wheel drive vehicles. My feet slip on them as though they were ball bearings, throwing me off balance, demanding even more energy. Sometimes  large rocks would jar the bike to a stop, destroying forward momentum, magnifying the frustration.

  Just short of the top a young couple biked up without stopping to the cheers of some young fellas. As I reached them I said "Cheer", I may not make this ." They cheered and I said , "Thanks!  That's what really did it." At that zenithed moment I presumed that I had encountered the worst of the challenge. I was wrong.

  On top was a campground. One campsite was perched on a huge rock overlooking the entire Canyonlands country. It was magnificent. I wanted to stay, but it was mid morning and I had many more miles to go. The campground was also empty proving that the Park’s need to precisely allocate scare campsites was a hoax. I was the only one in every campground I had used. Anyway I moved on rapidly anticipating the easy downhill reward for the earlier climb up.

  The down hill breeze wafted across my face and down my open shirt evaporating the cool sweat. I was flying and pumped up until halfway down I heard a snap and felt my feet freely spinning the pedals. I had broken my bike’s chain. Instantly I realized how foolish I could be. I had forgotten to bring the simple small chain tool that would have reassembled the broken chain. It was in my van in Moab.

  At first I panicked. More than half way down a mainly down hill route with steep ridges did I even have the energy to go  back? At the bottom of Schaffer Canyon the first day a Park’s sign said the other end of the road was closed due to river flooding. I figured I could get my bike past the flooding and had gone on. But what if I got there and was forced to return. The sign had deterred all but the few vehicles I had seen. There would be fewer still. The water, did I have enough for twice the distance in this brutal heat.

  On the other hand, if I had been confident I could get past the flooding some how, some way , why was that decision any less valid?  I was already half way with no desire to retrace Murphy's Hogback. Panic dissipated to calm as I continued to assess my options.  I had to push the heavily laden bike up steep hills anyway. Most of the trail was down hill to the river which I could coast as usual. The rest of the trip would be longer, but no worse than backpacking. I had plenty of food.  I carefully packed away the chain and started on.

  By 3pm I had pushed up another steep hogback and was lying in a rock ledge's shade when I heard a vehicle grinding up. He stopped and I asked if by any miracle he had a chain tool. He did and with great skill quickly repaired my chain. I damn near got on my knees to thank him while profusely apologizing my error.

  Riding my chain more gently than ever, I  mouthed out loud my love and gratitude to Andrew with a Tibetan monk-like mantra,  "Thank you Andrew, Thank You, Thank You for fixing my chain." I rode gratefully on to a 38 mile day rather than the 17 miles I had planned and into the most mosquito ridden hell hole I have been in short of a small pond in Alaska.

  I pitched my high tech sleeping bag-air mattress -mosquito net at sweltering Potato Bottom campground and rolled in naked, too exhausted & hot to sleep or eat. Sometime after dark I heard a loud hum and looked outside to see a large herd of mosquitoes swarmed above my tent in the cloud of CO2 I was exhaling. Every few moments a bat would dive through the swarm bank like a fighter jet, bank up and around and come in for another scoop of skeeters. All night they hummed, the occasional one slipping somehow through my defenses to force me into its frantic execution.

  6/14/97

  Rising early I bathed in mosquito lotion, frantically loaded my gear, raced along the soggy river bottom and finally reached a high riverside bench without mosquitoes and sadly realizing  that an additional ½ hour ride last night would have offered a cool and mosquitoes free evening. Oh well.

  The rest of the morning I followed the river's edge past the places the Park said were to flooded to pass. I pushed my bike through the thigh deep flood waters, laid the bike against a rock, walked back to the water and jumped in clothes and all. After 4 days of wearing sweaty dusty clothes this was a wonderful treat. I finished the Trail a day before the shuttle company was to deliver my kayak to the river, so I hitched a ride to Moab. In Moab I rewarded my trek with hamburgers and fries at Mac's Steak House ( McDonald’s.)

  6/15/97: Green River Kayak Float

  The next day I shuttled to the Green River, loaded the kayak and pushed off shore away from the mosquito hordes who normally don't follow. The river was very fast but not dangerous in the absence of rapids.  Such canoeing and kayaking is safe and easy for almost anyone, particularly on a guided tour. I saw one tour client with two suit cases piled in the center of the canoe. It was not unsafe or impractical, just curious.

  Late afternoon I camped on a bench high enough to avoid mosquitoes. The river seemed lazy in the early evening  shadows as it flowed like reflective molten lead between the thin contrasting ribbons of wispy green willow bushes lining the shores. The vertical escarpments backdropped the river cutting a reddish swath between the river and the blue twilight sky. Far on the distant horizon the plateaus rose like stacks of huge earthen plates punctuated by the occasional needled spire. In contrast to the  vast, views from the White Rim Trail,  the river seems enclosed in the reassuring curves of river carved rock  and vegetation's life. Such evenings after a hike up the cliffs behind me and dinner it is hard to go to bed. Such tranquillity must be relished.

  Three days of lazy paddling, short hikes up to ancient Anasazi sites, tranquil solitary campsites and I had reached the Confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers. I drifted down to the jet boat pickup point immediately above Cataract Canyon, one of the most tumultuous rapids on the Colorado. All morning long huge rafts passed by, queued up along side the bank and  then started down through the rapids. It must be relatively safe in the huge boats because people of all ages did it.

  My return jet boat ride was exciting and gave still another perspective of the Canyonlands from the river. Up river we picked up a couple paddling their canoe up stream because they had missed a vehicle pick up spot a few miles down river from Moab and were frantically trying to paddle back. No way. Absent us they would have spent a cold night on the river. 

  Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minn:

Graciously inviting me to a Jackson Hole singles gathering a year ago, my host showed me a map of the BWCA, let me borrow books and a map. She planted the seed for this trip. Almost immediately I decided that I had to visit this last great U.S. wilderness canoeing area. August 2nd a year later I pushed away from a lakeside resort owned by a Jackson Hole expatriate. This trip would be characterized by many, many lakes connected by 14

+ portages & narrow, shallow, barely moving rivers of various lengths.

  First Day:

  A couple of hours later I found my first portage. It was steep, short  and all my equipment worked well. I had designed a portage yoke for my kayak and a unique portage pack for my gear. The yoke I carved with a kitchen knife out of high density foam so that it would attach quickly & securely to the kayak and also carry the kayak’s weight comfortably on my shoulders. The gear pack had two large zippered compartments and a hole in between for my head. One compartment rested on my chest and the other on my back. It was necessary because a kayak uses many small packs that can be fitted into narrow places within the kayak unlike the large pack that can be dumped in the center of a canoe. A strong man might carry the pack and the kayak simultaneously, but not I.

  The first day ended with a slow paddle to Little Trout Lake down a shallow stream choked with lily pads under a pretty blue sky filled with little puffy clouds. Sometimes I pulled the kayak over small beaver dams. It’s a small secluded lake with an island in the center surrounded by a thick dark forest containing only 3 campsites. I camped 20' from the shore to leave enough room to walk for the bear whose fresh tracks followed the edge of the beach. I reasoned it would not be back soon.

  I spent my first Boundary Waters night on this small lake alone. I saw and heard no one. They limit the number of people who enter, yet ironically once in you can go anywhere indefinitely and exit where you like. Earlier this night I located by compass bearing the overgrown, unmarked entrance to tomorrow's 1.1 mile portage. A couple who had just completed the portage from the opposite direction confirmed it. I tried to lock its location into my mind.

  Lying cozy in my tent listening to soft lapping of the lake's waves punctuated by the eerie call of loons talking to each other is idyllic. Hypnotic at the moment &  yet long-term narcotic because such places and moments draw me back again. This is the Journey's reward. I hope this remote, all by myself feeling will continue through the BWCA trip. 

  Last night I heard wolves howl on both sides of me perhaps several hundred yards away. A haunting and thrilling sound, perhaps the sound that most personifies wilderness. They don't frighten me because my reading tells me that wolves historically avoid man and game should be plenty during the summer. But listening to the wolves, I begin again to fantasize that I am one of the first to dip my paddle quietly in these waters, to set my tent on this spot and to hear these animals. I try to imagine the thoughts and motivations that would have made me leave civilization a 1000 miles away a century ago to roam the uncharted lakes alone. To pit my meager strength against the mountains and her blooded and weathered beasts. To cringe slightly at the grizzly bears, blizzards and, of course, the wolves that might stalk my trail.

  I try to connect my escape from Los Angeles 20 years ago to the mountain man's escape to the mountains. The escape from civilization's congestion, control, responsibility, mores and controls. Its a fraudulent attempt I know, but I struggle for the insights. I hope that mountain men truly loved the wilderness and that my idyllic empathy does not spring from the gentile life I return to after this trip.

  Second day: Little Sioux Indian River

  With great confidence I paddled to the wrong portage point and carried my kayak 1/2 way to the wrong lake. Realizing I was wrong I left the kayak and hiked to the incorrect lake so I would  at least see it. Then carried  the kayak back to the starting point, reloaded, paddled a 1/4 mile to the correct portage. Apparently, the sun rise had painted a different picture of the correct portage shore than it had last evening at sunset. Thus began my longest portage made 1/2 mile longer by my mistake.

  Long portages at least at my age involve a strategy, a recipe.

· Carry kayak until weight becomes unbearable

· lean it in the crook of a tree and return for the gear bag.

· Kneel on the ground, climb under the loaded gear bag and stick head in hole

· Lift & stagger until upright.

· Walk until you pass kayak and gear weight becomes unbearable

· Place gear bag on a big rock or log ( won't have to lift it off the ground again )

· Go back for the kayak.

· Repeat process until portage is complete.

  I expected to find a river, but in fact I found a small reed choked stream offering no easy path through. Often you paddle the grass rather than water, but it worked. The illusion of progress was diluted by the stream’s constant snaking back and forth on itself for a full day. I saw no one. Ideal.   Heard a beaver last night slapping it's tail, but going past all the beaver lodges I never saw one.  In the Yukon I saw lots.

  Third night:

  Arose early to continue down Little Sioux River crossing almost directly through a great intersection of large lakes. Huge lakes are a bit scary in a small kayak only because of the distance to shore. Cross winds could rise quickly churning water into a dangerous maelstrom like the Yukon River’s headwater lakes. Close to shore is an easy swim; far from shore requires a hypothermia potential and a touchy reentry procedure. I have never had to do it, but it scares me nevertheless. My crossing was fine with just enough wave and wind to make it interesting.  Somewhat tired after the long crossing I slept on a small island occasionally soaking my shirt to stay cool.

  Moments after I was back on the water and around a corner that power boats had mysteriously disappeared past not to return, I discovered  a boat truck portage.   A truck portage is a mechanical device using a 1” cable that hauls boats floated onto its carriage up and over the hill between two lakes gently depositing the boat into the next lake. It felt like cheating, but I did not debate the issue as my kayak began it ascent. At the top of the hill the operator offered very cold 7-Up from a cooler. I immediately drank one and bought a second as a reward for the last night.

  This evening I'm camped on a little island that is literally the American-Canadian border with a brass marker to define the actual point. I can stand in both countries at once.  A beautiful evening with a pleasant wind coursing the length of my shaded tent keeping the misquotes and flies away.  Occasionally a power skiff or plane cranks up the throttle a little bit, ferrying canoeists to the edge of the lake system’s no engines zone; mocking each of my muscled paddle strokes. Each traveler has their own vision and perspective. Mine is not the only vision, yet environmentalists must constantly fight the ‘engine-people’s lust for more solitude & tranquillity to destroy.

  Curiously, I saw no large wildlife on this trip although I think I heard a moose crashing through the underbrush perhaps after it spotted me from its seclusion. I see lots of small wildlife: bald eagle, a couple of otter and a little muskrat. Paddled close to a loon and her young as she protectively swam between us but didn't leave her young.  You would think that with all the boats zipping noisily around here she would get used to my silent kayak. Perhaps relative distance and behavior of known/unknown threats are her screens. An unfamiliar kayak may represent a greater threat than a noisy known  powerboat. Ironically, power boats scare me because I have no fast way to avoid an in attentive boat person.

  Genesee River

  Erie Canal

  Past Topic Updates:

  Dad:

  Summer 97 after my BWCA kayak trip I continued on to Rochester, NY , my home town, primarily to attend my high school reunion and go through my Dad's effects. I needed to throw out what was not of interest to me and a keep what was . It was a strange experience to say the least.

  First, is the eerie touching & exploration of what were Dad's personal items ignored  until now. Touching the small jewelry making tools that he was last to touch seemed almost a direct connection with my father. Sixty year old high school & college transcripts, ancient resume and photos gave insights he was too self conscious to share. Volumes of worthless tax records. How curious that such is the residual sum of our lives although parents perhaps see children as the sum. How few of us will live even in punctuation’s ‘period’ at the end of some obscure paragraph of history. Yet, we live most days paying homage to the pursuit/acquisition of money, stuff & recognition. We presume the endless opportunities to enjoy life’s valued friends and experiences until they are either gone or in unattainable.

  I think of my father fairly often and silently repeat my mantra, " Dad, you were a fine man and I loved you." I don't believe he hears my words. I think I just speak to his memory. Equally often, my father's passing makes me realize again that I am next in line to the great abyss. I fight the inexorable push with goals to achieve and busy days.

  Mary Mead:

  I think of Mary often each week particularly when in Jackson when I pass her ranch lands or experience something special I know she would have relished. Her passing continues to anger and confound me. "Damn it, Mary" is all I can say anymore. Curiously, I sometimes imagine I can feel her listening to me, but intellectually I don't believe that.

  I personally believe that we are a capricious accident of nature's universal evolution -- from dust we come, to dust we go. I am simply a temporary recycling of the universe’s stellar material.  That, if I am part of some greater plan, it is as a grain of sand is to the all the beach's of Earth—inconsequential, supportive by default.

  Rash:

  The terrible skin rash of last year subsided finally April 15th in a whisper. Praise the gods!!! I now think it was  my skin's over exposure to chlorine in our town’s questionably maintained public swimming pool that I swam and practiced kayaking in for the Yukon trip. It is hard now to relive the terror of that rapacious, clawing malady.

  Teaching:

  My enthusiasm reached a low in June, but I couldn't tell if this was the pre-vacation blahs or true burnout. The School Board and my Principal granted my request to take the 1998 Spring semester off in part to explore medical issues. Equally important, I feel a need for more time to explore personal goals including travel, adventure and writing. I suspect that teaching 1/2 a year will prove an ideal schedule for future years if my Principal is able to accommodate. Fortunately he remains enlightened while many around him tear wickedly at him.

  I am confident I will continue to find teaching inspiring and fulfilling, a vehicle for sharing the experience and knowledge of my travels and a professional challenge. Inspiring and intriguing students skilled at simply enduring the boredom of traditional education and equally skilled at rattling the cages of particularly onerous teachers is stimulating. The more authority, the more intriguing the question, the more license to question, to imagine, to be creative that I give them, the more they seem to positively respond. You can almost see the rebirth of intellectual curiosity and the ecstasy of learning. It hangs in the air like lightning’s raw electricity. I live for the stimulation that gives to me.

  American Studies class:

  I and Peggy Prugh , a legendary district teacher, taught a combination English and U.S. History class this last year.  It evolved into a hands on project based format. It expanded my philosophy of teaching. The more I teach the less I care about content although even in my traditional classes it is foundational. Content has simply become the medium in which I teach, in the same sense that clay or stone is the medium of the sculptor. The goal of my teaching is to engender the risk to ask and answer questions, to think critically & creatively, to risk new ideas and solutions and to have self accountable work skills.

  The methods I use -- both lesson plans and attitude / performance in class -- are critical. The lesson plans require that students do most of the work: reading my resources for needed info rather than listening to a lecture, risking answers to questions not discussed in the readings, risking creative solutions to the products  and finally accepting the responsibility for timely completed, quality assignment products.

  Control of my daily attitude is critical because I sometimes let outside pressures darkly color my emotions. A quote on the wall behind my desk which I read when I am in a bad mood that could hurt kids says,  " ...  as a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous." This is a warning to me not, not merely a reflection.

  The philosophy I attempt to project in class is that learning, fun and responsibility are compatible. Yet the student must accept responsibility for their own success and achievement. Don't rely on me to hold your hand. I have complete confidence in your ability to succeed relative to your ability. Just do it. And finally, I do not dislike you or feel less about you, if for whatever the reason, you choose to fail.

  My consummate ideal goal is to prepare young people for the challenges,  opportunities  and excitement of life. To generate and solidify the real attributes of a successful life: self worth, the courage to take risks and bear the consequences, the of  innate human intellectual curiosity and finally, to develop a positive attitude toward all things. Some of our best students will merely reflect the memory based learning system we impose forever lacking the courage to take risks and rise like the Phoenix from the ashes to survive failure's consequences. Such negative attitudes undermine success and drive a person's failure. If these attitudes can’t be reversed, they feed on them selves  and grow. I  have to try to reverse those dynamics..

  More personally ominous, I feel less dynamic, less responsive to the kids, less dedicated to my usual lesson plan perfection and pre-class preparation. While I still mouth the philosophy, sometimes I seem to lack the energy and applied commitment. I don't believe I am burning out on teaching in the traditional sense because I enjoy the students although not as much as last year. I hope that a major part of this attitude shift is the mysterious body rash that emerged again after an 8 years hiatus and has now subsided.

I quit teaching a year later. I could/ would not endure the system any longer -- life was too short.