American Original Sin and Life Out of Balance

The daily news is getting harder to take all the time. Mass shootings by seriously disturbed (mostly white) men occur on a regular basis. The United States has an overall gun death rate that is alarmingly higher than in other developed, high-income countries. Cops who kill (mostly black) citizens under the most questionable circumstances face no legal consequences. We have a president who practices nuclear diplomacy by issuing threatening tweets, has abdicated the United States’ role as global leader in fighting climate change, and careens from one appallingly naïve and offensive national or international executive action to the next with no strategic thinking or serious involvement of key cabinet members. The list of disheartening news events goes on and on.

While the actions of our current President are unique in American history in many ways, both he and the issues mentioned above cannot be seen in a cultural or historical vacuum. Our current dismal state of affairs has been a long time coming.

Surely there is some reason why a study published in 2015 in The Journal of American Medicine found that, compared to those living in 22 other high-income countries,

“…as an American you are:

·         Seven times more likely to be violently killed

·         Twenty-five times more likely to be violently killed with a gun

·         Six times more likely to be accidentally killed with a gun

·         Eight times more likely to commit suicide using a gun

·         Ten times more likely to die from a firearm death overall”

Surely there is some reason why racism in so many and varied forms continues to plague our nation.

Surely there is a reason why a man with innumerable serious personal and professional flaws that would have disqualified any other candidate for the presidency before his campaign even began stunned the world when he was elected on a promise to “make America great again.”

Surely gaining an understanding of why we find ourselves where we are today is a necessary precursor to making headway on righting these wrongs.

I love my country, in spite of the bedeviling problems mentioned above and many others not mentioned. I think that America is still a pretty great country, with many freedoms and positive qualities admired worldwide. Yet this greatness is accompanied by many deeply troubling realities, not only the present ones I’ve briefly touched on, but historical realities.

Not the least of these troubling historical realities is American original sin. Many use this term to refer to slavery. I prefer to think of it as the combination of the genocidal European takeover of the Americas from the indigenous people here when Columbus arrived on October 12^th, 1492, and the African (and Indian) slave labor that built the economic base of this country prior to the Civil War. Unless we, as a people, come to fully acknowledge, understand, and take collective responsibility for this tragic past, and make amends for it, we cannot hope to become a whole and healthy people.

 When Columbus landed on San Salvador in 1492, the Americas were fully and richly populated in a way explicated for the layperson in Charles C. Mann’s 2005 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. The Americas were no virgin wilderness. They were a complex ecological, anthropological, and political web of sovereign nations, some of them Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies, some of them hierarchical agrarian societies, and many some blend of the two.

When Spain, and then France, Britain and other European powers brought germs and guns to the Americas, they triggered the intentional and unintentional genocidal depopulation of two continents that were home to an estimated 50 million to 100 million or more people (including an estimated two to 18 million in what is now the United States), with disease doing most of the dirty work, helped significantly by warfare and violence.

This European-perpetrated genocide first prepared the way for an eventual American toehold on the eastern seaboard, and then was followed by an American-perpetrated genocide as westward expansion occurred during the 19^th century. The end game of the total subjugation of Native peoples in the United States is told in Dee Brown’s heartbreaking 1970 book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. By the time of the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890, Native population numbers in what is now the United States had declined to about 250,000. The brutal treatment of Indians and the trail of broken treaties that accompanied westward expansion is well documented.

Both the European and American genocides were contemporary with the enslavement first of Native peoples, and then with importation of staggering numbers of enslaved Africans (12.5 million total to the New World, including about 305,000 brought to areas currently part of the United States). Brutal enforced slave labor built the United States’ economy from the colonial era up to the Civil War.
 

Should we be surprised that the 2.9 million Americans of Native American heritage, or the 46.3 million Americans who self-identify as at least partially African-American, might be dubious of the project to “make American great again”? Fortunately, both Native American and African-American cultures are strong and resilient in spite of this tragic history, though both communities are beset by problems which are largely the lingering result of this American original sin and the resulting catastrophic consequences for these peoples.

I have no doubt that the violent reality of our nation’s past plays a large role in the violent reality of our present. I have no doubt that the mythology of the strong individual, armed and ready to dispense frontier justice, also plays a role. I have no doubt there are many other factors, but most of all I have no doubt that the inability to honestly come to terms with American original sin is at the root of many of our problems.

I have found myself thinking often the past year or so of the film Koyaanisqatsi. First released in 1982, I had never heard of the movie until I happened to see it on public television sometime in about 1987, and was blown away by its combination of arresting slow motion and time-lapse imagery (courtesy of director Godfrey Reggio and cinematographer Ron Fricke) and Philip Glass’ soundtrack. I was captivated from the opening image of the Great Gallery pictograph in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. Gorgeous time-lapse scenes in the unspoiled desert Southwest, and of billowing cloud- and seascapes followed, segueing to jarring mining and war scenes, frenetic industrial and urban scenes, slow-motion close-ups of faces of despair, building to the dizzying near-conclusion several minutes from the end of the film with a flaming, smoking rocket engine tumbling through the atmosphere after an explosive launch failure. The film instantly struck me as an artistic tour de force summarizing the feeling that I had had since the age of about 16: in spite of the many wonderful and beautiful features of American life, especially for a middle class white kid, there was something seriously amiss with our culture. The violence that we Americans had visited upon much of this once-beautiful land, the disconnection of the mainstream of American life from the timeless rhythms depicted in the opening scenes of Koyaanisqatsi, seemed viscerally obvious and obscene.

The next-to-last shot in the film is this image:

As a roughly 29-year-old eco-freak living in Ronald Reagan’s America, this hit me like a punch in the solar plexus. Crazy life. Life in turmoil. Life out of balance. Life disintegrating. A state of life that calls for another way of living. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Fast-forward 30 years. As a 59-year-old eco-freak in Donald Trump’s America, I watched this film again a few nights ago, and was struck anew by its power and clear vision. As crazy as life seemed to me, as out of touch with the rhythms of nature as American society had seemed to me as a 16-year-old in 1974, and as a 29-year-old in 1987, it seems even more so in 2017. Coupled with, and perhaps as a natural outcome of, American original sin, this Life Out of Balance is getting crazier and crazier. The stakes for the planet and for the rest of humanity are getting higher and higher, and likely future outcomes more and more dire.

I hope we still have the ability to transition out of this “state of life that calls for another way of living”. Whether or not we can do so without catastrophic disruption remains to be seen. Honesty about our roots as a people and hard work in healing the human and ecological wounds of the centuries are necessary first steps.

In Search of Wildness: The Trailless Wind River Range

The wild has been calling my entire life. I've often felt I was born in the wrong place and time, that I should have been an 18th-century voyageur, paddling into the interior of New France with trade goods, a Lakota bison hunter during the height of plains horse culture, or a botanist seeking new plants in the remote Amazon interior a century or more ago.

Since I was instead born in 1958 in Minneapolis, and have chosen to live a relatively mainstream life, far from the wild, I seek whiffs of the wild in everyday life, in the semi-wild places near my home in Northfield. Regularly though, the wild calls strongly, and to the wild I go. While I generally bring a camera and shoot photos, that is not my primary motivation. I simply want to be in these places, to experience life as a human animal in the wild, to steep myself in the wildness lacking in everyday life. 

The late Minnesota conservationist and author Paul Gruchow wrote eloquently of this urge in his beautiful book The Necessity of Empty Places: "Nevertheless, some value and meaning clearly resides in such (empty) places, as in all places. Despite ourselves and our beliefs, some among us continue impulsively to seek them out. We go to a mountaintop, or retreat to the desert, or repair to some lonely cove along the wide and empty sea. We are drawn toward wildness as water is toward the level. And there we find the something that we cannot name. We find ourselves, we say. But I suppose that what we really find is the void within ourselves, the loneliness, the surviving heart of wildness that binds us to all the living earth."

Anatomically modern humans, with brains much like our own, have roamed the earth for about the last 200,000 years. For almost all of this time, our hunter-gatherer forebears spent all of their time in what we moderns would consider wild places. Given this history, it seems only natural that some among us maintain the urge to abide in the wild for at least a time. 

On the African savanna, then the Eurasian steppe, the Australasian archipelago and Australia, and later, the North American plains, bands of men would go out, armed only with stone and fire-hardened wood weapons, and hunt animals small and large in these wild places. Women would gather roots, berries, seeds, mushrooms and other edibles, care for children, and make home places, permanent, semi-permanent or nomadic, for their people to shelter in the wild. 

The wildness remaining in 2017 is far tamer than the wildness our doughty ancestors spent the entirety of their lifetimes in. We moderns don’t have to worry about saber-toothed cat or dire wolf attack, needn’t bring down a woolly mammoth to feed ourselves in the wilderness, and enjoy the comfort of high-tech clothing, cooking equipment and sleeping quarters. Nonetheless, a multi-day journey into modern wildness connects us with 10,000 generations of ancestors and their everyday reality, and reminds us what it means to be a human animal, in direct contact with the wild, a microscopic speck of consciousness contemplating the vast cosmos.

While I spent lots of time pottering about in neighborhood streams, vacant lots, and scrubby second-growth woodlands as a young child, and did some state park car camping with my family, my first exposure to what could be considered a wild place occurred when my parents, to their everlasting credit, took our family of four kids -- Scott (15), Gwen (14), me (13) and little sister Gail (7) on a multi-day trip in northeastern Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I was immediately hooked, and have returned to the BWCA and other wilderness areas countless times in the 46 years since. My parents were not intrepid outdoorspeople, so it’s unclear why they took this leap into the wild with four kids. Whatever their motivation, I'm forever grateful to my parents for this early introduction to the wild.

I began planning my most recent foray into the wild when the urge to return to the mountains became irresistible in the past year or so. The mountains hold a special appeal to this flatlander. I was ready for a fix of mountain wilds. My most frequent wilderness experiences are in the BWCA, where I have taken perhaps 30 or more multi-day trips since that memorable 1971 family trip. I've done fewer backpacking trips, but have been to Isle Royale (in Lake Superior), Grand Teton National Park (twice), Glacier National Park (twice), Rocky Mountain National Park, and Alberta's Banff National Park in the past. My last trip was 10 years ago (far too long ago), a memorable one to Glacier in 2007 with my then-15-year-old son Jakob, where we both learned a lot about ourselves and each other. 

I decided back in January, after registering for the August 19th Gravel World Championships (a tongue-in-cheek name for a seriously hard gravel bike race put on annually by the equally cheeky Pirate Cycling League of Lincoln, Nebraska), that I would take the opportunity afforded by being 400 miles closer to the Wyoming mountains than I am at home in southern Minnesota to head west after the race for some backpacking. My destination of choice: the Wind River Range, a fabled climbing and backpacking area, home to the Bridger Wilderness (west of the continental divide) and the Fitzpatrick Wilderness (east of the divide) in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

I had traveled to Lincoln the afternoon of Friday, August 18 to ride in the Gravel Worlds. My friend Dave S and I both stayed the nights before and after the race with pal Joe P and his mate Julie Y, who had moved to Lincoln about three years ago. On Saturday we had a fine, grueling 151-mile bike ride on ever-rolling hills in the ever-warming Nebraska heat, with 10,000 feet of climbing and a temperature of 90 degrees by ride’s end. With the distance, the climbing and the heat, I was crushed, utterly spent by the end of the race around 4:30 p.m. Saturday -- a perfect warmup for my backpacking adventure!

The next morning (Sunday the 20th) I jumped in my trusty Prius adventuremobile at about 6:00 a.m. and pointed it westward. Onward, Prius! I lashed the rig which I normally drive as conservatively as possible at 80 mph, hurtling toward the mountains! It was a mere 800 miles, and I pulled into Pinedale, Wyoming around 6:00 p.m.

Months after I planned the trip I realized, to my delight, that the August 21 total solar eclipse would be viewable around 11:35 a.m. in the Wind River Range. Unbelievable serendipity! I realized that this meant more people would be in the wilderness than would typically be the case, but this seemed a small price to pay (especially since I was confident most of the eclipse-viewers would be within a day’s hike of my trailhead, and wouldn’t be in the truly remote and wild interior of the range). Pulling into Pinedale, I could tell the circus had come to town, as there was lots of small-town traffic, and a big tent set up on the outskirts of town by local law enforcement with a prominent "Eclipse Info" sign plastered on its side.

A friendly law enforcement staffer told me, when I inquired about the conditions at the Elkhart Park campground (the National Forest Service campground 30 minutes farther into the mountains, my chosen trailhead launch point for the trip into the Wind River Range), that "it's like Woodstock up there. There's nowhere to park, and you'll get turned back." I, of course, had to see this, so drove up there post-haste only to find that it was indeed (while not quite Woodstock) a circus, with cars parked along the narrow mountain road for the last mile heading up to the parking lot. After surveying the remarkable scene, I headed a bit back down the mountain to a nearby ski resort where I had been told I could camp for $20 for the night.


After pulling into the funky White Pine Ski Resort and wandering around a bit, I found what appeared to be a camping area, with a number of semi-permanent tipis and canvas tent-house things set up. An elderly couple greeted me and told me the owners had left for the evening, but I could camp anywhere. I set up overlooking a beautiful meadow, shared a bit of proffered Jack Daniels with a friendly chappy about my age, chatted with the oldsters (Marty and Anna from Carpinteria, California -- Marty and a friend had biked cross-country from New York to Carpinteria in 1961!), ate a few tacos offered by a friendly young mountain biker, and got a good night's sleep before the backpacking was to begin.

Photographer's Point

I was up early the next morning (Monday the 21st, eclipse day!), eager to hit the trails. I was on the trail by around 7:30 a.m., and immediately saw a remarkable stream of people heading back toward civilization from the interior. This seemed very odd to me, as I was keen to see the eclipse in the wild. Obviously, all sorts of folks had come for the eclipse, but many of them were not staying in the wilderness for it. Weird. Whatever the explanation, people and dogs, dogs, and more dogs kept passing me. It seemed every other group had a hound or two with his/her own little backpack. Very sweet! The first four miles or so were mellow, and not spectacular, just a beautiful meander through


Dogs, dogs everywhere the first day!

mountain spruce-fir forest. The first knockout spot was an overlook of some rugged peaks known as "Photographer's Point," which I had actually day-hiked to with Jakob in 2004 when he and I were driving cross-country to meet my wife Anne and daughter Maia on the Oregon coast. I had internally vowed then to return for a bigger trip, deep into the wild; here I was, 13 years later! YEAH!!!

Things got steadily more interesting and craggy as the morning progressed. By around 10:30 a group of hikers I passed asked if I had seen the beginning of the eclipse yet. No! I put on my eclipse glasses and saw that indeed, a sliver of the sun was gone! I hiked on, as I wanted to get as far into the wilderness as I could by totality.

About 45 minutes later I found a beautiful spot by a little pond, with the sun high in the sky to the south-southeast above a cliff, framed by surrounding conifers. I set up my camera on its tripod, slipped on my glasses, and began watching the dwindling crescent of sun. The deepening twilight was noticeable well before totality was reached. It was surreal to watch the crescent of sun shrink and finally wink out, with darkness falling all around. I heard a shout from across the pond where I had set up -- others were hanging out in the area.

 The cosmic alignment (sun, moon, my Personal Speck of Consciousness) was almost too much to take in. It was a truly memorable couple of minutes, needless to say. Annie Dillard described the experience brilliantly in her essay “Total Eclipse”: 

“At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.”

When a blazing slice of the sun began reappearing, I felt dazed, but packed up once again in the weird, otherworldly light, and began hiking deeper into the wilderness. I soon met a few more groups of hikers, and we exchanged giddy greetings, realizing we had shared an incredibly rare and wonderful experience in the wilderness.

After stopping for a quick lunch with my already sore feet (harbinger of much pain to come) soaking in Lake Seneca, I passed through a country of beautiful wildflower- and boulder-strewn meadows and streams. I had been climbing steadily from the beginning (starting at about 9,350'; by day's end I would be at about 10,400'), but none of it was particularly hard climbing. I finally called it a day in the late afternoon after hiking about 12 miles and set up camp. While I felt a good tired, this was really too much, given that I wasn't acclimated to the altitude. After a beautiful evening in camp, I turned in early so I could get a well-rested start to what promised to be a strenuous day in the high country on Tuesday.


Island Lake, home for my first night on the trail at 10,400'

I soon realized that my ancient Thermarest pad had a slow leak, and I was essentially sleeping on the hard ground. NO!!! Well-rested was now a vain hope, as I tossed and turned all night, getting some but not much sleep, with my arthritic, 59-year-old lower back and sacroiliac joints protesting all night long.

I rose early, and after a quick breakfast, packed up and headed toward Titcomb Basin and Indian Basin, two famously-beautiful backpacking and climbing destinations. I admired both as I hiked past Titcomb and through Indian Basin on the way to the first major climb of the trip, up 12,150-foot Indian Pass.

Fremont and Jackson Peaks, Indian Basin

Small jewel-like lakes dotted Indian Basin, and patches of snowfield left over from last winter’s much-heavier-than-normal snowpack began showing up. The trail became less and less distinct the higher I went, and soon I was scrambling over boulder fields and snowfields. This was to be the norm for most of the next three days. 

At about this point, I came upon another solo hiker. He suggested that we stick together going up and over Indian Pass, as it was looking pretty gnarly. I agreed, though not wholeheartedly, as I was really looking for solitude on this trip.

John S and I join forces while climbing toward Indian Pass

As it turned out, I was eventually extremely glad that we did stick together. For parts of each of the next four days John S (a 40-year-old who had emigrated as a college student from a small town in central China and is now an IT professional in Ann Arbor, Michigan) and I spent quite a bit of time hiking together and camped together one night. I got to know him quite well. John proved to be a really sweet guy, and an excellent traveling companion. We helped each other navigate through some extremely confusing and difficult off-trail terrain, and I think we both benefitted greatly from our cooperation.

The climb to Indian Pass was all over snow for the last hour or so.

A third solo hiker, 22-year-old Alan, also from Ann Arbor, by coincidence, joined us for parts of this climb. This was high, craggy, wild country, with gorgeous alpine views in all directions. When we finally arrived at the pass, a solo woman day-hiker (from a campsite somewhere in Indian Basin) was resting and admiring the view over the pass to the east of the Continental Divide, overlooking the Knife Point Glacier. A group of four 20-somethings also made it up the pass while we were there. Alan was heading down Knife Point Glacier and north; John, the 20-somethings and I were all traversing the glacier to nearby Alpine Lakes Pass, also at about 12,150. Day-Hiker Woman commented on how

Closing in on Indian Pass

she found Knife Point Glacier anti-climactic, as it wasn't as large as it appears on maps. She was right: climate change's effect was dramatically visible, though the late-August remains of last winter’s heavy snowpack expanded the appearance of the remaining glacier. Nonetheless, it was still an impressive sight. It was also steep, and frankly looked scary as hell to someone with no experience on glaciers.



John sets foot on Knife Point Glacier

The traverse of Knife Point Glacier, and the subsequent descent of the glacier on the far side of Alpine Lakes Pass, was grueling, exhausting work. Though the glacier surface was soft, each footstep had to be kicked in and held hard on the steep crossing. Without crampons or an ice axe (damn fool! I berated myself), it was somewhat harrowing at times, but I eventually made it up and over the pass, and down the glacier on the far side of the pass to Upper Alpine Lake. This also included crossing several extremely rough talus fields exposed by the retreating glaciers. 

Traversing Knife Point Glacier sans crampons or ice axe (damn fool!)

En route, I realized to my horror that I had somehow, inexplicably, lost both my iPhone (with several photos of detailed maps showing how to navigate through the trailless area I now planned to cross over the next three days) and one of my two hard-copy maps, the one that covered pretty much the entire off-trail portion of the trip. ARGHHHHH!!!!!! In my 40-plus years of wilderness travel, I had never previously lost anything of significance. I’m still not sure what happened. The effects of altitude had perhaps clouded my mental faculties and led me to set the map and/or the phone down on a boulder while resting. It’s also possible that the phone came out of my Velcroed pocket on a fast and fun glissade down the glacier toward Upper Alpine Lake. In any case, I now knew I had would have to rely on the kindness of others to make it through the wilderness. I also felt sick that I had littered the wilderness through my carelessness.

Exhausted by the climbing, glacier crossings and boulder-hopping, I camped that second night on the first bit of relatively flat terrain I came to on my descent from Alpine Lakes Pass, a tiny patch of tundra overlooking an alpine lake. I've never known greater solitude. 

Camp 2: Give me oxygen!

I was over 11,000 feet, sleep was difficult, and I was feeling the effects of the altitude (headache, loss of appetite, low energy). I fretted a bit about being in the heart of exceedingly wild country without a map, but consoled myself with the likelihood I would come across someone early in the next day’s hike who would allow me to photograph their maps.

Sue and Kirsten save my bacon!

Awaking early the next morning, I downed a couple of cups of coffee and forced down some breakfast. I felt good in spite of the lack of sleep and altitude effects, and after descending through rugged boulder fields for about 30 minutes, came upon a mother and daughter breaking camp, Sue and Kirsten from Bozeman, who let me photograph their maps.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou, Sue and Kirsten!!!

John and I soon re-connected while puzzling our way through complicated, broken terrain, and for the next two days we scrambled up and down valleys, over another high (though not glaciated) pass (Hay Pass, 11,003'), and generally wandered in awe through the prelapsarian alpine wonderland.

Another alpine jewel below Douglas Peak

Craggy peaks, tiny glacial-meltwater ponds, boulder fields, occasional patches of meadow bursting with wildflowers, all was amazing.


Rocky Mountain columbine

In places Rocky Mountain columbine was thick. Indian paintbrush and a dizzying array of other exotic (to my Midwestern eyes) wildflowers of all hues grew everywhere.John and I hiked together part of the time, and we hiked solo at other times.

Micro icebergs in August

Though I saw none of the large mammals that call the Winds home (grizzly and black bear, elk, moose, mule deer, bighorn sheep), here and there I came upon an inquisitive marmot or pika, peering at the two-legged interloper in their alpine domain. All was good, though my toes were swollen and sore, and my legs ached from all the boulder scrambling. 

Marmot on the lookout

I spent the third night at another beautiful solo campsite on aptly-named Camp Lake. John pushed farther on along Camp Lake. He later told me he would have camped with me, but I had mentioned that I was seeking solitude on this trip, so he pushed on alone. I felt like a bit of an antisocial cad when he told me this on the fourth day, but he seemed genuinely unoffended.

The fourth night John and I did camp together just above a beautiful, small, unnamed lake after descending a stunningly gorgeous valley with views of the Golden Lakes chain, and continuing past the Golden Lakes.


Gorgeous view, looking south, of the Golden Lakes chain

I told John that evening that I had originally planned to exit the wilderness the next day (Friday), but that the 24 miles remaining was simply too much to cover in one day, so my plan was to cover 15 up and down miles to Pole Creek Lake, and then hike the final nine miles to the trailhead on Saturday. I had covered only about 18 hard, hard miles in three days of off-trail scrambling, far less than I had expected to cover, since the boulder-hopping was such slow going. Along with the first day’s 12 miles, I had traveled about 30 miles total from the trailhead in the first four days, much less than the 40 to 45 miles I had expected to cover in that time.

Camp 4 sunrise

The next morning we broke camp early, and hiked at a good clip. After wandering for a couple of miles, we found ourselves on actual trails again. It felt like we were back in civilization (though that was still waaaaaaaaay off). We made good time, and stopped for the first time for an early lunch after covering about five miles. At this point John bid me farewell, as he knew I wanted to move it along and he didn't want to hold me

Stream crossings? No problem

back. We exchanged phone numbers so we could share photos with each other, and made plans to get together for drinks in December when he planned to be in St. Paul to visit a good friend.

Friday afternoon I felt like a world-beater. My legs were feeling strong, my toes had settled down a bit, and I began thinking "you know, if I can make it 15 miles, I can surely make it 24..." This was crazy thinking, but I knew that: a) Anne was worried sick about me, and the longer it took me to get out to where I could message her (with someone else's phone!), the longer she would worry; b) I didn't really want to sleep on the ground another night -- the allure of a soft bed and a shower was becoming powerful; and c) I really kinda like doing crazy hard things. YEAH, let's go for it!!!


I hiked through seven stream crossings that day. Yeah, baby! I hiked up and over 10,800' Hat Pass. Feelin' strong! I hiked another seven miles to Pole Creek Lake, my original planned stop for the night, crossing the last stream with the sun still an hour or two high in the sky. I took off my soaked boots, let my sore feet breath, ate a quick dinner, and did a brief reality check. Was I really up to doing another nine miles, much of it in the dark, by headlamp? My grip on reality is tenuous at best; I decided to push on. 

Final stream crossing at the Pole Creek Lake outlet.
I should have camped here. I REALLY should have camped here.

Unable to face the prospect of putting my seriously sore feet back in my boots, I put on my Keen sandals to hike the final nine miles, as the trail was not likely to be excessively rocky and rugged anymore.  About three miles down the trail, after some beautiful twilight hiking, I turned the headlamp on, and total exhaustion was setting in. Another mile-and-a-half down the trail, I could barely walk. I staggered into an area that I knew was the Photographer's Point outcropping I had passed Monday morning, four-and-a-half miles from the trailhead. I shrugged off my pack and laid on the bare rock, utterly exhausted, for about 15 minutes. I knew I could find some relatively flat spot nearby to pitch my tent, and finish the hike in the morning, but noooooooooo, I'm a stubborn son of a bitch, so I shouldered the pack for one last time. I would have taken more breaks, but I knew if I stopped again and took the pack off, I would never be able to continue. 

The last two miles or so of hiking were, without a doubt, the physically most difficult thing I have done in a 59-year life full of doing physically hard things. I was fighting off sharp pain in my right Achilles' tendon, basically dragging my left leg along, and bending over every 10 minutes or so to take some pack-pressure off my shoulders and give myself a chance to collect my breath for 20 seconds or so, then carry on. 

Just when I thought that I truly couldn't go on, I saw a campfire through the trees. YES! Civilization! I shuffled the last few hundred feet through the woods, staggered out into the parking lot, made my way to the parked Prius, and nearly collapsed as I took off my pack. I slumped into the driver's seat, too tired to even move for several minutes. I looked at the car’s clock: 12:03 a.m. I had started around 8:00 a.m., so had been on the trail the last day for about 16 hours to cover the final 24 miles.

After driving the 30 minutes or so down the mountain to Pinedale, I sought out a brew-pub I remembered seeing on Sunday. I had been fantasizing all evening about having a big fish sandwich (with lots of tartar sauce and freshly-squeezed lemon juice), a pile of fries, a pint or two of good beer, and a chocolate shake. I found the brew-pub; it was closed, of course. I drove on and found a 24-hour gas station, bought a turkey wrap and some hot chocolate (I couldn't eat, and could barely drink, over the last nine miles, so was now famished and felt a raging thirst), and made my way to the nearest hotel so I could take a shower and collapse. I could barely walk into the hotel to book a room, my legs, ankles, feet and toes hurt so badly, but I eventually made it up to my second-floor room, where I slowly and painfully stripped, showered, and collapsed into bed around 1:30 a.m.

The next morning, I hobbled down to the car after eating a sumptuous hotel continental breakfast, and pointed the Prius eastward for the 1100-mile trip home. A great chunk of the interior of the country (Wyoming, South Dakota and southern Minnesota), much of it beautiful, flashed by with the cruise control mostly pegged at 82 for the next 17 hours or so. My normally incredibly SLOW and energy-saving driving habits were thrown out the window in the interest of GETTING THE HELL HOME for this trip.

After driving slowly through fog for the last three hours in southern Minnesota, I finally pulled into the driveway at home. Opening the car door and shuffling up to the front door, I found Anne smiling and waiting for me with a hug as I crept painfully into the house at 3:05 a.m. Sunday. All was well. I was home. 

My animal spirits have been renewed. Though I’m happy to be back in civilization, and realize that I am living in the precise place and time I should be (right here, right now), I cherish the memories of five filled-to-overflowing days spent living intensely in the high, snowy, craggy, boulder-strewn wilds of the Winds. I’m now ready to sit by the figurative winter campfire and relive the memories for a long time to come. Though I'm in the process of losing a few toenails, I found what I was seeking on this trip, the pulsing heart of the wild.

Hard Things

Don’t get me wrong. I love Easy Things. I am experiencing a beautiful Easy Thing as I sit here this morning watching the recently risen sun sparkling on Lake Michigan, sipping coffee while the household slowly comes to life. I’m enjoying my first full day of a  family reunion at my brother-in-law Eric’s and sister-in-law Sue’s vacation home on Door County’s Whitefish Bay, and yes, life is good and most everything is easy at the moment.

However, I spent a lot of time a couple of days ago thinking about Hard Things, and why I so frequently intentionally subject myself to them. A lot of time. I was about five hours into what would turn into a long day of some of the most challenging biking of my life, and I began, as I often do during moments of doubt and pain during a grueling bike race, asking myself “Why? Why do I do these painful things to myself when no one is making me?” I would spend much of the next roughly 11 hours and 41 minutes meditating on Why I Do Hard Things. I’m not sure I have the answer(s) after all this meditation, but I’ll give you what I’ve got.

The Hard Things I was meditating on are the self-inflicted variety, best thought of as Hard Things I Can Control. Sadly, life is full of Hard Things I Can’t Control. This latter category includes many things that I, as a white middle class American male, raised in a relatively intact and functional nuclear family, have had the great fortune not to have to deal with personally. Racism, sexism, poverty, war, violence, abuse, neglect, Hard Things that bedevil so much of humanity, have never directly scarred me. I care about these issues, deeply, but they are not a part of my daily personal experience. I can engage in addressing these issues, but can’t directly control them. Other Hard Things I Can’t Control have directly affected me, however. All of us face many Hard Things during a lifetime: the untimely death of beloved family members, shattering physical or mental health crises, the dissolution of long-term relationships. The list, sadly, goes on and on.

The current Hard Thing was The DAMn (Day Across Minnesota) gravel race. The DAMn is the brainchild of Trenton Raygor. Trenton is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, but The DAMn demonstrated that he is also an evil genius. The ride was scheduled to start in Gary, South Dakota at the stroke of midnight, August 5^th, and all riders had to complete the ride 241 miles later on Trenton Island (Trenton – really, can you believe that?!?), in the middle of the Mississippi River, just across the Wisconsin state line from Red Wing, Minnesota, before 24 hours had passed (making it, literally, the Day Across Minnesota).

I had been eagerly anticipating The DAMn since Trenton dropped word on November 12, 2016 that it was happening in August 2017. The anticipation built as August 5^th approached, and reached a climax when my adventure monkey partners Marty Larson, Dave Berglund and support crew mate Michael Lehmkuhl pulled into the venue for the event registration and opening ceremony, the Buffalo Ridge Resort, late the afternoon of the 4^th.

We hoped to squat on the campsite fellow cycling madman Paul Korkowski had reserved for his RAAMbulance, the ambulance he turned into a support rig for his first RAAM – Ride Across America – attempt earlier this summer. Paul and the RAAMbulance (re-dubbed the DAMnbulance for the day) were nowhere to be seen yet, but we set up our squatter’s camp of tents and hammocks on his site, grabbed some dinner at the resort bar and grill (connecting there with long-time cycling partner and great friend Joe Pahr, who had driven up from Lincoln, Nebraska for the festivities), checked in at the registration table, and returned to our campsite to get a little rest. As we settled in, Paul and the DAMnbulance, with ultra-endurance fatbike racer Balvindar Singh in tow, pulled in, making our group complete for the evening.

After dozing and resting for a bit, we all suited up, made last-minute bike and supply checks, and rolled down to the main hall for the opening ceremony at 11:00, to be held in one of the buildings of the beautiful venue, the campus of the former South Dakota School for the Blind. Trenton did his thing in a fun opening ceremony, accompanied by rider mini-bios and photos playing in a loop the whole time, musician and Salsa-sponsored rider Ben Weaver shared a beautiful poem about the upcoming experience, and then it was time to roll down to the Gary Fire Department for the midnight start.

Spirits were high when Trenton jumped in a car and led us out in a controlled start east across the Minnesota state line, with fireworks blazing dead ahead at the stroke of midnight.

When he turned us loose onto gravel, the usual hurly burly began, with a fast, large lead group charging into the darkness in a jumble of headlights and blinking tail lights. I’ve done a lot of night gravel riding solo, and with smallish groups of well-known friends, but riding double pace line on unknown roads in slightly moonlit darkness at 20 to 25 miles per hour is a different experience altogether. It helped to know that, surely, all the riders in the lead group were experienced and steady riders, but I found it a bit unnerving nonetheless.

The first hour passed in a rush. I was hanging out at the back of the lead pack, enjoying the free ride at high speed, and worrying only a little that I was going out a bit harder than I had intended, but feeling that the benefit of drafting in the large group at way higher speed than I would manage solo made it worthwhile. Early on I realized that buddy “Party Dave” Berglund was right on my back wheel. The average pace for the first hour was 20.4 mph. Rock ‘n roll!

Shortly thereafter, at mile 22, a familiar rider drifted back from the front of the pack, and I realized it was hard man Ted Loosen. Ted is a sweet guy (I got to know him a little when he caught a ride with me down to the 2016 Gravel World Championships in Lincoln), but put him on a bike, and he’s a natural born killer. I learned this last September at the Inspiration 100 (a wonderful gravel race in the Garfield, Minnesota area put on by Derek Chinn and Scott Sundby for a number of years, last year’s being the final running), when I was riding with the lead pack once again, where I really don’t belong. Ted did his drift back from the front routine at the Inspiration (at about the 15-mile mark that time), took a look at the pretenders, went back to the front, dropped the hammer, and shot a bunch of us right out the back of the pack. I sensed that this was about to happen again at The DAMn, and in a matter of seconds it did. Boom! Lead pack blown up. The group of perhaps 30 was whittled down to about 20, and I was one of the casualties, as I knew I couldn’t go into the red zone this early and have any hope of surviving the remaining 219 miles of riding. Fueled by adrenaline, this first 22 miles was all Easy Things. It was a real rush blasting through the prairie with the nearly-full moon to our right, the smells of the countryside only hinting at the beauty of the Buffalo Ridge we were dropping off down to the surrounding flatlands.

 Soon a small group of survivors from the lead pack coalesced. Party Dave and I joined forces with Todd from Minneapolis and Tim from Dallas, Texas. Working together well, we maintained a good pace and kept the lead group in sight for a number of miles before they finally opened a big enough gap that it was just the four of us riding through the vastness. Two hours in, we were still maintaining a ride average speed of 19.4 mph. Yeah, baby! I knew it couldn’t last, but the Easy Things dominated, and holding the wheel in front of me, taking turns at long, hard pulls, following the good line, were all I cared about and the doubt and pain were nowhere in sight yet.

At about 47 miles Minneapolis Todd looked over his shoulder after a moderate climb and said “Dave popped off the back.” I responded “It’s a war of attrition at this point. I know Dave wouldn’t hold it against us if we go.” I hoped this was true, and believe it was. Onward we went, and as I checked over my shoulder occasionally, I could see Dave fall a bit further behind each time.

At about this point my right knee started hurting. Badly. A few negative thoughts began creeping into my mind, and I had the nagging worry that my knee might act up badly enough to keep me from finishing the ride. We kept moving right along, sharing the pulls, and picked up a couple of other strangers in the night. The five of us rolled into checkpoint one at 65 miles at about 3:30 a.m. Though our ride average speed had dropped to 18.5 mph, we were way ahead of the pace I had expected to maintain for the first section, and I wasn’t even sure Michael would be at the checkpoint with the support vehicle.

Pulling into checkpoint one was a surreal experience. Cars, trucks, and SUVs were everywhere in the dark, and I could just make out what appeared to be the “official” checkpoint. I rolled up to the volunteers there, shouted out my number (58), then started calling for Michael to try to find him in the sea of darkness. In a matter of 10 seconds or so he appeared down the road out of the darkness and hailed me over to his Nissan Pathfinder, where I had a cooler full of food and Michael had a five-gallon cooler of ice water. He quickly re-filled water bottles for me while I hacked down two large homemade rice cakes. I had made a big batch of this vegetarian variation on Allen Lim’s bacon rice cakes from his book The Feed Zone, replacing the bacon with finely crumbled and sautéed tofu and chopped mushrooms. I wrapped six of them for eating throughout The DAMn, two per check point. After mixing Perpetuem (my powdered potion of choice for long gravel rides) in one of my three water bottles, I was back on the gravel within about eight minutes or so. I picked up Todd and Tim, who were rolling out just ahead of me, and the three of us soon got back into a good groove again.

In my experience, as long as I’m riding with others, I’m so engaged in watching my line and other wheels, gauging my effort to make sure I’m pulling my weight yet not overdoing it, and grooving on the group experience, that I don’t really begin to get into the kind of meditative state I experience when riding solo. I was also continually wiping condensing fog off my glasses, and working hard to ride safely in our three-man group in the dark, so it was all business at this point.

At mile 80 or so, Todd flatted and wished us well as we rode on into the darkness. Tim’s rock-steady and rapid cadence and strength on climbs made it clear that he was the stronger of the two of us, so I knew my solo time was soon approaching. It finally came at mile 85 when I dropped my chain at the beginning of a small climb. I was able to get the chain back on the chainring within 30 second or so, and I chased to close the gap with Tim, but was unable to catch him over the next seven miles until he missed a turn onto a minimum maintenance road, and he turned back after overshooting the turn by a few hundred meters. We turned onto the minimum maintenance road at 92 miles, which proved to be one of the steepest climbs of the day, coming out of the Minnesota River valley. I realized on the climb that Mr. Tim was stronger than me, and with 149 miles of riding remaining, I did the prudent thing and watched him ride away from me through the trees and into the heart of a gorgeous pre-dawn pink and salmon sky.

Although my right knee had miraculously stopped hurting at this point (temporarily, as it turned out – both knees would be aching badly by day’s end), Hard Things began at about this point. While it helped that it was a gorgeous morning, doubts began creeping in about just what in the hell I was doing out here. I can honestly say, though, that after the knee pain eased I never doubted I would finish from this point on.

Nonetheless, the usual litany of feelings I have on long, hard races began washing over me. Does this level of effort do my 59-year-old body more harm than good? Does the amount of riding necessary to prepare for an effort like this lead to imbalance in my life, leaving less time and energy for the people and things that matter most to me? Is there enough value in doing really Hard Things to justify both the pain in the moment and the true costs in other aspects of my life? Thus far in my life, I have always concluded that the value of doing really Hard Things (of the Hard Things I Can Control variety, such as choosing to ride The DAMn) actually helps in dealing with the myriad Hard Things I Can’t Control that invariably enter anyone’s life. For me, the sacrifices and pain are worthy. The incredible feeling of accomplishment, and the camaraderie that comes with doing these Hard Things with other like-minded folks, including many dear friends, makes it all worthwhile. As The DAMn progressed, my ruminations led to more or less the same conclusion: it’s worth it.

In addition, I re-confirmed my belief that dealing with Hard Things such as a really hard bike race ultimately help one deal with the truly Hard Things in life, the Hard Things I Can’t Control. I know that with perseverance and hard work, I can come through pretty much anything. This has been tested several times in recent years. For example, having my adult son crash and burn with serious anxiety, depression, and substance abuse disorder problems, and having to help him as best I can while knowing that only he, with help, can truly create his own path to health and wholeness from the dark place these life-threatening conditions put him in, is way harder than any bike race I will ever do. The inner strength I have developed at least in part from doing Hard Things on a bike, has helped me get through these Hard Things I Can’t Control.

Fortunately, as I rode along solo, as I have spent so many days and hours doing in my life, I pedaled my way back to equilibrium, found my groove, and kept making pretty good time. About seven miles out from checkpoint two, I spied support crew mate extraordinaire Michael riding toward me in the beautiful early morning light. He turned around and rode alongside me to the checkpoint at mile 120, and my morale soared as I realized I was halfway home and feeling good again. I’ve rarely enjoyed breakfast more than I did shortly after 7:00 a.m., pounding down two of my homemade rice cakes, a cheddar cheese and sauerkraut sandwich, and a 20-ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper. I took my time, and when I jumped back on my bike perhaps 25 to 30 minutes later, I was re-energized and able to really enjoy the ride again.

The rest of the day, while still hard, included many deeply satisfying moments. At about 160 miles, I started riding on at least some familiar home gravel roads. Checkpoint three was immediately after a series of often-ridden large rolling hills on 60^th Street West, and a small cheering section was a huge boost to my spirit.

Photo credit: Galen Murray

(Smiling at 183 miles as I pull into checkpoint three
with crew mate Michael, who rode out to greet me again, in the background)

It was great to see Melissa Hunter and her son Cole (“I’ll take a high five, Melissa – you really don’t want to hug me in the condition I’m in!”), Galen Murray (who also did a quick chain lube job for me), Jeff DeBo, and Claire Schmid. At about 200 miles I passed within 2.5 miles of home, and in spite of a fleeting thought that I’d have time for a shower, nap and change of clothes, and I could still finish well within the 24-hour limit, I pushed on. I was testing my outer limits, feeling good about it, and was hell-bent on an honorable finish at this point.

The last 25 miles or so, from the outskirts of Cannon Falls on, included the hardest climbing of the day, all on familiar roads. Highview Avenue, 335^th Street, White Rock Trail, one hard climb after another. Somewhere in here I was overtaken by Paul Carroll of Eden Prairie, and we leapfrogged several times, neither of us really able to work together as we would feel fresher and stronger at different times from each other. The final leg-breaking hills of the day, on 325^th Street, seemed incessant as we headed straight east, and Paul rode away from me as I simply was unable to push hard on hills anymore. I finally rode into Red Wing alone, only to see Paul riding back toward me. He thought he had gone off course, though he hadn’t, and we navigated the somewhat confusing (at least to our sleep-deprived and effort-addled brains) last couple of miles through Red Wing. The final push across the Mississippi River, with motorized traffic whizzing by on the Highway 63 bridge, meant we were ALMOST IN WISCONSIN. Just as we approached the turn-off to the finish line at the Harbor Bar and Grill, Michael pulled up alongside me in his support rig. I followed him around the corner, and Paul and I crossed the finish line together, in 16^th and 17^th places. All pain was forgotten in the euphoria of the moment, as I got a patented Trenton Raygor low five, and Paul and I had our 30 seconds of internet fame as we chatted with Trenton on Facebook Live.

Photo credit: Michael Lehmkuhl
Grain Belt trunk beer courtesy of Galen Murray

Sixteen hours and 41 minutes after leaving Gary, South Dakota (15 hours, 30 minutes and 18 seconds of riding at an average speed of 15.5 mph; the rest of the time at the three checkpoints, three pee stops, and a stop to strip off a base layer when I was overheating late in the morning), the satisfaction with completing this monumentally Hard Thing washed over me the next few hours. I watched friends Marty, David Weeks, Joe, Bal (first fatbike finisher!) and others cross the finish line. The two Grain Belts that Galen fetched for me out of his trunk were among the tastiest beers I have ever quaffed. I was sad to hear from Michael that Party Dave and Paul Korkowski had DNFed at checkpoint three, after 183.4 miles of hard riding, with mechanical problems (both had broken spokes and tacoed wheels), and later learned that only 88 of 117 starters had finished.

I’m pretty confident that, along with my 16^th-place finish, I had a podium finish in the 59-plus category (I may even have won in that elite group of grizzled veterans). At some point during the day I was nearly certain that this would be my last gravel race, and that I could feel good about going out on a positive note. I told Joe while eating and drinking beer that I was a big “maybe” for the August 19^th Gravel Worlds (another 150 miles of hardness). Today, enjoying some easy time on a hammock overlooking Lake Michigan, and after several days of reflection, I’m pretty sure I’ll be there.

I’ll likely do fewer Hard Things going forward than I have in recent years, as I want to make more time for other things that matter to me, including family, writing, and other creative pursuits. I also want to do everything possible to ensure that I can keep using my body for fairly physically hard things for many years yet.

However, if Trenton decides that the world needs another Day Across Minnesota in 2018, I might even show up for that one too. I still have some things left to learn about myself, and doing Hard Things is one of the best ways I’ve found to learn them.