Spike 5: What the hell.

Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090ft.

Spike 5 was by far the hardest spike we have had. It gave me a lot of time and opportunities to think about the work I was doing, the field I was trying to make a place for myself in and the value of perspective. Let me explain. The spike itself was the hardest because the fires we were assigned were fires from grid codes 11 and 12. The first number is time since fire within a 5 year bin and the second is how wet it is, 1 being very wet and 4 being very dry. Our fires were from 1987 and were extremely wet. We weren’t sure what this meant since we had never worked on fires within this grid code but 4 spikes in we weren’t taking any chances. From the very first morning at the cabins I could tell everyone was moving a little slower and was packing a few more niceties for the next 8 days. 

Hitting the road I felt this weight about the cab. A weight really about everyone. It was our 5th spike making it the 49th time we would be driving, hiking and processing a plot. 49 times of anything with little to no change each time could mess anyone up and wouldn’t have to be as taxing to the body, health and moral as this job has been. The weight just didn’t seem to go away. Following Alan’s instructions we navigated forest service roads skirting ridges and climbing mountains. By now the view was normal and didn’t phase us much. Honestly all of our eyes were trained on the road desperately praying that it would hold up beyond a few boulders and navigable washouts. 

Warmed up we pulled off to the side of the road near our first plot. The first part of our assignment was to do 5 plots within the Specimen Fire. The instructions simply told us to park and climb.

Because it was Day 1 we spent a good amount of time refueling, making contact with the local rangers, driving, figuring out Alan Akbar’s scripture - the usual - but what that meant was that our first plot would be in the dead heat of the day and would usually set us up for a late night. Climbing up my thoughts began to run. I thought about my knees, the blown out stitching on the side of my boot, the poison oak on my arms and legs and the potential for tanoak to be in the plot. I’ve never worked a job that seemed to present so many health risks and yet demand so much data. It just seemed, at times, absurd. Turning my ankle ever so often on the loose rocks and crawling up and through swathes of poison oak I just thought to myself, shit, at least I am getting all the bang for my buck. This job is the bootcamp I have been looking for to get me ready to tackle the many jobs to come. Once we got to the polygon we began to notice heavy signs of management. Since it was such an old fire there weren’t many records of salvage logging and it was all fair game. As a rule we were to avoid any plots with heavy/obvious management since it would affect the data. So we u-turned and hiked down. 

Driving down the road a bit more we reached the end, which, in Alan Akbar’s scripture, was to be our dispersal campsite for the next few days. Getting out of the truck our stomach’s all sank so fast in unison you could almost hear it. Before us was nothing but a huge patch of exposed gravel and dusty dirt covered in sharp grass and burs. A few trees lined the edge and dominating the edge opposite the road was a large rock pile. As we walked to the edge our stomachs bottomed out. We were surrounded by a steep ravine and nearly all of our plots were a kilometer hike down and up onto the opposite surrounding ridges. (You can see the campsite and what I’m talking about my following the road till it ends in the previous picture. Our plots where on the ridges behind the cul-de-sac).

“This is absurd…This is crazy…”

Setting up our tents and a shelter we gathered in the shade and tarried until it was time for dinner. Many read, I chose to stand drinking a warm beer eating meat sticks and sweating my ass off. Kim was a champion and rose to the task of digging us out a latrine. She not only dug a majestic hole facing a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains but she also dug stairs into the side of the ridge for us. We all took a field trip to see it.

The next morning we split into teams of 3 and descended the mountain. Pulling on my gloves, picking up the the metal measuring pole and strapping my dreads to the side of my backpack (yea I do that) I felt like a warrior descending his stronghold into the valley below to execute a covert assassination on the enemy camps below. A few minutes into the descent we realized there was nothing but sheer drops surrounding us. Frustrated, confused and feeling helpless we stood in silence gripping the crumbling edges of the exposed rock. 

“This is absurd.”

Skirting the ridge back towards our camp we switchbacked down. Reaching the creek took a long time and strained my ankles so much they gave out a number of times. The slope of the ridge was so extreme standing still caused the dirt below us to crumble. As we began our ascent I already knew this was going to be the worst spike yet. I know I’ve complained about the job a lot and I know that just a few months ago I was completely amped to be out in the mountains of the PNW but something about just being spread so thin and being demanded so much really has worn me out. Talking to the crew I’m hearing similar feedback and so I know it’s not me being crazy, or this being my first big rodeo. On our way up we passed an old camp filled with glass jars, old tins, mining tools and, most eerily, two double bed frames. 

The longer I stood there, sweating, my curiosity for how all of these things got here quickly turned to why did they all just leave everything? Were they just littering because it was the good ol’ days or were they chased out? Either way I didn’t like the juju and kept hiking. 

Here’s a view of the campsite from our plot. (The ridge behind the tree).

The next morning I couldn’t put weight on my ankles. Walking to take my morning shit I could barely make it down the dirt road, I was worried. Coincidentally it was Lily and I’s birthdays! Out of pure coincidence we both were born on July 17th, she was turning 22 and I was turning 25. Pulling out my snowpeak pot I cooked up some raman and eggs and threw in some vegetarian breakfast sausage (courtesy of Lily) and treated myself. 

Taking it slow and carefully we hiked down to our second plot. This plot was full of Doug Fir and collecting 30 stems for Alan Akbar’s stem analysis would be no problem. Possibly my least favorite part of the protocol is the stem analysis. You hike to the plot in the burning heat and carry out 8 protocols and then you have to find and cut down 30 Doug Firs proportional to the sizes you recorded in the plot (so a range from bike handle diameter to of your thigh) and then either saw them up into cookies there or hike with them all out. It just seems crazy. Granted I understand that the high number of samples are necessary for the modeling but damn it they have us in teams of 3! Plus we are doing this essentially every damn plot (some have too few Doug Fir) so that’s about 50 times before this job is over. For the most part we have started to cut the larger trees into 50cm segments, throwing those into our packs and then carrying the smaller trees up by hand. 

“Fuck.”

Packing our things in the truck we headed out of the Specimen Fire. The mission was to refuel and resupply in Etna and then to continue south for the Hotelling Fires. Starting up the engines we pulled away from our dusty stronghold. Looking back at the distant ridges I held up my middle finger and gently scanned it across the glow of the setting sun. The Ray’s in Etna has become our best friend. Oddly filled with other dirty, bewildered, tired young people I realized we were in a major PCTtown. Hungrily and quickly fading I wandered around the store’s aisles. How strange it was to be standing on tile. Just this morning I was sweating and clutching onto dear life to the edge of a rock begging my ankle to keep supporting me and here I was surrounded by cereal boxes. The lights were almost blindingly bright. I remembered it was my birthday and I bought myself a nicely sized tomato. Noticing how confused the clerk was I just looked at him and pulled out my credit card.

“Sometimes you just want a tomato.”

Walking out into the cool night I helped load up the coolers with ice. Then the crew did possibly the sweetest thing anyone has done for me in a long while and walked Lily and I across the street to the library handicap parking, sat us down, presented us with a small chocolate cake and a tub of ice cream and proceeded to sing us happy birthday! I have to admit I was so happy and grateful I almost teared up. We ate the cookie dough ice cream and cake like it was food. 

The next morning was rough. We didn’t get to a decently close campsite until 2300 hours or so and the neighbors woke up at 0500 “dropping” pots and laughing and revving their engines before pulling out. It was most likely pay back for how loud we were setting up shop the night before. We all ate breakfast ravenously since the cake and ice cream ended up being our dinner. Luckily we filled up are water jugs in a local park the night before so nearly everyone had a variation of ramen and we all filled up our water supplies for the field. Revving our engines we made our way west towards the Hotelling Fires. 

We decided to tackle the first plot as a 6 person team due to time constraints. Considering how each of the crew members had the knowledge and strength to do each of the protocols as a 3 man crew the capacity of a 6 man crew was not unlike marching into a UNSC mission with 5 other Spartans next to you. Hiking down into the fire I was surprised by the amount of leaves on the ground. The wetness in the air, the loose rocks on the ground and the colorful deciduous leaves everywhere reminded me so much of home. Sometimes I forget that I am in California. I started to become homesick for my family in NoVa and my family at SCBI.

That night we camped and ate like kings. Eleanor whipped up pasta and brussel sprouts served with squeezed lemons and chilled white wine. Jesus Fuck. 

The next day we split up and tackled two plots. My team’s was at the bottom of a landslide. Classic Akbar. It was an old site so it was grown up quite a bit. The whole plot was basically Madrone which, if you’ve ever hiked through a Madrone forest, a forest of sharp exposed nails. Tearing up our clothes and skin it made little work of our moral. Drained of sweat and blood we powered through the protocol. Just before entering the plot I looked up into the morning sky and saw the sun perfectly hidden behind a huge dead Doug Fir, it pleased me.

That night the other crew surprised us with more pasta, chilled beer and birthday pudding pie!

The next day we boosted moral with another double up and tackled the last Hotelling Fire as a 6 man super team. 

Gunning it for the St. Claire Fire we stopped in Mathew’s Creek campground for water and a much longed for bath in the Salmon River. Clean and revived I chugged as much water as I could at the camp’s spigot, hung my gear to dry and climbed into the truck. With thunder in the distance and  a a few rain drops earlier in the plot, I had high hope that this last arm of our spike would be cooler. 

Driving eastward we passed through wet forests and beautiful views and came across a small town with the prettiest community center complete with a lavish bar, honor code vending machine and a stand up piano. 

14% battery left. The St. Claire Fires proved to be pleasant, albeit long. The choices were a short hike to a site that will definitely have stem analysis or a long hike down and up a ravine to one that didn’t. My team chose the one without stem analysis. The next morning we re-read Alan Akbar’s scripture and it turned out to be a classic Alan situation. His ultimatums are hardly a compromise but rather two types of hard. IF we didn’t do stem analysis in a plot THEN we would instead have to core a large tree in each subplot (9) and then cut down 3 additional ones in the subplot and take the bottom cookie (27). So we had to find and cut down 27 trees anyways. It just didn’t make sense. If you can’t find enough trees in a subplot to do collect 30 trees for stem analysis then just core and cut down 36 trees. What the hell. 

7%. All in all the spike came to a peaceful end. I ran into 2 rattlers on the way out of my last plot and peed a little. I cooked curry and everyone loved it. We resupplied in Etna and Yreka and made it to the cabin with time to spare. Doing stem analysis and inventory we loaded up poor Matt’s car with stems and papers to deliver to Corvallis. This break the mission is San Francisco and I am going to relish in being in a city with a high of 76 and to hell with you Klamath and I love and miss you all and call and text me cause signal will be a plenty!

Chris

Oregon Country Coast - The Fair, The Coast and Existentialism

Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090 ft. 

I had never seen a play. Well, I suppose I have seen plays in grade school and certainly have dabbled in acting in college - but I had never seen a professional play. Driving into Ashland I was excited to see one of the Shakespearean plays the Oregon Shakespeare Festival was so known for. The play was Much Ado About Nothing, one I hadn’t read yet. I was surprised to see that it was done in a contemporary theme with the soldiers in modern combat attire and the actors and actresses in hip clothing. The actors playing Benedick and Beatrice were sassy, full of attitude and on point! I had never had so much fun at a play before. After the play we roamed about Ashland’s downtown. I had driven past the little town on I-5 so many times before without giving it a second thought but walking past its many storefronts and restaurants I was overcome with the feeling that I should live here. The mix of tourist shops, local foodie spots and wandering, eclectic, dreadlocked youths (homeless or hippie, never sure) made the little thespian town all the more quaint. Did I mention that they had a restaurant that, coming from the BBQ coast, slow cooked the best damn pulled pork I’ve had in a long long time? Hands down the meat cup I got from Home State BBQ set the tone for my 4th break!

After lunch and much meandering we met up with Kim and her friends Teresa and Ben for a free show at OSF’s Green Show stage. It was the Chickspeare Improve group and they were a riot! Taking suggestions from the audience for a play on love they had everyone laughing. One of them even got off stage and began kissing random women in the audience (she was playing the role of a man trying to see which woman would be her true love based on their kiss and she broke the 4th wall and started kissing the audience too), it was hilarious and it was also how I knew I wasn’t in Virginia anymore haha.

We spend the night at Teresa and Ben’s cozy home in Medford. Full of musical instruments, pine cones and all around adorable collected things their home reminded me of the home I want to eventually own. Their backyard was filled with native grasses and plants and their dog, Sandy, was the absolute best!

The next day it was off to food shop and then back to Klamath River to gear up for the rest of break. The mission was the Oregon Country Fair and then a journey down the southern coast. 

The fair was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The only fairs I have been to were small local ones as a child, big state fairs as an adult but never the Oregon Country Fair. in a few words it was like the naked bike ride met a renaissance festival and then crashed into a watered down Burning Man. The sprawling fair took place in the heart of a forest in Veneta, OR just west of Eugene. Vendors sold things ranging from leather belt pouches and wooden wares to edible plants and sustainable energy. I was blown away by the number of colorful costumes people wore, the number of dreadlocked folks (fight the good fight!) and the sheer amount of music. There was a main stage, a second stage and then buskers littered everywhere in between. And food. So much food going from Indian food to vegan BBQ! Unfortunately I was too stingy to pay for a lot of the options. So often were to portions small, the lines long and the prices high. I also didn’t buy much because there simply wasn’t anything that I needed and everything also seemed overpriced. Instead I people watched, listened to music and kept a tally of how many boobs vs. asians I saw. Yep. As wonderful and beautiful and adventurous the PNW has been so far I have to admit it isn’t very diverse. Save the city of Portland of course. Oh and that ratio was 13:8 with boobs being “pair of boobs”, of course. Towrads the end of the day we met up with our friend Matt who was volunteering at the Native Plant Society of Oregon booth. The booth featured edible plants and explained many of their everyday uses. Stinging Nettle even had a place. 

That night we headed westward and camped halfway between I-5 and the coast. Our first stop the next morning was Seal Rock, OR where I finally got to the sea. Walking along the cool, windy beach I dug my feet deeply and longingly into the wet sand. For too long now I have been craving the ocean. The hot, dry days out here in the mountains have so been wearing down my soul (as you know). I love the work I am doing, mostly, but I know more than ever now that I will settle near the sea.

Driving north towards Newport we hit the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Rogue Ales brewery! The aquarium was the perfect place to start our trip down the coast. It was filled with animals and displays pertinent to the tide pools and beaches we would eventually see. The aviary was filled with coastal birds that reminded me of my cousin Amanda and all of her work she’s been doing with them. I’m not much of a bird person but hiking with her and Khem and learning about the coastal species along the shores have been so interesting to me (a possible future job perhaps). 

Rogue Ales has to be, currently, my favorite Oregon brewery. Their beers are always so imaginative and full of flavor. Their artwork is reminiscent of the work of Shepard Fairey and it’s obvious that they are a brewery serious about brewing quality beers as they are serious about having fun. Did I mention their parking lot is always filled with big rigs?

Next we hit the road and gunned it south. Our fist stop was Cape Perpetua where we hiked down to the coast and through tide pools. The hike was the perfect mix of well-maintained trail, aromatic conifers and salty ocean air. God am I dreading work tomorrow. 

Leaning down close to an evaporated pool of sea salt I angled my camera low to the ground. My hopes was to capture an out of this world macro landscape. The rim of the pool becoming the distant ridges of some forlorn planet of slat and rock. The distant blues of the sky painting its clouds as the sky of this forgotten Interstellar-esque planet. 

Stomachs grumbling we headed further south. Sunlight was starting to wane and we still needed to find camping. The mission was to be as far south as Coos Bay (the middle point of the southen half of the coast) by nightfall. Stopping in the cozy seaside town of Florence we were greeted by the smell of coffee, waffle cones and seafood.

On the road again we headed south. The sunset was quickly blotted out by stormy clouds. As we passed ATV-filled campsite to ATV-filled campsite we quickly realized that the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area was just that. It wasn’t the pristine dunes of northern Minnesota and Michigan that Eleanor and I remembered. As we approached Northbend, OR we hit a fog bank. It swallowed the trees and the shore and it painted the world a cloudy, forlorn white that I had always associated with the PNW.

Running out of battery so I will have to speed this up, damn the gods for not placing an outlet on this porch. We camped at Eel Creek Campground. At a pricey $20 we were reluctant but it was better than the local KOA or Walmart’s parking lot. We discovered the next morning that it was the trailhead to a 3 mile roundtrip hike to the shore over the dunes the coast were named after. I ran into a guy in the bathroom the night before who described the hike as simply, Tatooine. And Tatooine it was.

As far as the eye could see the sand sprawled endlessly away. In the distance only a faint line of trees could be seen, a long hike lay between us and the cold, sweet ocean. Hiking on sand. It’s hard but something everyone should do. Cool to the touch, it broke away underneath our feet testing the strength of our thighs and knees with each step. After what seemed an eternity the sand broke away to reveal the edge of the forest. Their a well-worn path led through the trees to a boardwalk.

Which then opened up to a coastal shrubland. The likes I’d never seen before.

The ocean was sweet as ever it were. She greeted me with gently waves and a cooling breeze. Why ever did I forsake the gentle power of the ocean for such callous, malicous mountains? Like the Avett Brothers say, we all have worries to give to the sea. 

Travelling ever southward we took a dead-end route down 540 to Shoreacres State Park. What we had hoped was to be on the scenic route that took us along the coast from Coos Bay to Bannon but seeing as how we had taken a wrong turn we decided to explore it anyways. Stomachs rumbling we grabbed a bag of nuts and explored the old estate. But first, here is a rock o’ sea lions. 

The old estate was owned by a very unfortunate Mr. Louis J. Simpson. Who essentially preserved the southern qoarter of the Oregon coast by buying up all the and over the course of his life. Why? Because he was a self-made man and loved the ocean. He built a lavish mansion for his wife for Christmas and she soon later died of illness and a wildfire razed the mansion and his gardens. Bad things happen indiscriminately my friends. Walking along the edge of his old grounds I had an eerie feeling of being in a place rich with history and loss. Through so many things the shore had remained in place. Steadfast and ever flowing the waves were here before him, they are here after him and they will be here long after me. The values we humans place on things and each other seem so small compared to the rest of the world. Us transient, self-important things. The whole notion of our egos are as pointless as war. Unimportant we have only succeeded in ruining this earth. If I don’t dedicate myself and my life to fighting the good fight then I will die a leach like the rest of this wretched world. Anyways. His gardens were magnificent. 

Our last stop before heading eastward for Medford was the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. Estuaries, where the salty waters of the ocean mix and mingle with the fresh water of streams, have always been an interest to me. Since I first learned about it in Ecology 101 I have always been curious about learning more about the types of life that spring up in these diverse ecosystems. Following the trail down through the woods we wound closer and closer to the estuary. The vegetation transformed from coastal forest to a riparian forest rich with moisture loving plants like ferns and the skunk cabbage (one I had never heard of before).

The estuary itself was oddly low. Judging from the time I didn’t think it had to do with the normal tides. It was curious. 

On the road again we began the long drive east. We needed to reach Medford, resupply for the spike and then head to the cabins. But as the miles wore on the heavy weight of sleep began to pull at my eyelids, stronger than the grumbling pains of my stomach. Heart pounding I nodded awake and gripped Rhyhorn’s wheel tightly. Pulling into the small fishing town of Bandon, OR we parked at the Old Town and began looking for coffee and food. It would seem the pattern for small towns across america to close at 1600/1700 and we were out of luck. walking up and down the street we were met with stores either closed, too expensive or too sketch. I felt like this trash fish.

We ended up finding a little oyster shack on the boardwalk that served Americanos and chowder and we were on the road again. Tired but satisfied I started the engine and settled in for the long drive back. Turning onto 42S I thought of how good a warm shower, a hot meal and a soft bed would feel.

Till next time my dear friends,

Chris

Spike 4: Field Karma, Blizzards and Stir-Frys

Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090ft. 

One by one the team started to arrive. It was Tuesday night and a somber feeling seemed to float around the stuffy cabin. Packing away clothes and food everyone already seemed tired and injured. My back was aching, my knees were shot and I already missed my warm bed. None of us were ready for Spike 4.  Because of the increasing heat wave we were assigned to high elevation fires in southern Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest not too far from Cave Junction, Selma and Grants Pass. Tossing our dirt and sap covered packs into the trucks we assumed our familiar places, powered on the GPSs and gunned it north. 

We stopped in Yreka for gas, a printer and a few provisions and headed west on 96. Turning onto an old gravel road we climbed northwards. As we climbed and climbed the dry chaparral mountains gave way to beautiful meadows and vistas unlike anything we had ever seen before. The temperature rose even as the air thinned and we all already began to grow weary from the heat. The road turned to dirt and we followed the ridge of a great valley. Turning out of the forest we came face to face with alpine meadows and mountain tops the likes that haven’t been seen since the Third Age.

I couldn’t believe our luck. With my hand stretched out the window I embraced the warm, sweet scented breeze and really believed Alan had decided to treat us this week. The campsite we planned to stay at was full so we drove further towards our first plot and set up shop in a mining claim campsite surrounded by posted signs that were alarmingly clear that this was a protected area. Strapping on our packs we began our hike. We would tackle the plot as a 6 person team because of time constraints and had chosen a plot that Alan had placed off of a hikeable road. There was no road. It took us almost 2 hours to get to the site because we had to bushwack up a dried out blowdown. Gone were the meadows and flowing hills and gone was much of the energy I had left. By early evening we had reached the polygon.

“Gods help us, for we are lost”. We didn’t get the plot set up until 1600 hours and by that point we were out of energy and I was running low on water. Plowing through the protocols we gassed it with all we had. The sun was no joke even at our higher elevation. I found myself parched yet constantly sweating. The air was thick and heavy and the ground was littered in blown down snags. We made it back to camp with little light left. Bathing in the nearby creek we gathered hungrily around the stove for Lily’s mac and cheese like moths to funeral pyre. It was Day 1.

We awoke with the sun and birds. Something that books make sound amazing but in reality it’s a pain in the ass. It was Day 2 and our last plot in the Quartz Creek Fire. Our hopes weren’t high which made getting ready and gearing up for the day much more bearable. 

I suppose I should reiterate what it is exactly that we do. We are a 6 person field crew collecting data for a project studying the effect of climate change on conifer regeneration after high-severity wildfire burns. We are sent to old burn sites of various ages and aridity and collect data on the types of shrubs and trees present. This is the only field season that the grant is able to pay for so it’s important that we get ALL of the projected plots before our contracts run out. Which means no breaks. Packing up our samples we hiked back down to the trucks and headed towards Selma, OR and the famous Biscuit Fire. 

It was July 2nd and we were getting dangerously close to the holiday. Camps were getting full for the weekend and people were getting rowdy. The sounds of drunken screams, loud music and barking dogs echoing off the valley walls would be a part of our nights for the next 3 days. Waking up to the sounds of birds and cell phone alarms I peeled back my sticky sleeping bag liner. We weren’t able to make it to a higher elevation that night and had to try to sleep though noise and through a 80º night. The time was 0600 hours.

The Biscuit Fire burned for 5 months straight. Started by dry lightening on July 12, 2002 it burned a total of 500,000 acres of southern Oregon and northern California. You could see the name thing from space. It was a fire so large and long burning that it provided the canvas for a lot of ecological research down the road. It was a fire that rang a tone in the local ecology community akin to 9/11 (but not as tragic), everyone knew what they were doing when the Biscuit Fire started. It was a fire so big that we would spend the rest of the spike collecting data from plots within it. 

The next day we had a city break. We returned to Cave Junction to rendezvous with Dunbar Carpenter, a personal friend of Jonathan Thompson (our PI) who was going to volunteer with us the rest of the spike. On the way in we stopped by Dairy Queen for much needed Blizzards. I don’t think I had ever been so happy to see a Dairy Queen in my life. Or people and roads and buildings and AC for that matter. Waiting for the Blizzard, Charles and I filled our nalgenes with water form the soda fountain machine and its sheer coldness gave us headaches but god damn were we happy. I ran to the head before leaving for the ranger station and came face to face with my reflection. I hadn’t seen myself for 3 days and I already looked insane.

Having Dunbar on the team was a breath of fresh air. He wasn’t the old, crusty, bitter old forester we thought we was going to be instead he was a cheerful, light-hearted PhD who loved to climb, wore a straw hat and never had anything negative to say. I gotta admit he was the new face and the positive push we needed. 

Day 4 came. To birds again. But this time it came to us after a sleepless night. Drunken townies blasted music and shot fireworks until 0200 at least and like clockwork the sun comes out and the birds start singing at 0500. It took a lot to get into the truck that day. Clothes still soaked and sour from 3 sweaty days. My favorite boots had started losing chunks of their soles to the rugged terrain and the right boot had its side blown out from all the skirting we did on these steep slopes and without the side support it felt like a worn out clown shoe. My face and lips were burnt and my eyes were weary from staring at a bright white data sheet all day and the poison oak was starting to set in. Looking out over the farm fields on the way to the day’s plot I began to think about Laurie again and things never seemed so far away. 

Hiking into the plot we were surprised at how open it was. All around us were the stumps of cleared trees - evidence of the severe logging that happened after the fire. In the distance we could see where our polygon lie and it didn’t look much worse. The slope was steep and the ground was sheer but our hope rose with each step.

Getting to the plot we couldn’t believe our luck! The shrubs stood no more than 2 meters and there was no poison oak in sight! “Alan akbar!” A praise to our wrathful god we would start to use more as the spike continued. 

But a wrathful god he is. Though that night was filled with relief, laughter and our neighbor’s fireworks it would be first and last of easy days for me. From Day 5 till the end it was hell days. Situated at Josephine Campground we set up shop for the last time. It was from here that we would tackle the next half of the spike. It was here that good food, good music and good laughter was had. It was here that our spirits recovered each night and it was here that I realized that despite all the pain and abject suffering I was feeling at these plots I was in the mountains working with earth every day and sleeping under its stars at night. I was out here with the best crew anyone could have the honor of working with and damn it it’s better than 1,000 good days in an office. 

But what good would a journey of tests and beauty and loss be without a hard last day? Climbing into our trusty F250 I assumed the navigator’s seat and grabbed the 1996 forest service map, the only map we had that covered the township ranges of our plots. The GPS flashed to life and off we were for BIS-12. Following Alan’s instructions (Alan akbar!) we kept on a forest road until it merged with a smaller one that would put us on a ridge above our plot. It should be a reasonably pleasant hike down. And then the road ended.

Classic Alan. Gearing up we prepared for the little-over-a-kilometer hike down. Looking around us we could see down into the valley into Selma and, as pointed out by Matt, could just make out the Siskiyou Field Institute. Looking at the sloping hills and low shrubs around us I had high hopes for the plot. But not until mid-day would we learn that we would all leave pieces of our souls in that plot. 

As we descended lower and lower the amount of Tan Oak and hidden snags began to increase. It became difficult to walk and soon we had to grab and pull ourselves through the terrain any way we could. Unfortunately the dominant tree was Tan Oak (Lithocarpus densiflorus). The powder from the Tan Oaks became too much. We all hated Tan Oak. It was just a part of the vegetation that grew in this area but never before had we been in such a dense forest of it. It seemed to be the dominant tree and its fiberglass-like powder seemed to fill the air. 

Descending into our plot it only got worse. Alan (Alan akbar!) had managed to find a polygon void of the small shrubs of the surrounding area and was instead nearly 75% filled with ripe, powdery Tan Oak. 

For the most part we had all stopped wearing our bandanas. 1 because of the intense heat and the need to breathe and 2 because the amount of Tan Oak in our plots were usually a bearable amount. Wrapping my handkerchief around my face I loaded up on data sheets and water and tackled the plot like a silverback in a fiberglass factory. 

Wiping the dust and sweat off of my face I could feel the burning in my throat and eyes. It was like asbestos met fiberglass met pollen met pepper spray. It was bad shit. Looking over at Matt and Kim I saw Matt dead-eyed staring into the plot. 

“Do you think we’re gonna die in here?” 

No Matthew. We will die but not today. 

That night we ate like kings. I cooked up my famous couscous and curry (with 3 vegetables this time and tomatoes on the side) and Kim busted out red wine she had been saving. I don’t think a pot of curry had ever been drained so quickly. As the sun began to set a surreal orange overtook the campsite. It got suddenly brighter until it got so absurdly bright it was like the day had restarted. Matt called it Alpenglow. It was my first one and no picture I took could do it justice. It was just one of those moments that one had to hold on to. And then let go.

Until next time my friends.

Chris

Crater Lake National Park

Klamath River, CA (aka the bowl the PNW shits all of its heat into)
Elevation: 4,090ft.

It was good to be on the road again. Loaded packs pressed against extra gas and water, beers chilling in the yeti and assorted gear hanging about Rhyhorn’s trunk - I was finally on an adventure again. Work has been wearing me down mentally and physically and the heat has been a cruel bonus. Gripping the wheel tightly, sitting back in my seat I pulled out onto Hwy 96 east - the destination was Crater Lake.

Driving northward on I-5 we passed the familiar, steep windy roads we usually drove for work. Passing lumbering tractor trailers we chugged along towards Ashland. In my mind we were heading to the bluest, deepest lake in America and, hopefully, cooler weather. Pulling into the park we headed westward along the Rim Drive figuring that we would hit as many overlooks and hikes as we could, camp in Mazama Village in the south for the night and then tackle the bout tour and Wizard Island the next day. 

Hiking through the sandy soils of the caldera’s rim we encountered a lot of sun-bleached snags and exposed rock. No matter where you hiked you could see down into the massive lake. It clocked in at 80ºF which, while not as cool as I would have liked it, was a welcome respite from the 100ºF averages we were working through last week. We stopped at a lookout and hiked up to Discovery Point where gold prospectors first encountered Crater Lake. 

From the Lightning Spring pull-off we hiked northwards towards the Watchman Overlook. The winding road tok us up a few mild switchbacks but granted us amazing views of the lake and the lands to the west. To the northwest you could see Desert Cone, an old cindercone, a landmark I would rely on several times over the rest of the trip. 

Much like any major National Park, CLNP was extremely built up and accommodating to the average tourist. This meant well-maintained trails, nice roads, occasional restaurants and gift shops and signs. Signs signs signs I love signs! Signs and maps always translate to not being lost. The comforts of the park were welcome luxuries and made the lake all the more enjoyable and vacationy for us. 

A view of the road below where the hike started. 

Driving northwards we passed Cleetwood Cove Trail where we would eventually board the boat tours that take visitors down to Wizard Island in the center of the lake. But that was for the next day. Today was “hike all the overlooks” day. On the east side of the park we parked Rhyhorn, geared up and made our way up Mt. Scott. The 2.5 mile trail would gain us 1,479 feet and would be a test to our underfed (our faults) and field-tenderized bodies. Gazing up through the thick air I made out the small dot that was the watch tower. 

“Fuck”

Making our way up the trail a cool breeze whipped at our sweaty bodies. Everything seemed to hurt. Disproportionally so. We were both realizing how much this season was affecting our knees. I like to think that I am fairly resilient and built fairly tough but at my ripe age of 24 (going on 25) you begin to realize that there is “good hurt”, “hurt that hurts but then heals stronger” and then there’s “fuck these are my only knees and it hurts to squat down to shit I’m in trouble”. But for now, there was this lovely cool, moist-ish breeze cooling down our elevation-stricken panting light headed bodies. Looking out to the south I could see misty blue mountains topped by endless skies.

To the west I could see storm clouds coming to kill us.

Getting worried about the encroaching storm we sped up our pace. We were so close there was no turning back now. Turning the last corner we could see the watch tower.

Plunking down at the tower’s base we busted out some snacks and took in the well-earned view. There was still a surprising amount of snow scattered about the summit. Not enough to really warrant being called significant snowpack but enough to breed “snow mosquitoes” which promptly attacked the hell out of us. The good thing was that, unlike the smaller lowland variants, these were big, brown and clumsy. Killing them was child’s play.

Sweaty, tired and satisfied we pulled into Mazama Village wild-eyed and ready for bed. Unpacking our gear it was funny to look around at the assortment of car campers that were our neighbors and seeing how much fun they were having. I personally love seeing people, no matter how tacky and over prepared, out and about enjoying nature. Put it simply, if they were here sweating, hiking, complaining, driving, gazing through the window of a massive camper at the lake with us they came here for the amazing experience of sharing these natural places with others. In a way I realized, as I systematically set up my tent and ate a cold can of Chef Boyardee, that I missed when the outdoors were fun and not work. I realized that I was dancing on the edge of the fragile balance all people face when their passion becomes a job and they just need to let go of the gas a little lest they burn out. I know that I want to work for the earth. I want to work long and hard and to spend my days out here for as long as I can and that it just means climbing the conservation ladder systematically and tactically. Choosing jobs wisely and not being too picky - but making sure that each one counts and pushes me further. I am determined not to burn out. The next morning started at 0545. We needed to get to the boat dock by 0730. 

Looking down into the water, no matter where you were on the caldera’s rim, it was clear that getting down and back up was nearly impossible. The soft, sandy sediment of the inner walls of the caldera were constantly eroding into the water. To think how early adventurers and animals made it down to the water was mind-boggling. We were lucky in that there was a reinforced 1 mile trail leading down to the dock. We were part of the first tour that morning and it was obvious that the other early birds waiting at the dock with us were prepared to hike and explore.

The climb was steep and, as we neared the top of the cindercone, sandy and barren. 

Reaching the top of the rim I was unsure of what to expect. It was the first time I had ever seen a cindercone let alone climb one and here I was face to face with an old volcano. 

“It’s crazy to think that, at one point, this was the spot that it all went down. Everything around here knew that it was going down. This is where all of the shit gathered to hit the fan.”

Realizing we were the first folks to summit the island we laid our packs down and I grabbed my DSLR and we hiked around the rim. From the top of Wizard Island it felt like we were in a gigantic bowl; deep blue water stretching out below us towards towering walls of rock, the cleanest air I’ve ever breathed flowing around us through the dry heat. 

The red soil contrasted so beautifully with the blueness of the water. These were the first DSLR photos on the blog that didn’t need to be edited.

The ridge across the water is Mt. Scott which we hiked the day before.

We stopped for lunch before hiking back down. Sliding as close as I dared to the rim of the cindercone I ate my nuts and meat sticks. It was definitely the coolest lunch spot to date. 

We had about an hour and a half before the boat returned to get us leaving us just enough time to hike down, hike to the bay and take a quick dip. At the bottom of the cindercone the soil became much more volcanic and by that I mean it was hell to hike in chacos. 

It was hands down the coolest place I’ve stripped down to my undies and washed myself in. 

Back on Rim Drive we headed clockwise south and hit overlooks we didn’t have time to hit the day before. In the bright summer sun we could see further to the east than we could yesterday. 

From Cloudcap Overlook we could see the tiny island we had just climbed. 

Our last stop of the day before heading back south for home were The Pinnacles. Hardened pipes of exposed fumaroles that gave the dried up stream valley an eerie look. 

Driving closer and closer to the cabins we watched the temperatures climb. Stopping in Medford for a resupply for the nest spike the temperature clocked in as 107ºF. This spike will be mainly southern Oregon and at high elevations. Fingers crossed that that means less mosquitoes, poison oak and cooler temperatures but I have learned not to really rely on these mountains for reliability. Halfway done with this season and it will be back on the market for work. Fall and Winter will be around the corner and I can be back in my element. Until the next adventures my friends.

Chris

Spike 3: A Closer Look, A Harder Feel

Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090ft.

The birds and the sun woke me up before my alarm. The room was quiet, the AC was loud and my blanket felt warmer and safer than anything I had ever felt before-VBRRRROOOM came a logging truck tearing up the hill behind our cabin and I was up. The alarm went off, Charles’ alarm went off, Matt’s alarm went off and a resounding round of “fuck” was exchanged. Starting up the stove, Matt boiled water for tea, Charles started packing his pack and I stayed lying in bed. Next door I could hear the girls stirring and I knew it was time. Spike 3. 

Slamming the dusty tailgate of our white F150s we gathered around to look at our instructions for the week. The mission was to get to Yreka, have our radios looked at (again), then to head south towards Weaverville to make contact with the Shasta-Trinity National Forest Ranger and Dispatch. We were going to be spending this spike in a new forest and so we needed to establish check-in/check-out protocols and emergency protocols. Radios couldn’t be fixed (the tech didn’t have the right cord, not his fault, we are using Oregon radios in California) and Weaverville didn’t know what we were meeting them for. A hectic 3 hours of driving the winding roads between Northern California’s towns and a few confusing conversations with the Forest Service later and we were on our way to our first camp site. Thank god for driving days. It was already hot, our sore bodies weren’t really recovered from the last spike, we were all tired and it felt like, at least for me, we were starting with an already low moral. But one good thing about all of it that won’t ever change - it’s beautiful out here.

The goal was to stick together as a 6 person team for the first 3 plots and then to split into 3 person teams for the rest of the spike. It was always planned that we would function in 3 person groups but two spikes of working with 4-5 people (Kim joined us this spike making it 6) didn’t really prepare us (me) for the added pressure and labor. 

Right off the bat Shasta-Trinity proved to be a different type of beast than I was prepared for. Over the course of the last two spikes I learned a lot of lessons concerning field work and field dress primarily because of the heat and the terrain. I had to give up on being clean, ditched the carhartts for breathable field pants and accepted the thorns and poison oak (that shit is just too hot for hiking up and down mountains) and lost the wool buff and used my face mask buff for my head instead. That was perhaps my biggest trade off. There exists a tree in Northern California that epitomizes suffering. Lithocarpus densiflorus (LIDE3) aka Tanoak. This tree grows dense and prolifically with multiple boles stemming from a central bole or from a pre-fire stump and it’s leaves near the ground can be spiky. But worst of all it’s leaves are coated in a fiberglass-like dust that will explode off into the air if you so much as brush the branches aside. Hiking through it we churn up clouds of this dust, so much that it sticks to our clothes making us appear fuzzy and yellow. You can imagine how his dust just burns our throats and eyes. But, because of the heat (hi 90s is the norm), we have all but abandoned our bandanas in exchange for air and not having a heat stroke. Anyways. Shasta-Trinity was filled with Tanoak and Poison Oak (Toxicodenron diversilobum aka TODI) and the slopes were near impossible to climb. 

Pacing my breath, I grabbed LIDE3 and QUCH2 (Quercus chrysolepis) hand over hand to get up the slope. My task was to measure the woody fuel load along the top and bottom lines of our rectangular 30m x 15m plot. What this meant was categorizing all of the twigs, sticks and logs that the tape crossed into either 1, 10, 100 or 1,000 hour categories. This meant how long it would burn in a fire and how much it would help fuel the fire. For the most part this is a pain in the ass because you have to crawl along the ground over and under whatever is there and count each stick for 7.5m but sometimes the forest gods put you under a LIDE and on top of a massive pile.

Our first campsite was by far one of our best. Denny Campground was situated between the two tiny mountain towns Daily and Denny and was just a short walk down to a beautiful emerald pool formed by two gravel bars along the New River. On our last day there we gathered around the truck to gauge our water supply and to divide up trees for processing. But first, as was our usual custom when a stream was nearby, it was bath time. Taking off our clothes we joked around about our cuts and rashes and passed around the communal Tecnu bottle. It was then that Eleanor uttered my favorite quote of the season thusfar, “I hope the things on my legs aren’t- horse”. “Horse?” I asked looking at her like she was crazy. “Horse, there’s a horse”! I looked up and there trotting towards us through the dusky lught was a brown orse with white freckles on its face and chest. I was both panicked and awed. 

His name, as we later learned from Lily who drove into Denny asking around if anyone had lost their horse, was Orion after the constellation. He was a free-range horse who’s owners let run loose during the day and he returned to their ranch at night. Denny was a town small enough and removed enough that that would actually work. Orion hung out with us for a bit as we worked and then we headed down for a cold refreshing bath. 

It’s the random horses and the cool cool streams that keep me from burning out. It’s the small simple things like looking forward to breakfast for dinner after a nice bath that remind me why I chose to take the leap into this fied. Life if full of perspective and I have learned more in this month than I could have imagined. B for D!

We ended our last plot as a full team on a “hell plot”. From the topo maps and the information given to us about the plots from Alan we could only get a ballpark idea what the plot was actually going to look like. It was going to be a wet plot that burned in 1999, so big trees and a lot of brush. The topo map told us it would be a long, steep hike in and out and that the plot itself was on a steep slope. 

Despite the hot day, the shit tone of LIDE3 and TODI and the exhaustive amounts of large trees we had to cut and carry out of the field (30) we kept our spirits and humor high. 

Little Worlds

This amazing song from an amazing album from an amazing band holds a special place in my heart. My alarm each morning, it is my official theme song for the field season. 

I’ll miss the coast and the cool night air and the fire in our eyes.

Redwood National Park, 2nd Spike and learning to roll with the punches.

Portland, OR
Elevation: 1,073 ft.

First and foremost, I am alive. I have made it through the second spike of our field season and I must say that things are picking up in pace, difficulty, risk and temperature. But more on that all later, first a flashback to my last 6 days off…

We started the day early in anticipation of the drive. The destination was the coastal town of Arcata, CA and instead of the southwesterly winding road of highway 96 we thought it would be safer and quicker to take I-5 to the east southwards and then to cut across on highway 299 effectively making a box around northern California and our study site. The roundabout path granted us the chance to hit Yreka, Weed, Redding, Whiskeytown and Weaverville; towns we would not have likely ever visited. It also skirted us around Mt. Shasta which was a beautiful sight to drive towards. Snow-capped mountains have become a favorite sight of mine. 

From Klamath River to Arcata the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees causing us to quickly throw on layers before catching lunch at a quaint little Pho place. It’s the mild, misty summers of the coast that has convinced me that my future nest will be in a maritime town. I love the sun and the water and the fact that you can have an excuse to throw on a fleece most months of the year. After the late lunch we loaded up on camp foods at the local organic market, grabbed a few beers at a local brewhouse and gunned it for Gold Bluffs Beach. The next morning was cold and misty. We took our coffee and tea on a large piece of driftwood facing the chilly and endless Pacific. Our plan was to get to the Kuchel Visitor Center for maps and information and then to start our backpacking trip at the southern tip of the park. 

We parked Rhyhorn at the Redwood Creek Trailhead and hiked into the woods. The plan was to skirt the creek southward and to find a backcountry campsite along the gravel bars close to Tall Trees Grove 8 or so miles in. Along the way we passed an amazing variety of flora I had never seen. Endless ferns and towering Redwoods dominate the landscape of the small fog belt we hiked along. It is the uniqueness of this part of the California coast combined with the endemism of the Coastal Redwood that catalyzed the creation of the Redwood National and State Parks. To hike among these giants is to walk in a land successfully and gratefully preserved. The greatest thing about backcountry hiking is coming across random acts of humankind. Or rather, humanhumor.

There are, of course, trials to being so removed, or rather, to being so dependent on common human conventions and comforts that can push you out of your comfort zone. An intact bridge over a narrow drainage way for example.

Pushing onward we finally made camp a little past the Tall Trees Grove on a gravel bar at the junction of Tom McDonald Creek and Redwood Creek. There we set up camp, read, filtered water, ate and slept. The mild trail and the cool creek were welcome comforts compared to the harsh, rugged mountains of our field site and we slept like kings. The next morning we were welcomed by the sounds of birds and the drifting, coastal fog. 

The hike out was much quicker than the hike in. There was little else to see but stopping to bid farewell to trees we had passed on the way in. Once we got to Rhyhorn we resupplied on food, water and clean clothes and, bidding farewell to the trail, gunned it for Fern Canyon.

I will admit much of the motivation to backtrack to Fern Canyon was because of it’s role as a film location for Jurassic Park II. The unique canyon was right off the coast and held enough moisture to be home to countless Five-Fingered Fern. Hiking through its cold waters and staring up the walls and logs immersed me in such a primeval aura that I half expected a Velociraptor to come tearing around the corner. 

In an attempt to place ourselves more northward by the end of the day we hit the road after Fern Canyon and didn’t stop until we reached Crescent City. We didn’t expect the town to be so…tourist dependent as it was. Having just been in Fern Canyon we were surprised and uncomfortable being in the rundown, beach town. Small hotels and motels lined the main street and industrial buildings and dilapidated houses filled the rest of the space. The goal was to get information from the park headquarters located there but it was closed and instead we opted to have dinner at the local Thai restaurant. Though the owners were extremely kind and accommodating, what I had was less Drunken Noodle and more cheaply stir fried, day-old noodles with random leftover vegetables and too much spice thrown into it. Heading back down the coast we aimed for the Nickel Creek campground. It was ideal because it was along the coast and was an easy 1.5 mile hike from the parking lot, the caveat was that it was a parking lot notorious for being broken into - what can you do? We stopped at an overlook for some cell phone signal to call loved ones and to watch the sun set.

The next morning we walked along the beach and bid the Pacific farewell. The rest of the trip was going to be inland traveling northwards into Oregon. The mission was to get to Cave Junction by that night putting us in a good position for our rendezvous with the Medford Interagency Communication Center’s radio technician the next morning. We needed him to reprogram our Oregon-issued Forest Service radios to better work with the californian repeaters of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains we were working in. Along the way we stopped by pull-off in the Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest to do a rainy last hike among the great Redwoods while Lilly got a much needed trail run in (runners, you know). It is truly amazing and humbling to have so many great trees made so accessible by roads and byways. It is amazing and frightening to me knowing that these giants were almost logged to the point of no return and has made me so grateful for all of the hard work conservationists have been doing these long years and years to come to save all endangered members of our world, charismatic or not. I knew in my gut that I was fighting a good fight that may, on the surface, seem hopeful and without reward but that there existed success stories like this and that no one can ever expect a success story if no one is fighting. 

Radios reprogrammed and returned we stinkily and starvingly hit up Medford REI for supplies and Food 4 Less for food and beer for the next work spike. Piling everything into Rhyhorn for the last time we made our way south back to our cabins and to our warm beds. It would be only the third night I’ve spent in a bed since May 21st. 

Now, back to the second spike. First off I have to apologize for this being such a long post, I haven’t had much signal or wifi access as of late and when those are within reach I haven’t had much energy for anything other than reading and sleeping. I have begun to find the glow of a screen tiring and painful and the endless world of smartphone apps (even instagram) to be overwhelming and stressful. Perhaps good changes? Anyways, back to the post.

The second spike of the field season was difficult for me for many reasons. First off we were now on our own. Rob and Alan from Smithsonian and OSU respectively had returned to their usual lives and it was now my teammates and I in charge of the field season. No longer did we have guides or supervisors to turn to when we had questions or to rely on for decision making. With Kristine gone from the team the leadership position fell to me and, not having lead a team formally before I was beginning to panic at the amount of detail that I no longer could let slip off my shoulders. It was a godsend and a grateful blessing that my team turned out to be understanding, supportive and extremely independent. Quickly we turned the decision making to the whole group and became a sort of consensus-based self-governing field crew. The great Klamath Field Crew of 2015 haha. Having received GPS and map coordinates from Alan we packed the trucks with supplies, food and maps and hit the road for the first assigned site of the spike. The destination was the 2002 Stanza Fire.

Ascending up the mountain the roads began to narrow and become unkept. Many places were blocked by downed trees and rocks and some parts had been burned away completely. Using the map and GPS we navigated the turns best we could. The goal was to get us as close as we could to the assigned polygon and to still be near a safe turnaround point, campsite and approach angle. Inevitably we took a wrong road and found ourselves making the scariest 20 point u-turn of our (my) life. With the whole team spotting me I nervously maneuvered the massive work truck against the edge of the drop off. After all was said and done I took my hat off, uttered “Fuck” and took a long piss off the mountain side. 

Once in the polygon we worked quickly to set up the plot running 50m and 30m tapes to form a large rectangle transected into 9 subplots. We set off on working through the protocols knowing that there wasn’t much room for questions and that we were in charge of the quality of the data now. The pressure of this being the only field season afforded by the grant for the study made it all the more imperative that we got this right. Then the thunder came. Being out here in fire country we needed to treat lightning seriously. Having come from the east coast where thunder and lightning roll in from the skies along with heavy rains I had no concept of “dry lightning”. Here in the dry mountains of the west lightning can come suddenly and numerously and without rain starting fires everywhere it lands. As the skies continued to boom the radio chatter began to increase. Lookout planes were being sent to survey the mountain sides and people were reporting their locations. We decided to call it off until tomorrow and made camp at a pull-off along the road. Parking the truck between the road and our circled tents we set off on taking an inventory of the supplies, reading and cooking dinner. The cold winds whipped at us atop that ridge so that we were in long-sleeves before long. 

As the sun set over the distant ridges we gathered close and sipped our beers and ate our warm lentils discussing books, past jobs and the anticipated trials of the rest of the spike. I have never worked in such beautiful and yet rugged mountains and gazing over at the burning sunset I knew that I was in a good place with good people.

The next day we finished the Stanza plot and quickly headed for the next location on our list and promptly finished that one as well. The mission then was to find the Norcross Campground, send two people and the truck back to Happy Camp to rendezvous with our new teammate Charles and to set up camp and dinner. But first I needed to cross this stream. 

If there is one thing to know about me it is that I like to be prepared. Prepared for a test, prepared for a job, hell, prepared for a vacation. I simply need to be prepared. I am ok with doing most any job no matter how unpleasant as long as I know ahead of time what I will be dealing with and can prepare accordingly. It’s why I am the most daring and clumsy when it comes to bushwacking. Trampling blindly I crush through brush, thorns and snags to take the shortest path but I do it with two pairs of socks, thick Carhartt jeans, knee high gaiters, long-sleeves, strong boots, leather gloves, a kool-tie around my neck, a buff around that and over my nose and mouth, a wool buff over my head and hair and a sun hat atop all of that. But no Chacos. That is why all the rest of the day and it’s responsibilities could wait. I needed to cross this stream. After walking up and down the bank several times the team decided the only way across was to either step carefully and surely on the barely exposed rocks or to walk barefoot across it. As my teammates began taking off their shoes and socks I looked desperately at Alan’s instructions (as I didn’t have a great track record of crossing streams barefoot) and it simply said, “cross the stream to the polygon”. The bastard. I took off my boots and gaiters and socks and rolled my thick Carhartts as high as I could. I secured the radio in my pack and began to cross. I rationalized that the worst case scenario would be that I slipped and broke my ankle and then drowned, so as long as I was able to get away without any of that happening I could really see the whole thing as a success. Stabilizing my first step I could already feel the weight of my swinging boots and heavy pack shifting me around. Holding my breath I lifted my other foot and gingerly stepped onto the next slippery, freezing rock. 

As it would turn out Norcross Campground was an exceptional and beautiful campground, likely due to the fact that the fire we were studying had destroyed it and it had been rebuilt. Mainly meant for horseman, it had a few large corals, wide open camp grounds and access to the nearby creek. Since our sites for the rest of the spike were in fires within driving and hiking distance from the campsite we decided to make it our home base for the next 8 days. 

As the week progressed the temperature began to rise. Quickly I was realizing that I couldn’t keep up my usual field uniform and would need to start making compromises between being clean and not getting heat stroke. The slopes and vegetation also began to worsen pushing many of us to our limits by the end of the 10 hour days. The girls had the right idea to take advantage of the frequent stream crossings and decided to hike the second half of the return trip a la undies. 

One of the perks of working in old fires are the views. We work surrounded by old snags many of which could kill us, but are absolutely beautiful. The sheer size of some of the pre-burn trees are astonishing. 

For the most part we were out of the field and back at camp by 4-5pm each day. A pattern began to form where we would start our days 0600 hours to beat the heat, get our plots done as fast as possible and return to camp to process trees collected for stem analysis whilst imbibing hot beer until dinner time. Because of our proximity to Elk Creek we also had the luxury of bathing each night this spike. Another thing about me is that I absolutely need to be clean. Working in the field and hiking and camping for 8 days on end I have started to develop techniques to beating the stink. Moslty baby wipes and Dr. Bronners to be honest. 

Each night was spent with good conversation, good food and good company. To think that we were being paid to work and live out here blew all of our minds. It seemed we all knew exactly how lucky and privileged we were to be chosen for the team and, even on the hardest days, we all agreed with the age old wildlife saying, “A bad day in the field is still better than a good day in the office”! 

Here’s to an amazing team and an amazing summer to come. I have already grown and learned so much from the land and the people I have come to call my home and friends. My perspectives on life is ever changing and my path is ever growing but like I said before, I know I am in a good place with good people. Until next spike and next time.

Chris

Klamath 2015 - First Spike

Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090 ft.

18% laptop battery - here we go.

The first spike of field work ended yesterday and the day has been well spent doing laundry, airing out the tents, relishing the wifi and recovering from 8 days of bushwacking up and down the steep exposures of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains. 

In a nutshell the project is a study on the affect of climate change on the regeneration of conifer forests. To refine the projection models the project needs hard data and that’s our job. Boots on the ground for 8 days and nights my team and I are visiting different burn sites ranging from 1987 to 2008, varying in aridity, and collecting data on the species present, growth forms, ground cover, soil samples, heights/ DBH and of course sampling saplings and older trees. The hope is that we can build a more complete picture on how the trees are growing compared to their broadleaf competitors and how the aridity, temperature and moisture has affected that. What’s that all mean? A lot of climbing, poison oak and sticky hands.

We are running a 8 on 6 off schedule in order to make the most out of a 40 hour week limitation which means early mornings, tired nights and baby wipe baths. The trade off of camp site nomad living is that for 8 days we are totally immersed in the mountains and trees. Seldom did we see another person, shower or town and it was wonderful. Dinners were communal, vegetarian and always satisfying. Breakfast and lunch were up to us and, seeing as how we lived out of the trucks and tents, my tailgate food-making skills came in handy.

To say that I have already seen and learned more than I could have imagined would be understating it. I have never seen mountains or forests like this and, as an east coaster, can bring a different perspective and appreciation for the new world I am exploring. Pokémon vibes were strong all week. From the rocky outcroppings to the misty mountains I have fallen in love with thie rugged and beautiful coast. I also learned to cook my first vegetarian meal - couscous and veggie meat, so not really. 

The best part of any job is the people and I already know that this team of ruffians is going to do great. We are all tough as nails, supportive of each other and funny as hell. With a dream team like that I know we are going to kick this season’s ass. 

5% left, right on. Till next time my wonderful family and friends. I miss you all and am thinking of home always!

To Newport and Back Again

Portland, OR
Elevation: 1,073 ft.

This weekend I had the chance to travel down the Oregon coast with my cousins Khem and Amanda. Piling into Amanda’s car Friday morning I was already envisioning the next three days of getting car sick. I had dropped off Rhyhorn at the local Toyota dealer Thursday afternoon, begrudgingly, and have yet to get him back. I will honestly admit that I have separation anxiety from my truck (and the shit ton of basic things I keep in him as I halfway live out of him). Between slow workers, parts not coming in as promised and the fact that I didn’t know what half of the expensive repairs meant I have realized that I need to learn to fix him myself. Easier said than done but then again I have never liked relying on incompetent people…That out of the way the drive was truly a beautiful experience. The last time I saw the Pacific I was a small child and didn’t appreciate it, seeing it as an adult was an entirely different thing. I had all of my east coast perceptions to compare the experience to and had two awesome wildlife guides with me! 

Friday consisted of making our way northeast to Ecola State Park and Cannon Beach. Pulling into the park and walking to the first overlook I gazed out onto a pristine beach with barely any people on it and few houses and developments looming in the distance. Standing offshore where large haystack shaped rocks breaking the light blue waves as they came ashore. I had never seen this kind of beach before. I was much more accustomed to the dark green, murky waters of our overcrowded east coast beaches. Littered with trash and people and framed by towering hotels and advertising planes and ships. Compared to the zoos out east this was a sanctuary. My cousin aptly stated that it was the, “quintessential Oregon beach”. 

Walking along the shore of Cannon Beach the first thing I noticed was how fine and cool the sand was. It was so fine that it made an almost squeaking sound as you dragged your feet through it. Nearly everyone was in a long sleeve because of the cool coastal air. My cousins revealed that summer granted temperatures a little warmer but not by much - I loved it. Walking in the water I was shocked at how cold it was. I didn’t see how people were able to swim in it for long. It made me miss the warmth of the east coast beaches. Littered all over the beach were the dried up remains of Velella velella that were pushed onto shore by the strong winter winds. This imparted on the beach a kind of fishy smell. Not unlike dried squid. 

Travelling with my cousins was great because they knew the areas so well and knew where the best places where to stop. Driving through Tillamoook we made a stop at the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory. We only had 15 minutes but it was enough time to fill up on cheese curd samples, meat sticks and maybe the best cookies and cream shake I’ve ever had. Think Cold Stone but better. 

Our last stop before out campsite was Cape Meares, cape #2 of our three cape tour. The sun was starting to set giving me another chance to play around with soft light and water. 

That night we camped at Cape Lookout State Park. The campsites were clean, spacious and only a few minutes walk onto the beach. After setting up camp we hurried to the beach just in time to catch the last few minutes of the sunset - it was perfect timing. After a hearty meal of couscous and curry (a new camplife hack for me) we walked along the beach to look at the stars. It was my first time camping near a beach and I loved it. As I fell asleep I fantasized about the future beach camping trips I would have with Rhyhorn (I know it’s bad). 

The next morning we hiked to the edge of Cape Lookout and gazed southward back along the coast. I strapped on my full 65L Osprey Atmos AG Pack to test out it’s handling and to make any adjustments I would need to before the field season. Once an REI employee, always and REI employee haha. Hiking through the forest up and down the switchbacks I felt the ocean breeze and smelled the pines. The forests out here are cool and wet and, along the coast, filled with fog and breeze. I loved every minute of it. 

The last cape on our journey was Cape Kiwanda. Turning into Pacific City I was greeted by a much more familiar scene. Cars were parked everywhere and people were out and about enjoying restaurants, tourist stores and the beachside. We stopped for lunch at Pelican Pub and Brewery. The beer was flavorful, albeit a little mild for my taste, and the food was savory. I would definitely recommend the cream ale. The beach itself was covered in cars and tourists. Since it was a popular take-off point for boats it was a drive on beach and the sheer amount of people turned off my cousins who were used to the much more empty and serene beach of their past trips. I felt right at home. The hustle and bustle and different people reminded me of a super clean and behaved Virginia Beach and it made me miss home. 

We continued our journey southward to my cousins’ old stomping ground, Newport. But first was a stop at the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. Amanda had done a lot of work here on the coastal birds living on and around the rocks offshore. I don’t know the first thing about birds but if one ever needs to know more about coastal birds, Khem and Amanda are the ones to ask. The natural area was beautiful to look at. The beach there was covered in black cobble stones. Formed of basalt and smoothed by the ocean, the waves created a rolling, crackling sound as it pushed and pulled the stones. 

Next it was onward to Newport. Pulling into the hilly, seaside town Khem and Amanda would point out certain stores and places. It was here that they had lived and worked during their formative years as ecologists. I could tell that there was a lot of their history locked in the buildings, streets and shores.

The last stop of the day was at Ram and Dawn’s home. The two were long time friends of Khem and Amanda and recognized me from the wedding. More friends arrived for the dinner including: Becca, Chris and Eli. It was wild having met these people 4 years ago at the wedding and seeing them again 4 years later under totally unpredictable circumstances. For a moment I thought on the progress I had made. Their home was beautiful and full of colorful things they had collected over their journeys. Like Khem and Amanda, Dawn worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Ram was a artist that had painted most of the art for the coastal state parks we had visited. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him more about his art and photography but it was clear that he had worked on more projects to name and it was also clear that he was extremely talented. Behind their home they had a bunch of different types of chickens. I learned that Khem, Amanda, Rom, Dawn and many of their other close friends started and owned a chicken co-op for a long time. It explained the enthusiasm for chickens and gave me the chance to try some of the best eggs I’ve ever had. 

The rest of the weekend was spent in Corvallis where I met up with Erin, an old friend from the SMSC semester. It was wonderful catching up with her as well as seeing the college town my cousins had studied in. Again I was met with the realization that time was always moving forward no matter what you were doing. People were constantly changing and progressing and moving on and all one could really do is hope that they are doing their best and, in general, are hurtling towards a happy and accomplished life. 

I will get the rest of the week to spend in Portland, once I get my damn truck back from the incompetent dealers, and will head down to Corvallis on Friday. My gears will once again be set into motion as I begin my field season in the Klamath National Forest. I have to admit I am nervous to be the co-leader of the field team and am a little afraid of the unknown. But after my big trip and hearing advice from my cousins and their friends I have seen first hand the variety of stories and lessons people have to offer and am armed with a lot more peace of mind. Life is a crazy shit show and we are all trying to figure out how to be secure and happy (if that’s even possible). And it is a dynamic thing that can’t be controlled. But in a lot of ways it’s perfect that way. This will be the last super long post for awhile. For the most part I will be switching back to my suck-ass iPhone 4s camera and instagram but will be documenting my journey out west as full and candid as I can. Thank you all for reading and being awesome parts of this crazy life of mine.

All the best,

Chris 

Josh McBride

This song has been a staple in my life since I first heard it. It, like much of the album, has been carried with me through many different emotional times. It is one of the songs that no matter what will always represent hope, calm, peace, forgiveness, love, care, courage, progress, strength, compassion and understanding. All of those things and more. It is one of those songs that almost bring me to tears because I am just so grateful that it exists. 

Oh this vision does me good.

Jackson Hole to Portland: Closing Words.

Portland, OR
Elevation: 1,073 ft.

Driving slowly through Jackson Hole I felt a weight begin to pull at my chest. I didn’t know if it was the bad Thai food I had the night before or if it was the weight of the realization that my trip was almost over. Climbing higher and higher into the Teton range I began to feel the effects of the sudden spike in elevation. My head began to hurt, my breath became shallow and my hearing began to dull. The music and the passing trees seem to cross senses and blended into my emotions like a slow-churned, low-fat gas station custard - I was starting to become extremely sad. For nearly two weeks my only responsibilities were to keep my eyes on the road, to keep my belly reasonably full and to make sure I had somewhere to sleep at night. In every sense I was living the road tripping life of a modern day nomad. It was a lifestyle I had first found stressful and anxious but soon became a carefree, life loving feeling I couldn’t possibly let go of. Knowing that I still had a long way to Yellowstone, as well as the time there, I put the feelings away and pulled over to an overlook.

“Gotta’ learn to roll with the punches, Chris. Gotta’ learn.”

Because the Yellowstone’s south entrance was closed for the season I needed to enter from the west which required me to drive northeast into Idaho and then west through Montana and then back into Wyoming. The whole drive only took 3 hours but I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t worth it knowing that I needed to be in southeast Idaho that night. I popped another piece of Kroger jerky into my dry mouth, wiped at my eyes and refocused on the bug guts. Here I was nearly a continent away from my problems and I was overthinking the logistics of enjoying one of America’s most spectacular national parks. 

Pulling into Yellowstone I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I had long done away with my typical preparations, i.e. trolling wikipedia and Google Maps the night before, and had embraced a much more free-spirited approach. Just drive, experience and live. The first thing to greet me was the beautiful Madison River.

Driving towards the middle of the park I knew that I needed to make some decisions. Yellowstone’s roads are shaped like the outlines of a vertical rectangle with a line drawn through the middle. Knowing that a number of roads in the eastern half of the park were still closed I ambitiously decided to cover the entire western half, the middle road and the northern border. Hanging right I drove as fast as I could south towards none other than Old Faithful. Passing overlooks, hikes and bison I bit my lip telling myself that I was already running out of the day and needed to make some hard decisions. I couldn’t afford to really be out on the road much longer. Pulling into the Old Faithful parking lot I was surprised. It had a parking lot. I didn’t know what to expect honestly, I had forgotten just how built up these popular parks could me. Grabbing my camera I crossed the parking lot and into the mall of gift shops and information centers. Crowded around a smoking mound in the ground where easily a hundred people sitting on the longest, widest benches I had ever seen. I found a spot in the center on the ground and waited for what seemed like forever, surrounded by shouting kids complaining about the wait, parents promising it was only 4 more minutes and teenagers shouting “3, 2, 1!” and then giggling. Just as my eyes started to glaze over the elbow of the little boy next to me dug into my arm waking me up enough to fully hear him shouting, “It’s starting! It’s starting!”

Gunning it back to Rhyhorn I started the engine and pulled out my map. It was already 1600 hours. Cruising northwards I decided to hit as much as I could. Worse case scenario I would camp out that night and rendezvous in Boise the next day. Yellowstone is a massive national park (as well as the FIRST national park!) and, appropriately, the terrain is incredibly different depending on where you are in the park. The eastern side is predominantly hot springs and geysers. On the southern end is Old Faithful and on the northern end are the Mammoth Hot Springs. My first stop northward would be the Midway Geyser Basin. The landscape reflected prehistoric elements and made me feel like I was in the middle of Jurassic Park. Stepping out of Rhyhorn at one of the pull-offs I held my breath and took a wide shot of the geyser basin. I paused an extra second legitimately expecting an adult T-Rex to come tearing down the corner. 

The Midway Geyser Basin was my first encounter with natural hot springs, geysers and fumaroles. It was truly unlike anything I had ever seen. Water collected in deep, porous rock heated by magma even deeper down was being forced to the surface of the earth just to explode out and into the cold Firehole River. It was an unreal scene that evoked the primeval forces of a time long ago and it took my breath away.

Once I reached the Madison Junction I had to decide whether or not to continue north to Mammoth Hot Springs or to head east towards Canyon Village and potential campsites. Weighing my options and remaining daylight I decided that capturing some images of the famous Lower and Upper Falls would be a perfect end to the first day. It was 26 miles of driving and it was nearly 1700 hours and the sun was starting to wane behind the ridge line, I was getting worried about what I would do if there weren’t any campsites. Like clockwork, mother nature intervened and snapped me back to a more pertinent reality, a constant theme for my two days in the park - Bison.

Pulling over to a bridge crossing I grabbed my camera and climbed down the bank towards a resting herd. People where cautiously hovering around the road, rightfully unsure of how close they should approach the huge animals. A young lady, an older man and myself ventured the closest. 

Continuing eastward I began to get worried as more and more people were passing me fast in the opposite direction. I didn’t have any signal so I couldn’t call ahead to ask if the campsites were open. Chasing the potential of an amazing shot and an equally amazing campsite I pressed on. When I reached Canyon Land I was greeted by an empty parking lot, empty buildings with “closed for the season” signs and an hour of lost time. Frustrated I took a piss, looked at my map and started on the road back west. I would check the Norris campgrounds and if they were closed would head north for Mammoth Hot Springs. 

Norris was closed too. Heading up towards Mammoth Hot Springs I began kicking myself for being so damn free-spirited. Why didn’t I think to ask the Park Rangers which sites were open? This early in the season I was running into seasonal problems. It made sense. The road quickly turned into a dirt road - there was a lot of construction happening. I started seeing more and more people turn around joining an ever increasing stream of people driving back southward with disappointed, worried looks in their faces. Spurred on by my there’s-no-turning-back attitude as well as the fact that all the Jeeps and trucks were keeping on keeping I manned up and kept on too. The road was getting dusty, muddy and narrow at the same time and I pulled over a couple of times to ask sedans pulled over with their hazard lights if they needed help. They were either waiting on someone or were consulting their maps. I finally ran into a young man pulled off into the brush that seemed to know what he was doing. I pulled up to him as he was happily thumbing through his case of CDs (I dug it). Looking into his old school BMW I could see scattered clothes and some pillows, he was down with the #vanlife. I asked him if he knew which campsites were open and he told me that Madison was (too far and I ain’t turning around) and that Mammoth might be but that it filled up quickly. I thanked him and asked what he was planning to do and he replied, “I’m just gonna find somewhere here and kick it for the night, it’s getting dark and ain’t no one gonna come find you just as long as you get going early in the morning”. I thanked him and wished him the best. Pulling into Mammoth Hot Springs I breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly I was surrounded my tourists and buildings. Who would have known that there was a huge built up town around the Springs? Turning the corner I had another sigh of relief as I gratefully pulled into a full and lively camp. Throwing some duffels on the roof I began my campsite procedures. Within minutes I had water boiling, tunes playing and a cold beer in my hand. Watching the sun set as The Head and The Heart played in the background I finished up my Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai and Snake River Lager and crawled into Rhyhorn. 

The next morning I explored the Mammoth Hot Springs itself. A far bigger set of hot springs than Midway Geyser Basin, I was happy with all of the different colors I found. The forest and landscape around the hot springs were just as amazing.

Heading south back towards the west entrance I had made the decision to fully explore the rest of the western arm of the park. I decided that I would come back one day to fully do the central and eastern tours of the park justice. I am glad that I did because the drive turned out to be a totally different experience in the daylight, unsullied by the wicked stress of my insatiable control freak tendencies (I am working on it, it is one of my greatest vices and I have paid far too much a soul should for it). Rock formations.

In the daylight I was able to see vistas that captured perfectly the range of ecosystems Yellowstone was made up of. I mentally refer back to Pokémon for a lot of my inspiration but also for a lot of basic ecological dynamics. Every ecosystem has a variety of different flora and fauna and every ecoregion has their own set of these subsets and shit, every ecoregion of different continents have their own species and don’t even get me started on biomes. From day 1 of the trip I was encountering new trees, new birds, new mammals and came into contact with my first mega fauna - Bison. It really has opened my eyes even more to why I love the field I am in. And it has helped stoke stoke stoke a fire burnin deep within me to keep going. 

My last geyser stop of the trip was at the Norris Geyser Basin. By far the largest basin I had visited I was blown away at the size of the Porcelain Basin (the smaller of the two basins).

The light blue of the hot springs contrasted with the stark whiteness of the dry sand and both worked to make the dark greens and blues of the trees and ridges pop. It was both a complex of nature as well as artistry. And was a bitch to photograph. 

Pulling out of Norris (hehe) I gunned it for the west entrance. It was already 1400 hours and I had a 10 hour drive ahead of me. The mission was Boise, ID where my cousins awaited me, and where my solo trip would end. Driving as fast as I could I hurtled past overlooks and Bison like I just got the Warden’s teeth and didn’t have no time for Tauros. But a herd grazing along the Madison River I hadn’t seen during my trip in caused me to stop. Sitting along the riverside smoking a cigar as he gazed into the valley was an elderly man wearing a leather hat and jacket (cowboy not biker). I approached him quietly and shouted, “Howdy, how are you sir?” “Doing good, just trying to stay downwind”. I made small talk with him as I framed and shot a few pictures of the Bison. He was from Idaho Falls, ID but his family was originally from Roanoke, VA. I told him that I was from Virginia and had a good friend that lived in Franklin County just south of Roanoke and that I really like Roanoke. I told him that I was headed towards Boise, ID to which he grinned, took a deep hit of the cigar and gave me a thumbs up. “Boise is a great city, lots of bars. Lots of bars. It’s like a college town. You’ll like it there”. I told him I was excited and that I had a long drive ahead of me. Then he gave me some damn good advice, “It gets worse before it gets better to Boise. The state troopers in Idaho are all back and don’t give you any warning”. I thanked him saying that the innocuous, pastel blue police of Michigan caught me off guard. Taking one last breath of Yellowstone I walked over to him and asked him what he thought. 

“That’s a beautiful camera and a damn beautiful photo. Well done.”

Pulling into Boise, ID I felt a feeling of relief and accomplishment. I would soon join Khemm and Amanda and would be the closer to Oregon and my new life than I had ever been. The Gladics family really opened their doors to me and treated me far better than I could have ever asked for. The last time I had seen them was at Khemm and Amanda’s wedding back in 2011. At the time I knew them as a shy, polite and reserved family. With the exception of her eccentric brother who had the perfect curly mustache and tophat I believed them to be quiet homebodies. But I was wrong. Both of her parents had careers in forestry. Her father had hitchhiked across the United States, was a wildfire firefighter and spoke on environmental issues at the congressional level. To put it simply, her parents are O.G.’s. Her and her brother, Pat, didn’t fall far from the tree at all. Think the incredibles. Amanda went off to study wildlife as well and works badass jobs off the pacific coast riding the seasonal waves of fishing boats up as far as Alaska and her brother is a former Hotshot turned Smokejumper turned Helitack that spends the off-season sewing custom firefighting gear and basejumping. The Gladics name is a name anchored in badassery and badassery. Not to mention they have a beautiful home and Pat has an awesome camper (set up on a RAM 2500 running a cummins).

Heading out on the road the next day I was, for the first time in a long time, part of a caravan and the mission was none other than Portland, OR. The drive through Idaho was tiring and surreal at the same time. I really wasn’t sure how to handle the fact that I was driving behind my cousins towards their home. It has been 4 years since I started talking to them about moving out there. Since I started asking them for help and advice on getting my feet wet in conservation. It was at my lowest point after a big breakup, jumping ship from pharmacy and full on taking the hit of unemployed, existential crisis that I started this blog. I wanted something that I could look back on and reflect on. Much like the ink and paper journals that I have been keeping since the 3rd grade, I believe that there is so much intrinsic value to words. The words we speak and write. They are us, they are real and they are proof that for a time we breathed and lived in this world. Aside from courage and action I don’t think there is anything in this world more powerful or as beautiful as words. It was a lot to handle as I drove into the afternoon sun. 

We stopped in Pendleton, OR for lunch and yes, Pendleton as in the American heritage brand Pendleton. The gear junkie and gear history buff in me was freaking out to be in the town that the old woolen mill was founded and still operated. We stopped by the store after lunch with hopes of me finding a nice pillow case for my favorite pillow. Once we got in there the reality of how much a heritage brand can charge for their products. I’m talking an average of $200 a blanket and about $40 a set of pillow cases. Albiet the products were wool and still made in the USA (most of which literally in the next room) I just couldn’t afford them right now. But I enjoyed being in the first store and watching the information videos and gazing quickly into the museum. I am a sentimental person and, as natural and simple as I am trying to live, I am admittedly materialistic. Not in the shop till you drop sense but in the sense that I place a lot of sentiment into the things I own. My truck, my tin cup, my first Patagonia t-shirt I got 5 years ago. I don’t own many things but the things that I do purchase are usually aligned with a special moment in my life and I figured that when the moment came that I would get said blanket it would have been for a good reason. I’m sure I will find a great one one day by chance in a Goodwill or from a friend and I think that’s the best way to come across the things we carry. Besides, for that kind of money I should just invest in a good sheep. I know some people. 

After Pendleton my cousin Khemm took over giving me the chance to focus on taking pictures. We were heading westward and would soon join the mighty Columbia River and descend into the Colombia River Gorge of legend. If you are a close friend of mine then you know that Foster Huntington has, for a long time, been a big inspiration of mine. Not just because of the nomadic lifestyle that he chose when he left his design job in New York to drive across the U.S. and surf up and down the west coast, but because of the earnest way he looks at life and how unabashedly sentimental and grateful he is for the simple things. Finding his blog in 2011 incepted me with an idea that my life was meant for something far greater than the pharmacy counter of a CVS and that there was no such thing as “too late” until you gave up. It set into motion a domino effect of changes that culminated in me starting Rhyhorn’s engine on April 19th 2015. My eyes watering as I held back tears and my muscles cramping as I waved goodbye to my family and my home and my state. I think that life is too short and too precious not give our dreams the weight that they deserve. I think that life is to long to carry with us sadness and hurt. And I think that our souls are reflected in the people that we keep around us. And finally, I believe with all my heart that there isn’t anything in this world as important as how you treat another life…My apologies for the deep tangent. The Colombia River Gorge was a home base for Foster during his formative years and is now his current home base when he isn’t adventuring. Check out his amazing Cinder Cone project that him and his friends created. As we descended further into the Columbia River Gorge the landscape changed dramatically from the open farmlands and barren hillsides of Eastern Oregon to the lush greenery of the west. Shooting out of my window into the setting sun gave me the perfect lighting for what I like to call the “classic road trip photo”. 

Pulling into Portland the feels were at an all time high. My trip had come to completion but in a much more significant way it had come to fruition. I had done it. I had driven across the United States by myself. I had completed my mission and had taken an idea and made it into a reality. This was the beginning of a story I couldn’t possibly begin to predict. All I knew, as I unpacked the truck that I had come to call home, was that everything that happened from this moment on was going to be new and was going to be significant. I was starting anew with a clean slate and nothing but potential and I knew it was all dependent on how much i put into it. You make of life what you make of life. You can’t control what happens to you completely but you can control what you choose to do next. This marks Day 1 of the next chapter in my life and I am so happy and so grateful for all of the people that have made this possible. I am grateful for my loving family that has cared for me all my life and whom became my closest friends. I am grateful for my amazing friends who have believed in me every step of the way and who have inspired me with their own courage and their own battles. You have taken care of me beyond what I could have ever ask for and you have treated me with the kindness and love of a family. This trip wasn’t just for me, and I’m not accepting an Oscar, this trip was for all of you. In my darkest times of fear and loneliness I thought of everyone and how much they were all going through and how much they were counting on me. I know I’m not the center of the universe but from the sheer amount of you that told me that you were proud of me and that you were inspired by me - I did this for you. I am so privileged that I could make a trip like this and, though it was just a road trip it meant so much more than that to me. Here’s to life and taking the leap. Here’s to courage and the beauty and strength that it represents. Here’s to who the hell can possibly know! Cheers from the west coast my friends, let’s cross paths again soon.

Chris

On Three Breasts and Motivation.

Jackson Hole, WY
Elevation: 6,311 ft.

Passing though the plains of western Wyoming tired me out more than I expected. As I hurtled through the endless, almost desert-like landscape I could feel my energy draining from me. I began reflecting through the trip and the realization that it was almost the 2 week mark hit me. My adrenaline was fading and the wear and tear of road tripping was getting to me. I began to reflect on the trip, life, family and friends. I began to follow dangerous rabbit holes and stopped at a dusty old gas station for a piss, luke warm coffee and a clearer mind. Back on the road the metronome of bugs hitting my windshield began to put me to sleep right away - luckily the coffee grinds gave me something to chew on. Suddenly I passed by a road that seemed to continue on into the horizon. A pale, dirty line cut into the endless green and grey of the landscape. It took me 2 miles before the regret welled up inside of me enough to turn around and snap the shot.

Things began to pick up after that. As the elevation continued to climb the towns became scarcer and soon I was surrounded by wildlife refuges of every kind. Signs indicating big game reserves and loose game began popping up. In the distance I could see a giant dust cloud and, given the fact that there were blinking signs everywhere warning of particularly high winds today, I was sure it was going to be my first tornado. But as I got closer I was surprised to see it was just a large band of wild horses. I had never seen so many different colored horses galloping before and was breathless.

Soon after the landscape gave way to scattered peaks covered in dark green pines. In the distance I could see the towering rockies. By that time I had already started vegetating again but the suddenly winding roads demanded a sharper focus from me.

I arrived in Jackson Hole as the sun was starting to set. Relieved that I had a home base again I laid down and began to plan the next couple of days. The mission was of course the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks but first I needed to eat and the place that hit the spot was the local brew pub Snake River Brewery. The beer was good and cold and the food was hot and salty - its what I needed. Looking around I was surrounded by young, outdoorsy people. It was like I had reached an island of people like myself here in western Wyoming.

Today was filled with exploring the Tetons. The Teton range is unlike most ranges in that it lacks foothills. The reason being, per the super informative displays in the super awesome visitor center, that the mountains lay on the hinge of a huge fault line. The west side of the hinge being pushed up to create the ridges and the left part left to fall creating the valley. I also learned that valleys surrounded by ridges were called “holes” by early american trappers and that this particular hole was named after David Edward Jackson, hence, Jackson’s Hole.

The word téton apparently means “breast” in french and the three major peaks were names les trois tétons as a means to keep one’s bearings during trapping. With the steep, unforgiving terrain and weather trappers needed a way to always know where they stood within the valley and these famous peaks served that purpose perfectly.

Traveling through the park on the scenic road I got to know the shapes of the peaks well. In my own way I was working my way around the valley and seeing the changing faces of the mountain. The national park encompasses the land east of the ridges, to see the western side one needs to cross over into Idaho - something I will get to do tomorrow as I climb northwards towards Yellowstone’s west entrance (the south is still closed). During the drive I was able to capture the beautiful peaks from a variety of angles and distances. None short of breathtaking. Here are some trees in front of Cascade Canyon for scale.

At the northern end of the park resides Jackson Lake and it is lined with a number of houses and docks providing access to the water. There is even a dam at the connection between it and the Snake River. Like many of the services along the park road, the Colter Bay Visitor Center was closed for the season but I saw a unique opportunity to photograph the undisturbed, empty waters of the lake.

With nothing but the sounds of my footsteps to disturb the sounds of the water, wind and birds I felt so alone and immersed in the landscape. The air was cool and crisp and the sun was warm. Gazing out across the lake, through the trees and up the stark white ridges I felt like I was gazing into a time machine. I have always felt the levity of places. Physical places can hold so much history in them. Memories, moments, associations, stories - look at the places we have lived and worked. And when I gaze into something as old and unchanged as the tetons I feel this overwhelming sense of connection to times, animals and people I will never know. It is that powerful connection that makes the work that I and every other conservationist worth it. These kinds of places need to be here as long as they can.

As the loop turned back southward the landscape changed back into prairie. There were a number of private ranches still here. The history of Jackson Hole is an interesting one anchored in, like much of Wyoming, the trapping and ranching industries. Plagued with Native American strife and harsh climates. There is a greater history to these mountain states that I never knew and I have come to appreciate the stories behind our states more because of it. Here are some wild, non-ranch Bison resting in front of the iconic mountain range.

Nearing the end of the loop I pulled over and gazed down at the Snake River. A river named after it’s serpentine gestures, it was the life blood to many early settlers as well as to the numerous tribes here. I found a plaque describing an iconic photograph of the river taken by Ansel Adams. Something I didn’t know before exploring museums here in Wyoming was that the early discovery and documentation of these natural areas owed just as much to painters and photographers as they did to cartographers, trappers and scientists. If it wasn’t for Ansel Adams and his predecessors many of these areas would have been lost to development - they captured the undeniable beauty of these fragile lands and made it available to the masses ultimately saving them. As a nod to my fallen homies I made an attempt at recreating his masterpiece.  

As I drove out of the park I knew that I would be back. Like many of the places I have blown through during this road trip, I was left with a burning desire for more. I found solace in the fact that, for the next few years or so, I will be working hard to make a place for myself out here in the west. I know I have a lot ahead of me to work on and to work for and as I watched the peaks disappear in my rear view mirror I knew that I had more reason than ever.

Chris

Mountains, Hip-Hop and the Quest for Stickers.

Denver, CO
Elevation: 5,280 ft.

After bidding Ellen goodbye, good luck and thank you I began my usual routine of prepping Rhyhorn for a long drive. It didn’t take long for me to get back into the road tripping zone but it did have a feeling of being lonelier. Putting Rhyhorn into drive I looked back at Ellen’s house and took solace in her words when she told me that I would be meeting amazing people out west. Like-minded, open and fun. It rekindled the idea that I was starting over and that I was jumping into the unknown with a purpose - to really find out what this world had to offer. Reenergized I took off westward for highway 230, the destination was Colorado.

Highway 230 passed me through a few of the ridges of Medicine Bow National Forest eventually giving way to Colorado and the small towns of Cowdrey and Walden. From there it was south and eastwards towards Fort Collins. Deciding to take highway 14 through Medicine Bow and Roosevelt National Forests was, perhaps, one of the best decisions I made during this trip. The scenic routes added a couple of hours to the trip but allowed me to drive through parts of the Rockies (but not the Rocky Mountain National Park, I was incorrect). Cattle and farmlands blurred past me as I hurtled towards the Rockies - my heart was pounding irrationally hard over these mountains.

Highway 14 took me right into the mountains and snaked its way eastward along the Cache la Poudre River. Around every turn there was something to see, I could barely go a few minutes before pulling over, grabbing my camera and running across the road. I climbed down river banks, up rocky mounds and stood along ledges so steep I got lightheaded - it was an adventure.

Something that caught my eye along the nearly 2 hour long passage was the way the mountain sides would change from section to section. I am in constant realization about how little I know about geology but only after this drive did I realize how much I want to learn. My logical way of looking at it was that the sides were all characterized by the different types of vegetation present as well as whether they were snow covered or barren. I figured that a few things could have contributed: elevation, facing westward or eastward and management (logging, burning).

I had never seen mountains like these in my life and getting the chance to drive through them by myself was something that I really needed. I left highway 14 with a newfound respect for these silent ridges as well as a burning excitement to learn more about the west.

I decided to stop in Fort Collins for a rest and grabbed a burger at a restaurant off the main strip called Lodge Sasquatch Kitchen. While there I made friends with the bartender and a regular. They were the first young people that I had seen in a long time and it was refreshing to hear them talk about places to see during my time here in Colorado. The bartender was a transplant that had spent time living in Michigan and South Dakota before coming here and I was able to talk to her about some of the places I had been. Rested I headed out for Boulder with the simple mission of finding the NEON, Inc. headquarters and finding the Boulder Patagonia. During my time with NEON I met some of the best people I know and found a family there. It was one of my biggest learning experiences going through the different protocols and it allowed me to see the SCBI facility in ways I had never seen it before. Never before had I known the buildings and the land so well. At the end of each hard day there was always the realization that all of this hard work was to produce data and samples that would be sent back to Boulder. They were also the ones that came up with the protocols, handled the troubleshooting and would send out supplies and people to train us. I just HAD to see this magical place that had put us through so much. Pulling into the parking lot I looked at the plan building complex in front of me, unsure if I was in the right place. It looked like I was in the middle of a business park. What gave it away was a few white F150s parked around me with the “NEON, Inc” magnet decal on their sides. A decal I fondly remember frantically ripping off our truck in Annapolis, MD during a beer run as a lady with groceries laughed on. The building was set up so that NEON had the entire first floor. As I entered the main lobby I had the sudden realization that I had no fucking idea what I was going to do once I got here. The mission was just to get here and I hadn’t planned anything. I will spare the suspense and confess that it went just as awkward as it could have gone. Gently pushing the door of the main office I entered a silent, sterile waiting room. The young woman behind the desk looked up at me with a surprised look and said, “Hello”. “Hi”, I replied, “So this is kind of random but, I used to work in Domain 02 in Virginia, and I am just road tripping across country to Oregon and I just had to stop by and see HQ”. “Oh, wow! Thanks for stopping by!”, and then she fell silent and stared at me. I looked around and mentioned that they had a nice sign. And that it was quieter and smaller than I expected. I asked her if all the techs where here and if the labs were here and she said yes. I found a picture of the board and told her that I had met them, she said wow. I then asked her if there were a lot of visitors, before she could answer I noticed the sign in sheet and saw it was mostly maintenance guys. At that point it was so quiet that I knew if I kept talking it would quickly degenerate to just me making an ass of myself so I asked her if I could use the bathroom and she said yes. Leaving the building I felt a big sense of accomplishment. A year ago I had no idea that I would be where I am now. Not in a million years did I think I would ever make good on my playful promise to myself to visit headquarters and yet I had just peed in their bathroom. Starting Rhyhorn I thought about my NEON team and said under my breath, “that was for our soldiers”.

Pulling into Denver I was greeted by a traffic jam. For the past week I had been driving through country roads and rural highways, the concept of rush hour hadn’t even crossed my mind and yet here I was stuck between priuses and shiny SUVs. It reminded me of NoVa and started giving me splitting headaches and claustrophobia. I remembered how much I hated big cities. But, being the mile high city as well as the hub for a lot of outdoor sports I bit the bullet. I will say something that made me happy was the fact that nearly every other car was a SUV and that most of those were tricked out 4runners, Escapes and Jeeps AND that all of them had roof racks. Rhyhorn and I blended in perfectly. After about an hour and a half of traffic I pulled into the parking lot of Kevin’s apartment complex. It was the first time I had seen him since Christmas and I went in for a big hug only to learn that he had bruised the muscles around his ribs from heavy coughing and a performing in a recent performance despite said cough. Kevin is the only guy I know that goes so hard that he sprains his serratus muscles dancing. After settling in in his apartment we grabbed dinner together at his favorite sushi place (a treat from my mom to us, she’s the best!). 

That night was a trip down memory lane. We caught up on life, what our future plans were, what we were doing right now, how much we were winging it and a reintroduction to the world of hip hop. Once upon a time I was a breakdancer and throughout high school and early college dancing was a passion of mine and Kevin and our close friend Johnny. It started with home made martial arts videos and evolved into home made dance videos and eventually culminated into us making our own crew and everything complete with logos embroidered on our clothes. We were in it. Once college came around we met many like-minded dancers and really entered the world of hip hop choreography. Speaking candidly, I had no idea what I was thinking. My sad attempts at creating choreography are moments I will never live down. But Kevin. Kevin took off. His style was complex and rich in emotion and, in my opinions, years ahead of the game. It was his love and passion for dance that caused him to pack his things and drive to Colorado to pursue teaching. At the time my friends and I were worried and pretty much chalked it up to him just dying but we were wrong. Spending the whole first night watching his new pieces and watching videos of our favorite choreographers I was caught up all at once to just how much progress hip hop dance has made. It is a complex, rich force of art that is going as strong as ever. Watching Kevin teach his classes I was really taken back. I couldn’t really comprehend what I was seeing. I remembered practicing in my basement late into the night for a international night talent show at my high school with Kevin but now here he was with a full class teaching excited students and getting paid. I told him that watching him teach reminded me of the opportunities I had at SCBI to teach BJJ basics to my friends. There is no feeling quite like teaching. You are imparting a part of yourself to other people and they are excited to feel and learn and become part of what you have to share. It’s intense as balls. Here are some links to some of the artists that we revisited as well as Kevin himself: 

https://www.youtube.com/user/LucklessLotus

https://www.youtube.com/user/BrianPuspos

https://www.youtube.com/user/keoneANDmari

https://www.youtube.com/user/shaunevaristo

https://www.youtube.com/user/DJIcon

And I have to mention separately Bboy Cloud and just how much he has grown as a dancer. He has transcended breakdancing and choreography and has gone the distance to write and produce his own films. I always found his short musical clips amazing but, armed with kickstarter, he has come out with his first long, short film and it blew my mind. Watch it for yourselves and tell me that this is world’s better than the shit they have on tv, movies and the god damn grammy’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOYZyCJF5_8

During the day we had a tour de gear stores. Kevin was being a great sport and taking me to outdoor gear stores I am sure he would never have visited on his own. He held it together while I fan-boy talked his ears off about Patagonia and REI and had the patience to wait while I geeked out about said companies in said stores with said store’s employees. Walking into the Denver Patagonia I had low hopes to be honest but I was driven by my quest for stickers (Patagonia stickers are some of the hardest stickers to come by, you have to visit their brick and mortar stores to get them and even then there are only 29 in the U.S.). Something I learned while visiting the DC Patagonia was that employees knew, at best, the surface factoids about how the company was a big figure in the fight for environmentally responsible businesses. But a man named Trevor Masters changed all that. I must have talked to him for at least 30 minutes about the company. We talked about Yvon Chouinard and how many things he had pioneered for the company, climbing, watersports, the clothing industry and sustainable business. We talked about how the worn wear program was bringing to the forefront the concept of reducing and reusing. He told me how surprised customers were that a person was going to literally sew ad repair their worn clothes before their eyes. He put it well when he said, “A pair of pants you wear and repair for 10 years is 10 years worth of pants that don’t have to be made, circulated and trashed”. Just when I though I couldn’t be geeking enough about the company he asked for my information and gave me his. He told me that, if things didn’t work out with my field job (getting an extension, etc.) that he would email Porltand Patagonia’s manager and put in a good word for me. I was beyond freaking out. We talked more about the company and started touching on technical fabrics, fabrics made from recycled material as well as their traceable down. I don’t think he expected me to keep up with him let alone finish his sentences and even correct him on a few things. That’s when he asked me if I had read and of Chouinard’s books. When I said no he told me to wait one second and he went to the bookshelf, walked over to the register and BOUGHT ME TWOBOOKS. I died where I stood. I told him that I had never had such a positive and actually thought provoking experience in a patagonia store. That I thought I was crazy that I was as passionate and grateful as I was that such a company existed. He handed me some stickers and told me that it was a pleasure meeting me and I left with a new friend, a rekindled love for the company and some bad ass stickers. 

The next stop was the flagship Denver REI. Both places where places I had often fantasized about visiting. One does not just drive through Colorado without visiting these places and here I was making it happen. When we pulled into the REI we were shocked at how big it was, then we shocked that we had to pay for parking. Instead of entering through the front we decided to park on the side. As we walked up towards the door I stopped dead in my tracks. Right at the entrance was none other than my friend and Fairfax REI coworker Chelsea posing in front of the sign for a picture! A little context, Chelsea and I both left REI a week apart to drive cross country for Oregon and Washington respectively. We were each other’s support systems and shared the grief and sadness of having to say goodbye to our REI family. I knew we would both be traveling but the trips just didn’t line up so I figured we would reconnect later in the PNW but as the fates would have it we ran into each other at that moment! I touched on this once before, the strange way that coincidences work, and I thought to myself how it was all chance that Kevin and I woke up so late, that I talked so long with Trevor, that we got stuck in traffic and that we parked on the side instead of the front! Mind blown and giddy to see my old friend I shouted and hugged her like a maniac. 

The actual store itself was massive and impressive for that fact but was otherwise underwhelming. The staff was friendly and I’m sure were knowledgeable but they seemed to lack the fun, friendly, passionate sparkle my team had. It could have been the fact that it was a slow Wednesday, or because I am a pathological romanticizer, but everyone seemed deflated. 

The night ended with beers at the Great Divide brewery and some cheap, delicious chinese food. My time here in Colorado has been so eye-opening and fruitful I can’t believe it was just two days. I told Kevin that I have been trying harder to live a more open life, to take more chances and to just go for it. And more than ever I can really say that it has been helping me experience life in a better, fuller way. The next stop is the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone for Wyoming pt. II. Until then my friends.

Sorry this one was so long and thank you all for supporting me and keeping up with me. It is a honor, gift and privilege to have you all in my life!

Chris

Wyoming pt. I

Laramie, WY
Elevation: 7,165 ft.

Driving down southeast South Dakota and western Wyoming was more or less farm fields, tractor trailers and cattle. But as I neared southwest Wyoming the repetitive landscape began to unravel into rolling hills. They came in hiccups at first and then became continuous as I neared Laramie. There was something about the wide open, misty prairies that captured my imagination. Not being pressed for time I would often pull over at truck turnarounds and gaze into their endlessness. 

Arriving at Ellen’s home was a breath of fresh air and relief. Until seeing her I hadn’t realized how alone I had been this past week. We took a road trip down to Fort Collins, CO because a new Trader Joe’s had just opened up and she needed to gear up for her upcoming field season. I told her on the drive that this had been the first time in a week that I had talked this long with another person, with the exception of Jack in South Dakota.

Over the course of the two days I got to meet a number of her friends from her lab at University of Wyoming and I have to say it was so refreshing to meet so many cool, like-minded people. I had always felt like a black sheep in my hometown yet it only took a few minutes to feel right at home with her friends. Conservationists are truly a breed of their own. The first night was Sushi (surprisingly good) and the second was a vegetarian bar (also surprisingly good). During our downtime we watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and I worked on my photos.

The good thing about having a temporary home base in Laramie was that I was able to explore the area more intimately. First off I stopped by Medicine Bow National Forest and visited the Turtle Rock camping/ hiking area. I have to say I have never seen so many beautiful rock formations and forests with such ease of access. They are really doing it right out here in the west. National Parks and Forests out here are well-kept, clean, wild and extremely accessible. It could have been because I am visiting in the off season but I have never had such a good time. The cold, misty rain was present as usual but I have really come to enjoy the cold loneliness of visiting these amazing places by myself. It makes for pure, peaceful moments and photographs. 

It was still fairly early once I left Turtle Rock so I decided to wing it and drive down to Cheyenne (the state capitol) via a long country road named Highway 210. I will admit at first I was a little scared because the road drove along miles of private ranches and nearly every person passing me was giving me the eye. Doesn’t help that I’m asian driving a toyota from Virginia. But the rewarding views made it all worth it. The highway drives directly through the Turtle Rock section of Medicine Bow National Forest and passes by Curt Gowdy State Park, home of the beautiful Crystal reservoir, making it the perfect road if one is going to Cheyenne anyways. The road itself was a dirt road, so a mud road, and I loved every second of it. Mudding and off-roading has become more and more of a passion of mine - though I know how bad it is for the land, and also my gas guzzler is bad for the environment…But there are actually a number of conservationists that are into the truck world - I’m just trying to make myself feel better. Along the drive I stopped a few times to snap shots of the absolutely beautiful ranches and prairies. 

At Cheyenne I visited the Wyoming State Museum and I will admit it was fascinating, albeit very depressing. Something I have realized about a lot of the mid-west and western states is that there is a deep deep history of Native American warfare, rancher warfare, coal and gold. Things I suppose we all already had an idea of in elementary school, but being in the area and seeing it is very different. During this trip I saw many firsts including my first Indian Reservations, massacre memorials and worst of all countless souvenir shops bastardizing the Native American culture and history. After getting depressed I headed back to Laramie to the University of Wyoming and to check out their Geological Museum as well as some local gear stores around the area. The campus was beautiful and had many of the Sherman Granite formations I had come to associate with the area as well as good number of old pines. Something that I was really excited about was that their geological museum had one of those interactive topo sandboxes. As soon as I realized what I was looking at I was both hands in creating mountains and lakes! 

The last thing I did before heading back to home base for rest and photo editing was to visit the local gear shop, Atmosphere Mountainworks. I had heard from Ellen that they made their own bags and, being the gear fanatic that I am, I just had to see them. Local gear shops are far and few in between but ones that created their own gear, beyond just t-shirts, are quite a rarity from where I’m from. The store was quaint and packed to the brim with your usual assortment of camp gear but with the unique bonus of tribal wear, dance clothes and Grateful Dead stickers (sorry Lydia I didn’t get any but I will definitely find some in Oregon and you WILL get a care package). I ended up getting a shirt with their logo on it, per my tradition when visiting a new outdoor gear store, and it was reasonably priced at $8.95! I have been to places that charge upwards of $21 for their shirts! On the topic of prices, NoVa peeps get this, the price for craft beers and Guiness here is $3.95 - NOT HAPPY HOUR. I think I will just live here. All in all it was a wonderful two days in Laramie and I am so fortunate to have had Ellen take me in. I don’t think I would have explored eastern Wyoming at all if it wasn’t for your home and I really believe that would have been a shame. Tomorrow it is Colorado to see my friend Kevin and you best beleve I will be stopping by the flagship Denver REI as well as NEON, Inc. hq in Boulder. I have wanted to visit Colorado for a long long time and I am beyond psyked. 

Until next time,

Chris

Badlands National Park

It took me nearly 3 hours to get through the park because I was constantly getting in and out of the car. The park truly took my breath away. I have never seen anything like it before and the cool, misty light that shrouded everything made it even more like a dreamy, moonscape, hallucination. I will say I lost my footing a few times just from the sheer expanse of the badlands.

Here’s a link for more information: http://www3.northern.edu/natsource/HABITATS/Sdbadl1.htm

Chris

Badlands and Grasslands

Lusk, WY
Elevation: 5,020 ft.

I am definitely posting much more regularly than I anticipated. I owe it all to the cold, lonely camp grounds that “forced” me to bite the bullet and stay in warm, wifi-filled hotel rooms haha. With a few bites of powdered eggs and a stick of french toast in my stomach I hit the road with as much momentum I could muster - today was going to be a driving day. It took several hours to reach Badlands National Park from Sioux Falls but it was well worth it. To do the park any justice I will do a separate post with just high res photos. The long drive gave me a chance to practice some in-car back exercises. By lifting my legs and curling my abs forward (think a v-sit while sitting) and then applying opposite pressure with my arms against my knees I was able to engage the painful area in my lower back. I’m not really sure what the problem is but I want to think I have a pinched nerve in my lower lumbar. The amount of pain isn’t proportional to the amount of movement or strain I’m putting on it. Anyways, it made it a lot less painful to get out of the car to refill gas or to use the restroom - progress. 

The plan after Badlands was to visit Wall Drug (a supposedly famous store), Mount Rushmore and then rendezvous with Ellen in Laramie, WY. But by the time I was able to finally peel myself away from Badlands hypnotizing landscapes it was already nearly 1700 hours. The drive to Laramie would be at least 5 hours and I really didn’t want to drive at night. Long story short I ended up visiting Wall Drug, skipping Mount Rushmore and checking into a hotel in Lusk, WY. Falling in and out of cellphone signal as the roads got longer and darker was giving me a bad feeling and I decided that an early morning start would be safer and wiser. 

If there is one thing that I gained from driving as late as I did it would be that  got to see my first sunset. Southwest South Dakota is markedly different from the rest of the southern part of the state. Instead of flat farm lands expanding endlessly around the highway it gives way to rolling hills with smatterings of cattle and pines. With the sun starting to set the hillsides were illuminated in a way that I imagined ancient Greece must have looked like. I’m not crazy - I read a lot of mythology books growing up. As I crossed the state line into Wyoming the sunset turned golden. I have to admit I was getting scared as I became the only one on the road and thousands of potential accident scenarios started playing through my head. I quickly grabbed my favorite Turnpike Troubadours album and blasted it as I watched my first Wyoming sun set. It brought me a lot of comfort and was, arguably,  my most country moment till date. 

Tomorrow is Wyoming and shortly after it will be Colorado and then, finally, Oregon. It’s hard to believe I have made it this far already. As much as all this driving has been wearing me down I already miss the simplicity of being on the road. All you worry about it gas, miles, food and finding somewhere to sleep at the end of the day. It is both a carefree, spontaneous feeling and a stressful, anxious feeling. But I will miss it. But I think that experiences like this, or any for that matter, don’t just end when they end. I think that they chisel away at us and create something new with less. I don’t if that makes any sense but, for me, I feel like I am shedding more and more of the extraneous parts of me as I drive…Alas, life is short but also long, I look forward to it.

Chris

Goodbye Great Lakes, Westward Progress

Sioux Falls, SD
Elevation: 1,470 ft.

Rolling out of bed I felt deflated and overwhelmed by the thought of more driving. Pulling on my trusty carhartts and nano puff hoody (yes product placement) I was greeted outside by the cold, windy, misty air I had come to associate with the Great Lakes. It energized me right away, jolting me alive and awake. The first destination was Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The lakeshore lay at the end of a long, unplowed road and, unsuprisingly, I was the only one there. Arriving at popular sites like this alone has started growing on me. They are like ghost towns. Empty of people and noise and extraneous distractions, it makes me feel like this was how they were meant to be enjoyed. The wind was especially vicious that morning, within minutes I lost feeling in my hands and I had to concede lest I dropped by DSLR into the frozen waters below. 

Back in Rhyhorn I warmed my hands and set off for Marquette, MI. I couldn’t help but try some of the gift shops first - I still hadn’t managed to find a sticker worthy of my “adventure window”. Starting with a hiker sticker I picked up at Mountain Trails in Winchester, VA, I have been adding stickers to the back, right window of my trunk to commemorate the wonderful places Rhyhorn has taken me. So far I have stickers from Virginia Beach, The Blue Ridge Parkway, Shenandoah National Park and now the Great Lakes. All the gift shops being seasonally closed I took a leap of faith on a coffee shop I had heard good things about. Having woken up late, I was now passing by while it was open and figured it was meant to be (something that I would find to be very true about many things during this trip). Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore could easily have become my all-time favorite coffeeshop if I stayed in Munising longer than I had. The shop is easily 1/3 coffee and 2/3 books. And not just any books, old books. Old, new, stories, religious, outdoor guides you name it and it was there. I purchased a few stickers, 16 oz. of coffee and made a new friend, Leanne. She had moved down from Alaska with her husband because he had recently gotten a job as a park ranger out at Pictured Rocks. I told her I had just made friends with a man name Justin at the information center but it just so happened he was filling in for her husband. Either way, as I applied the sticker onto my window, I began to think about how funny it was that things seemed to line up on their own in life. For example, I was discussing with my brother en route to Great Falls last week that chance is a wonderful, interesting and yet terrifying notion. It all depended on how you looked at it. He mentioned how interesting it was that, at the very moment we were talking, a specific number of people were all heading towards Great Falls as well. People we don’t even know. I took it a step further and told him to now imagine that a very finite number of people all woke up this morning, went about a series of intentional and unintentional macro and micro actions, all interlaced with even more micro decisions (i.e. retying a shoe lace, taking that extra sip of coffee, letting the dog pee an extra time) that set into motion a series of steps that would culminate in them closing their car door, turning around, looking up and making eye contact with us as we closed our own car doors. Think about it. On the surface it’s completely harmless, its nothing. Who even thinks about things like that? I do. And my baffled brother does now. My point being, I am trying to live with an open mind and have learned that the best way to look at life and it’s decisions is to simply roll with the punches. Coming from me, a logistics and planning Nazi, it is a mark of great progress. Anyways, getting tipsy last night and waking up late this morning earned me two new friends and a sticker.

En route to Marquette I must have pulled over, turned around or just slammed the brakes a dozen times. Channeling my inner Foster Huntington I made sure I didn’t let anything that caught my eye slip through my fingers. If there is one thing that these short 24 years has taught me its that regret is the most painful, horrible thing to have to live with. Something that has permanently changed my perspective on the world as well as increased my appreciation for the natural world are these Great Lakes, specifically, Lake Superior. I don’t know what it is one would think that I would prefer Lake Michigan because of my Laurie complex or Lake Huron because of my Lord Huron obsession but no. It was the vast, frozen expanse of Lake Superior that held me in the daze. Many times I would just pull over to gaze across its cold waters and I would get lost in it. 

Marquette had to be cutest, friendliest town in the U.P. I visited. Right off the bat the town was alive, sunny and full of activity. The port town was home to a famous port in which docked some of the world’s largest freight liners. There weren’t that many while I was there but I did manage to get a picture of one loading coal into a large ore dock. Re-entering town I decided to yelp a late lunch. It was going to be a long long drive to Duluth, MN and I knew that I was already fading. I chose a simple bagel place called Third Street Bagel that I had read about earlier. I was considering just getting fast food due to time constraints but in the spirit of being mind blown I decided to just roll with it - who knows who I could meet? I was right. As soon as I parked Rhyhorn I started freaking out. Right in front of the store leashed to a post was a large, grey, completely dread locked dog! I greeted him and walked into the shop quickly scanning for the owner. I pictured a large, dreaded, groovy kind of guy but instead it was a short-haired, young attractive lady with a faux-fur purse and leopard leggings. Her name was Heidi (I think) and her dog was Soul Dog. Soul Dog - how amazing is that? I barely finished ordering my bagel when I blurted out to her if I could take a picture with Soul Dog. She happily obliged and my life was made complete. As it would turn out she had lived out west for a number of years. Soul Dog was from Seattle, WA and she and her had travelled all the way back to the U.P. She talked of hippies and living expenses and people that made their living at rest stops. She said it was a weird weird place and that she loved it more here but wished me all the best saying that she could see me out west. I thanked her for the kind words and the awesome picture an set out for Duluth, MN. 

The drive to Duluth offered some amazing views. Wisconsin and Minnesota have an outrageous number of lakes and not just any lakes. Lakes of the deepest blue you can imagine. I have often associated the Great Lakes with just Michigan, but this drive changed a lot of that. Granted the amounts of farmland increased tenfold the two states truly had a lot of beauty to offer. As I approached the bridge between Wisconsin and Minnesota I would I could literally see the built up town from the Wisconsin side. Driving into Duluth I was overcome by the amount of industrialization. I thought that Marquette was a port town but no, Duluth was a port town. Or rather a port city! From the city limits to my hotel I saw at least three huge ore docks, countless ships and a number of large freight liners. It was terrifying to see so much smoke and steel. As much of an outdoor person as I am, there is something deep and dark within me that is attracted to that strange kind of overwhelming industrialization. The people were friendly, the beer was cold and strong and the steak was superb. I wish I had more time to spend in that collegy, port city and will certainly return one day to do it justice. 

Today was the most driving I have done since the Indianapolis leg of the trip. From about 1000 to 1900 hours I was never out of the car for more than 10 minutes. The exception being when I stopped at the Mall of America in Minneapolis to get lost looking for coffee and coolant. Why was I looking for coolant there? I don’t know the mall is so massive that it literally has an amusement park as well as a couple of hotels under its roof! Just traveling the outer ring I felt like I was in Attack on Titan - it freaked me out. By evening I pulled into Sioux Falls, SD. Exhausted, hungry and increasingly disabled (my lower back has really started flaring up again. And old injury from NEON. I can barely get up from sitting without holding my breath now) I checked into a hotel and gunned it for Falls Park before the sunset. I am aggressively going to enjoy this road trip to the max. The waterfalls were really breathtaking and so out of place. I had to idea how something this intense could have formed when it was surrounded by such uniform land. I’m no geologist but it didn’t seem to add up. Reading a panel at the park I learned that it was a result of a glacier that couldn’t completely overtake the flat plateau but did manage to redirect a river for a long long time. After it melted the river had already created two distinct branches. That plus erosion and BAM, exposed bedrock! Hungry and tired I yelped the pasta place the concierge had referred to me and was pleasantly surprised to find a Khmer restaurant just 5 minutes away! Phnom Penh Restaurant is a small, family owned restaurant right in town and the food was amazing. The family treated me like family checking up on me often. The father even came out to ask where I was from and where I was traveling and made it a point to tell me to really enjoy the meal. The son would come out and ask if I was sure I didn’t want a free refill of rice (I don’t eat much rice for a Cambodian). But the real treat was when a man sitting at the opposite side of the restaurant overhead me talking about my trip and asked to sit down with me. Me being extremely lonely and quickly falling into depression about how much I missed my ex, family and home-cooked meals I welcomed him whole-heartedly. His name was Jack. He was from the area but had done the same trip I had but in the other direction. A radiologist, he picked up his life and moved to West Virginia to pursue work and to finish med school. We talked of life, taking chances, being scared, diets, juicing, mold, family, having a dark side and how orderly the roads are designed in the mid-west. We talked about how, during our respective trips, we both had moments of sudden clarity and realization where we would suddenly ask ourselves, “what the fuck am I doing”. Mine had actually happened earlier today as I drove through yet another Minnesota wind farm. Honestly it was thanks to my excellent supply of music (I’m not kidding my taste is impeccable and my DJing skills are unparalleled), taking pictures and constant flows of texts from friends and family that I hadn’t noticed how alone I was yet. But as I drove past those windmills it just settled into my bones. I am, at least physically, completely alone out here. Far from any family or friends, really anything bad could happen. And yet here I am in South Dakota blogging in a hotel room. It’s been an eye opening trip so far that’s for sure. And I have become so automatic at driving that I really have lost any concept of how far I’ve actually made it. Not until looking at a map did I realize that I covered all of Minnesota today (I am exactly half way!)…Up next is Badland National Park, Mt. Rushmore and rendezvousing with my first friend of the trip, Ellen in Wyoming. The moral that I have learned today is to really appreciate the little coincidences in life. Take chances sometimes and be spontaneous - it will always get you somewhere you weren’t before. 

Till next time,

Chris

Smitten with the Mitten

Munising, MI
Elevation: 614 ft. 

Driving through the repeating farm fields of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana would have nearly killed me if it wasn’t for my aunt Rattana who joined me for the first leg of my trip. The mission was to get her home to Westfiled, IN. During the drive we passed through Cambridge, OH and I knew that I had to get a picture with the sign. This was the tiny “engineer-town” that my mom and dad lived in when they first got married. My dad worked at NCR (which has since closed its HQ here) which more or less breathed life into the tiny town and my mom was looking for work. What was humbling to me was just how small, desolate and utterly depressing the town was…I was born and raised in Fairfax, VA and, from around the time I was in Middle School, wanted nothing but to get out of there. Growing up in an upper-middle class family I could only see what was familiar to me - strip malls, indoor malls, outdoor malls, my schools and the highways linking my home to other cities and their malls. What is familiar becomes boring and yet, as I looked around Cambridge all I could think of was, “Damn, my parents lived here when they were about my age, worked their asses off and got themselves to Fairfax, built their business from the ground up and then birthed my brother and I”. Not in a million years would I have been able to accomplish as much as they have. I have always looked to Cambodia and DC as the roots of my father’s and mother’s struggles respectively. I always overlooked their struggles during those turbulent 20′s. Pulling out of Cambridge I had a new found respect for my parents as well as a new found motivation for becoming a stronger person.

Being with my Uncle and Aunt for two nights was really really what I needed. It gave me a chance to plan more of my trip, recover some sleep/ emotional stability as well as get to know them both more. I had always spent time with them during holidays but this was the first time being in their home and was I blown away at the hospitality that they showed me. I don’t think there is another person alive as accommodating as aunt Rattana! Never was there a moment where I didn’t have enough to eat, drink or do. And my uncle Viseth gave me some good advice. He told me that taking a trip like this was a big step for me as well as my parents because it was the first real time I was moving away. He told me that, as long as I took it slow and did it right, I would learn things and see things I would never have even thought of. And he’s been right so far. It’s only been 2 days since I left Indiana but it feels like forever.

The Michigan leg of the trip was my first time driving solo. Right off the bat I headed for Holland, MI. It was where I visited Laurie during her last semester at Hope College and it was a place that held a lot of good memories for me. For a long time I kept a picture of her with me of her standing with her back against the endless, white expanse of a frozen Lake Michigan. It was the same day that she took me around downtown Holland and showed me all of the little places she has learned to love during her years here. Parking in the park’s parking lot I took a deep breath - “Thank god I guessed the name right”. Walking across the wet sand I tried to find the place I took the picture over a year ago. The wind was just as strong as it was that day and surprisingly cold (something I quickly realized about Michigan - it’s like NoVa winter up here still). Looking at the lighthouses on the left and the mansions in the distance on the right I closed my eyes and settled on a spot. It funny how physical places can hold so much emotional energy, how associations, no matter how small, can be inextinguishable. We ended on a logical note. There was no wrong or right - we were both wrong and right. I told her that I had put so much of me into her and us that there was still a lot of me with her (tongue twister) and it still feels that way. The further I moved away from Virginia the tighter it seems my heartstrings pulled. I left my heart in Shenandoah but I am making new associations and I am learning something new everyday. Plus, hell, this is the farthest north I’ve ever been and I have always wanted to explore Michigan - before and after her. As I opened my eyes I realized there was a massive dump truck literally pouring dunes out of its ass. I hadn’t heard it pull up because of the intense wind but I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The beautiful frozen dunes I stood on that day as I held her tight and kissed her before Lake Michigan - was shit out by a dump truck the spring before. It helped me de-romanticize the memory. Not that there was anything wrong or untrue about our memories, not at all. It’s just that I needed to come to terms with the fact that they were different for the both of us. After a few more minutes I walked to the light houses and took some more pictures.

Up next was the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Just a brisk 3 hour drive up the western coast of the mitten. 3 hours of farms later I arrived at the bottom tip of the lakeshore. This would be, possibly, the most frustrating part of my Michigan trip so far. First off, Sleeping Bear Dunes is both the name of the major dunes (the ones I wanted to take a picture of) as well as the WHOLE lakeshore which was 65 miles long. It was my fault for not looking at Michigan’s shitty maps enough the night before and it was also my fault for counting on their signs being any better. I had started the day late and by the time I was at the lakeshore it was already starting to get dark. Both campsites that I planned on staying at were empty, unmanned and freezing. I quickly realized this was the wrong season to be in Michigan. Chalking it up to bad luck I decided to just find the dunes, snap a few shots and then head up to Traverse City for the night. Way too confident. I couldn’t even find the dunes, let alone any signs indicating a way to them. The only thing I saw were signs for a scenic drive and a dune climb. Seeing how dark it was I yelped the nearest motel and crashed for the night, I figured this was something that deserved to be seen and that I would regret completely passing over it. The next morning I went straight for the scenic road only to find it was closed for the season. Then I proceeded to waste nearly 2 hours following roads I saw on the map that lead to the shore only to find that they were private roads that led to nothing. Nearly giving up I decided to give the “dune climb” sign a try. Turns out it was a really beautiful little park, but it also turned out that there wasn’t just one tall ass dune, there were 3 or more. I got to the third one and I realized it was nearly 11 and the shore was no where to be seen. I had to concede or I would run out of daylight before finding somewhere to sleep. I had planned to be in the mid UP by the end of the day. All said and done, it was my fault for not researching well enough. And I did manage to get a decent shot of it all the same.

The destination was Macinaw City. Along the way I stopped at the little port town of Charlevoix. Perhaps one of the cutest little places I have ever seen complete with a little downtown, a drawbridge, a lighthouse and little old ladies crossing the street everywhere. I had lunch at the Charlevoix Fisheries Research Station. What I liked about the town was that it was alive even during this tourist off-season. Proceeding ever northward the destination was a port city at the very tip of the mitten advertised as full of life, history and people dressed in colonial garbs. What I got was a cold, deserted city filled with construction and poverty. Again, I should have researched it. I drove to a small park and sat on a concrete turtle and stared out into Lake Huron. Lord Huron is a band near and dear to my heart. Their music represents adventure, love and bravery. I had been anticipating this moment for a long time - the moment where I would be standing in between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. It was wonderful. Helped me regain my positivity. I realized that I needed to r-e-l-a-x. As I climbed back into Rhyhorn I blasted “Meet Me in the Woods” and throttled it for Sault Ste Marie.

It has been a big dream of mine to visit the UP (what’s with all of my dreams of visiting Michigan?). Right off the bat I was greeted by easily the most chill tollbooth guy ever. He was a long-haired native american wearing a worn out henley and beads around his neck. We vibed each other out during the 30 second transaction. I told him I was driving up from Virginia and he responed, “That’s a good drive man! Enjoy the UP man!”. I felt like he would have jumped in shotgun and not looked back if I offered. Driving in the UP is tricky. True to it’s wild reputation, there aren’t that many roads considering how expansive the land is. And all the forest you see along these tiny, two-laned roads are actually continuous, most of which are either national forest or state protected forest. It was really beautiful but really hard to stay awake on. Another thing is that there is so much to do in the UP off of these roads but they aren’t advertised well. After I arrived at Sault Ste Marie I was confronted with yet another seasonally dead town. The only differences was this time it was colder and it was getting dark. I made the decision to quickly snap some shots of the famous Soo Locks (god damn you Jickling I made it!) and then to head out to Munising. There I would spend the night at a hotel, rest up and plan for the rest of the UP tomorrow.

Oh I forgot to mention, about 10 minutes in I got pulled over by a cop. Apparently two-laned roads are 55 and are never 70. I had gotten used to the Michigan signs always saying 70 for car, 60 for trucks. As soon as I realized a cop car was approaching me on the other side it was too late. They are painted this ambiguous, pastel blue color and have a single, tiny red light on top. They are also Ford Explorer’s which, in my opinion, are mom cars. Anyways, the officer was extremely kind and I had a whole winter’s worth of treadmill running and watching North Woods Law and Alaska State Trooper to know that, in general, they aren’t trying to give you a hard time and would generally treat you well if you treated them well. I had a clean record, this being only the second time I was ever pulled over (first one being cause a new sign popped up in town that didn’t allow people to turn on red but so many people got pulled over for it they ended up dismissing it) and I was from out of state doing a road trip. I turned on that friendly “Chris So” charm and got away with a verbal warning as well as some tips on great places to hike and visit in Munising.

All in all. I am alive, I have a warm bed to sleep in, I have gas in the truck and a complimentary breakfast in the morning. I have, in these short 4 days, already learned so much. There are countless things to learn and discover once you step out of your comfort zone and take a leap of faith. But above all, learn to be grateful.

Until the next update,

Chris

P.S. Happy Earth Day!

Meet Me in the Woods

| took a little journey to the unknown.

Goodbye Virginia

April 20, 2015
Westfield, IN

It was the way the fire warmed my back as I dug my feet into the cold, wet sand. The sounds of crashing waves mixing with laughter and bouncing off the night sky above me, formless and unending…It was the way the cold air felt as she slowly slipped into my arms for the first time. The smell of rain and pines, and the warmth of her beating heart…It was the way my friend’s eyes teared up as I said bye to her for what may have been the last time. Her old hands holding both of mine and her voice echoing through my head, “You’re a good boy Chris So, I know you’re going to do good things”…

A good friend of mine once told me that loss was good for a person as long as they could extrapolate the lesson from the pain. He also told me that too much loss could destroy a person. This past year has had a number of hard losses for me. I lost my cousin Junior last February to a drunk driving accident, Laurie and I parted ways in January, my sister lost baby Harper and I came close to losing my Grandpa to a complicated, diabetic mess. I felt like a lost soul and got dangerously close to being lost to a greater darkness. What saved me was not just learning the lessons the pain had to offer, it was also embracing love wherever I found it. Losing Junior showed me just how much my family meant to me. It’s horrible to think that it took losing my cousin to open my eyes but I have not looked at people in my life the same since. Right away I applied a greater sense of closeness and appreciation to them and my friends but it wasn’t until Laurie and I split up that I truly woke up. It was like my chest had been cut open and all of my love, confidence, strength and security had been drained from me only to be replaced by sadness, anxiety, abandonment and fear. It was like I was wearing a pair of glasses that I didn’t know about, filtering my perceptions to feed my blind idealism. As they fell away I started to see life much more for what it was. Suddenly my sun and my stars had disappeared and I had been left to wander the vast empty darkness of space. Then Ivy lost baby Harper. Witnessing so much hope and promise suddenly end turned me inside out. The sheer amount of emotional and physical progress one makes during life was cut short for Harper, extinguished and never given a chance. It broke apart anything I had left mentally and I became an exposed nerve to the full gamut of human emotions.

I opened my head and my heart to those around me. People who had been a part of my everyday life suddenly became the worlds that filled my empty space. My coworkers at REI became my friends and then, before I knew it, became my family. Once my eyes had been opened it was easy to see just how much another person was going through, how much they had to offer. Be it positively, negatively or unclear - we are all going through something. And I learned that if a person was willing to share a part of them, even just a sentence with you - you had become part of their world. Be brave enough to share yourself with someone else and it is limitless what can happen. My Smithsonian family and my NoVa family became even closer to my heart than they were before. Amplified by the reality that I was literally packing my life into my truck and driving to Oregon, I became hyper aware of the changes we had all gone through. It was the little differences. The new haircuts, the new hobbies, the nose rings that made me aware of the changes. For the last month my schedule has been filled with breakfasts, lunches, dinners, beers after work, day hikes and coffees that never had the chance to happen. For the first time I was listening and talking to my friends with a clear and open mind, receiving each word, each idea, each story with the levity and weight of last words. I realized just how far away I was going to be from them, just how bad of a friend I have been these past years and just how much I loved them. Above all I realized that I wished that I spent more time with these people in my life.

For my family I felt a level of understanding and love I hadn’t felt before. As my departure grew closer I found myself talking to them as old friends, as equals. It was amazing to feel like I had caught up mentally with my mother and father and aunts and uncles. We talked about work, life, love and next steps and damn it - as hard as it is to believe they are pretty cool people. They have been through it all. 39 years ago yesterday my father was being forced from his home in Phnom Penh my the Khmer Rouge forces. He lost his home, his town and his entire way of life. At my age he was just getting to the U.S. Having survived the war he was working multiple jobs to put his siblings through school because he knew that this was their second chance at a good life.

The passage of time is unconditional. It affects us all equally. This was my first adult relationship, my first goodbyes, my first time driving this far alone and my first time this far from home. To say that I am terrified would be an understatement. But I know that taking the leap into the unknown is exactly what I need to do. I have learned so much from so many that I need to finally take the next step and get out there into the crazy wide world. The world is smaller than we may think, but it is also big. Our grandest gestures can hardly make a mark but our day to day decisions can make huge differences in the people around us. Everyone is doing their part to fulfill their life and their aspirations and the fact that we are all existing right now and are feeling and thinking and living together right now is something to be at awe about.

Something that I realized as Essie held my hands and said goodbye to me in the dimly lit, front desk of the SMSC resident hall was that there are moments in life so much greater than ourselves. She is the nightshift security at SCBI that would run into me every once in awhile as I sat in my truck staring at the Smithsonian logo on commissary tower late at night. It was usually a night where I couldn’t sleep and wanted to be alone with my thoughts. Over time we became good friends talking about our families, our lives, our hopes and dreams and our realities. She became a kind, grandmotherly figure to me and I looked forward to seeing her security truck turning the corner and I would walk with her as she would make her rounds. On one of my last days at the facility I saw her entering the school as I turned the corner. I hadn’t seen here in 3 months, I couldn’t believe my luck and I ran out of my truck to see her. She said, “Hun, where’ve you been?”, and I told her that my job with NEON had ended and that I was going to Oregon now. She ushered me into the building so she could write down her email for me and I began to cry. Because I realized that I wouldn’t be sitting in front of the commissary anymore. I realized I wouldn’t be walking with her to check on the leopards and I wouldn’t be there to talk about her dog and her husband. I realized that I had no idea at all what was going to happen to me. To me, this was very possibly the last time I saw my old friend. The simple and pure connection we had as she held my hands as she said goodbye meant more than anything I had ever felt before. To me, the simple fact that two totally different lives can, for a moment, intersect and become close enough to make parting so painful was so much bigger than my own existence. It was like every problem, stress, thought that I had at that moment had melted away and I became part of something grater than the both of us. We can reach out and at anytime be a part of someone else’s life. Their attention. Their world.

It is this feeling that has made saying goodbye so hard for me. Every kind gesture a friend or family has shown me this past month has nearly brought me to tears. I found strength in reasons, place and people I didn’t expect to find it.

My good friend Sean Lacey helped me realize that there are always two sides to everything,

“See beyond your circumstances. These hard goodbyes are a testament to your character”.

Erik Larson, a man who I want to very much hold onto in my life, told me this about keeping people in your life,

“I think that’s what’s beautiful about life. We can’t really control the timing of things, when we will meet someone, when we will do something. It’s almost awe-inspiring to see the people in my life working on themselves…Humility and Passion has taught me to hold onto people more. To see progress you learn from people you stay connected to and hope that they can learn from you…Focus less on how you feel and more on who you want to be”.

And I learned from my beloved brother, reasons to be brave,

“Just know that you’ll always have a support system in Fairfax, VA. In fact you have support systems around the States and the world. Never feel alone. You’ve always acclimated ridiculously quickly to new situations. So there is no doubt in my mind that you’ll take Happy Camp by the twigs (horns) and eventually become the top person there. In no circumstance will this transition to the west be easy. I think you’ve just got to tough it out until you can get out of here. The distance will do wonders, the road trip will clear your mind and the work will keep you moving forward personally and professionally. People get up and move to other cities and never look back under circumstances far worse than yours - think abusive/unsupportive parents. Just know that all your family is healthy and *relatively* happy. You’re setting such an example for all the younger cousins to not be afraid to pursue your passion especially in a foreign place. For these reasons and more you must be strong when we’re with them.”

More than ever before I can see how time and life carries on. Life is long, but it is also short. All we can do is hold onto people and be good to them while they are in our lives. As I embark on this trip to the west I will carry on my back not the weight of goodbyes, heartache and fear but the weight of the love and support all of my friends and family have given me and I will blaze a path for myself fueled by the belief that, there is nothing in this world as beautiful as courage.  

Let’s run into each other again some day,

Chris

It was the food, the beer and the empathy. 

It was the family I never knew I had.

It was the lights, the music and the love of my oldest friends.

It was the breeze, sweat and pain of biking 32 miles to sleep under cherry blossoms. 

It was holding onto the people that never let you go. 

It was the shittily taken picture that perfectly captures out friendship. 

It was the collision of worlds that were meant to collide. 

It was the delicious steak sandwiches and life talks. 

It was saying goodbye to the facility and to my three best friends. 

It was being part of a strong family and paying respects to our fallen brother.