Jack's Tracts

A Knife Changing Experience

9/25/2023

Do you remember your first jackknife? I do mine - it was a souvenir beauty from Niagara Falls. It had a scene of the falls with a rainbow arching gracefully over the Maid of the Mist. My mother was brave enough to buy it for me on a trip to Canada when I was nine-years old and on my way to becoming an intrepid outdoorsman.

A wise person once said, “You do four things with your first knife. First, you whittled a stick. Second, you cut yourself. Third, you tried to sharpen it. And fourth you lost it.” I did all four. But the good news is there were nearly two months between the first and the last.

The night I cut myself my parents were out and left my sister to babysit me. I was whittling away when an evil spirit directed the blade away from the stick into the flesh between my thumb and index finger. The blood came pouring out, but what really scared me was the white stuff. I don’t know if it was fatty tissue or a tendon of some sort, but I thought I might be greeting the Grim Reaper sooner than expected. My older sister nearly fainted at the sight of blood but fortunately regained her composure long enough to call our neighbor, who assured me I was going to be fine and in fact didn’t even need stitches.

Much relieved, I moved to step three. I found my brother’s sharpening stone and did a great job of taking a dull souvenir knife and making it duller. Undeterred, I hurried on to a Secret – fourth step known to only the most serious knife aficionados – trying to kill something.

Legend has it that Daniel Boone killed a bear with his knife. I wasn’t quite as ambitious. There had been some wildlife tearing up my neighbor’s lawn. Was it a bear? Not on rural Long Island. A racoon? Not their type of meal. A skunk? Very possibly. After a little research I discovered the culprit – a mole.

I spent the remainder of the summer stalking the critter. I’d head over early in the morning, quietly sneaking up the slope where I’d seen the animal scurrying about. Then, one afternoon after much stalking I saw it. Trembling with excitement I took careful aim and threw the knife. It bounced off the ground, missing the mole completely. This went on multiple times a day, every day throughout the summer. But I was, if nothing else, patient and determined. Finally, After two weeks of this cat-and-mouse (or whack-a-mole) game, it was time for our family to take our annual vacation to Lower Saranac Lake.

Two weeks later I returned, wondering if the mole was still causing trouble. I saw the tell-tale signs of the beast – tunneling and molehills. (Fortunately, no one had made a mountain of them.)
Once again, I started stalking the brute. Each morning I restarted the ritual. It was a bit like the movie Groundhog Day (or maybe it should be Lawn Mole Day). Climb the fence to my neighbor’s yard, work my way through the short section of forest, slowly creep up the slope keeping a wary eye out for the tiny-eyed creature. I did this a half-dozen times a day and on at least one of them I’d see the mole running across the lawn. When I did I’d spring into action trying to send him (or her) to the Promised Land with my Niagara Falls scimitar. And each time I failed, as the knife never came anywhere close to its intended target.

At last I gave up all hope of ever ridding my neighbor’s lawn of the monster.

Then, on the day before school started, I made the trip one last time. I snuck up the slope, worked my way across the lawn, and started back down when out of the shadow of the hedge came the mole. I figured I’d finally kill my prey and get my trophy. I had visions of mounting its small head like a deer and nailing it on the wall above my bedroom dresser.

I opened the knife blade, cocked my arm, and let the Niagara dagger fly. The knife flew, end over end, headed straight towards the mole. Or so I thought as it landed with a thud about a foot past it.

The summer was over, the mole was safe. Frustrated and disappointed I ran over to retrieve my knife and as I did, I accidentally stepped on the mole, killing it instantly.

Immediately I felt regret – regret that it was dead, regret that I’d killed it, and regret that I’d even WANTED to kill it in the first place.

Two weeks later I accomplished step four: I lost the knife. History fails to recall any of the details.

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Leeches in my Breeches

9/11/2023

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Humphrey Bogart and his rubber leeches

I suppose there are things to be afraid of in the Adirondack wilderness. Once a generation there’s a murderer on the loose.
I hear people tell of their fear of hearing coyotes howl, but when was the last time you heard of a coyote attacking a human?

The only victim of an Adirondack rattlesnake bite I’m aware of was in the early 1970s, and he fully recovered.

I had a relative during a recent visit voice her worry about bears. I said, “When was the last time you heard of a bear attack in the Adirondacks?” I was reminded of the guy who picked up a cub and was assaulted by the cub’s mother, so I modified my comment to, “Unprovoked attack.”

But there is one animal that mere mention strikes terror in the hearts of the bravest souls – the common leech.

Admit it, as soon as you read the word leech you thought, “Yech,” then had visions of Humphrey Bogart getting back onto the African Queen, with the evil buggers stuck to his chest. It turns out he hated leeches as much as the rest of us. They had to use rubber leeches in the movie.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having leeches attach themselves to you, what did you do after you screamed? If you had a saltshaker nearby you doused the critter with salt. If not, you ripped it off immediately. And when you did you were too freaked to notice the stream of blood running down from the wound – you were just relieved it no longer stuck to you.

Ok, let’s examine what you had. It was probably an American Medicinal Leech (Macrobdella decora), the most common of about fifty North American species. After they bite, they leave a Y shaped wound and blood trails down your body. It flowed freely because after gnawing into the skin it released the blood thinner hirudin so the blood didn’t coagulate and could be easily consumed by the leech.

You may worry about North American leeches sucking all your blood, but you should be relieved to know they aren’t big eaters. In fact, they go long intervals between feedings. Some go as long as a year. Also – luckily for us – they don’t depend on mammalian blood and are usually sustained by the blood of turtles, fish, frogs, and frogs’ eggs. You were just an opportune food source.

As far as leeches in other parts of the world? Yes, they do enjoy mammalian blood. Even worse, they’ve been known to crawl into one's nostrils and migrate up the throat to the larynx. Worse still, they attach themselves to your esophagus swelling on your blood to the point where they may cause suffocation…But only occasionally.

Now, I’m here to tell you that leeches get a bum rap. You probably know that they were used medically for bloodletting for thousands of years. The idea was the removal of blood from a patient helped prevent illness and cure disease. But it was wrong. A perfect example: George Washington died with the “help” of leeches when nearly 40 percent of his blood was drained.

But that was a couple of hundred years ago. We no longer use leeches for medical purposes, right? Not so fast Binky. According to Rod Rezaee, MD, otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, “Despite all the technical advances in modern medicine, in certain post-surgical situations, we do still rely on one of nature’s most primitive organisms – the leech – to assist us in achieving a good outcome.”

For some reattachment operations, skin grafts and plastic surgeries for cancer and trauma, leeches come in handy. Chemicals in leech saliva keep the blood flowing in the damaged area, allowing time for new veins to grow and the existing ones to widen and accommodate more blood flow.

Even if leeches didn’t have modern medical uses, they deserve credit as devoted parents. One species has even developed a brood pouch providing its young with half-sucked food and nurses them with an albuminous secretion. Plus, Google “buying leeches” and you’ll find hundreds of sites – and not just for fish bait. I even found a video on keeping leeches as pets.

Being the Zen outdoorsman I am, I try to be one with leeches. If I get one on me, I nonchalantly pluck it off and continue on my way. That is, except on one occasion.

It was 1979 and we were wrapping up the first NCCC Wilderness Recreation Leadership Practicum. After we’d sent the students off on their final hiking expedition, the staff hiked back to a spot on the Cold River where we’d stashed our canoes and planned to paddle back to Long Lake Village.

As I stood in knee-deep water and tied the canoes together, I felt a tickling on my feet. I wrote it off to some minnows nibbling my toes, something that frequently happened. Ten minutes later I hopped into the lead canoe and noticed four healthy leeches clinging to my ankles. That didn’t bother me too much. But what did were the 100 one-inch-long baby leeches covering my feet and toes. I don’t recall the exact string of four-letter words I shouted, but after I pulled off the adult leeches, with my heart pounding and my hands shaking, I tried to remove the one-inch offspring. Easier said than done.

They were small, slimy, and slippery. They were too small to suck on to me but also too small for me to grab them. I tried and tried to pull them off. Finally, I ended up pulling off my shirt and started using it to rub the tiny varmints off. I rubbed my left ankle until it was raw then worked my way down the instep to the toes, then in between them. Especially in between them. It seemed to take forever. I then moved on to the right ankle and started all over. When I was done, I held up the shirt. It was less a shirt and more modern art. A shirt canvas with thin black lines of leeches stretched out in all directions. With a couple of swipes, using the well leeched shirt, I wiped the remaining beasts off the floor of the canoe.

I finally started paddling down the river, my nerves fried and my anxiety level off the charts.
By the end of the day, I had a painful sunburn.

Why? Because sure as shootin, I certainly wasn’t going to ever wear that shirt again.

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Revisiting Loss

8/28/2023

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Matt and me. The first time we've seen each other in fifty years.

I remember the Metz family for a number of reasons. First, Stan Metz and his sons Andrew and Matt joined me in the early seventies on a couple of one week canoe trips and a one-week backpacking trip sponsored by the Malone Campus of NCCC. Second, they were a great family who thrived on living outdoors and the challenges of wilderness travel. Finally, what left an indelible memory is that on their last trip, around 1973, they left our house with a Newfoundland puppy they purchased from my mother on the spur of the moment. It was a surprise to me but probably not as much as it was to their mom when they arrived home.

Tragedy struck the family in 1983 when Andrew fell to his death while rock climbing on Wallface Mountain in the High Peaks. He had recently graduated from Harvard and was preparing to work as a nuclear researcher at MIT.

Although I hadn’t seen any of the family in a decade, I immediately felt some guilt as the person who taught them so much about the outdoors. I quickly realized my guilt was nothing compared to his father’s who had introduced his boys to the outdoors.

Other than a letter of condolence after Andrew’s accident, I hadn’t had any contact with the Metz family since 1973. So, when Matt called me recently and said he wanted to visit Wallface Mountain I was eager to help any way I could. While I have hiked in the area of Wallface I immediately knew that Matt should talk with Don Mellor. Don is the senior rock-climbing guru of the Adirondacks and if anyone knew about Andrew’s accident, Don would. I learned that Don was indeed familiar. He hiked in with Lake Placid Physician’s Assistant Mark Ippolito soon after the accident to commemorate the tragic event.

When Matt and I discussed his visit, I suggested he come over for breakfast. Last week he reached out and said, “I’m arriving Friday. How about we get together for breakfast on Saturday?”

I said, “Sure.”

He said, “Great, there will be eight of us.”

“I didn’t know you would have an entourage,” I said, “How about we provide waffles, maple syrup, and coffee and you bring bacon and OJ?”

Phyliss thought I was crazy to invite eight strangers for breakfast. But I assured her that Matt was a great person – at least he was when twelve years old, which was the last time I saw him. I figured his eight friends would be okay too.

Matt’s entourage turned out to be his family. His wife Susan, two daughters Megan and Emily, and his twin sons David and Daniel, his sister Jessica and her boyfriend Jim. We had a fulfilling waffle breakfast, shared a bit of our life histories, and reminisced about our outdoor adventures.

He shared the toll his brother’s death took on his parents, namely that they never recovered, something I know all too well. He and his sister shared stories of their Newfoundland and how it became a beloved twelve-year companion.

We departed with hugs, and I thought to myself how hard their hike would be the next day. Physically demanding? Sure, but more importantly, emotionally demanding.

I received a text from Matt upon his return from their 12-mile round trip to Wallface Mountain Sunday evening. “It was a tough day - we started at 6:30 AM and didn’t get back until 5:00 PM. Don was amazing. I can’t thank you enough for connecting us with him. We had a great time. It helped give the closure we were hoping for.”

My immediate thought was, closure? After forty years?

But then I realized we all find closure in different ways. We all grieve in different ways. We all find different ways to start life anew in the new normal after loss.

It felt good to be able to play a tiny role in helping Matt find peace with his loss.

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A Man of the Mountains and a Mountain of a Man

8/15/2023

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I made a pilgrimage of sorts a couple of weeks ago. As we passed through Lander, Wyoming on our way to Grand Teton National Park, I stopped at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) headquarters and got my photo taken with the statue of Paul Petzoldt. Paul was a world-renowned mountaineer who climbed the Grand Teton in cowboy boots at the tender age of sixteen, did a double traverse of the Matterhorn in a single day, and almost summited K-2 in 1938, arguably the most difficult mountain in the world to ascend. He was the chief instructor of the first American Outward Bound School, and founder of NOLS.

How did I meet someone like that?

It all began in 1968 during my sophomore year at the University of Wyoming. I was sitting with my friend Al Hendricks in the cafeteria. “Al, who’s that old guy?”

“He’s some old-time mountaineer. His name is Paul something.”

“What’s he doing eating at our cafeteria?”

Al said, “I don’t know. What don’t you ask him?”

I wish I had.

It turns out that since starting NOLS three years earlier he had been doing a lot of public speaking, so at the age of sixty he decided to take a course in public speaking and live on campus to improve his presentation skills.

When, a few months later, he gave a presentation about NOLS, you can be sure I was there. My memory of the event is vague, with one exception. When a gentleman asked the question, “When I think of the outdoors, I think of being exhausted, bitten by bugs, blisters on my feet, and being uncomfortable. How is NOLS different?”

Paul’s response was classic. He said, “We have a saying at NOLS. If you aren’t comfortable, you’re not doing it right.” at that moment I knew I wanted to learn how to do it right.

Two years later I took my first NOLS course. But it wasn’t until 1977, after he left NOLS and was helping start the Wilderness Education Association, that I really got to know Paul. I’d invited him to Saranac Lake and ran him ragged giving presentations at Paul Smith’s College, NCCC, the NYSDEC, and various civic organizations. Ultimately, he played a major role in convincing NCCC administrators to start the Wilderness Recreation Leadership Program. We soon became fast friends and visited each other many times between his home in Sebago Lake, Maine, and Saranac Lake between then and his death in 1999.

Through Paul I met numerous pioneers in the outdoor field, for example Bjorn Kjellstrom. Bjorn was a Swedish ski orienteering champion, and he and his brother invented the modern compass. They founded the Silva compass company and sold more than 25 million compasses. He was frustrated, however, that despite Americans being the biggest customers of Silva compasses, orienteering had never caught on in the United States. To address the problem, he offered scholarships to the Wilderness Education Association for several years for outdoor leaders to participate in the O-Ringen, a five-day event in Sweden where more than 10,000 orienteers participate. While the scholarship winners all brought back wonderful skills and tried to kick-start orienteering events the sport continues to be a very small niche activity compared to Scandinavia.

I got to know additional luminaries as well. I spent a memorable evening with Paul, Josh Miner founder of American Outward Bound, Frank Lupton co-founder of the Wilderness Education Association, wilderness medicine expert Doc Forgey, and a bottle of Jameson whiskey in a tiny old dormitory room on the campus of Western Illinois University. I was intoxicated on stories about the creation of the first American Outward Bound School and other outdoor adventures. The Jameson wasn’t bad either.

One fall without warning Paul, with his wife Ginnie, drove all the way from Maine to visit Saranac Lake staying at a local motel. He called and asked me to join them for breakfast. He hadn’t given me any warning that he was coming so I was a bit surprised but as always, eager to meet with him. We were eating our breakfast and chatting about mundane things when suddenly he brought up a student, he had problems with years ago. I didn’t know where he was going until he finally said, “Sort of like the photographer student you had.”

I said, “How do you know about him?” Upon which he shared a three-page handwritten letter from the student telling Paul what a terrible outdoor leader and teacher I was.

I said, “Paul that student created so many problems you wouldn’t believe it. He violated at least two course rules and just didn’t have what it takes to be a good outdoor leader.”

I went on to give him the details and Paul said, “I figured as such, but I had to hear your side of the story.”

He had driven six hours one way to hear my side of the story. Paul was more than willing to listen to the young man’s side of the story, but he was going to hear both sides before he provided an opinion.

When in 2015 a group of NOLS alum decided to honor Paul by having a bronze sculpture created I said, “Count me in.” I sent a small donation and hoped to attend the unveiling ceremony in 2016. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it.

When I stopped in Lander a couple of weeks ago and had Phyliss take my photo next to the statue, I thought back to all the great times I spent with Paul and how much I learned from him.

It seemed only appropriate that I was looking at a larger-than-life statue ‒ because so was Paul.

Me with Paul in 1993

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Life Lesson

7/31/2023

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See Texaco ad at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Lpskdk9zQ

For three straight years our family camped at my great aunt’s tent platform on Lower Saranac Lake. It’s where campsite 37 is now, arguably one of the finest spots on the lake.

It was pretty simple as far as platform camps went. In fact, we didn’t even sleep in it. We kept our food and supplies in it while we camped in a small clearing nearby, my three sisters in a canvas umbrella tent, my parents in a canvas lean-to tent, and my older brother and I in an army surplus pup tent.

It was the start of my love affair with the Adirondacks in general, and Saranac Lake in particular. We ended the trip by going shopping for school clothes at Leonards’, Everett’s, the National Army Store or one of the other clothing stores before we headed back to my hometown of Phelps, the sauerkraut capital of the world. Soon I was longing for my next visit to the North Country.

Whenever there was anything about Saranac Lake on the TV or in the news, I was thrilled. During the 1960s I regularly saw Texaco commercials featuring Lawless’s Texaco station, where the Verizon store is now. There was a series of ads featuring Texaco’s localized gasoline for the region’s climate, and one of the ads featured Phil Hyde and some great scenes of driving around town. (You can watch it at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Lpskdk9zQ ) As a young teen I thought it was so cool.

In 1964 I had to leave Saranac Lake in mid-August to start high school football practice. It was my first year of playing any sports and I didn't know what I was getting into. I dutifully reported to my first practice Monday, August 24, and by the end of the first practice, I wondered if I had made a mistake thinking I could play football.

I awoke that Friday, my body aching all over, having exercised more than I ever had in my life. I stumbled downstairs for a hearty breakfast that would prepare me for that day’s practice. As they did every weekday, my parents had the Today Show turned on. When the local Syracuse news came on, I was shocked, not only to see Saranac Lake featured in the news, but my beloved Lower Saranac Lake. Not only Lower Saranac Lake, but the platform camp next to ours.

Our camp was on Gravelly Point. To the south was the Woodruffs’ camp, and to the north was the Cantwell’s camp, with their sailboat moored just offshore. One of the last platform camps to be built was constructed around 1962, between the Cantwell’s camp and ours. I never got to know the family that had the camp, and only knew the father was a pastor and he and his wife had four kids.

According to news reports the father, thirty-year-old William Schlunt, decided to take an early evening water ski. His wife was driving the boat with their 2- and 4-year-olds, while their 7- and 9-year-olds stayed on shore. As the pastor skied by the Cantwell’s camp, he apparently was blinded by the setting sun and skied into the stern of their sailboat, sustaining fatal injuries. Ed Duso of Crescent Bay Marina was nearby and assisted the pastor’s wife in performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and getting him to the marina where, despite the rescue squad’s attempts to save him, he was declared dead.

Seeing the news of the tragic accident on the television that Friday morning, I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for the pastor’s children having to witness it. Furthermore, I couldn’t imagine the Cantwell’s sailboat, a boat I had sailed on many times, was involved in such a tragedy.

I loved hearing news about Saranac Lake, but not THAT kind of news. Till then I never knew anyone that had died. I grew up in farm country. We had horses, cattle, and chickens that died. Plus, since my parents raised Newfoundland dogs, we had lots of dogs die too. I accepted animal death as a way of life. But not human death.

As a thirteen-year-old I learned a lesson that I was going to relearn way too often. You can’t have the joy of life without the pain of death.

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“Turn, Turn, Turn”

7/18/2023

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Instructor Bruce Bonney provides map instruction on a 1985 NCCC Wilderness Leadership Practicum

Of all the outdoor technical skills taught at NCCC, perhaps the most valuable is navigation. On the thirty-three-day expeditions I led, we practiced navigation every day. Students learned how to read maps, take and follow compass bearings, account for the variation between true north and magnetic north, and how to interpret and navigate the thick Adirondack forests. I maintain that if you can find your way off-trail through the Adirondacks you can find your way anywhere in North America.

We spent a lot of time hiking off trail, thus garnering me the moniker, Bushwhack Jack. One of my favorite bushwhacks was up through Ouluska Pass, a place, at the time, as wild as you can find in the Adirondacks.

Another challenging off-trail adventure was the route from the Shattuck Clearing horse trail, up Caulkins Brook, to the saddle between Seward and Donaldson Mountains. I first led a group up there in 1983 and it was epic.

We camped at an old logging clearing along Caulkins Brook, got up at 4:00AM and hiked up to the saddle through some of the gnarliest spruce/fir I’ve ever traveled. It was on this trip that we came up with the forest descriptors of Thick, Thicker, and Thickest. This hike was definitely thickest. We had to pry the small trees apart and slip through them before they snapped back hiding the person only two feet behind us. We fought our way up to the pass through this thick terrain until we hit the herd path to Seward, then took the path back down to the trail to camp. It was a jaunt of eleven miles. Only two and a half of them were truly trailless; the rest either herd path or maintained trail. Nonetheless it took us fourteen hours….and we didn’t even get to bag Donaldson and Emmons. That’s Thickest!

Notice I said it was epic. Unfortunately, it is no more. A decade ago, I hiked up what is now a well-worn herd path along Caulkins Brook, bagged all three summits, and was back in camp in time for an early dinner. No muss, no fuss – just a loss of wildness.

One consistent teachable moment on our trips came after bushwhacking through the forest when we finally came to a trail and the student leader had to turn either left or right. After they turned, I’d say, “Are you sure this is the way you want to go?” Even if they were turning in the right direction, the comment might cause them to question their decision. In any case it caused them to stop, reexamine their map, and see if they could confirm if they were correct.

There was one time we used a completely different tactic. We’d come down the Shattuck Clearing Horse Trail and were hoping to camp at a remote spot near the Cold River. We’d marked the campsite on the map. The student leader came to an intersection and instead of taking the rarely-used trail to our campsite, only a half mile away, started down the Northville - Placid Trail towards Long Lake Village, twelve miles in the wrong direction.

When students made a wrong turn I’d let them and have them eventually discover it on their own. However, my colleague Bruce Bonney was less enthusiastic about the idea we might end up in Long Lake Village, twenty-four miles out of our way. So, he came up with a creative alternative: After hiking the wrong way for about ten minutes he started limping and said to the student leader, “Hold on. I’ve got a blister that needs attention.”
The group stopped so Bruce could care for his blister. While the group was waiting, I asked the student leader, “You want to show me on the map where you think we are?” He pointed and then I said, “Are you sure?” That triggered a thorough review by all the students.

They turned their maps to the left, and then the right. They took out their compasses and oriented their maps. They had an animated discussion amongst themselves. Finally, one student said, “We’re on the trail to Long Lake!”

The student leader, realizing his mistake, took control and said, “Let’s turn around folks. Camp is on the other trail” as he got the group headed to our original destination.

That evening Bruce and I reviewed how the day went. I said, “That was fortunate you had to stop and care for your blister, cause it saved a lot of miles. Who knows how far the students would have gone down the wrong trail?”

I always knew Bruce was smart, but his response proved how smart. “Blister? What Blister?”

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“The Right Way to Go”

6/19/2023

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1980 on the summit of St. Regis Mtn

I spent over twenty years training outdoor leaders. The thing I learned above all else: It doesn’t matter if it’s in the outdoors, the military, or the corporate boardroom, the principles of leadership are always the same.

On my trips there was a predictability of what the students learned and where. One example: at about day ten of a thirty-three-day expedition group dynamic issues would surface. I’d see journal entries such as, “I hate my tent partner. He’s a slob.”

When I suggested they confront the schlump the response was, “But then they’ll hate me.”

To which I’d respond, “Let me get this straight. This person is driving you crazy but you’re afraid to confront them because they might get upset at you. How will that make you worse off than you already are? Besides, they may accept the criticism and try to improve.”

Another example: A student leader who thinks they’re a Marine Drill Sergeant which is fine in the Marines but doesn’t work well with community college students. One slightly older student leader once remarked, “This leadership stuff requires finesse. When I was a foreman of a construction crew, if someone didn’t do what I wanted I just hit ‘em over the head with a 2 x 4 and that usually got their attention. I can’t do that here.” (Thank God.)

Typically, we did a hike on day seven that would cement their navigation skills, build their confidence, and reinforce the challenges of leadership.

To this end we let students lead the group on a trailless hike. Frequently it was up St. Regis Mountain from Fish Pond deep in the St. Regis Canoe Area. For the experienced it is a straightforward hike. For the novice it is more challenging. Everything seems to look the same and determining exactly where you are is like figuring out where you are in the funhouse hall of mirrors: If you didn’t constantly pay attention, you were doomed.

The staff would select a student scout to lead the way and the hike up was always successful. They’d summit to spectacular views and newfound confidence in their navigation skills. For the trip back down, we selected a different scout so another student could gain experience and confidence. That too usually went well…except on one memorable occasion.

On this day the student successfully navigated her way down and before we knew it, we were on the shore of Fish Pond. There was only one problem – the group didn’t know if our camp was to the east or to the west. The student leader, Elise, huddled the students as they tried to determine which way camp was. They studied their maps, looked out on the pond, and as is typical of novices, tried to make the scene meet their expectations rather than read the lay of the land. Nine students thought camp was to the left, but Elise was adamant that it was to the right. Exasperated, Elise exclaimed, “I tell you…it’s this way,” pointing her outstretched arm west.

The nine students refused to listen to Elise. To Elise’s credit she didn’t strike off on her own, but instead went along with the students. And off the group went to the east with the staff keeping their mouths shut. Were we going the right way? The staff knew but weren’t going to say. After twenty minutes we came to the east end of the pond. Camp was nowhere to be seen. The students, finally recognizing their error, retraced their steps and found the campsite.

As we always did, the next morning we debriefed the experience. One of the staff asked, “Why didn’t you believe Elise? She was right.”

So why didn’t they believe her? Here’s why: Even though it was only a week into the course, Elise already had a reputation for stretching the truth. In the first week, she bragged about her experience, although it was nonexistent. She told stories that were unbelievable, for a good reason – they were total fiction. So, by the time the students came down from St. Regis Mountain and arrived at the shore of Fish Pond Elise’s die was cast. She was so used to exercising the art of honesty avoidance that when she finally told the truth, no one believed her.

Now we come to the essence of leadership, credibility. An example of a leader who lost credibility and as a result, his life is Henry Hudson. In looking for the northwest passage, due to his misreading and mistreatment of his crew they mutinied. As a result, they forced him, his teenage son, and seven crew members into a shallop and let them fend for themselves in the middle of James Bay never to be heard from again. Henry Hudson, a great navigator, lousy leader.

And no one ever had greater credibility than Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. What made him a great leader? He put the welfare of his men above all else. He focused on confidence, hope, collaboration, and courtesy. And he was a great role model.

Even today, a hundred years later, Ernest Shackleton is used as the quintessential example of great leadership.

I believe building credibility is about being a good role model. Or to paraphrase Robert Fulghum, don’t worry that your kids never listen to you. Worry that they are watching everything you do.

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Filthy Thoughts

6/5/2023

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I had a colleague at North Country Community College who loved a lot of things about the Wilderness Recreation Leadership Program. He loved the hard physical work, hiking down the trail, working up a sweat. He loved exploring the countryside, visiting beautiful streams and ponds, and the mountaintop vistas. As a counselor, he loved the group dynamics and seeing the students learning to live and work together. Yes, he loved all of that.

He did have one problem, which was a big obstacle to joining us on our 33-day fall expedition or our two-week winter trip: He couldn’t stand the idea of getting hot, sweaty, and dirty and not be able to take a shower. “I don’t know how you do it” he’d say, “I gotta have a shower at the end of the day.”
And that folks, separates the lovers of overnight wilderness trips from the lovers of hot water and soap.

Don’t get me wrong, personal hygiene is critical to staying healthy in the outdoors. Washing hands should be a frequent and thorough ritual.

On our trips we bathed when the weather permitted. That means in the summer we would “Billy Can Bathe”. We filled our cook pots or other large containers with water and walked them at least 150 feet from the shore of any water source. We’d jump in the lake or stream to get wet. (You gotta love the 50 degree F streams, which are like ice cream brain freezes – only worse) We'd soap up sparingly, then using the containers of water, we’d rinse off thoroughly. That kept soap out of the water bodies and us clean – sort of.

It makes you feel clean and refreshed…for about 20 minutes then the heat and humidity of the summer beat down on you once again. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Just don’t expect miracles. Will you still probably smell? Yes. Will you be thoroughly clean? No. Will you feel better? Hopefully.

And then there is winter. Not the best environment in which to try to bathe. I spent forty days on Denali in mostly winter conditions and the closest I came to a bath was a sponge bath about two-weeks into the trip.

So, when I can’t “Billy Can Bath,” what do I do on long trips? (Other than wash my hands, wash my hands, and wash my hands) Not much. I believe the need for extreme cleanliness has been manufactured by Madison Avenue. I even have the medical community to back me up. What happens when you bathe too much?

According to webmd.com:

"Normal skin has a protective layer of oil and a balance of “good” bacteria that help protect your skin from dryness and germs. If you clean it too often, especially with harsh soaps and lots of scrubbing, you can strip away this layer, leading to dry, irritated, itchy skin. This can cause cracks in the skin that allow germs and allergens to get through resulting in skin infections or allergic reactions.”

It is estimated that two-thirds of Americans take a shower every day But according to health experts for patients with skin conditions, it may be detrimental. As the body’s largest organ, the skin is host to bacteria, viruses, and fungi, which form a skin microbiome. According to an article published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, this microbiota protects the body from pathogens, bolsters our immune system, and disposes of natural waste. Too much bathing can upset the balance of bacteria and other useful microorganisms.

I rest my case .…and my soap dish.

I use my tongue-in-cheek Dirt Scale Graph to demonstrate the increase in body grime during the course of a trip. You get dirtiest on the first few days of your trip but then it levels off. If you’re out for a month, which many of our trips were, you don’t keep getting dirtier or dirtier, you just level off at being a smelly, stinky wilderness venturer. Learn to live in it, learn to thrive in it.

I recommend four things for staying healthy outdoors: wash or sanitize your hands frequently and thoroughly, don’t share your water bottle, don’t let others reach into your bag of gorp or other snacks, and finally, treat your water for common microorganisms. Most of the time you’re not going to get sick from the outdoors, you’re going to get sick by getting a bug from other campers.

Like so many things, attitude is everything --You need to think positively. So, when you’re grimy, gritty, and smellier than the FBI’s body farm, don’t think, “It could be worse.” Instead think, “I’ve reached the plateau of Drury’s dirt curve.”

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wilderness? Or…Wilderness?

5/22/2023

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A couple of weeks ago there was a meeting in the Harrietstown Hall. Its purpose was to solicit public input on issues regarding the High Peaks Wilderness Complex, the Adirondack Park’s most popular Wilderness.

It focused on the Department of Environmental Conservation’s efforts to implement a Visitor Use Management strategy. Never mind that the DEC was supposed to come up with such a strategy over fifty years ago, kudos to the state for finally tackling this challenging and controversial issue.

Josh Clague, the Adirondack Park Coordinator who’s responsible for promoting sustainable use planning and implementation (a challenging task) kicked off the event, while Susan Hayman and Abbie Larkin of the Otak Consultancy explained the purpose of the meeting and facilitated the discussion. I was especially pleased to see Josh and Abbie, whom I met while working on the Adirondack Hamlets to Huts project. Josh was working on Complex Planning, looking at not just one Wilderness area but large areas and how they interact with each other. I’m excited that Otak was smart enough to hire Abbie to be their local point person, since she did her PhD work in the Park and has a wealth of land management knowledge. It bodes well for the project.

The meeting reminded me how long we’ve been discussing the High Peaks Wilderness. The 1977 High Peaks Advisory Report addressed visitor issues and cited an increased use of 700% in the previous 25 years. The first High Peaks Wilderness Unit Management Plan was completed in early 1999 and updated in 2018. The issues in all these documents, including the work done in the most recent report, that of the 2021 High Peaks Advisory Group, are largely the same. They call for more funding, better data collection, improved trails, unified education, and some form of visitor capacity determination.

The DEC’s biggest challenge is finding a way to meet the legislative/regulatory demands of what wilderness must be, and still meet as many of the users' desires as possible. What do I mean by that? Users may want more parking lots, or no regulation at all. Heck, they may want keg parties on the mountain's summits. The land manager’s job isn’t to meet the users’ desires, but to allow as much human use as possible while maintaining a Wilderness environment.

Some people at the meeting pointed out that most visitors are happy with their High Peaks experience. I agree, but that’s not the point. I love watching high school football, but I don’t confuse it with the National Football League. Similarly, I love motorboating on Lower Saranac Lake, but I don’t confuse Lower Saranac with a Wilderness area. Many High Peaks visitors are confusing the High Peaks with a suburban park experience, but they shouldn’t, any more than someone should confuse high school football with the NFL. This isn’t my opinion, it’s what the legal definition requires.

An Adirondack Wilderness experience should be special. It shouldn’t be like a walk in a suburban/urban park. It should provide a sense of remoteness and there should be opportunities for solitude. Large rock-concert like crowds of people should not be found on the summits. These are qualities that make a Wilderness a Wilderness.

After fifty years of having led wilderness outings my wilderness philosophy has become refined. It’s not green enough for the Wilderness advocates but is too radical for hikers who love traveling outdoors and just want easy and readily available access.

So, what is my philosophy?

First, I don’t think all new lands acquired by the state need to be classified as Wilderness (the state’s most restrictive land classification.) Note how I use a capital W to denote officially classified wilderness. A lowercase w denotes lands that may have wild and Wilderness-like characteristics but aren’t officially classified as Wilderness. If a unit of state land is classified as Wilderness, then damn it all, it needs to be managed as such.

Green groups love it when I advocate for a wilder Wilderness but aren’t crazy about my lack of enthusiasm for designating new state purchases as such. On the other hand, many outdoor enthusiasts love that I don’t support designating all new lands as Wilderness, but bristle when I call for Wilderness restrictions.

Also, we need to understand the concept of “Carrying Capacity,” more commonly called “Visitor Capacity.” The concept, dating back to the 1930s, is how many people can visit a Wilderness Area at the same time before it no longer seems like a Wilderness. For some activities, the concept of carrying capacity is simple. For example, how many people can get on a tennis court before it’s no longer the game as we know it? The answer is simple. For Wilderness it’s more complex.

Not only do you have the question of how many people are too many before the trails get damaged, the water polluted, etc. (the physical carrying capacity). You also have the question of how many people can visit before, psychologically, it just doesn’t seem like Wilderness anymore (the social carrying capacity). It sounds subjective, and it is. But so is your doctor’s diagnosis of your symptoms. That’s why we go to doctors, for their professional opinion. That’s why we need Wilderness managers – to establish the criteria, collect the data, and make the decisions on whether or not we’ve exceeded the land's ability to provide a quality outdoor experience.

Many of the questions, and much of the discussion last week, were about whether there would be more restrictions to accessing the High Peaks. By the end of the night, it was apparent that many people favored convenience over wildness. Which is ironic because wilderness travel is inherently inconvenient. It’s a strenuous activity, frequently with heavy packs, living in uncomfortable settings. Convenience, like comfort, is a relative term.

Here are some of the convenience-based questions.

“If I get off early from work, will I be able to take a quick hike up Algonquin mountain or will there be restrictions?” Maybe, but perhaps it's smarter to hike one of the hundreds of other mountains that don’t have regulations, and only hike Algonquin when you have time to plan ahead. (By the way, “Plan Ahead & Prepare” is the number one Leave No Trace principle).

“Will they enlarge parking lots, so it is easier to find a parking place?” It depends. Parking lots need to reflect the visitor capacity. If the visitor capacity is already being exceeded, then you can’t enlarge the parking lot.

“Will I still have to get up at 4:00 AM to find a parking place?” Not if you’re willing to have permitting regulations that would guarantee you a parking spot. (Like you currently have at the Adirondack Mountain Reserve.)

One area of unanimity was the need for trails to be sustainably rehabilitated. In this case, we know what needs to be done, we just need the political will and funding to do it.

The most surprising remark was “Don’t try to fix what ain’t broke.” Every report and plan since 1977 talks about overcrowding, determining carrying capacities, the need for better trails, the need for more education, and the need to explore permit systems.

In other words, maybe things are working, but they’re not working as well as they should. The challenges haven’t changed. And if nothing’s done, things are only going to get worse.

So – in this case at least, if things ain’t broke they sure as hell need a major overhaul.

The 1977 and 2021 High Peaks Reports and management plans can be found at: http://www.backcountryclassroom.net/resources.html

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The Good Books

5/9/2023

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My dad was a devout Episcopalian and a dedicated church goer who rarely missed a Sunday. While my mother was spiritual in her own right and had high moral standards, she wasn’t a church goer. I remember her explaining this to the minister who welcomed us when we moved from Long Island to the northern Finger Lakes. He told her how much he was looking forward to seeing her in church and she said, “You know, Reverend, I believe it is more important to lead a good Christian life than it is to go to church every Sunday.” He huffed and puffed a bit and then departed.

My mother’s statement stayed with me and became the foundation for my journeys into organized religion. I have tried to live a good Christian life. (I like to think you could substitute Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or your religion of choice). Honesty, hard work, character, self-direction, and life-long learning are the kind of values I have tried to build my life around.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to put myself on a pedestal. I’m as flawed as the next person, just ask those closest to me. I just don’t feel I need church to pursue these values. For me the outdoors is my place of worship and where I get spiritual fulfillment.

I met a Catholic priest a few years ago who was studying for a master’s degree in outdoor recreation. He told me, “The trouble with religion is that it frequently gets in the way of spirituality.”
What is it about the outdoors that meets my spiritual needs? It's the tranquility, the beauty, the solitude. It’s being one with the weather. It’s a place where I meet new friends (mostly plants and animals, though occasionally people). It's a place that requires authenticity and allows simplicity. The research is clear that experiencing nature can improve our minds, rejuvenate our bodies, and restore our spirits. I see the outdoors as a place to pursue my spirituality, resulting in increased serenity, hope, and compassion. These observations have come to me gradually over the years.

I was always in a bit of a quandary when asked to assist my colleagues who ran Christian-based outdoor programs. They were great people running great programs, but I felt that going outdoors to find your spirituality is like jumping in the lake to get wet. You don’t have to plan it, it just happens.
What drives me crazy are people who get in trouble in the wilderness due to their own negligence and then say, “It’s God's will,” or “God will provide.” To which I say, “Did God tell you to leave your flashlight at home? Is God going to bring you the extra warm layer you left in the car?”

It all came to a head for me when I was asked by my good friend Rich Obenschain of Gordon College (a Christian school) to do training for staff at their Adirondack LaVida Camp. Rich, who passed away way too soon, was a longtime Wilderness Education Association (WEA) instructor. He had attended a WEA Professional Course I co-instructed as well as a number of workshops I’d presented over the years. After one at Gordon College in Wenham, MA he asked me to present to his La Vida camp leaders.

The camp was traditional looking with unpainted open stud walls, a small library of outdoor books and the exterior painted a schoolhouse red. For five years I provided interactive workshops on leadership and decision making, with a strong emphasis on collaboration. As the group members worked together in small groups to address the challenges I gave them, their religious commitment was obvious.

All my workshops focus on how to provide safe, enjoyable, environmentally-friendly wilderness outings, and I use my book The Backcountry Classroom as the foundation. There were numerous copies at the camp, although not nearly as many as the bibles the campers toted around.

By the fifth year I’d gotten to know the staff pretty well. I was use to the students carrying their bibles around, but I got the sense some of them were putting more importance in their faith than in making sure they were prepared for their wilderness forays.

I’m not sure what got into me, but after a long discussion about safety and emergency preparedness, it all culminated as I wrapped up my last presentation and blurted out, “You know, in an emergency in the wilderness you’d be better off with my book, The Backcountry Classroom than The Bible.

As I nervously prepared to leave, the camp director came up to me. What would he think? Had I overstepped my bounds? Was I guilty of blasphemy?

He thanked me. “It was great that you reminded them that rather than depending on God in an emergency they need to count on their own resources.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.

“After all,” he said, “God helps those who help themselves.”

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I contribute a biweekly column for our local newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. It is called Bushwhack Jack's Tracts. I post them here for your reading pleasure.
© 2023

A Knife Changing Experience

Leeches in my Breeches

Revisiting Loss

A Man of the Mountains and a Mountain of a Man

Life Lesson

“Turn, Turn, Turn”

“The Right Way to Go”

Filthy Thoughts

wilderness? Or…Wilderness?

The Good Books

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