Nomad Magazine by Natalie Warner

EDITOR: Natalie Warner PRESIDENT AND ART DIRECTOR: Jill Vartenegian VICE PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Erik Fadiman WRITERS: Sean Jansen, Daniel Person, Rose Hewitt, Phillip Werner, Hunter Oatman Stratford CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Sidetracked Photography Team OTHER CONTRIBUTORS: The Muir Project, The Sierra Club

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Nomad Peaks & Packs

Contents Pe a k s & Pa c k s | Volu me 1

F E AT U R E S 18 RETURN TO THE ARCTIC: Muir Project Contribution

26 CASCADE COMRADERY:

The Final 250 Miles of the Pacific Coast Trail Sean Jansen 34 THE DIRTBAG: A Fred Beckey Story Daniel Person 44 A LINE IN A PHOTOGRAPH: Adventure Skiing in the Southern Alps Ross Hewitt

IN EVERY ISSUE 08 ILLUSTRATED: Pack Like a Pro Nomad Staff Writers 09 ILLUSTRATED: Knots You Should Know Nomad Staff Writers 10 HEROES: Grandma Gatewood Phillip Werner

44 11

11 HEROES: John Muir The Sierra Club

12 THE HISTORY OF: Backpacking 52 BOOK REPORT: The Call of the Wild 53 THE GOOD: Danner Boots

53 4

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54 Roughing it with the Victorians Hunter Oatman-Stanford 58 VERSE: Poems on Mountains

FROM THE EDITOR Reader, The idea for Nomad magazine materialized while sitting in the wooden hut atop Three Fingers peak at 7,000 ft. [pictured above]. Built in 1931, the lookout tower has attracted intrepid travelers for decades, many of whom leave detailed entries of their journeys in trail ledgers left in the shelter for others to peruse. While skimming the stories from now and then, and eventually scratching down my own tale, it occurred to me that, throughout time, explorers on this trail have sought to capture the pure, human emotion evoked deep within them at its completion. And they did so by putting pen to paperâ&#x20AC;Ś Nomad is a digest: a compilation of anecdotes, first-person accounts, diagrams, and biographies that seeks to encapsulate that timeless emotion of adventure. Each quarterly issue is a multidimensional experience that will captivate and inspire readers through stunning visual and narrative story-telling. We encourage you to read, share, discuss, and then hand off your issue to the other nomads in your life or, perhaps, anyone you know in need of a little inspiration. Enjoy the great adventure. And Godspeed.

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Illustrated

PAC K like a pro Packed efficiently, your backpack can swallow an amazing array of gear. But what goes where? There’s no one right way to pack. Lay out all your gear at home and try out different loading routines until you’ve found what works best for you. Use a backpacking checklist to ensure you have everything and make notes on your list about what worked well (or poorly) after each trip. A well-loaded pack will feel balanced when resting on your hips and won’t shift or sway as you hike with it. Visualize stacking cordwood. You’re laying down rows, not building columns: Fill nooks and crannies until you have a solid, stable load—and be sure weight is equally balanced on each side. Tighten compression straps to streamline your load and prevent it from shifting as you hike.

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Illustrated

KNOTS you should know Knot tying has always been one of those key outdoor skills that the inexperienced take for granted. The experienced outdoorsman, however, has had enough success and failure to know that there are right and wrong knots for certain jobs. A good knot can save lives when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re dealing with a survival situation, performing first aid, and when working over heights or water. But, you have to know how to tie it. So make sure you know what to do with your rope the next time you head into the wild by learning these essential knots.

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Her oes

E M M A “G R A N DM A” GATE WOO D The Fi r s t Ul t ra l i gh t Ba c k p ack e r

ven now, nearly six decades after her feat, Emma Gatewood’s tale resonates. Grandma Gatewood, as she became known, was the first woman to hike the entire 2,050 miles of the Appalachian Trail by herself in 1955. She was 67 years old at the time, a mother of 11 and grandmother of 23. She’d survived more than 30 years of marriage to a brutal husband who beat her repeatedly. Gatewood hiked the trail carrying a homemade knapsack while wearing ordinary sneakers—she wore out six pairs of them in 146 days from May to September. She brought a blanket and plastic shower curtain to protect her from the elements, but she didn’t bother with a sleeping bag, a tent, a compass or even a map, instead relying on the hospitality of strangers along the way and her own independent resourcefulness. She’d sleep in a front porch swing, under a picnic table or on a bed of leaves when necessary, and she ate canned Vienna sausages, raisins and peanuts plus greens she found on the trail and meals offered by strangers. Her story, as author Ben Montgomery describes, is one of “overcoming hardship, 10

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finding yourself and finding your peace.” Montgomery, a Pulitzer Prize award finalist and reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, wrote “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail.” Published first in April 2014, the book made the New York Times bestsellers list last August. Interest in Gatewood remains. In the works is a documentary, “Trail Magic,” that will premiere May 29 in Sheffield Village, Ohio. The program will be shown on PBS in Toledo, Ohio to mark the 60th anniversary of Gatewood’s first hike on the Appalachian Trail. “Everyone who hikes the trail sooner or later becomes aware of the grandma who hiked,” said Peter Huston, the director of “Trail Magic.” Her story, though, “is a lot more complex and interesting” than people realize. Bette Lou Higgins, artistic director of Eden Valley Enterprises, is producing the documentary. She became interested in Gatewood after being asked to do the voice-over for a history project in 2009. The few lines about Ohio native Gatewood had piqued Higgins’s curiosity.

PHILLIP WERNER

That led to the Grandma Gatewood project, which includes a storytelling program and a live action play.“Emma Gatewood is a person who deserves not to be forgotten,” Montgomery told me. Her story doesn’t stop with that first hike. Gatewood returned to thru-hike (hiking straight through in less than 12 months) again in, making her the first person, male or female, to successfully tackle the Appalachian Trail twice. Gatewood said the second time was so she could enjoy it. She completed the trail again in 1964, doing it in sections, becoming the first to hike it three times. In 1959 she headed west, walking from Independence, Mo. to Portland, Ore. as part of the Oregon Centennial celebration. She left two weeks after a wagon train, but passed it in Idaho. The trip covered nearly 2,000 miles and took 95 days. She was instrumental in establishing the Buckeye Trail in her home state of Ohio. It began with a 20-mile stretch in 1959 and has since grown to more than 1,444 miles in total; one section has been named after her. Emma Gatewood died in 1973 at the age of 85. 

Her oes

JO H N M U IR The Fa t he r o f Ou r Na t i o na l Pa rk s T H E S I E R R A C LU B

ohn Muir (1838–1914) was America's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He is one of California's most important historical personalities. He has been called “The Father of the US National Parks,” “Wilderness Prophet,” and “Citizen of the Universe.” He once described himself more humorously, and perhaps most accurately, as, a “poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc. !” Legendary librarian and author Lawrence Clark Powell (1906–2001), (anticipating a real event that was not to occur until 2006), said of him: “If I were to choose a single Californian to occupy the Hall of Fame, it would be this tenacious Scot who became a Californian during the final forty-six years of his life.” More recently, famed documentary film

maker Ken Burns said, “As we then got to know him...he [ John Muir] ascended to the pantheon of the highest individuals in our country; I'm talking about the level of Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, and Thomas Jefferson, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jackie Robinson—people who have had a transformational effect on who we are.” John Muir remains today an inspiration for environmental activists everywhere. As a wilderness explorer, he is most notably renowned for his exciting adventures within California's Sierra Nevada, among Alaska's glaciers, and world wide travels in search of nature's beauty. As a writer, he taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing as well as protecting our natural heritage. His writings contributed greatly

to the creation of the Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon National Parks. Dozens of places are named after John Muir, including the Muir Woods National Monument, the John Muir Trail, Muir College (UCSD), and many schools. His words and deeds helped inspire President Theodore Roosevelt's innovative conservation programs, including the first National Monuments by Presidential Proclamation, and Yosemite National Park by congressional action. In 1892, John Muir and other supporters formed the Sierra Club “to make the mountains glad.” John Muir was the Club's first president, an office he held until his death in 1914. Muir's Sierra Club has gone on to help establish a series of new National Parks and a Wilderness Preservation System. Muir's last battle to save the second Yosemite, known as Hetch Hetchy Valley, failed. But that lost battle ultimately resulted in a widespread conviction that our national parks should be held inviolate. Many proposals to dam our national parks since that time have been stopped because of the efforts of citizens inspired by John Muir, and today there are legitimate proposals to restore Hetch Hetchy. Perhaps his greatest legacy is not preservation, but his teaching us the essential characteristic of the science of ecology, the interrelatedness of living things. He summed it up: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”  Nomad Peaks & Packs

THE GRAND TOUR: Prior to the 17th and 18th centuries, the idea of travel was mostly perceived as a negative act, surrounded by the notion that for one to travel, he or she must be fleeing by foot from warfare, disease or tragedy. It was not until the 17th century that traveling became a form of education and excitement. Much like the traditional Gap Year that many Europeans undertake today, many wealthy European men of the 17th century would take “a grand tour” of surrounding countries before settling down to marriage—“a last and final hurrah.”

THE SILK ROUTE:

Images courtesy of Sidetracked Magazine

The History of Backpacking A SNAPSHOT OF THE MOMENTS IN HISTORY THAT HELPED TO DEFINE THE NOMAD WITHIN YOU

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In 1955, a group of English university students embarked on an overland expedition to follow the original trail lead by Marco Polo 700 years earlier—the infamous Silk Route-connecting the East to the West. The students documented their journeys and the word of the overland soon reached the curious young people of the West—sparking the beginning of the 1960’s Hippie Trail.

THE 60S HIPPIE HASHISH TRAIL: Talk of the Silk Route then sparked the birth of the Hippie Trail—a route extending from Europe to India. This was the moment in history when the idea of “backpacking” fully began to emerge. With the cost of air travel unattainable by the average “Jo Blow” or young university student, westerners were excited by the notion of traveling overland by local transport, walking trails, and hitchhiking. The “hippies,” who were composed mostly of Europeans, Japanese, Americans, Canadians, Australians and Kiwis, began their adventure in Amsterdam or London, before making their way to Istanbul,

Turkey to begin their overland travel to Nepal or India, usually via thruways in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Talks of paradise, beaches, and legal drugs aroused the counterculture as well as other youngsters eager to break away from the frameworks of society. The Beatles’ 1968 trip to India further fueled a desire to explore the East. Marijuana was readily available and accessible in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Nepal and until 1973, was legal to buy as local hashish or charas in shops. With a surge of the counter-culture, bus companies jumped onboard to offer transportation and many backpackers bought minivans as well as motorbikes to make the long journey. Some never came back—the journey was, in fact, 6,000 miles and at times and passed through the mountains and the dessert. Travelers fled to Kathmandu, which gave birth to “Freak Street” where hashish flowed (and soon evolved into Opium and Heroin.) “Freedom” overcame any urges to return home to study, get married, or pursue a life of “normality.” The term “hippy” was coined by mainstream society and the hippies referred to themselves as freaks. Today, Freak Street, actually known as Jhhonchen Tole, still resembles the hippie hangouts and hashish shops of the 1960’s. The hippies tended to spend more time interacting with the local population than traditional sightseeing tourists as they had no interest in luxury accommodation, even if they could afford it (and few could.) Some would “go native” after a fashion, particularly in regions of India. Of course, they were still tourists really, albeit of a different sort, and hedonism was the primary aim. As laws began to tighten within Nepal throughout the early 1970’s, hippies

began to flock to the beaches of India— Goa being the spot of choice. Shacks were built in the forests and were lined across the beaches. Meditation, “families,” free sex, LCD, hashish, “community,” and electronic music flourished as Goa’s new inhabitants preached religion, spirituality and peace. However, it wasn’t all beaches and sunshine. Overdose and insanity gave way to a dark undertone of the free life. Many travelers became sick or even found themselves in jail. Due to warfare and political unrest in the 1970s, the hippie trail soon became more difficult to pursue, as Afghanistan and Iran became unsafe for overland travel. By this stage, however, airfare became more available and those who were venturing to India began to explore and cultivate alternate trails.

THE BACKPACKER GUIDE: In an era deprived of the internet, travelers relied on stories and word of mouth to make their way along the hippie trail. Soon enough, handwritten notes were beginning to be traded along the route. In 1973, Lonely Planet published its first ever guidebook “Across Asia on the Cheap.” The rest is history.

BANANA PANCAKES: Aussie co-founders of Lonely Planet were soon in such high demand for their guide book that they decided to take a motorcycle trip throughout South East Asia. During this time, many Australians, as well as New Zealanders, were beginning to make their way to Nepal and India via their southern counterpart,Thailand. Talk of untouched paradise encouraged travelers to venture beyond the hippie trail and explore what became known as the Banana Pancake Trail as guest-houses began to serve the western favorite. Nomad Peaks & Packs

PRE 60S EXPLORATION: The term “backpacker” has forever been associated with the “hippies” and “freaks” of society. Prior to the 60’s exploration, hiking and trails were a popular form of education and entertainment—noting that Everest was first conquered in 1922 and the infamous Appalachian Trail was first completed in the 1950’s. Explorers traveled with a backpack and, although they shared the same sense of freedom and lack of material possessions as the “hippies,” history failed to coin these type of adventurers as backpackers, mainly due to the fact that long expeditions required a lot of equipment and, as a result, money.

THE GRINGO TRAIL: Meanwhile, as hippies returned to the United States with their tales of freedom, the Gringo Trail soon became apparent. Horse trails had existed between the states and Mexico for years and became a popular trail for overland ventures. With the uproar of civil warfare in the US, many travelers made their way south along the “Gringo Trail” toward an uncomplicated life on the Central and South American shores.

INTERNET: Travel guidebooks were of abundance by the 1990’s and the internet soon became a vehicle for communication such as tips, advice and facts. Travel guides, however, quickly became available online and a level of planning was easily achievable before departing one’s home country. Most travelers carried a Discman, a camera, and a guidebook (some also brought along a mobile phone). Travelers could share their photos via email and upload them to the web. With this influx of accessible knowledge, people had less worry 14

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for the “unknown” and thus, new destinations, trails and thru-routes opened up.

HELLO SMART PHONES: Today, we backpackers can be spoiled by an abundance of knowledge and security. Technology has paved the way for tools such as Google Maps, and social media allows us almost free and instantaneous communication with fellow travelers and our friends back home. Nearly everything can even be pre-booked before arrival. Guidebooks and maps have become a “non-necessity” and we can arrive in an unknown city with absolutely zero knowledge of what to do or see, but feelsafe in the fact that we can plan a day’s itinerary with a click of a button. Word of mouth now takes a different form— online. We carry a phone, an MP3 player, a guidebook, a map, our money, our passport, our tickets and a world of knowledge in our smart-phones. With this evolution, the term “backpacker” has since distanced itself from society's definition of “hippie.” There is no doubt, however, that the act of backpacking, and the community in which we belong, still holds a certain connotation of freedom, nomadic openness and the human rebellion deep within us. 

R etur n to the

ARCTIC 18

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WORDS AN D PHOTOG R APHY BY TH E MUIR PROJE C T

ur third day in the expansive wilderness of the Brooks Range found us returning from an afternoon hike to the domed pingo visible from our camp on the banks of Noatak River. Trekking alongside us were Jim Slinger and Andrew “Tip” Tayloar, two men with whom we’d exchanged emails over the past few years but only now were getting to know on a more personal level. The hike provided a much-needed opportunity to stretch our legs and break away from where we’d been tethered, waiting for the plane to bring our remaining food and gear. Three days earlier, our bush pilot had been restricted to only one flight into Gates of the Arctic National Park due to a series of storm systems and limited visibility from nearby forest fires. We opted to transport all five in our group, leaving most of our provisions and gear (including our boats) in the airstrip town of Bettles, hoping that the pilot could deliver them the next day. Later that night, we debated how to further ration our food for the days to come, should the unpredictability of the Alaskan wilderness continue to prevent a resupply. These discussions were nothing new to Jim and Tip. The two men met on the Yukon River in 1975. A friendship developed, and they made plans for another Arctic river trip. Forty years later, the retired professor of philosophy and tenured professor of nuclear medicine have spent the equivalent of nearly two years on Arctic rivers. Tip explained, “Ritual is an enormous part of human activity, and those rituals give meaning to our existence. But with time, those rituals no longer have the same impact in someone’s life. And I think by accident, by chance, Jim and I started going down rivers together. There was the adventure, the friendship, the spectacular beauty, and in some ways it became a ritual that helped give meaning to my life.” The next morning, we awoke to blue skies and snow-capped peaks previously hidden by low-lying clouds. The warmth of Nomad Peaks & Packs

“There was the adventure, the friendship, the spectacular beauty, and in some ways it became a ritual that helped give meaning to my life.”

Nomad Peaks & Packs

the morning sun broke through our damp tents, and our spirits were renewed with the distant sounds of a prop plane echoing against the valley walls. In a short time, our pilot touched down on a small lake near our camp. After unloading the plane and confirming where he’d be picking us up six days later, the pilot returned to Bettles, and we began carrying gear over the moist ground back to our riverside camp. I asked Tip how adventure changes with age and he responded, “There are certainly more limitations as I get older. I can’t do all of the things I was able to do in my forties, fifties or even sixties.” Nevertheless, watching Jim and Tip carry a large dry bag and metal drum of food over their shoulders was a reminder that adventure is not limited to the young. The two friends continually challenged our expectations for what lay ahead. Jim and Tip immediately began assembling their Pakboat canoe. Seasoned on a variety of watercraft including hard-shell and inflatable canoes and Klepper kayaks, this was their first time on the river with a pak canoe. The design allows the canoe to be transported by plane as baggage, but requires considerable effort to build. The end result, however, was a faster and more manoeuvrable vessel on the river than the Avon raft we paddled alongside the two friends. The Noatak is a river in northern Alaska that runs along the north part of the Brooks Range, which is the northernmost mountain range in Alaska. It starts in the Gates of the Arctic National Park, runs east to west for about 400 miles, and is one of the longest rivers in North America unaltered by man. We were all anxious to get on the river, and a 6:00pm departure was not out of the question considering the long August evenings above the Arctic Circle. Jim recounted, “In 1980 we did the Noatak from Matcherak Lake,” and Tip chimed in, “If somebody had told us that we would be coming back down this river 35 years later, we wouldn’t have believed it.” We continued our hike through the sedge tussock marsh and up the tundra hills rising into the heart of the rain-soaked valley, flanked on either side by steep cliffs and even higher mountains. What we lost in dry clothing we gained in scenic beauty as the valley was drenched in cloud and moisture. During those initial moments floating downstream I was overwhelmed that we had the opportunity to join two friends whose humble nature and soft-spoken insight elevated the experience to a new level. Watching Jim and Tip gracefully travel along the Noatak’s current, reading its changes as easily as they conversed over a meal in camp, continued to inspire us. Jim remarked, “For me, rivers are transfixing and spellbinding. Rivers take you places, rivers move, rivers are alive.”

Images courtesy of The Muir Project

The following morning, we decided to hike up the Kugrak River into a valley overlooking our temporary home along the Noatak. Only a short distance out of camp, we encountered two adolescent grizzly bears on the opposite side of the shallow river. One crossed to our side but kept its distance; we grouped together, spoke loudly and backed away to what we hoped was a safer area. The bear looked at us briefly and then ambled on the far side of the river, likely in search for salmon. We continued our hike through the sedge tussock marsh and up the tundra hills rising into the heart of the rain-soaked valley, flanked on either side by steep cliffs and even higher mountains. What we lost in dry clothing we gained in scenic beauty as the valley was drenched in cloud and moisture. At one point,

Tip and I were reminiscing on the impact of chance in our lives and how minor interactions can sometimes lead to the most unexpected relationships. “Just think,” he mused, “we wouldn’t be here with you right now had you not stopped to take our photo four years ago.” He was right. During our 2011 hike along the John Muir Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, we’d met Jim and Tip at the hut atop Muir Pass. We spoke briefly, and I grabbed photos and contact information before we headed our separate ways. In the years that followed, we interviewed Jim on-camera for our documentary, MILE…MILE & A HALF. It didn’t take long before they invited us to join them for one of their semi-annual Arctic river trips. And now, here we were. Nomad Peaks & Packs

The next day carried us along a winding but gentle river under cloudy skies and intermittent rain, leading us to our third camp at the foot of two mountains. We’d decided to hike up there early the following morning. It was a much steeper hike than the Kugrak, covered with tussocks and blueberries. There were patches of sun in the early hours of our upward journey, but the clouds rolled in and we climbed high into their moisture, toward a shale-surfaced peak with an expansive view of the valley below and the river on which we travelled. Up and down, it was a hike consumed with conversation as Jim and Tip shared stories of hikes past and ambitions for years to come. Jim commented, “How many more times am I coming up here? As we get older, that’s coming towards an end. I’m grateful I’m doing as well as I am, but I’m certainly appreciating things like today’s hike more than ever.” The delays early in the trip made us keen to put some miles behind us. Over the course of the day, we saw five grizzlies, two of them cubs being scolded for inquisitively following us along the banks of the river. The clear skies continued as we made our way downriver and into the setting sun, finally setting up camp on a large island that was clearly a seasonal feature, revealed only during the receding waters of late summer. It was our most spectacular sunset yet, lasting what felt like hours. We spoke little as we quietly observed the painted sky accompanied by the faint howls of wolves in the distance. It was a hauntingly beautiful way to fall asleep. Our final day on the river was the most challenging. The water changed from dead eddies to small but quick rapids, with plenty of rain too. Jim profoundly recalled, “When you look over 40 years of trips, we have had a lot of wonderful times and hard times–but the hard times were wonderful times.” It was a sentiment I understood in full. Knowing our time in this beautiful place was coming to an end, I smiled to my friends and said, “I’m wet, tired, hungry, and there’s no other place I’d rather be.” Jim and Tip would continue another eight days on the river, but we’d reached Lake Matcharak, where our pilot was scheduled to pick us up the next day. The continuing rain and low-lying clouds suggested long delays, but only a few hours from portaging our gear to the lakeside, the Beaver swooped in for a water landing. Hastily, we loaded up our gear and said our goodbyes. Even the loud roar of the propeller during takeoff couldn’t drown out the rush of emotions as we lifted through the rain, watching the two friends shrink in the vast wilderness of the Brooks Range. Tip’s words echoed in my mind, “I have so many things I want to do, it would take another whole lifetime to do them.”  22

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“Knowing our time in this beautiful place was coming to an end, I smiled to my friends and said, ‘I’m wet, tired, hungry, and there’s no other place I’d rather be.”

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Ca sca d e

COM RA DE RY The Final 250 Miles - The Pacific Crest Trail

was shaking to the core, not from the cold but just from completion. All I wanted to do was just run to my tent, mummify myself in my sleeping bag and weep, but I had five miles to do in an hour unless I wanted to wander around trying to find camp with a nearly dead head torch. I was standing on the ridge above the monument, engulfed in torrential, horizontal rain and sleet, soaked to the core. My hiker companion Tommy, “Walkie Talkie,” was a ways back and still stumbling after celebrating at the monument. And the surrounding yellow larch trees weren’t going to offer any comfort – I threw up on one the night before last. There was about an hour before dark with a little over five miles to hike until we got back to camp, but I was nervous because I couldn’t quite visualize where we set up our tents. The prospect of trying to find them in the dark with a sideways downpour was nothing short of horrifying for me. Rain gear just simply does not work in weather like this. Especially ultralight raingear that has been carried for nearly six months, crumpled and unwashed, stuffed in to and out of your

sean jansen

backpack every day. I was still shaking to the core, not from the cold but just from completion. All I wanted to do was just run to my tent, mummify myself in my sleeping bag and weep, but I had five miles to do in an hour unless I wanted to wander around trying to find camp with a nearly dead head torch. I knew that if I slowed my pace I would put myself at risk from hypothermia. But with my head down and my head lamp still dimly guiding the way, I made it back those five miles and “ I t m a d e f o r u n f a t h o m a b l e v i e w s , b u t ex h a u s t i o n b eyo n d a ny t h i n g I t h o u g h t w a s p o s s i b l e.” found the side trail to our tents, which huddled dry and inviting beside a small grove of trees. I peeled off my wet clothes and jumped shivering into my sleeping bag, then started to yell for my companion. ‘Walkie!’ I kept yelling for what felt like a long time. He made it, but he was slurring his words from the frigid temperatures and his head lamp was nearly dead. “I could see the light from your tent. Man, I’m destroyed.” We curled into our tents and didn’t say another word to each other for the rest of the night, although neither of us slept–not from the overwhelming feeling of completion, but from the hurricane-like winds slapping our tents and the deep moan from the trees nearby, not to mention the tossing and turning of a billion thoughts through our minds like a scene from a horror film on constant loop. It all started with a fresh resupply two weeks before. Sitting in front of the Chevron station in Snoqualmie, Washington, having already packed, I watched my fellow hiker-trash companions pack their belongings around the public picnic table. With 250 miles left in our saga of footsteps and near-famine, my stomach churned. I saw sombre faces on my hiker companions–they were realising that the trail was now only about two weeks long. And maybe I was seeing some of these faces for the last time.

The start of the PCT back on the border of California and Mexico was this heart-warming enchantment, a trail to your dreams; a golden pathway if you will. But now, sitting here in Northern Washington, with only a sliver left after all you’ve done, is something of a catch-22. This part of the life-changing journey was without question the hardest of all, an emotional tug of war. I’ve known some of these companions for just a few weeks, while some I’ve known from the start, 2,400 miles back, two states ago. Walkie was one I met in the Sierra. And everyone says that falling in love with someone on trail takes little to no effort – it just happens. You are all there with the common goal of reaching that monument no matter what. Battered physically, mentally and emotionally, but on our two feet pushing northward, wanting that monument, proving to ourselves and those that follow back at home that the last five months have been worth it. Before our arrival into the North Cascades, we’d heard the region was a bit like the Swiss Alps. However, there is one thing I vividly remember about the Cascades more so than any other part of the trail. Since Mexico, it had been a roller coaster of uphill and down. Some of the climbs were mellow; some of the descents were knee shattering. But there was nothing more grueling than a Cascade climb. A 20-mile day meant at least 6,000 feet of climbing as well as that in the descent back. It made for unfathomable views, but exhaustion beyond anything I thought was possible. The scenery was always worth every huff and puff, curse word, and muffled grunt while attempting to breathe. While hiking upward, all you saw was the trail in a green tunnel of trees and your friends pushing in front of you. There were always two climbs a day – there had to be if we were to accomplish our goal of reaching the monument with the little weather window we had.

Stress was a new player on trail. At the start, the feelings were more of joy and freedom, release from the daily grind of nine-to-five and bills; the reasons why most of us started the trail to begin with. This new stress, however, at the top of a 3,000ft climb, with a ticking time bomb of fast-approaching winter, was not the most enjoyable. Goodness me the beauty made up for it, though. Every climb led you to a new shape of granite with spires shooting up as if they were blades stabbed from the core of the earth, penetrating outward, always accompanied by a lake or steam–no advertising necessary to entice us to stay and collapse after a day of endurance roller coasting. Positivity was often a hard concept to grasp. There are variables that one can’t foresee, such as: accidentally leaving your solar panel on a log at the bottom of a climb that you just did; bending your hiker pole doing the same routine you’ve been doing from the start; unexpected rain; Ibuprofen simply deciding that it doesn’t want to work any more; and getting one of the worst sicknesses of your life 100 miles before the monument. Every climb led you to a new shape of granite with spires shooting up as if they were blades stabbed from the core of the earth, penetrating outward, always accompanied by a lake or steam–no advertising necessary to entice us to stay. My nightmare of a sickness on trail became harsh reality. What should have only taken a day to hike to Rainy Pass took three, stumbling, pausing with my head between my legs, and screaming curse words at the top of my lungs from frustration. Lake Chelan in the North Cascades National Park was a beacon in a storm. I thought I was lucky for getting sick at a resupply, because I couldn’t imagine what it could be like on trail to be firing at both ends while also trying to get miles done. When I woke the next day thinking I was feeling better, I

decided to hit the trail; it was only 20 miles to Rainy Pass and our last real resupply before the monument. But, well, I wasn’t feeling any better. My nightmare of a sickness on trail became harsh reality. What should have only taken a day to hike to Rainy Pass took three, stumbling, pausing with my head between my legs, and screaming curse words at the top of my lungs from frustration. Walkie hiked on to town without me while I lay and rested, praying for health. I made it to the highway to hitch to town, feeling better. Getting to a town was such a luxury that we all took advantage of what we could before hitting the trail again. At this stage, a large pizza, bottle of red, and a room at a hostel made us feel like royalty. We created what could only be the most legendary resupply any thru-hiker has ever done, packing items that one never thought possible or smart to pack: whiskey, wine, champagne, fried chicken, and icing (just to name the popular items). But despite all the comfort food and drink in the world, that didn’t mean the weather wanted to comfort us as well. Accepting that we were going to have to finish in the rain was a real let-down. We were already seeing our friends’ photos on social media, who had finished just days or hours before in nice sunny weather. The long-term forecast was questionable too, so we had to do what we’ve always done since mile one: put our heads down and hike. It rained all day long. And it turned out that my sickness never really went away. The spoonful of icing I had shortly after dinner was projectiled and made an emergency landing on one of the beautiful yellow larch trees. We were approximately 60 miles before the monument, and once there, we had two possible exit strategies: cross into Canada through Manning Park, or hike back 30 miles to a dirt road and hitch back. Walkie and I decided to hike back after the monument. It seemed like a quicker way out despite being another full day on trail. The rain was incessant on the final day. The last miles to the monument unfolded in slow motion. I was already coming to tears as I walked in torrential rain, hours from completion, and we said nothing to one another for a while on our descent to the monument. I heard every single raindrop and footstep. There was a clearing up ahead with a switchback; once Walkie got there, he turned and looked at me, jumping up and down with his hiker poles thrown up in the air saying, ‘I can see it, I can see it!’ He then bolted and ran the 50 yards to the monument. I saw it and burst into tears, just standing at the switchback.

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Slowly, I walked closer. It seemed that every footstep took an enormous amount of energy, and once I reached out to touch it, I couldn’t help but break down further. I ran over and gave Walkie a massive hug with backpacks on, not caring at all about the non-stop rain. I threw my pack aside and stood there straddling the U.S. and Canada border in the downpour, just letting it engulf me, realising that it was all over. After we made it back to our camp and eventually hitchhiked back to town, Walkie and I parted ways. He went back home and started a family and I decided to head to a stretch “ T h i s p a r t o f t h e l i f e - c h a n g i n g j o u n ey was without question the hardest of all, a n e m o t i o n a l t u g o f w a r. ”

of coast along California and call it home. In fact, everyone went their separate ways shortly after finishing. But everything is different in the most amazing way. From the simplicity of a coffee shop, to making yourself breakfast with an actual stove, the appreciation and gratitude that I learned from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is something I’ll forever be grateful for. I miss terribly all the stars that I hiked and laughed with. From struggling to climb Forester Pass in the Sierra to laughing over poop conversations, the other thru-hikers on this trail are the only reason I was able to finish it myself. But what I thought would be the most depressing thing about finishing turned out to be one of the greatest blessings. I may not see the companions that I spent time with on trail, but we all stay in contact. The joy of a simple email or message can shoot even the dullest day into the brightest, and that is without question the most important gift the trail gave me: the memory of comradery. I set off from Campo, California on April 13th at around 2:00pm. I finished the trail on October the 10th at 1:20pm. Five months and 27 days, or 180 days total: 2,650.10 trail miles, 2,781.16 total miles hiked, 253 trout caught, 46 passes hiked over, hitchhiked 39 times, lost 34 pounds, got 27 days of rain, took 22 showers, used 15 fuel canisters, stayed in 11 hotels, eight campgrounds, took seven buses, got snowed on six times, went through five pairs of shoes, saw three bears, climbed three mountains, stayed in three houses, two days below freezing, and one life-changing adventure. 

“TH E DI RTBAG” A Fred Beckey Story daniel person

red Beckey all but invented the sport of climbing with daring first ascents of peaks once thought unclimbable. At 93, his brain might be the greatest repository of information about American mountaineering in existence. When climbers in the North Cascades complete what they believe to be a new route, they write to Fred Beckey. They write because they think they’ve done something that Beckey did over and over and over in his legendary life of climbing. They think they did it first, and they want recognition from the man with perhaps more first ascents to his name than any other in history; they want to be known by the man who is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the sport. Early in his climbing career—in the 1940s, a 20-something-year-old barely out of Boy Scouts—Fred Beckey began to search out peaks that the Mountaineers Club in his hometown of Seattle had marked unclimbable: spikes and blades of rock that members of the organization determined were unassailable by man. Then he’d climb them. He made almost a cruel sport out of it, taking the sober prescriptions of experts and whipping them with climbing rope. Initially, many members of the Mountaineers resented Beckey. But such were his abilities that, soon enough, the rift was gone for the simple reason that he had redefi ned that which a mountaineer was. “His climb on Midway, in 1948, was said to be the first modern rock climb in Washington,” says Matt Perkins, a climber Nomad Peaks & Packs

“of course with ropes! it’s not climbing without ropes.” —fred beckey

Images courtesy of the American Alpine Club

and friend of Beckey’s, referring to a now well-known climb in the Central Cascades. “Rope, belay, intermediate protection. What we’d call fifth class climbing today.” In 1973, the Mountaineers—hatchets by then well buried— published Beckey's first North Cascades Climbing guide. Today, the guide—which is published in three volumes—has seen three editions and seven press runs. In the age of SummitPost and PeakBagger, the guides are still considered a necessary piece of gear for expeditions in the rugged Pacific Northwest country, a veritable canon of climbing routes in that splintered part of world. Countless climbers have schlepped the books to base camps, seeking an edge in the game that Fred Beckey all but invented himself. The book, simply titled Cascade Alpine Guide: Climbing and High Rocks, was his formal answer to the question that came to every climber who gaped in awe of his accomplishments: 36

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How the hell did he do that? When climbers today write him and brief him on their routes, there’s little doubt that Beckey will more or less be able to picture it vividly. Beckey will turn the route over in his head, running it through the most complete encyclopedia of American mountaineering in existence today—his brain. He may then dismiss the route as nothing special. Then again—and this being why they write—he may decide it’s a route worth including in the next edition of Mountaineering in the North Cascades. “That’s a big part of what he’s doing now. Going through other climber’s routes,” says Perkins. “Climbers still report their routes to Fred, because Fred’s book remains the book of record in the North Cascades.” Beckey is 93 now. His hearing is shot but his brain is sharp. He owns a modest two-story home in North Seattle, and he’s still singularly obsessed with the mountains.

When he walks, he does so hunched over and with the aid of two aluminum walking sticks, evidence of a life lived to test the limits of the human body. Yet when he complains to me that he's only been climbing a few times in recent months, I ask dumbly for clarification: Climbing? As in: With ropes? “Of course with ropes! It’s not climbing without ropes.” Back in his early days, when his daring ascents were first making the papers, it was only natural that some resentment set in among other climbers. As Beckey achieved first ascent after first ascent, whispers circulated that he was reckless. He was burning hot, and he was bound to overheat. True enough, death was close to Beckey early in his career. In 1947, Beckey was climbing the Waddington Range in British Columbia with a group of Harvard climbers when he and three others were caught in an avalanche. Beckey's hip was injured, another climber died. In 1952, on Mt. Baring in the North Cascades, he and his partners were descending at night,

driven off the mountain by weather. The lead climber—a man named Dick Berge—took a wrong turn, which in that rugged country meant plunging to his death. Decades into his career, climbing partner Peter Schoening put the doubts surrounding Beckey this way to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2003: “Fred would climb these spectacular things, and there was word that Fred was unsafe and he was going to get himself killed and it would reflect poorly on climbing.” Yet he’s still here today, credited with hundreds of first ascents—though the exact number is elusive, it’s widely considered to be the most of any American climber. There is little doubt that he will not be surpassed. There’s just not enough mountains left to climb for anyone to catch up. “There’s just no comparison with Fred,” Phil Powers, CEO of the American Alpine Club, told Outside for an oral history of the man back in 2010. “I mean, it’s not one level, but ten levels of magnitude more than the second-place guy. If you travel

“In old age, most people dial back...He's dialed in. He's more tenacious.”

the American West, open any guidebook, try to do any route, try to do any mountain, you’ll likely come across Fred’s name.” His poor hearing makes conversation with him difficult. But when questions get through, he’s sharp in his answers. So what about those rumors, Fred, that you were too dangerous and wouldn’t last? “I’ve always been a safe climber,” he says. His very existence proves that he's correct. Deep crevices are weathered into his face, and the lines are one of a man who spent most of his life either smiling or squinting up at a peak. His forehead has a divot so big a climber could probably get a toehold in it. It is not from a climbing accident but a car accident, Beckey being far less careful a motorist than mountaineer. He’s lost his license on account of too many tickets, which public records show include driving without a seatbelt and driving 50 miles-an-hour in 75-mile-hour traffic while talking on a cellphone. And that's just what’s on file at courthouse in downtown Seattle. According to his friend Megan Bond, you'd have to search a century of 38

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records across Idaho, Utah, Arizona, California, and Canada to truly grasp Beckey’s inability to comply with traffic regulations. At the peak of his career, in a typical year he’d drive his pink and black Ford Thunderbird on a months-long circuit of mountains, Arizona in the winter, Alaska in the summer, as many months as his finances would allow him. He kept a running list of climbing partners, and would pester them to come out with him. No one was able to climb as much as Beckey did— they had jobs, family—so when one partner dropped off, he'd call another. After a while, it became a seal of pride for climbers to get a call from the rock-obsessed Beckey. He has yet to give the practice up. “He’s constantly recruiting people to take him out. That’s one of the motivations to meet the climbers. Fred will be asking if he wants to take him climbing,” Perkins says. If worst comes to worst, he’ll even swallow his pride and go to a climbing gym. “He's not a fan of indoor gyms,” says Bond. “But he’ll go if he’s wanting something to do.” Perkins, who still has dinner

“no one was able to climb as much as beckey did —they had jobs, family”

with Beckey on an almos weekly basis, says Beckey reached out to him in 2002, just shy of Beckey’s 80th birthday, asking Perkins to join him on a trip to the Monarch Ice Fields in the Coastal Range of British Columbia. The goal was to summit Cerberus Mountain, accessible only from a long traverse across the remote expanse of ice. Beckey arranged the helicopter flight and skied in four miles to the base camp. Lore has is that Beckey can be a taciturn climbing partner, petty and bitter to those who stand in the way of his plans. Perkins says there’s truth to that, but that you see another side of him when you’re on the mountain together. When the day of the Cerebrus climb came, Beckey was physically unable to do it, Perkins says; but when Perkins and another climber “staggered” back into camp at midnight, Beckey insisted on cooking them all dinner. “He is self-serving in all the ways you read about, but he did want to get up and cook us dinner after climbing Cerberus,” Perkins says. Bond, who also met Beckey later in his life, says many people only see Fred as the man he once was, and ignore the fact that, like all humans, he's changed over the years. “The way some people think about him now is predicated on who he was 50 years ago, 70 years ago,” she says. A lot of what Bond sees as a misunderstanding of Beckey grows out of the “dirtbag” label that has become synonymous with doit-on-the-cheap climbing lifestyle Beckey pioneered. While it’s true that Beckey would drive around with a McDonald's coffee cup so he could nick free refills during road trips, his dirtbag reputation has a way of distracting from his substantial intellectual feats. His climbing guides include deep research into the history of the mountains he’s climbing; he’s also published a memoir and a comprehensive history of human exploration Nomad Peaks & Packs

of the Cascade Mountains. “You hear about the dirtbag stuff, but you never hear about him going back to Washington, D.C., to look up old mining claims at the U.S. Geological Survey,” says Perkins. “Definitely more than a dirtbag.” “He’s very upset at that word [dirtbag],” Bond says. “He’s accomplished more than most people, he’s done more research that most college professors. Needless to say his writings are up there with John Muir.” (That might be a matter of taste, but there is no denying that Beckey is a strong writer who doesn’t suffer from the stunted or overwrought prose of many adventure authors). One assumption about Beckey that is true, though, is that when it comes to his day-to-day life, it’s nearly all about climbing, Bond says. He likes college football and will go to a bar to watch Pac-12 games; he takes a few trips a week to Safeway to replenish a supply of orange juice and donuts. But beyond that, it’s rock. In old age, “most people dial back,” says Bond. “He’s dialed in. He’s more tenacious.” This near-inhuman singular obsession with climbing has long created a sense of mystery around Beckey—whether or not that mystery is real or projected. Dave O’Leske has spent the last 11 years working with Beckey on a documentary about his life. When they began, Beckey was still driving the climbing circuit he’d refined over the decades, hitting the Southwest in the early spring and following the weather north into Washington state and British Columbia. A climber himself, O’Leske was fascinated watching the then82-year-old work the routes. But he also was intrigued by Beckey’s life off the rock walls; he wanted to know who Fred actually was. He knew all about his mountaineering and a little bit about his roguish reputation as the Don Juan of the mountains. But none of that seemed to speak to the man himself. A life can't consist entirely of climbing routes, can it? “I always looked up to Fred, and was intrigued by his mystery,” O’Leske told me in Seattle recently, where he was launching a Kickstarter campaign for the documentary, Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey. (Despite his disdain for the word, Beckey is fully on board with the documentary.) “I just couldn't believe there wasn’t anything else there.” But when O'Leske would ask Beckey about more personal details of his life, Beckey would demure. “No one cares about that stuff,” he'd say. “Who would care about that?” It’s not that he’s protective of anything: as part of the documentary, he turned over his journals, which contain lots of 40

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discourse on climbing, but also some personal details on his life off the mountain—specifically, notes on women met along the way. Jason Reid, a producer on “Dirtbag,” said Beckey is aware that the documentary seeks to explore the personal side of his life. He doesn’t object; he just doesn’t understand why. “Personal questions—he doesn’t see the value in that,” Reid says. “Ask him about a route, and he can talk forever.” At the Kickstarter event, Beckey took the stage before 500 fans who seem ready to clutch to every word like it was do-ordie overhang. Other men who’d lived long great lives, provided an audience of devotees, would likely talk about themselves in such a setting. Beckey, though, talked about Gengis Khan and Hannibal of Carthage and Horace Benedicte de Saussure—men whose exploits in the mountains he felt were more important to talk about than his own. After this brief history of mountaineering, Beckey led a slideshow through some of his various expeditions. Watching him instantly recall the circumstances and outcomes of dozens of climbs by a simple glance at a rock face reminds one of a grandmother looking through a photo album of grandchildren. This one went to Harvard. She lives in Dallas… The mountains, after all, were the closest thing Beckey had to family. He never married, never had children. One of the 500 people in the crowd is a woman named Vasiliki Dwyer, whose cosmopolitan outfit and lovely perfume draws a stark contrast to the REI aesthetic that dominates the room. Dwyer met Beckey skiing one day in 1952 on Stevens Pass outside Seattle. She lost a ski and Beckey, working on ski patrol, retrieved it. Beckey managed to convert that small act of chivalry into a brief courtship. They skied and hiked and played tennis together (Fred was lousy at tennis.) “I knew the other side of Fred,” Dwyer says. “Fred also was very well-read, interested in good literature.” Did he not want people to see that side of him? “No,” she says, “He just never thought that his climbing friends were interested.” How serious Beckey’s feelings for Dwyer were is a point of dispute. Timothy Egan included a now-famous profile of Beckey in his 1990 book The Good Rain. In the piece, Egan makes Dwyer out to be the great love that got away; Bond insists things were far more casual. Regardless, Dwyer says today, “there was never any question of marriage.” “What would Fred Beckey do with a baby?” she asks, a look of wonderment in her face as she asked it. “I can’t even imagine. He couldn't be married. How could he be married? He’s married to the mountains.” 

In Memoriam FRI E D RI CH WO LFGA N G B ECK E Y

14 Januar y 1923 – 30 October 2017

“ Why do I climb? I am glad you asked, because that solves some of your problems. Climbing solves all of mine”

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A Line in a

PHOTOGR APH ROSS HEWIT

iwiland, or ‘Skiwiland’ as New Zealand’s Southern Alps quickly became known, is home to big wild mountains, snowy ridges and elegant ice arêtes, so it’s no wonder that native Edmund Hillary was the right man to ‘conquer’ Everest with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Rapidly changing weather and depressions bring incessant gusty wind, and the southwesterly storms roll in heavily laden with moisture falling as snow over the high ground. There is nothing but ocean between the South Island and Antarctica and the snowfall amounts to nearly three times what the Northern Alps might receive in a given year. The mountains themselves are badass, with a plethora of faces bigger than 800m and all the ski features you could possibly hope for: spines, ridges, faces, hanging glaciers and couloirs. The range is split east and west by the main divide formed

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ADVE NTU RE S KI I N G I N TH E SOUTH E RN ALPS

“ The l ine is com pl ex . Burly yet E LE GANT, ISOL ATE D AND UNSKIE D”

Images courtesy of Sidetracked Magazine

by a chain of impressive peaks that include Cook and Tasman. Here, the best way to utilise your time is to spend your money on a ride in a ski plane, or helicopter in to the huts and avoid travelling on unstable moraines at all cost. New Zealand has such a unique, spectacular, rugged and colourful landscape: once you learn to take advantage of the weather windows you’ll check yourself in wonder of how such a place was created. This is how Tom Grant and myself spent 3 weeks exploring the Aoraki/Mount Cook range discovering that New Zealand has some incredible adventures on offer. A few weeks prior to departure an Instagram photograph of Elie de Beaumont’s west face revealed a line that instantly caught my own attention. The line is complex. Burly yet elegant, isolated and unskied. Local opinion was that the line was a rock slab with several overlaps that wouldn’t be skiable. I live with the north face of the Alguille du Midi in my backyard, and spending a lot of time on that type of terrain changes your perspective on what’s possible. Although discouraging, the local opinion didn’t put me off the idea completely. The difficulties were not limited to the skiing but also the logistics of getting back from the bottom 46

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of the face. Our experience of the howling wind induced too much fear at the thought of setting ourselves up in a tent, so that option was quickly dismissed. Without a convenient hut to use either, we came up with a plan to traverse the mountain, ski the face on sight, and then find a way back over the divide. Altogether there were a number of unknowns that we would have to solve en route. Firstly, without the luxury of climbing or even seeing the face, we would just have to deal with what we found. Our second big unknown was the state of the glaciers below the face for re-crossing the divide, and whether they would offer an easy passage or leave us stranded in a crevasse maze. On reflection this seemed an implausible plan with low chance of success, but every chance of becoming a prolonged epic due to one of the unknown factors baring its teeth. Quite a daunting thought when you are used to planning every last detail, but the line in the photo had been enough to motivate us to fly halfway round the world to attempt this and we were committed to seeing it through. The mountains have all the ski features you could possibly hope for: spines, ridges, faces, hanging glaciers and couloirs. We transitioned in silence, feeling the immense pressure

“TH E LI N E I S CO M PLE X . BU R LY Y ET E LE GA NT, I S O L ATE D A N D U N S K I E D.”

build in our chests but knowing to take our time to make sure were done right: boots in ski mode, binding surfaces de-iced, things were done right: boots in ski mode, binding surfac- skis locked on. Below, the slope rolled over in a vast expanse es de-iced, skis locked on. with no obvious feature to orientate us on our photo. Doubts Once the next rip-roaring southwester cleared we took the about finding the right line added to my pre-ski nerves as the ski plane in to the Tasman Saddle hut with the forecast show- face had some serious obstacles we needed to avoid. For want ing a 48-hour window. Landing about noon we were pleasantly of a better strategy, we decided to ski back along the summit greeted with perfect conditions of cool temperatures and light ridge and simply handrail down the left side of the mountain. wind. The opportunity was too good to miss and I was feel- There was a niggling worry in the back of my mind that we ing too excited and nervous to sit around waiting in the hut would encounter some kind of un-skiable overlap that would all afternoon. We dumped our gear, ate a snack and downed require down-climbing. Would the route go sweetly or turn into as much water as possible before racing up Elie to catch corn some time-consuming mountaineering nightmare landing us time on the west face–snow that’s not too hard, not too soft, in a crevasse maze below? but just right. We lumbered up the steep east facing slopes in Low angled turns down the summit ridge helped loosen hideous crust and deep unconsolidated snow that was still the muscles and sharpened my focus for what lay ahead. We undergoing transformation. As we arrived on the broad sum- paused briefly above a band of rime ice at the top of the face mit ridge the view expanded across the stunning west face; and without saying a word checked each other’s body language mountains stretched out to the subtropical jungle, tucked in for psych levels. The brief moment allowed my brain to register under a sea of clouds. The sun beat down onto the slope and the tension rising. Anxiety, doubts, fear, all trying to sabotage the corning snow below the ridge confirmed our timing was the day and make you turn back towards the safety of the hut. right. We transitioned in silence, feeling the pressure build in The driving forces of excitement, desire and inquisitiveness our chests but knowing to take our time to make sure things battling to keep you on track. For me the battle line between Nomad Peaks & Packs

“ Sl owly a wa r m gl ow of sat is fa c t ion FLOODE D TH ROUG H ME” the two warring camps advances and retreats with my daily biorhythms and energy levels and equates to the overall feeling of psych. With the seconds passing it was time to focus the mind and become centred as we committed onto the face itself. We skipped the band of rime and sweet corn provided flawless skiing, letting us descend in fluid turns. The slope continued to roll over, finally reaching a maximum sustained pitch of about 45 degrees. To our amazement and relief the line of snow kept coming and led us cleanly off the face onto the Times Glacier with no obstacles to overcome. Skiing is just so much sweeter when the flow isn’t broken. The second major unknown section of our journey lay ahead. As we surveyed the surroundings for a route back over the main divide, we decided to forgo the heavily crevassed trad route to Divers Col via the Stevenson Glacier and instead take the northwest couloir on Mount Walter. It was baking hot on the Times Glacier and we soon ran out of water. However, the sun was moving off and with the cloud level building our anxiety lay around losing visibility and navigating unknown complex terrain east of the main divide. We made quick progress up onto the watershed, but before we could get our skis on the cloud rolled in and our visibility was reduced to a few metres. I had taken photos of the descent terrain on our way up Elie and these were crucial for us to determine the escape line–a beautiful knife edge arête that connected our hanging glacier to easy ground on the Tasman below. By this time the sun was low in the sky: skiing the arête in the dark was not an option. We window-shopped, travelling as fast as possible during each break in the cloud and eventually we located the start of the arête. At this moment visibility began to improve, allowing us to relax a little and enjoy intermittent spells of golden evening light. The arête provided some incredibly exposed turns with tails breaking through the crust one side and icy snow on the other. We stayed on the crusty side as it gave our skis more support and slowly found our way down to the Tasman Glacier; from there it was an easy hour skinning back to the hut and after the fast pace and challenges of the day, fatigue, thirst and hunger made themselves known. Slowly a warm glow of satisfaction flooded through me as I had the first opportunity to reflect upon our outrageous idea, inspired by a photograph.  Nomad Peaks & Packs

Book R eport TH E CALL OF TH E WILD BY JACK LO N DO N

hy should you read it? Be- gutter, that stranger's bottle of Vitamin cause you’ve felt the call of Water—and having fantasies about drinkthe wild yourself. And we ing it all down? Or when you see a baby don’t just mean at a party outside when and start going all gaga over it? Or when there’s a twenty-person line for the bath- someone makes you so mad—so mad— room and you say “Oh, well” and find that you literally see red and your hands yourself a friendly little shrub to pee on. ball themselves into fists? (We've all been there.) Even though we’re Snapchatting, proLike it or not, there’s some natural gramming language-fluent, Soylent-swillhardwiring we all have to deal with. And it ing, hygienic beings that use central heatain't pretty—we’re not talking about nat- ing any time the mercury rises over 85 ural in “everybody loves flowers” way or degrees...we're still mammals. And we’re even in the Everybody Poops way. still highly, highly susceptible to the same You know when you’re in a train sta- laws—from rage to love—that govern all tion and that guy/gal looks so attractive animals. We all have basic tendencies that that you almost can’t handle it and your can seem to pop up out of nowhere, but stomach starts doing backflips? Or when since we don’t want to seem uncivilized, you're so thirsty you start looking at any we fight against these tendencies. And we source of water—that puddle, that rain will always fight against them. 52

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This novel makes an interesting point: maybe we’re not supposed to. And although Jack London isn’t necessarily making the claim that we should all run around naked, killing and eating with our bare hands, he uses a dog to ask the question of what all this civilization is really doing for humankind. Because aside from the starvation, beatings, and the nearly freezing to death, Buck might just be better off in the wild than where he was in his life before the whole mess began. Why? Because it’s what he was meant to do, what his body was built for. So the next time you find yourself on the verge of giving in to those primal instincts, take a minute. And pick up the phone, because The Wild is still calling. 

The Good: DA N N E R B O OT S

Charles Danner opened the doors of Danner Shoe Mfg. Company in the old logging town of Chippewa Falls, Wis., with twelve employees to build affordable, handcrafted work boots. The U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression, labor costs were about 30 cents per hour, and leather and other necessary raw materials were dirt cheap. The finished boots sold for less than $4 a pair.

1936

1973

In his search for higher quality boots, Charles discovers that calked logging boots in the Pacific Northwest sell for $10 or more, a considerable sum. Embracing the opportunity, he moves his family and the Danner company west to Portland, Ore.

Heralded in Backpacker Magazine as coming “close to being our ideal hiking shoe,” the Danner 6490 delivers the perfect balance of minimal break-in with heel and toe protection. Later models of this boot would be called the Mountain Light.

1940s

1983

The war years are good to the company. The shipyards call for work boots, and the Danner Shoe Mfg. Company answers. At a new factory in North Portland, the company increases the production of boots to up to 240 pairs a day.

After 50 years of shoemaking, Bill decides to sell his company to Eric Merk and Eric moves the company again—this time to a new, larger factory near the Portland airport.Merk added an even stricter adherence to quality control .

1960s President John F. Kennedy stresses the importance of exercise. Danner recognizes the opportunity and becomes the only domestic maker of hiking boots.

1994

On March 14, Danner merges with LaCrosse Footwear Inc. of LaCrosse, Wis., to form a major force in the footwear industry.

Today: Building on the same traditions and high standards of quality instilled by Charles Danner and his family generations ago, Danner continues to design and manufacture a complete line of hiking, hunting, uniform, work and lifestyle boots in its world-class factory in Portland, Ore., USA.

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Roughing it with the

VICTORIANS B y H u n te r O a t m a n -St a n fo rd

he great cities of the West weren’t even complete before urban dwellers fantasized escaping them. Compelled by sublime landscapes and the conservationist bug, 19th-century city slickers saw camping as a way to ditch the daily grind, plunging into the wilderness their forebears had just conquered. And after a century of high-tech camping innovations, from Gore-Tex hiking boots to smartphone apps, our desire to “rough it” is virtually unchanged. Recreational camping first became trendy in the late 1800s, popularized by the exploits of naturalist John Muir, who wrote extensively during his years living in Yosemite beginning in 1868. Remarkably, this was only twenty years or so after troubled wagon trains languished in barren deserts or frozen winter climes on their journey to the frontier (think Donner Party). Civilization was barely established in the western U.S. when “citizens were already seeking a respite from it,” observes U.C. Berkeley librarian and author Susan Snyder in her book Past Tents: The Way We Camped. The 19th-century antidote to poisonous urban blight? Going camping. From the get-go, journalists were all over the story. Popular essayist Charles Dudley Warner’s “In the Wilderness” series, published in 1878 in The Atlantic Monthly, presented 54

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camping as a blissful escape from the obligations of civilized society. “I suspect that many of us are, after all, really camping temporarily in civilized conditions; and that going into the wilderness is an escape, longed for, into our natural and preferred state,” wrote Warner. This camping impulse helped inspire the campaign to create America’s first National Parks. The movement was hardly fringe: Public figures like future-president Theodore Roosevelt, conservationist John Muir, and industrialist Stephen Mather worked together to create an organized system of national conservation efforts. Peter Fish, Editor-at-Large for Sunset magazine, says they encouraged Americans “to get out into the wilderness for the preservation of their sanity and their souls.” California proved the perfect spot to develop a national dialogue on conservation, and one place this discussion unfolded was in the pages of Sunset. Founded in 1898 as a kind of in-flight magazine for the Southern Pacific Railroad to lure travelers westward via train and ultimately entice them to purchase real estate (Southern Pacific was the largest landowner in the West), the magazine promoted California as an exotic natural paradise, an “outdoor wonderland” as Fish describes it. Early Sunset contributors touted the region’s idyllic natural

Le ft : Il lu st ra te d re pr es en ta ti T he od or e on of a V R oo se ve lt ic to r ia n ca , le ft , po se m pi ng sc en at th e to p s w it h Jo hn e. C e n te r: of G la ci er M ui r fo r P re si de nt P oi nt . F a pi ct ur es on r ri g h t: C O ve rh an gi am pi ng eq ng R oc k ui pm en t ad ve rt is ed .

imagery at a time when “the big industrial cities of the East were perceived as being unhealthy or stressful.” Their antidote to this poisonous urban blight? Going camping. “Ordinary people discovered that, wow, you don’t have to be a masochist to get out there.” At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, many families camped in relative luxury, traveling on modern railways to arrive at a site with fully furnished tents already erected for them, not unlike the mobile home vacationers of today. But in a 1902 issue of Sunset, author Katherine Chandler provided a series of tips for more primitive camping in California, mixing practical advice with romantic interludes on life in the wilderness. Chandler was part of a growing crowd that preferred their holidays far removed from urban amenities such as roads and running water. These early campers usually hired a team of pack horses or burros, and knew the value of streamlined packing, especially in a day when women wore full-length skirts regardless of the occasion and were expected to carry whatever wouldn’t fit on their horses’ backs. A mule-train climbs a mountain path in Colorado around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.Chandler’s camping recommendations stuck to the basics: food, clothing, and shelter.

For a full month’s tramp (who today even gets that much time off!), she recommended women pack only two short skirts, a warm jacket of corduroy or denim, a cape or heavy shawl, bloomers and leggings (that match), a sun hat, a few dark-colored shirts, some good gloves, a nightgown, two pairs of underwear, comfortable shoes to wear around the campsite, and a sturdier pair “with a thick sole containing Hungarian nails, for tramping.” Chandler admits that though she’ll look charming at the start, after a month out of doors it will take “all the courage of her new-gained health” to face the return to civilization. Her food provision list was equally detailed (eg: 8 pounds of prunes, 12 cans of milk), with the total cost to feed five adults for one month coming to just under $35. Adjusted for inflation that’s around $200 per person; not a bad deal. Meals were often made from simple ingredients like cornmeal grits, pasta, or rice topped with canned tomatoes and grated cheese. Throw in a little bacon or freshly caught fish, and you had dinner. Other snacks included a cracker-type bread called “hard tack” and some dried beef (aka beef jerky); for the vegetarians, dried beans worked fine. What about those bulky picnic tables and folding chairs? Chandler wrote that it depended on the immediate environment, but boulders work perfectly well Nomad Peaks & Packs

Ri gh t: A V ict or ian car -ca mp er tac kl es sel f-g roo mi ng at the fam ily cam ps ite us ing a tar p for sh elt er

as tables, while stools can be fashioned out of old logs. And if you’re just stopping for a brief rest, “one reclines on the bosom of Mother Earth.” Though Chandler’s group didn’t have zippers or synthetic fabrics at their disposal, they still used sleeping bags, “made of either blankets or comforters folded in two and sewed together all around but on part of one side.” Once automobiles became more available and affordable, they quickly replaced pack mules. Car camping became the preferred method of escape, particularly because of the piles of tents, stoves, cots, lanterns, ice chests and other gear required for longer stays. During the first half of the 20th century, even soft goods like sleeping bags and clothing were a chore to pack and tote, since they were made from heavy canvas, cotton, or wool. According to Bruce Johnson, an expert on the evolution of outdoor equipment who runs the History of Gear Project, the invention of nylon in 1935 forever changed the world of camping. Its usefulness was first demonstrated during World War II, when the U.S. military found new applications for the product in parachutes and weather-balloon cloth. By the end of the war, camping equipment innovators like Gerry Cunningham and Roy and Alice Holubar had taken notice, using nylon in their designs, which “changed gear from horse-packable to back-packable, and clothing itself entered a new era of warmth and lightness,” says Johnson. The companies started by these individuals, Holubar and Gerry Mountaineering, paved the way for a slew of businesses launched in the 1960s, mostly across the western United States from Colorado to Oregon. “Gear became ever lighter, stronger, more compressible, and more resistant to mold and mildew,” explains Johnson. And backpacking suddenly became trendy, as “ordinary people discovered that, wow, you don’t have to be a masochist to get out there.”These brands helped return camping to its roots, focusing on experiencing the natural world

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with only the most basic tools you could carry. This do-it-yourself mentality eventually led Gerry Cunningham to publish an instructional booklet called Lightweight Camping Equipment and How to Make It, and soon full-fledged businesses were launched, like Frostline, which produced self-contained kits for making backpacks or parkas. This coincided with a larger social shift during the ’60s and ’70s, when people longed for a return to the simple pleasures of outdoor life, rather than dragging their household amenities out into the wilds. Cunningham was especially interested in the science of wilderness living, working for years with the Air Force to develop specialized equipment for outdoor uses. In 1972, he published another influential booklet entitled How To Camp and Leave No Trace, a culmination of camping’s growing popularity and increasing environmental awareness. The pamphlet countered trends of technological and consumptive excess, and explained the tenets of backpacking without disturbing your environment. Cunningham’s “Leave No Trace” ethic has now become an international campaign, helping establish public guidelines for appropriate behavior to sustain our natural parks. While our earliest camping ancestors probably wouldn’t have put their trips in these same terms, they essentially advocated this style of minimalist camping. Peter Fish notes that the motives for our outdoor adventures remain essentially the same. Like Chandler’s tramping party of 1902, we still want “to get out of the city, out of pollution, and into a place where you’re not distracted by manmade objects, a place that forces togetherness with family and friends, where you can be inspired by nature.” Indeed, Chandler’s final description of nightfall in the campground still rings true today: “All face the mysterious stars, and a peace descends on the camp and permeates to the heart of each watcher. Every pulsation brings calm; and if such a thing as nerves ever existed, they are softly lulled into quiescence.” 

V E Ro n Sm o u nEt a i n s NIGHT ON THE MOUNTAIN BY GEORGE STERLING

The fog has risen from the sea and crowned The dark, untrodden summits of the coast, Where roams a voice, in canyons uttermost, From midnight waters vibrant and profound. High on each granite altar dies the sound, Deep as the trampling of an armored host, Lone as the lamentation of a ghost, Sad as the diapason of the drowned. The mountain seems no more a soulless thing, But rather as a shape of ancient fear, In darkness and the winds of Chaos born Amid the lordless heavensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; thunderingâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Presence crouched, enormous and austere, Before whose feet the mighty waters mourn.

GREEN MOUNTAIN BY LI BAI You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men.

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My Nomad Stor y EMBRACE YOUR INNER NOMAD. LEAVE YOUR OWN TIMELESS TALE & PASS IT ON.