Jack's Tracts

wilderness? Or…Wilderness?

5/22/2023

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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A Bearable Encounter

4/24/2023

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It was July 2010 and we were preparing to load our gear into the de Havilland Twin Otter seaplane, the workhorse of the northern Canada wilderness. We were about to fly 350 miles from Yellowknife into the barren lands of the Thelon River for a two-week paddle. Among our gear was bear spray for each paddler. We were heading into Grizzly country.

Bears are a fact of life in North America wilderness. You have your black bears, almost tame compared to the Grizzly. Then there’s the Grizzly’s big brother the Brown Bear. And finally the king of the continent’s bears, the Polar Bear.

You can’t outclimb them, you can’t outswim them, and you can't outrun them. You have to learn to avoid them and discourage them from seeing you as a meal. Noise is the most common tactic to discourage Grizzly bears. Bells hanging from your backpack are the dubious noise maker of choice. According to the old joke, you know whether you are in Black Bear or Grizzly Bear country by inspecting the scat: the Grizzly Bear scat has the bells in it.

We had thought about bringing just one can of bear repellent per canoe but decided not to, because if we needed it and were at the opposite end of the boat, we were in big trouble. So we were big spenders and bought one can per person stored within easy reach under our seats.

We met some folks just returning from a two-week trip in the bush and they gave us their bangers and whistling screamers, a fireworks version of bear deterrents. They didn’t see any bears during their trip. While grizzly bears were common on the Thelon river they aren’t used to seeing humans because fewer than a hundred people paddle the river a year. That was to our advantage because they didn’t see us as their next meal.

As I stood on the dock waiting to load our gear I remembered my previous foray to northern Canada. It was on the Churchill River and we had to bring rifles to protect us from Polar Bears. While only a couple of our party even saw a Polar Bear, our rifles were always at the ready. When walking around the town of Churchill at the end of our trip we saw a couple of natives who had survived Polar Bear encounters. Survival is rare … and not a pretty sight.

I also thought about my colleague Jeff Brown and his experience in Glacier National Park in the fall of 1986. Brown, who was 25 and his friend, Patricia Duff were on a twelve-mile day hike when they heard sounds just off the trail. They talked loudly in hopes of scaring whatever it was away, but then suddenly a grizzly bear came into view. Without warning it attacked them.

Patricia ran to a nearby tree and tried climbing it. The bear grabbed her by the leg and pulled her from the tree, nearly ripping her calf off. Jeff ran to her rescue yelling and punching the bear. It then turned and attacked him. He curled into the defensive fetal position protecting his neck with hands. The bear bit down on his skull, dragged him fifty yards down the trail, and suddenly for no reason released him. The bear left and the attack was over but the damage was done.

Jeff told me. “My guess is that the bear was hungry and stalked us. I heard and felt the grinding of its teeth on my bones. I think the bear got tired of gnawing through the three wool sweaters I was wearing. Strangely, what I remember most was that the bear’s breath was horrendous.”

Grievously wounded, they waited until they were sure the bear had left and then split up to find help. They both quickly found it and Patricia was evacuated with serious loss of blood. Jeff had over sixty puncture wounds on his arms. He spent a month in the hospital, receiving numerous skin grafts and over 1,000 stitches. It took four nurses six hours a day to change his dressings.

Ironically Jeff became the Executive Director of the Yellowstone Association, a nonprofit organization created to provide support to the Park and its Grizzly Bear population.

Jeff’s story was harrowing but I had traveled a fair amount in both Grizzly and Polar Bear country and felt we had taken the proper precautions and could handle any reasonable Grizzly encounters we might have.

For remoteness and wildlife viewing, the Thelon River is one of North America’s best. We caught 10 pound northern pike and delicious grayling. Plus, we saw numerous moose, bald eagles, wolves, caribou, signs of muskox, and enough black flies to fill a swimming pool.

The highlight, though, was ten days into our trip when high winds forced us to lay over. Doug Fitzgerald, my tent partner, and I had just finished thoroughly cleaning up after an excellent breakfast of bacon and pancakes with real maple syrup (Mark Twain Mapleworks of course). The wind was howling a steady twenty-five miles an hour, with gusts of forty, so I was happy to lie in my tent and read my book.

Doug had ventured up the shore where our companions Mark Wagstaff and Earl Davis were tented. They were sitting in the lee of the wind chatting. Suddenly Doug yelled, “Jack, come quick and bring your camera.”

I yelled, “What is it?”

There was a pause and then he added, “And bring your bear spray!”

I knew what it was.

I grabbed both and ran to them. Ed and Karen Hixson joined us and Doug said, “You just missed it! There was a Grizzly Bear about a hundred yards upriver along the shore!”

I was disappointed I missed it, but then looked up and less than 150 feet away through the alders was a grizzly bear standing on its hind legs towering above the shrubs. It was so close we could see it squinting at us, trying to figure out what we were. I had my camera in one hand taking photo after photo, while in my other hand I clutched my pepper spray. I thought of the Grizzly stories I had read but kept my cool.

Next the bear got down on all fours and lumbered out of the alders toward us. Our tent was a short distance from the bear. Doug said, “What do you think? If it touches any of our gear let’s shoot the bear spray?”

I said, “You bet. Mark, Earl, have those bangers and screamers ready.”
Once out of the alders, onto the sand and gravel, it sniffed around…and slowly turned and moseyed downstream. We watched it, staying alert, until it was well out of sight.

It all happened so quickly. After about fifteen minutes we breathed a collective sigh of relief and celebrated the unique wildlife encounter. I thought I had handled the entire situation with aplomb and congratulated myself. There I was just feet away from the bear and never lost my cool.

When my breathing got back to normal, and my pulse quit pounding I took a look at the dozen or so photos I took and realized that maybe I had been a bit nervous. Most of the photos were out of focus because my hand was shaking so badly. Maybe I wasn’t as cool as I thought I was.

Photos of the Thelon River

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Mentors - Part 2 - Idea Man

4/11/2023

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Doug with President Jimmy Carter

I thought I knew Doug Kelley. And while in some ways I did, in many ways I didn’t.

I met Doug at a meeting at Paul Smith’s College one winter night in 1973. I read a blurb in the Enterprise about an effort to create youth hostels in the Adirondacks. I’d recently completed a three-month trip through Europe, had stayed in dozens of hostels and had found them to provide great inexpensive lodging, so I thought the idea was worth introducing to the Adirondacks.

Doug was an ideas guy. I’ve met a lot of ideas people and usually was frustrated by them. Their ideas are like little fires. They run around lighting them but never tend them and leave them for others to fuel or put out. Not Doug. He not only churned out ideas, but he also created teams to make sure they came to life.

His wife Cynthia said, "He could walk into a room with an idea and by the time he left he would have everybody in the room wanting that same idea." She added, "He had an enthusiasm that was very catching."

Doug saw my enthusiasm for Youth Hostels and before I knew it, I found myself Chair of North Country Youth Hostels in charge of Hostels in Paul Smith’s, Malone, and the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. The goal was to establish Youth Hostels throughout the Adirondacks. At one point we had seven, but unfortunately, they didn’t last because the idea hasn’t caught on in the U.S. like it has in other parts of the world.

I became an adjunct faculty member under his tutelage and enthusiastically made the hour commute to Malone. Eventually I worked full-time under his leadership serving the Malone Campus in a variety of roles. I was student advisor to all the campus’ students, advisor to Student Government, veterans’ counselor, (there were many veteran students as the Vietnam War wound down) and taught a variety of Physical Education and Recreation courses. Doug was the ideal administrator, supporting me in my work and leading the community in numerous projects. I once caught at ride to Malone with the NCCC President at the time. He said, “I have to go to Malone regularly just to remind people that Kelley isn’t the President of the college.”

Before President Obama popularized the term, Doug was a community organizer but I’m not sure the community of Malone realized what a gem he was. He created the Malone Community Council, a group of community leaders that spearheaded many of his ideas. Besides starting North Country Youth Hostels, he led the revitalization of the old Ballard Mill, where Malone wool pants were once made, and which is now the site of the NCCC Malone Campus. He got the dam at the mill producing electricity and brought innumerable young and talented people to the community. He started the Mohawk Craft Cooperative to help market the handmade products made on the Mohawk Reservation.

He picked up hitchhikers all the time and encouraged them to move to Malone and Saranac Lake like he did Elden Housinger. Doug got a grant for Elden to bicycle every road in the Adirondack Park and write the first Adirondack bicycle guide. Both Malone and Saranac Lake have former hitchhikers that Doug brought to town.

But it’s the things I’ve learned about Doug in the past year that continue to amaze me. If you were a resume builder, you'd have a hard time matching his. He had a scar over his eye, acquired in the early sixties when he was hit with a Coke bottle while visiting Mississippi State University. The purpose of his visit was to recruit for the Encampment for Citizenship which emphasized youth activism and working for social justice, two things violently opposed in the South where segregation and Jim Crow were alive and well.

He was in his twenties when he conceived of and piloted the International Development Placement Association, a concept that would later become the Peace Corps. Doug received a telegram from President John F. Kennedy’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver, whom Kennedy tasked with staffing the new organization. It read, “If you want to work on Peace Corps, come to Washington Monday. We may be able to use you right away.” He became the Corps’ first national community relations director.
Doug had a fascinating list of accomplishments. He was arrested in the civil rights movement for participating in a sit-in. He got an “A” from Henry Kissinger in a class at Harvard. He photographed and corresponded with Eleanor Roosevelt on several occasions. He rubbed elbows with such luminaries as Martin Luther King Jr., Adlai Stevenson, John Lewis, Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Walter Reuther, and Pete Seeger. But I knew none of that until after he died.

I knew so little about him because Doug was rarely about Doug. Instead, he was about implementing his ideas and helping others.

As I said, Doug was an ideas guy. And when it comes to ideas guys, he was the best.

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Silent Partners

3/28/2023

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I first met Jim Whitelaw in 1959 at my Great Aunt Dot’s summer camp. Jim, the camp caretaker, was sharpening some knives on an old pedal grindstone. He was quiet but friendly and offered the grinding stone to my dad to sharpen our knives. Little did I know that for the next twenty years Jim would provide me with guidance about how to be responsible, how to think like a problem solver, and how to be an adult.

Jim’s day job was the Director of Facilities and head of buildings and grounds at Trudeau Institute and in the summer served as my Aunt Dot’s caretaker. It took valuable time away from his family and his favorite recreation, fishing, but I think he did it for two reasons. One, he could use the extra cash, and two, he understood how much he was helping an elderly lady maintain her beautiful camp.

I worked for him for a couple of summers mowing lawns and doing other odd jobs around the camp, and after graduating from high school I worked for him at the Trudeau Institute before going off to college. The Institute had opened its new research facility and was clearing land for housing of resident scientists, so each day I hauled and stacked four-foot logs that were sold for pulp and hauled and burned brush. It was hard work and good for a kid right out of high school.

Why did Jim become a mentor? For starters, he was an incredible problem solver. I’d go to him with some issue big or small, and he’d always have a solution. They were practical solutions to practical problems. Being a practical guy, I loved how he’d think briefly about a problem then suggest something that, in my mind, was pure genius.

I was fourteen when my distant cousin Chip, who was a couple of years younger than me, got a toy glider that you could shoot long distances with a slingshot like gizmo. Chip shot it up into the air and it got caught in a branch about thirty feet up in a white pine. Chip was desperate to get the plane back and I had no idea how to help, especially since we had no extension ladder that could reach that height. Dutifully I went to Jim with little hope that we would be able to retrieve it. I explained the situation, he pondered the problem in a pose resembling Rodin’s The Thinker. Then in no time he said, “Get a hose with a spray nozzle.” I hauled the hose over to the base of the tree and in seconds we’d shot the plane out of the tree with water and salvaged it.

I always wanted to emulate Jim and his problem-solving ability. I know I’ll never reach his ability, but I like to think that because of his tutelage, I’ve gotten a lot better.

Jim took me bullhead fishing in the evenings and pike fishing on an occasional Sunday afternoon near his camp on Miller Pond. He also took me Kokanee salmon fishing on Lake Colby. Our fishing trips were long on fishing but short on conversation. He’d demonstrate something like how to assemble a fishing rod and to be sure to oil the ferrules by rubbing them against the side of his nose, but then let me do it on my own. There wasn’t much conversation other than; where to cast, how to avoid catching the Dardevle in the weeds, how to hook the fish, how to grab the fish. And that’s it, neither of us were the chatty types.

He didn’t just take me fishing – he taught me how to catch fish, how to clean them, and even provided suggestions for cooking them.

In some ways Jim was a father figure. My dad passed away my senior year in high school and there weren’t many older men in my life. Plus, I wasn’t always the best student, or most responsible person. But slowly, and thanks to him, I learned and matured, became a harder worker and a more responsible adult.

In 1970 when I inherited my own camp, Jim could be counted on to provide much needed advice. At the end of the summer, before I headed back for my senior year in college, I had to close up the camp for the first time and knew little about what had to be done. I turned off the water, drained toilets, emptied drain traps, put up the shutters, and did everything that came to mind. But the smartest thing I did was leave a note in Jim’s workshop asking him to check out my work and let me know if I forgot anything. About two weeks later I got a note in the mail forwarded from my mom. It was Jim gently reminding me that I forgot to drain the water heater. He said, “I give you a C minus. Remember these things next time.”

A mentor is an experienced and trusted advisor who trains and counsels people. Jim certainly served that role for me.

Yours truly on the far left in 1968. This was a photo of summer employees at the Trudeau Institute the summer I worked there.

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Growing Old Graciously – More or Less

3/13/2023

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Phyliss, Eden, & June cheering on Megan

I’m a competitive guy. It’s something I’ve disguised much of my adult life, but it comes bubbling to the surface every now and then like it did a week ago at the Saranac Lake 3P (Pole/Pedal/Paddle). No, I didn’t compete. I’m too old, and more importantly, too smart for that.

Back in the day it didn’t matter whether it was high school football, wrestling, bowling, Monopoly, Parcheesi, Euchre, or dominos, I played to win. My raison d'etre: what’s the sense of playing if you don’t play to win? If you aren’t playing to win, aren’t you playing to lose?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a sore loser. I can lose, and do so often, and with grace. I just don’t like it. When I compete, I give it all the energy I can, and I’ll do everything within the rules to win. I subscribe to Grantland Rice’s quote, “It’s not that you won or lost but how you played the game.”

Years ago, when visiting an old college buddy, we went outdoors to toss a frisbee. We played catch for about five minutes before we came up with a game where one of us would be a goalie and the other tried to throw the frisbee past him. We kept score. An hour later when we went back indoors, I announced I’d won ten to eight. My wife said, “You went out to play catch with a frisbee. How do you win at frisbee?” It seemed fruitless to try to explain our impromptu rules and how we turned it into a competition. Only someone with the competition gene would understand.

Over time, as I fell in love with the outdoors, I found the wilderness was a place I didn’t need to be competitive, and I could enjoy it for its intrinsic value. I climbed mountains, but not to see who could get to the top first. I paddled rivers, but not to see who could get down them first. I skied, but not to see who could get down the mountain the fastest. I did those things only for my own enjoyment.

Some recreate outdoors to get in shape, others want to check mountains off the bucket list, still others love the social aspect of it. Me, I like all those things, but ultimately, they are just by products. I’m outdoors to breathe the fresh air, take in the beauty, and soak up the natural world.

The older I get, the better I am at stopping and smelling the roses, but not everyone thinks like me. I gave a presentation to a group of paddlers a while back and told them I prefer to do a canoe carry twice with lighter loads rather than once with a heavy load. I explained that it allowed me to see and experience the environment more thoroughly. I nearly got booed out of the venue.

I knew my competitive spirit had all but died when I took a badminton class my junior year of college and in a tournament was eliminated in the first round. What was wrong with me? How could I let that kid beat me three straight games? What happened to my competitive spirit? I think I finally realized that my life priorities had changed. My desire to be outdoors and explore wildlands became more important than winning badminton games. (Then again, maybe it's just a good excuse for losing)

I graduated from college, moved to Saranac Lake, and let my competitive spirit lie dormant. (And was especially grateful when asked to play rugby) Sure, I competed in the occasional canoe race, especially when my boys came of age. I played pick-up basketball during my NCCC years. I wasn’t very good, but it was fun – as long as I gave it my best shot. Yup, even pick-up basketball I had to give one hundred percent.

But I’ve left competition behind… almost. I’m a work in progress. I mentioned my competitive nature to my stepson Ben last night. He laughed and said, “I noticed. You just finished playing checkers with six-year-old Hazel and wouldn’t let her win.” Guilty as charged (but maybe next time I’ll challenge her to arm wrestling).

At the Saranac Lake 3P (Pole/Pedal/Paddle) my competitive spirit was manifested by becoming a cheerleader. Phyliss, the granddaughters, and I hollered encouragement to their parents Will and Megan. We waved our signs, drove from Pisgah to Dewey, to the river, and back to Pisgah, cheering the entire way.

But something else also manifested. While the competitive spirit can be suppressed it can’t be eliminated – at least not in my case because after watching Will and Megan, I found myself wishing I was thirty years younger and back in my competitive prime.

But since I'm not, maybe next year I’ll train hard and enter the 3P, in the over 70 class.

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A Friend Lost

2/28/2023

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My friend Ed Hixson, hiker, mountaineer, skier, and world-class paddler passed away last week at his home on Upper St.Regis Lake. As a child he was sent to a summer camp on Lake Placid to escape the polio epidemic of the 1940s and started a lifelong love affair with the outdoors. I don’t know anyone that loved the outdoors more than Ed.

I first met Ed in the mid-seventies at a meeting of paddlers, when some local paddlers were trying to organize a paddling club of sorts. Ed was a legend on the Hudson River and regularly tackled whitewater in his open canoe that others were hesitant to do in the safety of a raft. They looked to Ed for guidance which he was glad to provide although he was more interested in getting out and paddling than creating a club.

Once Ed found out I’d climbed Denali, he invited me to dinner to pick my brain, because he had much grander mountaineering plans than I: He wanted to climb, not just Denali (which he did), but also Mount Everest. He ended up serving as the expedition doctor on three Everest expeditions. He nearly summited one year but suffered a stroke, which caused him to walk in a slightly awkward way for the rest of his life. One day he said to me, “My gait is caused by my stroke.”

I said, “I always thought it was due to your two hip replacements.

He smiled and said, “That’s what I want people to think.

We came from different spheres. Although we were both believers in learning by experience, he believed colleges should provide canoes and other outdoor gear and just let the students have at it. By contrast, I advocated guided instruction, emphasizing safety and protection of the environment. Over the years I think he came to appreciate my approach, and I his. Sort of along these lines, “Good judgment is learned by using bad judgment,” and “Smart people learn from their experience. Wise people learn from the experience of others.”

When I first got to know Ed, I found him politically much more conservative than I. That changed considerably after Al Gore’s movie about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth came out. It had a tremendous impact on him, making him more attuned to environmental issues. Whether the issue was acid rain in the Adirondacks or climate change nationally Ed knew what the issues were and supported a healthy environment.

In 1998 my good friend Doug Fitzgerald and I started a biennial tradition that lasted fourteen years and totaled nine two-week wilderness river trips throughout North America. We paddled the Buffalo and Green Rivers before teaming up with Ed and his family in 2002. Ed, and his wife Karen with their two boys joined our wives and kids for a two-week trip down the Rio Grande River.

My memory of Ed on that trip is him paddling through the rapids, demonstrating the smoothest paddling technique I’d ever seen.

Two years later our families paddled the San Juan River, where our whitewater skills were put to a better test. Ed loved it when we overheard rafters exclaim, “Look at them old folks paddling open canoes. Wow, they’re good. Are they from National Geographic or something?”

Ed was a bit old school, so when he saw male rafters wearing skirts and other rafters running around naked, he didn’t mind the nudity, but he couldn’t comprehend the skirts. All he said was, “Why would men want to wear skirts?”

Ed was also old school when it came to packing. He liked to bring everything, no matter what the weight. We were all worried about meeting the weight limit for our flight into the Thelon River and tried to discourage Ed from bringing his axe and hammer, among other heavy items. We were desperately trying to figure out what to leave behind when the pilot surprised us by pointing to a giant four by ten-foot box and said, “If it will fit in the box you can bring it.” This ended the argument with Ed for the time being, but on other trips excess weight was a problem, especially when lots of canoe carries were involved.

My career was spending time outdoors. I loved it but took it a lot for granted. Not Ed. He was a surgeon and having spent too many hours in the operating room he never took the outdoors for granted.

It was on the Missouri River that Ed’s love of the outdoors was reinforced. We were debating whether to end the trip a day early. The weather was marginal, and the long drive home was on our minds. Ed, with a look on his face like a kid in the candy store said, “Yeah, I get it, we could get off the river a day early. But I’m content to stay out here, cook my meals and enjoy the river.” The comment said it all.

Our most remote trip was in 2010, when we traveled to northern Canada and flew 350 miles by bush plane into the Thelon River barren lands. The Thelon, known for its wildlife, had been on Ed’s bucket list for a while and it didn’t disappoint. We had great fishing, saw moose, wolves, caribou, and signs of muskox. But the highlight was one morning after breakfast when a grizzly bear came into our camp. We were all thrilled but none more so than Ed. We were taking pictures with one hand and prepared to fire away with bear spray with the other when, after a tense five minutes the bear finally wandered off. We looked at each other and Ed exclaimed, “Wasn’t that something!” It was a story Ed told many times.

They say there are three aspects of a wilderness adventure, the pre-trip planning, the trip, and the post-trip reflection. Ed cherished all three. He loved to read books and research the areas we were traveling. He may not have been as detail oriented as some, but he knew the history of an area as well as anyone, and even more, loved sharing it with others.

You know your trips have been successful when the outfitter picks you up at the end of the trip and says, “You must have done that bonding thing. Most groups aren’t even talking to each other when we pick them up.” Indeed, with our three families, the Hixsons, Fitzgeralds and Drurys, we had found a formula for success: Good folks, good planning, good communication, and clear recreational objectives built around fun and enjoyment. When combined with a spectacular environment it was a recipe for great adventures and wonderful memories.

After each trip Ed loved recounting stories as we all did. Often the winds got stronger, the waves bigger, the scenery better and the bugs worse. The fish got longer and the bears more ferocious. Of course, we all had stories aplenty. But when all is said and done, trips are about the people you share the experiences with. I will forever be grateful that Ed and I shared a lot of them.

Missouri River 2008 L-R Doug Fitzgerald, Jan Fitzgerald, Phyliss Drury, Jack Drury, Karen Hixson, Ed Hixson

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Best In Snow

2/14/2023

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The brief cold snap of last week had many in a panic. For me, although age has dampened my enthusiasm for the cold, it was just another day at the office. I calculate that I’ve camped a year's worth of nights in freezing weather and over twenty nights at between 25 and 40 below zero. Like any skill, knowledge and practice make perfect. The proper clothing and equipment, along with plenty of food, keeps misery at bay. Plus, there’s something satisfying about being toasty warm in a snow shelter when it’s 30 below zero.

My first winter camping trip was during a college semester break in January 1970 near Wanakena. Back when, if a trail was cut somewhere in the winter in all likelihood, it was a snowmobile trail. I decided to snowshoe from Wanakena to Januck’s Landing at the south end of Cranberry Lake, spend the night and snowshoe back out. It was a typical Adirondack January with nearly two feet of snow in the woods and daytime temperatures in the teens.

I was a rookie. I’d never camped in below freezing temperatures, with the exception of one debacle in March of 1968. I had, however, learned a lot from that experience. I had also been reading outdoor books. The first was Bradford Angier’s 1956 classic “How to Stay Alive in the Woods,” I read it cover to cover and while it wasn’t rocket science, it had great sections on “staying found” and “keeping out of trouble.” Those topics were to come in handy time and again.

It was late afternoon when I strapped on my rawhide-laced snowshoes with leather H-bindings. It was a little over three miles to the lean-to and I wasn’t sure I would make it before dark. But that was okay because I had a flashlight fortified with extra C batteries. It was my first trip on my snowshoes, a Christmas present from my mother the previous month. Traveling on a well-packed trail was easy despite my need to stop frequently to adjust the snowshoe bindings. As darkness crept up, I avoided turning on my flashlight until the last possible moment to keep my eyes adjusted to the dark. I no sooner turned it on than the snowmobile track headed off the trail out onto Cranberry Lake. I looked at my map, peered into the darkness out on the lake, and determined that the track went directly to Januck’s lean-to and would save me a mile of snowshoeing.

Should I take the risk and head out onto the lake or stay safe and follow the hiking trail?

I’ve never considered myself reckless, but my rational side said, a snowmobile is a lot heavier than me. If it made it, I should be able to. I just needed to keep an eye on the map and compass to make sure I was heading in the right direction.

Hiking out onto the lake with the beam of light limiting me to tunnel vision, I plodded on. I was able to confirm, with my trusty Silva Huntsman compass, that I was indeed heading in the correct direction. Soon I came upon the lean-to. It wasn’t your average lean-to. Yeah, it had lots of graffiti, more nails than needed, and lots of wear and tear. But it had two unique things. Some snowmobilers had spread a bale of hay on the floor and enclosed the front with plastic. So, it was less a lean-to and more a cabin.

This was long before I had become a Wilderness purist and I was psyched to have such luxury. But luxury is subjective, it was damn cold out. I went into the lean-to, laid out my down sleeping bag on the hay and crawled in. Hay provides little insulation, and I was unaware of the value of a sleeping pad.

I had been reading Colin Fletcher’s book, “The Complete Walker,” and tried one of his suggestions. Fletcher would get everything he needed for dinner; stove, fuel, water, pots, food, etc., place them around his sleeping bag, crawl in, and cook in the comfort of his sleeping bag. I tried it and I was surprised how well it worked. I lit a couple of candles, cooked up my dinner of mac and cheese, washed it down with a cup of hot chocolate and was set for the night. Then I put on dry long underwear and before I knew it, I was sawing logs.

I awoke early to find my nostril hairs had frozen. It was not just cold, but likely below zero cold.
I broke through the thick layer of ice in my pot and again fired up my Svea stove. Starting a Svea stove was always a feat in itself. Get some fuel to flow into the shallow bowl at the base of the burner, light the fuel, preheat the burner, and finally just as the fuel is about to burn out, turn on the burner. The stove would sputter a bit and then roar to life with the sound of an F-35 fighter jet. Noisy, but it could boil water in no time.

Before I could say, “Jack London,” I’d downed a bowl of instant oatmeal and a cup of hot chocolate – prepared from the warmth of my sleeping bag. Well nourished, with calories to burn, I dressed, packed up, and got on my way.

It was one of those frigid clear mornings where you could see for miles, and I made good time retracing my snowshoe tracks back to my car.

The car started with only minimal resistance, and I drove off for my first-ever winter visit to Saranac Lake. I drove over to Moody Pond and visited the Cantwell family.

I told them of my adventure. As I recounted my trek, I realized I'd not only survived the night, I’d thrived. Using my new snowshoes, snowshoeing in the dark, finding the enclosed lean-to, cooking from my sleeping bag, sleeping through the night, a hot breakfast, and the snowshoe trek out made for the perfect adventure.

I don’t know if they were impressed, but I sure was – especially after I found out that the low for the night had been -280F.

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Father and Son

1/31/2023

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I tell young parents to hug their kids tight and not let go because they’ll be grown up and gone in a nanosecond. I also tell them to hang on for the ride, for their children will bring them more joy, and more pain, than they can ever imagine.

My two boys, Eli and Dustin came along, and while I know it’s cliche, they made my life complete. The older, Eli, was born in April after the 1980 Winter Olympics.

He was a great kid and as a family we had great fun traveling the country, visiting relatives, and experiencing the outdoors. When Eli hit adolescence he became a handful, but the foundation had been laid and although he went through a long rough patch, I knew things would work out for him.
Eventually he found Krishna Consciousness, a fundamental form of Hinduism and it proved to be the right path for him. Like many people who find religion, he once told me, “I couldn’t leave the destructive lifestyle behind without help. I needed the guidance of a higher power.” It was with the guidance of Krishna Consciousness that he cleaned up his act, found his passion (spreading the word through food), and met his wonderful wife Mandali.

On January 31, 2012, Eli was killed at the age of 31 in a car accident. I have never felt such pain. I had lost my parents and three siblings way too young, but nothing comes close to the pain of losing a child. Thirteen years later I still have to remind myself to focus on the good times and the joy he brought to my life, rather than the pain of losing him.

I visited Eli in different parts of the world during his Krishna travels. In Albany outside a Grateful Dead concert, where he was selling pizza to concert goers. In England at an estate once owned by George Harrison and given to the Krishna community. In New York City, where I helped pull a float down fifth avenue during a Krishna parade. And the last time, when he was coordinating 4,000 meals at a Wanderlust Yoga and Music festival in Stratton, Vermont.

He had two funeral ceremonies, one in Florida and one in India; Each was uniquely Hindu in its own way. In Florida we were ushered into a reposing room where a couple of devotees were chanting “Hare Krishna" accompanied by an Indian drum called a mridangam and a small harmonium. The ceremony started with some wonderful eulogies from Eli’s friends.

My favorite demonstrated Eli’s compassion as well as his business acumen. A friend told of Eli at the Burning Man Festival, where Eli coordinated food for thousands. Eli had decided to rent a refrigerated tractor trailer to keep their produce fresh but needed just half the space. Eli figured by renting out the other half, he would pay for the rental of the truck. It was working out well until one vendor, who was storing a pallet of melons in the truck, accused Eli’s staff of stealing some of his melons and he threatened not to pay his rental fee. Eli was compassionate, telling him they had not stolen his melons but offered to contact the produce company to see if they could track down the missing melons. Then he said if they didn’t pay the rental fee that was okay too – He’d have the rest of their produce immediately taken out of the cooler and left in the hot desert.

After the eulogies the chanting resumed. Slowly it grew in tempo and volume. The casket was wheeled out the door into the crematorium. The priest started reading Sanskrit. We were all sobbing as the doors to the crematorium were opened and we pushed in the casket. Then the doors were closed, and we put our hands on the button and started the fire.

It was all too surreal and was all a haze, but I like to think it provided some closure that is missing from most western funerals.

Eli’s mother, his brother Dustin, and I decided to travel with his wife Mandali to India to spread his ashes on the Ganges River, a Krishna tradition. Within a couple of days, we flew to Kolkata (Calcutta) where we were met by friends of Eli’s who drove us the two and a half hours to Mayapur.

The culminating event was a ceremony on the Ganges River. From my journal:

Today’s the day – not much sleep last night – got up, put on my Yogi pants and Indian shirt – I’m terribly sad but ready.
As we look out from the 3rd floor, we see a small crowd gathering and starting to chant. We are the guests of honor. We walk down the road to the Ganges, where a boat awaits. The chanting continues as we load the old boat. We head downstream to a large sandbar. Eli’s friends lead more chanting while we wait in the warmth of the sun. A colleague of Eli’s comes over and explains the service to us then tells us we need to be strong. That’s easy for him to say.
I’m in a warm fog. The priest starts the ceremony. There is a round straw tray. They line it with a layer of river mud, then Mandali pours Eli’s ashes on it, along with some ghee, honey, and sesame seeds. The tray is sent down the river with many candles on floating leaves.
At one point I break away and walk down stream to collect some Ganges water as a keepsake.
We boat back to the temple and convene in a spacious room where we are served a meal of prasadam (holy food), an interesting mix of traditional Hare Krishna food and an Italian pasta dish. It turns out Eli had a soft spot for Italian food. There are more eulogies by people whose lives Eli touched.
I speak with great difficulty, but my message is simple, “When our children are born, we have dreams and aspirations for them. It has taken me a long time to realize that those were MY dreams. While those dreams and aspirations are worthy, you must let go of them and realize that the important dreams and aspirations are not yours but your children’s.

Eli traveled a unique path. It wasn’t the path I envisioned but it was the right path for him.

The last time I saw Eli in Vermont

Eli helping me when working on our house.

Eli and Dustin

Eli

Eli snowboarding up St.Regis Mtn

Eli on the Grand Teton

Eli and Dad getting ready to climb the Grand Teton

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Every Dog Has Its Day

1/17/2023

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For sixteen years I led month-long wilderness expeditions in the fall and two-week winter expeditions in January for NCCC. People told me I had the best job in the world, and I said, “I do, but you’d hate it.” I reminded them I had to leave my family for those periods, and I was out in the rain and mud, bugs and winds, and snow and cold. I spent 1,000 nights in the field with the students, and I was responsible for their safety, wellbeing, and making them the best outdoor leaders possible. I loved it, but it required sacrifice.

So, what did we do all those days and nights? You mean besides having over fifty lessons to teach and learn, thirty camps to set up and break down, seventy meals to prepare, and miles to hike and paddle? How about reading and assessing journals, and evaluating leadership?

But in between we had a lot of fun. We experienced the beauty and uniqueness of the Adirondack Wilderness. We went days on end without seeing anyone outside of our group and we explored corners of the Adirondacks that few ever see.

One of my favorite activities was storytelling. It ate up lots of hours on the trail, taking our minds off our heavy packs. From my mother I learned to love “shaggy dog stories.” Which was only natural, since, for over fifty years, she raised shaggy Newfoundland dogs. Shaggy dog stories are long-winded tales characterized by interminable narration of irrelevant incidents and typically ending with an anticlimax or a groan-inducing pun.

A standard one was about The Tiz Bottle. It takes about twenty minutes to tell and involves lots of “tiz this and tiz that” and ends when the protagonist finds the last tiz bottle in existence. And when he does, he taps the bottle and sings “My country TIZ of thee.”

As much as the students groaned when they heard these tales, they all wanted to remember them to tell in the future.

Minute Mysteries were another form of storytelling that took the grind out of a long hike. They are riddles where folks try to solve them by asking yes or no questions. The name is a misnomer since they usually take a half hour or more to solve. A typical one is, “I want to go home but I can’t go home because of the man with the mask. Who am I?” I won’t ruin the fun by giving you the answer. A hint: Finding the solution frequently involves figuring out the person’s job. You can ask me yes or no questions via my Facebook page if you like.

Then there were campfire stories and poetry. There were Robert Service standards like The Cremation of Sam McGee and less common The Men that Don’t Fit In. My Robert Service favorite is The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill. It’s about a sourdough’s promise to bury his buddy when he dies. He gets challenged when he arrives at Bill’s cabin to find him frozen. He thawed Bill for thirteen days, but to no avail...

Sparkling ice in the dead man’s chest, glittering ice in his hair,
Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, ice in his glassy stare;
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog, with his arms and legs outspread.
I gazed at the coffin I’d brought for him, and I gazed at his gruesome dead,
And at last I spoke: ‘Bill liked his joke: but still, goldarn his eyes,
A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies...’
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, as if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: ‘It ain’t no use – he’s froze too hard to thaw,
He’s obstinate, and he won’t lie straight, so I guess I got to – saw.’

Morbid? Hell yes. But it’s a great poem to tell when you’re out in the woods and the high temperature for the day is ten below.

Then there’s Jack London’s To Build a Fire. No matter how cold our group was, we were never as cold as the protagonist in To Build a Fire. The sourdough neglects to listen to the old timer who told him one must never travel alone in the north when it’s colder than fifty below zero. When he gets a foot wet he stops to build a fire but fails. Slowly and tragically he freezes to death, but admirably he admits to himself that the old timer was right.

On a hot summer day, I get cold just reading it.

Of course, scary stories were also part of the repertoire. We even made up our own. When camping near Newcomb Lake, the actual site of an eight-year old's disappearance in 1971, students made up a tale where “Sammy Santanoni” disappeared. Twenty-years later his ghost came back as an adult and started murdering college students. That’s enough to keep you awake at night – especially if you were a college student.

And then, best of all, there were the story pranks. I’d sit next to someone who’d make a good victim and tell a story that went something like this:

My wife and I were in Atlantic City for a conference and had a break, so we took a stroll down the boardwalk. We walked by a fortune teller’s booth, and I told my wife I didn’t believe in any of that stuff.
She nudged me and said, “I dare you to go in and see what she has to say about you.”

I couldn’t resist the challenge, so we walked in.

The woman was dressed in the traditional gypsy garb.

I said, “I’m not a big believer in this kind of stuff but I thought it’d be fun to give it a try.”

She ignored me and motioned me to sit down. She didn’t have a crystal ball or tarot cards, but within a minute she fell into a trance and said, “You have lived a previous life…but not as a human. You were a dog, a German shepherd.”

I chuckled to myself, but she was so serious I didn’t want to be rude, so I just said, “Okay.”

She continued, “You were a guard dog for the German army during World War I.”

At this point, even though I’m of German heritage, I thought the entire thing was a joke and I was ready to get up and leave. But what she said next made me a believer.

She said, “You were beaten every day and as a result you had bone damage to your skull. To this day if you feel behind your left ear, you’ll feel a bony protrusion.”

I immediately reached behind my ear. And sure enough there it was: A rock-hard, grape-size lump.

Then I’d turn to the student on my left and say, “Here, behind my ear, you can feel it.”

When she reached behind my ear, I’d turn and bark ferociously three or four times. Inevitably she’d recoil in shock, let out a shriek, and the others would burst out laughing, grateful they weren’t sitting next to me.

Inappropriate? Maybe.

Politically incorrect? Probably.

Funny? Always.

A few of the well-used resources

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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

wilderness? Or…Wilderness?

The Good Books

A Bearable Encounter

Photos of the Thelon River

Mentors - Part 2 - Idea Man

Silent Partners

Growing Old Graciously – More or Less

A Friend Lost

Best In Snow

Father and Son

Every Dog Has Its Day

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