It’s been too long since I’ve last written my thoughts here. So much has happened since my last entry. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be to say its been an “avalanche” of positivity and change. It all started when I packed my life into a 90L duffel, grabbed my pack and my guitar and headed out for the north for my cousin’s wedding. I knew right then and there that I had finally taken the first steps of an exciting adventure. The trip up north through NJ, RI and MA was everything that I could have asked for. I got to see family from all over the world colliding in the humble houses of my New England family. Aunts and Uncles that took care of my brother and I during our stay in France, cousins all the way from Oregon that I only got to see on facetime and Christmas and Cambodian relatives that took us all over Cambodia helping my father find the home he grew up in all collided and it was a surreal moment. The power of a family that stops at nothing comes together is unlike anything else in this world. The house was so crowded that I simply set up camp in the backyard for the whole week. I slept at 10 and woke at 6 to the fresh New England air (yes, it is different) and the sound of wild turkeys (and sprinklers) - it was perfect. The best part of the wedding, hands down, had to be when my cousin and her husband walked out onto the stage to begin their first dance and, instead of having “Ho Hey” played by the DJ, all of my cousins and I ran onto the stage guitar, ukulele and pill bottle filled with golf tees a-blazin’ and sang them the whole song. She was in tears by the first chorus. I don’t mean to be overly sentimental but I think I almost cried playing that guitar haha. After a few delicious Samuel Adams later, a whole lot of dancing and quite a bit of street cred with the cute Boston College white girls, the night drifted away into the misty air. And just like that woke up the next morning at 5am, broke down my tent, packed my car, hugged my family tightly and headed straight for Front Royal, VA.

Just like that I found myself in a small town swallowed by the Blue Ridge Mountains surrounded by the new faces of whom would become some of the best people I’ve ever met (don’t let that get to your heads guys). Those who’ve followed this blog from day one know exactly how hard I’ve been working to get to SMSC and that first night just standing in the middle of my empty dorm I most definitely cried like a little girl. It’s one thing to get an email saying you’ve been accepted to a program but it’s an entirely different thing waking up in the morning, looking across a beautiful campus and seeing the mountains. It’s only been 3 short weeks but I have already been overwhelmed with huge amounts of kindness, learning and adventure. Right off the bat I made a good friend and fellow adventurer named Tyler Robic and hit the AT the morning of our first class. Things pretty much took off after that. There is no short of being in the great outdoors here. The massive campus is gated but so large that it contains its own forest and it’s own pesky population of white-tailed deer. Our day-to-day are a perfect balance of in-class theory/policy and fieldwork and data collection outside in the SMSC campus or on surrounding farms and research centers. There are no words to describe how good it feels to get my hands back in the earth and my mind back in the classroom. For so long I have been yearning to be productive - to have a direction and goal to work towards. The limbo of unemployment and the cutting knife of rejection have made me a humble and grateful man. The people here are good people to say the least. The staff are the kindest, most down to earth professors I’ve ever met. I forget sometimes that I am surrounded my PhD’s and leaders in conservation - they are all so fun and real to talk to. My classmates are from all over the place (OR, CA, MI/NY, VA) and are quite an eclectic mix of people. There is no end, I mean NO END, to the bonding, laughs and adventures we share. I have to admit that even though it’s just week 3 I already kind of miss them all…My knowledge base of ecology and conservation biology is slowly increasing and I am starting to work out parts of my brain that I forgot that I had. I am also making sure to write down all of the street cred that I get from volunteering/ working with the researchers here and I am nursing a beef jerky addiction. Needless to say, there is so much to experience here and this blog will be seeing much more of it before the end of these 4 months.

Finally, I had the opportunity to attempt to hike the Roaring Plains circuit in Davis, WV this past weekend. When they say that West Virginia is the wild and the wonderful they are not kidding. It’s like going back in time every time I suit up and head out there. John Denver was right, life is old there and things take on the air of a simpler yesterday. To put it lightly, the hike was brutal. It opened up with a small field of wild flowers but quickly led to a misty, pine-filled climb along the ridgeline of the mountain. For several hours we climbed upwards across slippery rocks and fairly deep streams - the whole time envisioning the breathtaking plains sprawling in the wind. We eventually reached a fire road that would, in 1 mile, finally put us at the Roaring Plains trail. It was along this calm respite that we realized that we were running low on time and daylight. If my buddy Zach was to get back at home by 2000 we would need to turn around by 1630 latest. Needless to say we began a frantic trail run into the woods. At about 1600 we stopped for lunch and the turn-around. We never made it to the plains but we were 4000ft. up, surrounded my pines and could kind of see the peaks of the Allegheny in the distance - we were satisfied. These were some of my favorite people and I appreciated just being able to get out here. They met up with me 830 that morning outside of Front Royal’s only Target. They drove an hour to get there and the hugs and back slaps were something I really needed. These were guys that, only half a year ago, were complete strangers working with me at REI. Over a couple of hikes and many many fun days at work, they became my good friends. And here we were, Sean holding down the fort at REI, Zach working hard at Enterprise and me going back to school to save the world one tree at a time. It’s cliche but it certainly wasn’t the destination this time but rather the journey and who I made it with. We pretty much ran the rest of the way back home, piled into Zach’s car shirtless, ran over my glasses and blasted Led Zepplin all the way home - it was just as I missed. We will certainly attempt Roaring Plains again in the future, our campaign to press westward won’t stop for anything.

All in all that’s everything that’s been happening lately, in a nutshell and in only 10 photos. Life is strange, that much I know. Sometimes you are drowning in a endless sea of lost hope, and sometimes you are snowboarding down an avalanche of positivity and change. Everyday is an adventure that has just begun and you just need to get yourself out of bed, strap up your boots and make life TAP. 

Here’s to never giving up and trekking on.

Chris

 

     Yesterday I had the opportunity to adventure through the northern area of Dolly Sods, WV with my brother in adventure, Sean Lacey. The 13 mile hike was part of a plan of ours to slowly expand our adventures westward, and let me tell you, it was a hell of a first experience. The beautiful wilderness area was nested in the Allegheny mountains and had a variety of terrain and began as a beautiful westward descent towards the center of the valley. We hiked through sprawling fields of low grasses, sporadic conifers, clusters of boulders and fields of blueberries. In the distance we could see a dense forest of evergreens awaiting us. The valley has had a history of war and logging which could be easily seen in the lush forest floors which were densely covered in ferns and new growth. It was as if we were walking through prehistoric times. The cool forest gave way to bright, rocky fields (I deduce this is when we obtained the majority of our sunburn). For a few miles there was no cover but we could tell we were quickly approaching Rocky Knob by the increasing number of boulders as well as the occasional trail maker (Dolly Sods didn’t have a blazed trail leaving us to the mercy of hikers past). Upon reaching the first large rock face (which we presumed to be Rocky Knob) we could see other, larger rock faces in the distance. Fast-forward two more knobs and we reached what we believed to be THE Rocky Knob mentioned in the literature. Throughout the hike we recorded time and elevation at each trail intersection and made sure to note the first two knobs as Tallywacker Knob #1 and #2 respectively. At the base of the peak we set up shop and rehydrated. Once our food had cooked we took our meals up to the top and enjoyed a well-earned lunch and a breathtaking view. I took the opportunity to photograph the surrounding landscape as well as some candids of Sean. Lately I’ve found that I am relying on my iPhone 4s more and more as my primary camera (I can see all of my photography professors cringing). With these hikes getting more technical/beautiful the opportunity is starting to outweigh the quality and I am reaching for my phone rather than unpacking my bulky DSLR. In my opinion, the app VSCOCAM (http://vsco.co/vscocam) is an invaluable partner on these hikes. It’s photo quality is much higher than the stock camera app and its editing capabilities are everything that I need (except I could use a brightness/fill light option) to take quality images. The only photos in this entry taken with my DSLR are the ones watermarked. Anyways, photographic aside aside, I really owe a lot to Sean Lacey. Over the past months he has become a close friend, a valued teacher and a irreplaceable  adventure companion. Aside from basic survival and navigation, he has shown me how to truly live a simple and honest life. He has helped me gain so much experience with the outdoors and has made me a much more capable and confident hiker. Once we finished our meals we prepared for the stretch back home. To do this we essentially needed to complete the second half of the rectangular hike which included more than 4 different intersecting trails, all of which weren’t marked. We had roughly 5 or so hours of sunlight left. The trouble really began with finding our way back to the main trail from the knob. What we took as the main trail was actually the first of many bushwacked trails we would accidentally follow and it took us almost 30 minutes to navigate the confusing terrain. Once we were on the main trail we hiked until we found ourselves in a earthy, red forest. Our biggest error happened when we miscalculated the distance between two intersections on our map and mistakenly thought we were much further ahead then we were. We crossed the river and met a man setting up camp with his dog. We knew that we needed to hike north and cross a second river but the trail and map weren’t lining up. The terrain features quickly became ambiguous and the trail completely disappeared into campground. We eventually came across a woman filtering water and crossed the river there. We completely lost the trail at this point and only had 2.5 hours of sunlight left with well over 6 miles to go - it was going to turn into a night hike. We gave up on the trail and began bushwacking northward until we found yet another stream - this was the giveaway that we were terribly off course. As it would turn out we were surrounded by the stream and needed to u-turn. Crossing the stream again and hiking through thick trees we found the man setting up his tent again and he happily shouted out, “Deja-vu!” which is the last thing any hiker wants to hear when they are lost. He helped us get back on track and we eventually found the trail indicator we needed. With less than an hour of sunlight left and 5 or so miles to go we rehydrated and prepared our headlamps. We would be approaching the bog part of our hike, in which there were of course 2 very crucial intersections, in the dark. To my luck we had a mile worth of bog before the sun set so I was able to figure out the best way to step through them - there is no best way to step through them. By 21:00 we were hiking in complete darkness across the center of the massive valley through swamp grass, thick mud and invisible streams - I was pretty damn scared and completely out of water. The only thing letting us know we were going the right direction was the fact that the mud we were walking through didn’t have grass and the notion that it and must have been formed by hikers. By 22:00 we were on dry land again and ascending up a cool rocky path. I knew we were close to home. Call me over dramatic but I shouted for joy when I shined my PD22 up the trail and a license plate and 2 rear lights reflected back - we had found the damn parking lot. 

Here’s to strapping up your boots and going for it.

Trek On,

Chris