When I’m moving through mountains on foot, I sometimes imagine that I’m knocking with my feet on the soil below, knock-knock-knocking with every foot strike like knuckles rapping on a padlocked portal made of earth and rock and gravity. With every knock, I imagine asking the dirt underfoot, “Am I worthy of returning yet?” Now I’m not wishing to die; it’s more that I wish fiercely to live.
Perhaps it’s because, with a regular practice of trail running, our soft animal bodies swing life and limb so intimately close to earth’s cadence. Perhaps it’s written calligraphically into respiration and lactic acid rise paired with a planet that roars past us and right through us, stinging our retinas as we dash along singletracks of the unasphalted, the unmodified, the untamed.
So I ask, as deep ecologist and poet Gary Snyder once did: How edible am I?
Am I giving back to the planet a body that’s been unused, atrophied from couches and cages, repressed with anger and narcissism and conformity? No, I wish that feast upon nobody. Instead, I aim to be as edible as possible, to be worthy of that inevitable return to earth. After all, gravity always wins.
With every wilderness outing, I attempt to discover more humility, more insight into the ways this planet revolves and evolves, churns and composts itself anew. I try and honor those who lived here before me, and to fight for protecting the last honest places for posterity. Because when it finally comes time for that stuff beneath the mountains to let me back in again, I aspire to return to the soil at least, mildly, palatable.
So I keep running. I keep knocking. I keep living.
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Nick Triolo is a writer, filmmaker, activist, and sponsored ultrarunner living in Missoula, Montana. He’s run across the Baja peninsula in a day, finished sub-19 hours at Western States 100, and has won the Oregon Trail Series. Learn more about Nick’s projects at the Jasmine Dialogues Blog.
The extended network of amazing humans that I have garnered and been exposed to by bike touring has become the most important thing that I have built in my life. These people and their stories are ones I tell very often and to this day affect the way I live. To say they have changed my life would be an understatement. So, I am here to encourage you to slow down, stop and talk to people, meet the locals, drink a beer, have a milkshake, take their photo, or don’t. Listen to their story, and maybe tell yours as well. It just may change your life.
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Spencer Harding is a Los Angeles, CA based photographer/artist who enjoys riding bikes. For more of his work, check out spencerjharding.com
In the early part of 2013, I led a 3-man team in an unsupported walk across the Arabian Desert. We pulled a cart weighing 900 pounds and walked for 40 days, filling up water at 3 wells on route, but carrying everything else with us. We operated under a self-imposed set of rules. That is, to walk unsupported and unassisted. This meant no one could offer any help in any form, and everything had to be carried from the start, with the proviso of water.
Within a week, we were dehydrated and dreaming of water. Our daily ration of 10 pints each was simply not enough. But there was no other way. As the days went by, the ‘dreaming’ became obsessing. Not a moment went by without the thought of water in its myriad forms. I thought of cool mountain streams where I had learnt to rock climb, deep blue oceans, the fridge, a running tap, the sound of a toilet, an afternoon thunderstorm and playing football without a shirt, and the water smashing down on my skin on a hot day. I would look left and right, searching for an oasis. An old discarded water bottle cast out in the sand would grip my attention for minutes as we labored past, staring, hoping beyond hope that there just might be a drop. But it was all in vain.
Some nights I would wake and find my tongue had slid out my mouth, like an old lizard in search of something wet. Dry and cracked, I would milk it back to life with my lips and slip back into the night. There was no respite. No afternoon storm to quell the growing thirst and deep concern that we might just be in trouble. Time and again I promised myself never, but never, to take water for granted. I made elaborate plans and schemes to stretch out and savor the drinking of a bottle of cool water. I tried to etch it in my memory so I would never forget.
After 40 days we rolled into the Park Hyatt in Dubai and downed a burning Pepsi. More followed, then bottles of water, whisky, chocolate milkshake, then beer, all to celebrate. In the days and weeks that followed, I found, sadly, that water quickly lost its mythical appeal. I tried hard to think back and savor it as I sipped it in the comfort of my home. And then it struck. The obsessive passion; the zeal with which I thought about water existed only because of the absence of it. The two, ironically, were mutually exclusive. They could never co-exist in the same moment. I could never savor it now like I did when I did not have it. But not a moment goes by when I sip some water and I don’t think back to those dark, dry days in the desert.
Our lives are simply too tame to really understand the privilege of having. You need to get out. Go do something. Go explore somewhere where you wont have, where you’ve never been.
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South African-based Alex Harris has climbed the seven summits (the highest mountain on all seven continents), and became the first African to walk unsupported to the South Pole. Under his brand Xplore, Alex offers guided experiences, coaching and speaking engagements.
When I was introduced to Rock Climbing over 25 years ago, I was instantly hooked.From then on, climbing was incorporated into every area of my life – from scheduling classes around my climbing trips, to doing my homework between pull-up sessions on the Rock Rings that I hung from the rafters of my parent’s garage.
Becoming a “professional rock climber” just happened, it was never planned. This profession has taken me all over the world through a variety of climbing trips. I have spent a good deal of my time Exploring and training in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. I have alpine climbed in Patagonia, developed new bouldering areas in South Africa, and also competed in climbing competitions locally in the United States and in more exotic places like Italy, Korea, and Chile.
I have come to realize that for me, exploring does not just mean to go out to see and experience new places. Exploring the physical capabilities of my body through athleticism is just as important to me as exploring new places. I cannot substitute one for the other, but must keep the balance of both in my life in order to feel content and complete as a person.
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Lisa Rands is a professional rock climber and climbing instructor who calls Chattanooga, TN home. For more on Lisa’s travels and climbing, check out lisarands.com.
The feeling has left my hands. It’s farther away than the car, farther than the tea and whiskey in my thermos. It’s long gone, and since I can no longer feel them, I have to trust that my fingers are still wrapped around my paddle.
Despite my best efforts to stay upright, my kayak tips over and the space behind my eyes lights up when my face hits the water. I’m suddenly aware of the matter inside my skull, the pieces of my head I don’t feel when the temperature is reasonable. It’s fall-turning-to-winter up here, and in a few weeks I’ll go to the equator, to warmer waters that don’t steal the sensation from my fingers, to warmer air that doesn’t burn my lungs when I breathe too deep. And once the heat thaws me, I will pour myself into work, which, for now, is an attempt to prove the inherent value of a free-flowing Amazonian tributary.
Up north, the water is heavy with sediment and it scours my ever-numb hands. Swimming black bears have pawed at the bow of my boat. Chinook salmon shimmer as they leap, attaining the impossible, always moving upstream. Down there, on the equator, there are butterflies and ancient languages and feral forest voices I’ll never be able to identify.
Why does a far-away river matter so much?
Perhaps it’s because we’re taught as kids that the Amazon is our planet’s lungs, and when we see that forest burn, we raise our palms to our own chests; maybe we breathe a little deeper. Maybe it’s because the rainforest is so vastly different from the boreal forest and tundra I grew up on and I can’t bear to see either of them go.
The rivers that flow into and through the Amazon Basin quench the burning; they keep the smoke from stagnating so the respirations may persist.
Maybe it’s a matter of privilege: I’ve enjoyed the time and resources necessary to experience things opposite my reality, to know rivers far from my home. I can compare and analyze and breathe as deeply as I want. We don’t all claim those luxuries. Or maybe it’s because it is there, as it is here, just water moving downhill, day by day, down to the ultimate sea. And if it matters here, then it matters there, and I desperately want it to affect the parts of my head and my heart that I can’t otherwise feel, and I’m in love with it all, everywhere.
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Chandra Brown is an Alaska-born river guide and writer currently based in Missoula, Montana. She is co-organizer of Jondachi Fest, a grass-roots kayak race and community river festival in celebration of the Jondachi River in Ecuador. A. Andis is a conservationist, paddler, and photographer. See more of his work at NunatakDesign.com.
I started shooting whitewater sports in 2010, documenting newly acquainted friends paddling the Payette River. I saw them swim, laugh, and learn all from the shore where I stood. Three years later, I myself started to paddle and engage in learning the art of kayaking. Then it became clear; the people I was paddling with influenced me. I starting learning to get over fears, observe nature, and to embrace moments. Moments, like waves, ebb and flow- high and low. Moments which teach us about each other, our own self, and the world of which we are all a part.
I have seen moments of triumph, styling rapids and overcoming mental battles. I have seen moments of defeat, which does not halt the mind or body for long, it’s in a sense motivation. In contrast, I’ve seen bliss, simply being able to enjoy a run for what it is. I have seen perseverance; hiking through bush to paddle a waterfall with no telling if it was good to run. I have seen reverence and reflection: elders passing on patience and knowledge to benefit the foundation of the next river experience. I have observed new friendships being born, a web that continues to grow. I have witnessed the drive within; the want to explore and experience places new and old with the people you trust.
I have documented the prideful energy this small paddling community has for being some of the world’s best travelers and athletes. There’s a magic withheld in the cracks and canyons of the world. Bonds form and nature prevails as the be-all end-all drive to live and learn. It’s hard to beat the moments of experiencing a river and the people who come along with it.
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John Webster is an Idaho-based adventure photographer and videographer. You can follow his travels and work @johnjwebster and the Webster Media House.
What happens when four like-minded adventurers head into one of the world’s wildest mountain ranges with nothing but their mountain bikes and enough food to survive for 10 days?
What doesn’t happen?
Terrifying lightning storms. Raging-river crossings. Snow-covered glacial pass traverses. Mind-melting descents. Constant fights with vicious dogs. Tense encounters with over-zealous border-patrol guards.
All of the above were just another day following “The Trail to Kazbegi,” a self-supported mountain-bike mission through the highest reaches of the Caucasus Mountains in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Our four-man team—adventure filmmaker Joey Schusler, Bike Magazine editor Brice Minnigh, photographer Ross Measures, and mountain man Sam Seward—spent half of June 2015 exploring the crown jewels of the Georgian High Caucasus on a feature assignment for Bike.
Along the way, our crew overcame countless obstacles and experienced some of the most spectacular scenery and trails they had ever encountered. They also were treated to the unparalleled hospitality of the Georgian people and the benign indifference of the elements on their quest to reach the magnificent Mount Kazbek. In the process, they cemented lasting friendships and proved, yet again, that life is simply better outdoors.
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Joey Schusler is a Colorado-based photographer and filmmaker who splits his time between mountain biking and skiing when not in the editing booth. For an expanded, multimedia experience of this trip, check out the complete Bike Magazine feature and/or the accompanied short film, The Trail To Kazbegi.
Over the years, I’ve learned that the best experiences come from entering situations with as little expectation as possible. If you open yourself up to an option, idea or opportunity, often you will emerge transformed, changed by the experience which has swept you away. But when sliding into a tributary of a stream titled the Unknown River, it’s hard to control the excitement of entering the unknown.
As our small tributary dumped our team out into the current of the Unknown River proper, an exploding plume of mist burst upwards, breaking the soft mist of the clouds which almost constantly fall onto the land and waters of Labrador. Horizonlines, as they are called within the river-running community, are a sure sign of excitement when looking downstream on any body of water. The fall of water off a ledge of any height is exactly the sort of river feature we had traveled to Labrador to experience, however the size of this plume exploding into the air, suggested it might be too high to experience from within our small plastic kayaks.
The team has a moment of indecision, the vegetation on the bank of the river was uninviting, with densely packed and thorn-covered vines guarding what appeared to otherwise be an enchanting forest. Half the team went towards the thorns, half went to opposite bank, and I continued downstream, hypnotized by the mammoth horizonline and thundering roar of what could only be assumed to be a large feature at this point.
. What lay downstream creating that roar and explosion of water over the horizonline? Which side of the river would be best to have a look at whatever it was? If we couldn’t go over it in our kayaks, how would we get around it, and how long would it take? We only had enough food packed within our kayaks for a few days. If we spent an entire day trying to get around this one particular spot on the river, would the rest of the river grant us safe passage, or would it too be filled with similarly dangerous obstacles, forcing us to make slower progress with our heavy boats on our shoulders?
It was these very questions that led us to Labrador. Nothing was known. Nothing could be predicted. As I continued walking through this forest dreamscape on my own, I slowly began to hear the roar of the river again. A little further and the moss began to get deeper. So deep in fact that it felt like I was trudging through the fresh snow of a blizzard without snowshoes. Each step sinking up to my knees. Just as my body began sweating inside my well-insulated drysuit to the point that it felt like a sauna, through a small window in the trees to my left appeared the sight of all that noise. A waterfall. Pouring over a cliff with the intensity of a landslide, and the height of a small skyscraper.
I stood, panting, exhausted, incredulous, and in awe.
Sometimes, when I’m procrastinating at work or have some free time and am tired of watching kayaking videos online, I like to scheme up ways to actually go kayaking.
A few years ago, my girlfriend Maeve and I took a road trip around eastern Canada. While there, I saw a picture of a huge glacial valley in one of Canada’s newest national parks up in Nunavuk and thought there must be unexplored whitewater up there. When I got home, I started looking around Nunavuk and Baffin Island for good looking rivers on Google Earth. Most of the rivers were either flat or vertical and not much in-between, and I quickly realized we could go anywhere on earth for less than it would cost to get up there. I started looking a bit farther south.
I had seen a picture of Churchill Falls in an old American Whitewater Journal and figured where there are giant waterfalls, there must be whitewater, so I started looking into the area. I was in search for new fly-in multi-day river trips like those which have gained popularity in Quebec; rivers such as the Romaine or the Petite Mecitna. Instead, I ended up finding a corridor along the Churchill River where a number of rivers and creeks fall off a lake-y plateau into the Churchill River about 1,500 feet below.
Conveniently, the only road in the entire province passed either over or nearby most of these tributaries, and there conveniently happened to be an online stream gauge for the Pinus River nearby. This gauge allowed me to guesstimate early summer as the time with flows that seemed about right for that sized river. I was guessing around 30 cms on that river would be good.
This past spring, the stars aligned and I found four suckers willing to drive 48 hours off into the unknown, in some part of Canada no one has ever heard of.
There are few places left in the world which are truly wild. Where vast expanses of unexplored land lay wild, still occupied and ruled by the flora and fauna that call it home. When we think of these sorts of lands, these far-off corners of our uber-connected modern world, our minds typically drift to mythical mountain ranges, remote desert oasis, deep gorges, and canyons tucked away in the world’s largest mountains. You don’t usually think of anywhere in eastern North America.
But if you start driving north, up through the United States and into Canada…up past Quebec City and take a ferry to a far corner of the continent where paved roads are still just beginning to make an appearance. If you keep driving, you will eventually reach the end of the road. At this stage, you would be in Labrador.
The region’s vast wilderness and plentiful caribou, deer, and small game populations, along with an abundance of coastal wildlife such as seal, whale, walrus, and fish were the perfect environment for the indigenous peoples of the Innu and Inuit. Basque whalers were next to follow, and started the influx of western cultures. Moravian missionaries began to set up communities along the inhospitable coastline of the region, establishing the region enough for British fishermen to arrive.
Today, the region’s natural resources are still the main draw for the few workers of the region (in 2015, Labrador’s unemployment rate was over double the Canadian average). From the iron-ore mines of the interior, to the rapidly expanding production of hydroelectric power harnessed from the Churchill River, it would seem that the fruits of nature are the only thing keeping Labrador’s economic heartbeat alive.
Those same natural resources that some see in the name of economic benefit are also what prompted a group of five kayakers to make the drive north to this wildly untouched wilderness, in search of unexplored rivers.
