Runneling the Tetons

We had been hearing that the Tetons had a good snow year and were at 175% of normal snowpack and that people were galloping up and down the Grand, so as the temps climbed and the snowpack declined in the Wasatch we looked to get out and check out our northern neighbors without an agenda or grand ambitions.  Of course, that also meant that we needed to check in with Drew, since not only is his place one of the nicest little cabins on the planet on the edge of Lupine Meadows, but he's a stellar host as well.  And if you happen to have an issue, it's not often to have a friend who had received a Medal of Valor from the Department of the Interior!

Our first morning we were awakened by the sound of munching:

An elk more interested in us than the nice view of Teewinot

 We were a little surprised at how high the snow line was, but we found later that it's been quite warm and dry in the Tetons for the last month and the snowpack went from "big" to "average".  Not a big deal, just a bit more walking in shoes.

One of the biggest problems with going to a place like that is with so many amazing choices, what to do?  We were on a pretty mellow, recon-sort of pace, and decided that Disappointment Peak - right in the heart of the "big" peaks there, with amazing views and some good ski options - was the best bet to start on.  A nice moderate hike through the woods and some challenging skinning perched on the rims between tree wells brought us to a nice view of our intended line:

The "football field"and the Spoon Couloir spilling off of it above Surprise Lake, or maybe Amphitheater lake; I can't remember.... 

so it was good that we had a burly mountain man to point out the obvious:

"look!  there it is!"

We charged on up and indeed had amazing views:

agape-ing at the views, and apparently looking for my bike

 One of the things about spring skiing is the possibility of runnels and sun cups.  I think we were a little late this season, because they were around in abundance.  That super-mellow football field was actually pretty challenging, since - as Colin put it - it's like trying to ski back and forth across inconsistent railroad tracks.  But finally we got to the couloir, which was a bit less cupped.

Colin navigating the smaller railroad tracks

It had softened enough that the small runnels were buffable. 

It's a fun line

 On our way out we saw a bunch of folks - including little kids -postholing in the deepening afternoon slop on a nice family hike somewhere in the vicinity of a trail that was several feet deep.  We felt like calling Drew to tell he and his Jenny Lake rescue team to not make any plans for that evening since they might be busy!

We then decided to head for nearby Buck Peak, since it looked like there was not only more snow up there but also a bit more north facing lines that may not be as cupped/runnelled.  As it turned out, we got nearby, but a small storm moved in:

And following our noses through the fog got us to....Static Peak.  Which was fine; there's a great line off the top of that as well.  But the Runnelfest continued in a bit bigger way, and while it was nice to boot up the "tracks" and we could sorta clamp the whippets on either side of the runnel ribs it was pretty dicey skiing.

Possible cover photo for Runnel Magazine?  

 We did find one short, south facing shot that had softened enough and wasn't quite as beat up:

 And again the views were amazing and the recon was really helpful.  We just need to get up there a little earlier next time.

That night we were hosted by Zinnia and her trail crewmates up on the Blackrock river, where we feasted on meat that was brewed all-night in a pit barbecue that would have made any Texas or Southern pit barbecuers proud:

Another fun run along the Valley trail (which I regretfully bypassed last summer on a great circumnav run with Jason and Jared) and nice jaunt up the dramatic Death Canyon and we were heading for the barn.

However, for a variety of reasons I had never been in Jackson at the time when the legendary Kings Wave was firing, so by coincidence the river was at an optimum level and we had our boats, so we did a nice surf session

It may look like just sitting there, but I swear....I'm doing something!  

At least this looks like something is happening

Brother Paul having a Riot

It's nice the whitewater kayaking  is dying enough to the point that such an awesome wave with a phat eddy was nearly empty on a Sunday afternoon!

Thanks again to Drew and Zin for their great hosting and to Paul and Colin for the fun weekend and all the above pics!

Water

"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."
- This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but until the attribution can be verified, the quote should not be regarded as authentic.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about water.  This historically has been common for me this time of year, because snowmelt season also means paddling season, but when I realized some years ago that I lived in the desert and paddling is – at best – challenging, water took on a bit less meaning.  But this year has been different, partly because I read the excellent “River Republic” by Dan McCool (who has the best last name ever) that’s essentially a much-more-readable update to the legendary tome “Cadillac Desert”, partly because I was stunned to hear Jerry Brown declare a state of emergency drought in California in January,  the arrival of the annual sprinkler systems watering Kentucky Bluegrass in Salt Lake in April (historically one of the wettest months), and a trip to western Washington, where water is literally bubbling out of the ground everywhere. 

Just one of the zillions of random WA creeks that has as much water as one of Salt Lake's main water supplies 

The Wasatch had a pretty lean snow year to start, but a snowy March/April brought the snowpack up to effectively “average”, though I realized this year that our water managers care naught for anything below about the base level for the ski resorts; we had almost no backcountry skiing below 8000 feet this year.  Now Big and Little Cottonwood creeks are gushing happily from their high elevation snowmelt, the water managers are happy, and our slice of the desert Southwest's perpetual water woes (essentially in place because the Colorado River Compact was created after a several-year cycle of big water years and before major population shifts to the SoCal and the Southwest) has been staved off for another year.  But whither this water?  I know that if by some remote chance SLC mayor Ralph Becker or his water chief Jeff Neimeyer reads this they’ll be deeply offended, but our “watersheds” are pretty weird:  you can’t have dogs in the canyons that hold the water and you can’t swim in the alpine lakes, but apparently you can have a freeway (Parley’s canyon), 3000 inhabitants (Big Cottonwood Canyon), multiple ski resorts and major, well-traveled highways that are salted many times a year that all drain that salt, antifreeze, transmission fluid, oil:

“Apr 30, 2014 - A truck crash in Parley's Canyon has led to a large oil spill and snarled traffic Wednesday.”

 Or turkeys:

Turkey truck crash into Utah reservoir sparks fears of contamination

directly into our “protected” drinking water sources 

However, despite our best efforts to the contrary, the water stays remarkably good thanks to Ma Nature.  And once in SLC it is treated and comes out – as Mr. Neiermeyer loves to point out – as some of the purest water in the country.  Now, I’m no water expert, but I do know that in Washington and Oregon the municipal watersheds are….absolutely, positively, off-limits.  Portland’s Bull Run river watershed is entirely and literally fenced off, and trespassing is a major deal.  A far cry from ski resorts, highways, communities with septic systems, and freeways (but NO DOGS! And NO SWIMMING!).  But, I guess if you put enough chlorine (aka, according to The Wiki: “a toxic gas that irritates the respiratory system”)  it becomes potable. 

The ironic thing is that – after paying for this purification with our tax dollars - we then put 60-70% of it on our lawns (and a recent study pointed out that something like 90% of US households don’t even “use” their lawns much/at all), poo and whizz in much of what’s left, and then…..we don’t even drink it! 

Acording to this site: http://www.bottledwater.org/files/2011BWstats.pdf  they proudly state that the average American drinks almost 30 gallons of bottled water per year.  I must say, hats off to the likes of Dasani (aka Coke), AquaFina (aka Pepsi), Arrowhead (aka Nestle), and others whose marketeers realized that people will exchange their hard-earned money for….water that they can get out of their own tap!  And it’s not cheap:  the other day at the grocery store I saw bottled water that varied between $0.02/oz to $0.06/oz,  which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that at 128 ounces to the gallon that we are paying between $2.50 and $7.50 per gallon for water.  Compared to gasoline that has been extracted from the earth, transported as crude halfway around the world on a boat, refined into high-octane gas, and then trucked to gas stations for practically the same price or even much less….bottled water is not a sweet deal.  It’s even more expensive than cheap beer! Good marketing indeed.  But at least Dasani and others are simply tap water that is also trucked across the country and packaged in plastic containers that are far more expensive than their contents (but they love to greenwash themselves in envirospeak by touting how much recycled content they use!  C’mon, are we that gullible?!?!  I guess the answer is…yes, we are that gullible…..)

Then ironically, the outdoor business has done a great job of telling people that water that comes out of the ground out in the backcountry is….bad.  I don’t know the industry sales numbers for water purifiers, but it’s huge, and virtually everyone I know has been convinced that naturally-occurring water is full of squirmy, gut-busting amoebas and protozoas that are certain to make your bowels explode at very inopportune times.  If you come to a stream and are thirsty and out of water, you might was well continue your parch march because it’s absolutely certain that there is a Great Poo Party going on right upstream, just out of sight with all of these guys just squatting over your water source and havin’ one:

So we don’t drink backcountry spring or snowmelt water but we are willing to drink chlorine and flouride treated water?  To be sure, Ash reminds me that I have never had giardia so I don’t know what it’s like, but I know it’s not pleasant. 

Ash going up high in the "drainage" of a spring to avoid the Poo Party

However, Tinadazole is a very effective one-shot drug that was approved in the US in 2004 that effectively replaces Flagyl, which was a weeklong course and ravaged anyone who drank alcohol during the course.  But regardless of treatment, according to the CDC, giardia is not quite as well-understood as the likes of Katadyn and the other purifiers would like us to think it is, and there is a far-higher likelihood of getting giardia from food handlers and from public pools than backcountry water sources. 

At the aptly-named Dog Lake.....I was actually just kidding here; I do draw the line.....

As noted earlier and is well known by now, despite late-season snowfalls California is hurting badly for water.  One look at Dreamflows site http://dreamflows.com/flows.php?page=real&zone=canv&form=norm&mark=All that CA paddlers use is pretty shocking considering it’s typically peak snowmelt time.  Our friends Chris and Rebecca in Ventura took Governor Brown’s declaration seriously and looked at all the ways that they could do their part to save water; one example is to catch the water that runs cold before the shower turns hot, and this gets about a gallon or more of water that they then use in their toilet (I had no idea that a toilet will flush if you just pour enough water in the bowl; some sort of toilet siphoning magic….).

 

Chris capturing

and then using! 

Ironically, Californians already has had historically-decent water conservation, and equally ironically, Utah and Nevada – the two driest states in the nation – have the highest per-capita water useage (the average Utahn uses 295 gallons/day).  But some civic leaders are recognizing that these habits may not be sustainable:  Las Vegas wanted southern Utah water in a big way but UT Governor Herbert shut that down, much to the fury of Nevadans.  But that’s as far as Herbert will go; there will only be a call to conserve when things get acute and he and other politicians will continue to promote water-intensive fracking, coal mining, and even nuclear power (Green River) and development (St George will likely get a taxpayer-financed pipeline from Lake Powell for $1 billion – that is $500 for every citizen in the state!  I’m not that psyched to subsidize their golf course manicures).  In the meantime, our gutters will run with valuable (up to $7/gallon!) water overflowing supersaturated lawns.  And states like Utah subsidize use with tax dollars so consumers don't get the "real" cost in their bills, so there is less incentive to conserve.  And business meetings – like the one I was at yesterday at a place with “Environmental” as part of their name – will continue to serve bottled water at their meetings. 

The purpose of my rant?  Of course, first and foremost it’s simply to rant – and perhaps rave, though not much of that was happening here – but the other is to remind us all that pretty much aside from the rainy side of OR and WA the rest of us here in the West live in deserts or near-deserts, yet we are ferocious water users and that simple actions like not flushing for whizz, taking short showers, not thoroughly washing dishes under a running tap before then washing them in the dishwasher, and being strategic about watering our yards (and/or letting go of the green grass concept) can go a long ways towards keeping our communities viable.  It’s simply embarrassing to be irresponsible water users.  And - this one is simple - don’t drink bottled water.   Despite what I said above, our water – and realistically, ALL municipal water supplies – are good to go, or they would not be “municipal water supplies.”

Recreating in Washington

Though I love to live in Utah, I love to visit Washington.  From a recreation perspective, it rivals anywhere:  the proximity of mountains, rivers, and ocean means that they are very complementary to each other, and as such the quality of recreation is nearly unmatched.  If you are into something in the outdoors Washington has it, and usually in a pretty big way.  Over the last dozen years I’ve explored Washington more than I ever did when I lived in adjacent Oregon, which seems crazy considering that we now live in Utah, but at the time I guess I was pretty content with Oregon and now my tastes have “matured” a bit more and I need the added stimulation that Washington’s bigger terrain provides.   So when we had a window of time to go out on a road trip and Ash wanted to start in Washington (she flew out to tear around with her mom for a few days) and have me come meet her with all the toys on the roof, I was all in, and while we had absolutely no agenda, we knew that Washington would deliver, and right we were! 

After crushing myself doing the annual Grandeur Peak Fun Run and then foolishly deciding to do another “lap” - unaccustomed to the “high” heat that was all of 80 degrees - and then joining Scott and Rachel for their annual combo May birthday soiree I hammered out to Portland in a day.  Approaching P-town up the Columbia river gorge it was raining, and after the brain cookage of the day before it was great to splash up the Eagle Creek trail as a couple-mile leg stretcher; no matter how many times I hike in The Gorge I never cease to be amazed at how amazing that place is:  as deeply-emerald green as anywhere in the world, with more beautiful streams and waterfalls in a few miles than Utah has in the entire state! 

After some good work and socializing with the likes of Chuck Roth, Team Connnell, P.Ecker, and Blair I blasted up to Seattle where I was able to reconnect with Eric Fahlman and his family:

 

I think that’s Claire’s version of “Blue Steel” 

And then grabbed Ash after she had done a few days of tromping around with her mom on the Olympic Peninsula.  As a reference for recreation quality, that peninsula by itself has recreation that would make other entire western states blush with envy: an unusual and gigantic rain forest with a wild coastline, big and remote ski descents, hundreds of miles of rivers that go from mild to wild, incredible cycling, etc.  We had talked about spending much of our trip out on the peninsula (there was the potential for a backpack in to ski Mount Olympus and then float packrafts back out) but we headed for the nearby Cascades instead. First on our list was Mount Ruth; a little-known peak in the Shuksan/Baker area that Ash had skied many moons ago and remembered as being remote, fun, and pretty mellow (we were a bit chastened by the reports of an avalanche fatality on Shuksan just a few days prior; the NW’s late-season hammerfest of snow apparently meant that the ‘pack needed a bit more time to settle down).  

It was an awesome day; a longish and awkwardly-slow approach:

apparently the NW gets its share of avalanches as well

 means that not many people go in there, and we saw no indication that anyone had been in there this spring. But with some perseverance we saw what we'd come for:

 After a few hours we were on top oggling at Shuksan (foreground) and Baker (background:

and the very-remote and rugged Pickett range:

There's apparently a 45 mile burly traverse that's a 4-5 day adventure, or maybe one day if you're the Dorais brothers! 

we took the gratuitous summit selfie:

or two:

and then sliced our way down perfect corn for 2700 feet down to the valley floor:

 where we slogged back out.  

Alders are a tough go.

I've been thinking of doing a website called "Great Trees of the Wasatch", but after being back in the NW I think I should call it "pretty mediocre trees of the Wasatch!"

And given that it’s Washington, not too much farther down the valley was a really nice class 3-4 paddle on the North Fork Nooksack, before we headed up a nearby access road to go hit Mt Baker. 

Even though Mount Baker is only 10,800 feet, it seems long because the access points are all in the 3500’ range, making for a 7000’ gain to the summit.   As such, many mountaineers consider it to be a 2-day trip.  But we just wanted to get up and ski some good corn, so we got a medium-early start of 5:30 start (it gets light early up here in the Great North!) and charged up the trail for a couple of miles with normal ski packs, started skinning at about 5500 feet, and hit the top of the Coleman glacier easily by mid-morning:

We took one little run to take advantage of a different aspect corning up and then the cherry line of a several-thousand foot descent down the heart of the Coleman in great corn.  

As we approached treeline we saw a crew hiking up with full packs and all their climbing gear doing some heinous post-holing in slush, and I realized that one of the reasons that people buy big heavy mountaineering boots is because they believe the old-school Mountaineers’ mantra that more than 5000’ in a day is not really possible, so instead they slog through mid-afternoon slop – which mandates high, waterproof boots that still get wet and take hours/days to dry – in order to make a high camp where they spend their evening hours melting snow before going to bed early to wake up early to melt even more snow before going up to the top and then – after breaking camp – heading back down in postholey slush!  Ergo the need for big boots, I ‘spose…..

We ended up down in Bellingham where we were able to make the first of our many stops at the Organic, Free-range, Sustainable, Hormone-free, Local, Artisan, Tractor-Free...

No joke.....this farm is done exclusively by true horse power, taking the whole politically-correct produce to a new level!

 Co Op grocery stores that seem to be everywhere in Washington.  The forecast was for a little light rain, which bode well to shred a huge open-space area adjacent to town that is  mountain-bike only with a zillion trails!  However, as former Northwesteners we should have recognized that “light rain” is a bit of a euphemism for “deluge” and the next morning we hastily threw our soggy stuff in the car and did what lots of Washingtonians do:  Head East. 

The Methow Valley on the eastern end of the North Cascades highway is a pretty special place.  It’s in the rain shadow of the Cascades yet is tucked up close enough that it still is able to partake in the range’s copious snow, and while it has all the acoutrements of a resort town…. it is without the resort!  Which makes it great; so much so that there was an essay about it  - in an anonymous form – in the Winter 2014 Patagonia catalog.   Even though it’s always been a “secret” destination for rich Seattlelites and their second homes, the fact that the pass is closed all winter means it’s about a 5 hour trip there, which has kept the resort predators at bay and let the locals and Washington’s nordic diehards have their 220 km (not a typo!) of groomed trails mostly to themselves.  And the unplowed highway provides (snowmobile) access to world-class backcountry ski terrain with great powder in the winter and good corn in the spring when the road opens.  We had another stellar day of great north and south-facing corn off Rainy Pass (in the last few days the snowpack had gone from unconsolidated to isothermic; the beauty of Spring). 

skinning up above Lake Ann, with the North Cascades Highway down in the valley

Putting the Voile ski crampons to work! 

Nice form on nice corn.

crossing a bit nervously given the open water

And again we were able to not only shred nearby singletrack on foot and on bike:

The arrowhead balsamroot was out in full glory in WA as well as the Wasatch.

but also take advantage of the snowmelt and paddle the excellent Black Canyon of the Methow with our old buddy Jonathan Baker:

JB center, with his buddy Jeff

who with Margaret is on the verge of finishing up their cool 600 sq foot home on a 5 acre spread near Winthrop:

  In addition, Ash’s cousin Jeff and Molly live at the base of Patterson Mountain and it was great to see them (and visit Molly’s Organic, Free-range, Sustainable, Hormone-free, Local, Artisan, Tractor-Free grocery store in Twisp. 

Team Patterson

One interesting side note of the Methow portion of our trip was when we first pulled into the Organic, Free-range, Sustainable, Hormone-free, Local, Artisan, Tractor-Free bakery/store in the upcanyon hamlet of Mazama there were a lot of cars parked there and lots of fit-looking people wandering around, and it turns out that the annual Memorial Day 10k trail race was about to start.  On a whim I decided to enter, and was fortunate that the kiddie 1k race happened first so I had a few minutes to warm up.  Given the Methow’s renown for its nordic skiing I figured that this race would have some competition, and sure enough I immediately bumped into two-time Olympian Laura McCabe (whom I’d met once in a hot spring in CA in the mid-90’s and again climbing in Wyoming a few years ago) who then introduced me to a guy with the description of “He was an Olympian this year in Sochi!”  Ah, indeed, don’t let me get in the way of you moving to the front of the starting line! 

Everyone charged off the line, and soon enough I found myself alongside a couple of girls who came up to about my elbow who were very seriously cranking along at about 6:00 mile pace!  Not surprisingly, it turns out that it was Laura’s daughter, and there were other high-school looking types who were surrounding me and going at a good clip as well.  But once the 5k folks turned off I found myself in 5^th place behind nordic wunderkind and a few others.  I had the 4^th place guy in sight and was able to keep him at the same gap that started to close as we entered the last couple of miles.  Remembering my bike racing tactics I took took a couple of deep breaths as I came up behind him and pushed a little harder on the pedals to veritably charge past him, and this brought me to within sight of the 3^rd place guy, whom I caught with about a half-mile to go.  At this point we turned into a stiff headwind, so again bike-style I tucked in and hung out to see how the sprint would be.

Now if I had an Achilles heel, it would be my sprint.  I think I was made up of about 99% slow twitch muscles even back in the day when I was a kid, and my mid-distance running career was pretty much a series of tales of hammering through to the almost-end of every race and then having whoever was nearby easily blow by me to the line as I watched in frustration. Once I started bike racing I thought perhaps the tactical/wind component of The Sprint might work in my favor, but the stories still remained the same; I couldn’t outsprint anyone, ever. 

So as I was sitting behind this guy after charging pretty hard to catch him and being pretty dang tired/sore from going at a relatively high pace that I haven’t run at in a long time I wondered if I would watch yet another guy run to the line in front of me.  But as we turned the last corner to the finish line I felt surprisingly confident and when he predictably surged I experienced a sensation I have rarely had in too-many years of these silly events:  I kicked and blew him away in the last 100 yards for the last “podium” spot (if indeed there had been a podium for the mighty Mazama 10k!).  Pretty fun.  

Post-race I was chatting with my fellow competitors, and the fourth place guy told me “I drove for over an hour to get to this race”  Really?  Where from?   “Yeah, I’m training for Ironman Canada”  Really?  Wow, that sounds hard.  “Yeah, I might do a sprint tri on Monday”  hmm.  Really.  Fascinating.  “I also do a lot of mountain bike racing” Uh, yeah…..great. Starting to look around for an exit from this conversation....  “I ran a 16:48 5k a couple of weeks ago, and I find 10k’s to be a weird distance for me, and I think this course was a little slow.”  Umm…I need to go trim my toenails.  But hey, it’s been great listening to you……

Ash and I did a nice ride that afternoon that was ended in one of the Methow’s singletrack Meccas, and Ash had gotten to an intersection before me and started chatting with a couple of nice folks there.  After she told them we were from SLC and were on a fun road trip with the toys the woman suddenly asked “Are you with Tom Diegel?”  OMG, really?  It was Caitlin, who had moved to Seattle from Vermont after doing the Grand Canyon with Team Middlebury, the New Hampshire Canyoneering society, and me!  

  I am not sure if the world is truly that small, or the circles that we travel in are just tiny……

After the Methow we moved on to the recreation mecca of Leavenworth, where we were able to do some great paddling on the Wenatchee river - with it’s renowned play spots at medium-high flows and a brewpub at the takeout:

Only in Washington....

 one of the “best rides ever” (Devil’s Gulch/Mission Ridge/Red Hill):

a 10 mile, 3000' singletrack climb/descent

this guy greeted us in Yakima Canyon

We did a little flat two mile hike and got back to the car, where we met these guys.  They had biggish packs, trekking poles, and were stretching (above) in preparation for the hike.  We asked them what they were doing, because clearly we had missed something more energetic, but no, they were doing the same flat 2 mi hike!  

and other great runs/rides as we worked our way to Yakima for some excellent Patterson family time. 

There are times when we do trips that we want to leave the car and all its trappings behind, and that’s when we do multi-day river trips and bike tours.  But Washington’s amazing quality and density of daylong adventures meant that this trip – combined with some equally-high quality socializing with excellent people – was super worthy, and we actually have already penned in spring trip next year to our (second?) favorite state.     

Warm Showers

A few years ago Ash and I were bike touring in Washington when a car passed us, pulled over, and a couple jumped out and waved us down.  They were bike tourers as well and wanted to hear all about our adventures, since they knew that adventures always lie around the next corner when bike touring.  Then they asked us an odd question:  “Where’s your next Warm Shower?”  I mean sure, we all like warm showers and they are great at the end of a long day in the saddle, but we weren’t necessarily planning our trip around showers and weren’t quite sure where the next one might be.  “You mean you don’t know about Warm Showers?”  We admitted our ignorance.  They went on to tell us about the website www.warmshowers.org.  It’s a site where bike tourers around the globe register themselves and their homes as places to stay for other bike tourers who may be passing through.  So you look at your route and it looks like you are going through Salt Lake City and you login to warmshowers and find folks who live there whom you might be able to stay with.  Which is exactly what Benoit (“Ben-wah”) and JP - who hail from France and are on an ambitious North American tour – did this week, and ended up at our house. 

I had gotten a couple of messages from Benoit about when they would arrive, but it was still a bit loose.  I left my little pilates class and started to ride home, went a couple of blocks, looked down 1700 south, and there were two bicyclists with panniers heading towards me.  Of course it was the Frenchmen, and they were delighted to be escorted to our house. That kind of fortuitous occurrence always seems to happen when you need it on a bike tour.  

They were super grateful for a place to do their laundry, sleep in a bed, drink some beer, have some great homecooked food, and – of course – take a warm shower (even hot!).  But what they didn’t realize is that Ash and I were probably even more excited than they were at the prospect of providing them with these amenities, because it was a bit of an opportunity to repay the many people out there who have been so gracious to us over the years as we pedaled briefly through their lives.  Bike touring really encourages personal engagement; I think it’s the lack of the personal barrier that a car represents and perhaps the perceived vulnerability of a bike tourer, but people just want to help.  It reminded us of a handful of the great experiences we have had with locals in their countries:

• I rolled into a town in Germany with the address and phone number of a guy my dad had met years before at some business conference.  He not only took off half a day of work to show me around his town and take to me to a sumptuous lunch, but also gave me a couple of “special” bottles of wine, a huge, hearty classic Bavarian cake to fuel me up for days, and some “special” Deutschmark coins to remember his country.  I actually drilled a hole in one of the coins and it stayed on my keychain for 20 years til I lost the set!
• Ashley climbed over a pass between France and Italy on a solo tour and started chatting with one of the many lean, mean, older guys on sweet bikes riding the pass as well, and he invited her to stay the night with he and his wife.  They plied her with rabbit, wine, bread, salad, etc, and all were “our owwwn pro-duction!!!”
• My buddy Eric and I were riding through Scotland and were trying to make it to a town before getting hit by a thunderstorm and were unsuccessful, and got soaked.  But at least I hit a big pothole and flatted my tire, tossed the food we had just bought all over the wet streets, and broke my rack.  But as we were chuckling at our plight at a gas station we met a nice couple who invited us to stay at their place a few miles away, to which we heartily accepted. And this was "their place":

(that is another whole story unto itself)

• The next night we found ourselves in yet more rain (it was Scotland, after all) and knocked on a farmhouse door to ask if we could sleep in their barn.  “Nay, me sons are off at university; ya kin sleep in their beds!” and were pretty much  instantly inside being fed lamb that had been slaughtered that day, all the porridge we could handle the next morning for breakfast, and a sack lunch to send us on their way.
• A few years ago we rolled into the Natural Bridges Monument campground after a long day only to find that it was full, and being a national monument there was no “free” camping allowed and while there was water at the campground, there was no other source for many miles.   But some campers saw us and recognized the situation and immediately invited us to stay with them in their camp and were happy to share their beers and dinner with us. 
• On the last day of a trip near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico we took an appealing-looking (on the map) detour that turned out to be a really hilly, rough-gravel road that went super slowly and after some hours it became apparent that we were simply not going to make it to PV in time for our flight home.  But the one car that came by stopped, immediately went about the task of figuring out how to fit us, our bikes, and our gear in, then drove us to PV, where they took us directly to a hotel owned by their friend who made a room appear for us. 
• We rolled into a town in Cuba late in the day looking for a place to stay and quickly found a guy who offered to take us by his own bicycle (that had one brake pad!) to the homes that were allowed to have foreigners stay, but they were all full.  He then checked with his friend who owned a Cuban-only place who agreed to take us in, but we literally had to sneak in, so it was clear that he was taking a bit of a risk himself for accommodating us.  (This was one that we did repay; the guy who showed us around and made the introduction later traveled all day by bus to meet us and we gave him our bikes as we were leaving; we still get letters from him thanking us again and again!)
• On a long climb up into the Dinaric Alps in Montenegro in late fall I misunderestimated how long it was going to take to get me to the next town and as both darkness and temps were falling precipitously I came upon a shack alongside the road and an old woman shuffling outside.  I used one of the few Serbian words I had learned – “bread?”  - and she just motioned me into her one-room “home”, where I spent the night with she and her husband, who had shown up shortly thereafter with their business:  the cow.  It was a mostly-conversationless night – you can only go so far with “bread?” – but the gleam in their eyes indicated that they knew how appreciative I was for their simple hospitality. 

And there are many more.  So Benoit and JP are off to their next adventures, and we are going to give them the names of some folks we know who might be on their possible route, but undoubtedly they will be the beneficiaries of graciousness by random folks who appreciate the simple beauty and challenges of bike touring. 

Here’s to warm showers!

Scintillating tale of a new car

I have often said that it would be nice if cars would simply “die”, so that there’s absolutely no question that “yes, you need a new car”.  I have a sort of cartoonish image of the wheels falling off and the car collapsing onto the pavement, the hood popping open, the seat springs sproinging, smoke billowing out, etc.  Unfortunately, this rarely happens and cars die of a million cuts, with each costing a fair bit (tho the Diegel Family Ford Grand Torino – aka The Tuna Boat – did ultimately catch fire at an intersection in Portland, and my roommate – who had bought the car from my dad – snagged the license plates and bolted!).  So I guess I should be pleased that our 18 year old Subaru Outback gave us notice of its impending demise recently by having multiple, random, unexpected overheating episodes, which apparently are indicative of either a blown head gasket or destroyed “rings”; regardless, it was a $3000-5000 fix since it involved the bowels of the motor. 

To give the patient its due, I took it in to another “doctor” for a second opinion.  While the diagnosis was slightly different and he provided an auto-equivalent aspirin of $60 worth of a radiator “conditioner” and a  new radiator cap that should keep it going for awhile, his ultimate evaluation was stark:  “I think it’d be ok as long as you weren’t relying on it for road trips into the desert and going up the Cottonwood canyons”.  Hmm.  Well, considering that those two things are pretty much why we own the car, this didn’t sound very promising for us. 

So we were faced with a decision that nearly everyone faces, usually multiple times throughout their lives:  fix or buy a different car?  And if a different car, what model? And go new or used?  I reached out to the Facebook community and got a great array of responses, and despite similar demographics the responses were varied; most were in favor of buy, and buy used.  But a few suggested fix it; still somewhat low miles for such an old car, and in order to have a car on the road it’s better to have a totally styled engine for $4k than spending $10-30k for a different car. 

My dear old dad was not necessarily much for waxing poetic on life or imparting wisdom on his sons, but one thing I vividly remember him saying, with a  grand sweep of his arms to indicate the vastness of our run-down little hobby farm:  “You see this?  All that we have now is essentially due to one thing:  I have always bought cars and held on to them until they die.  Buying and selling cars too often is the best way to lose a lot of money”  Of course, not only was he far more mechanical than me  and actually enjoyed working on cars - and passed that knowledge/desire on to brother Paul – but also in his last months he impetuously bought a Triumph TR8, one of the worst cars ever.  But for better or for worse, I have ended up following his advice and had cars that were 24, 17, and now 18 years old.    And despite the fact that there were plenty of other things that could go wrong with an old car, it was pretty tempting to fix it.  But a friend put it succinctly:  “That’s to keep you in the game.”  But that’s not winning the game, and – as alluded to above, as a non-mechanical guy – I wasn’t sure I even wanted to play the game any more. 

So it was a good time to apply some of the stuff that I have learned from the books I’ve read on decision-making.  I have been a bit melodramatic about in the past, telling myself that the decisions are – in the context of adventuring – about life or death.  In this case, it was….very much not that.  But the stakes seem high, since cars are so expensive, and as we all know, cars are – whether we like it or not – very much a salient representation to the world of Who We Are.   So they are so much a personal, emotional device.  But being so mechanical and utilitarian –getting us where we need to go – they also should lend themselves to rationality.  Aka, great representations of Daniel Kahneman’s System One – the quick, emotion, intuition-based decision making process, and System Two – the analytical, thoughtful, and rational process that are perpetually at odds with another in our complex little minds. 

To fix? 

• “Fer heck’s sake… $4k is a lot better’n buying a new car!” (but what happens when the transmission detonates somewhere between Hanksville and I-70?).
• “I just bought 4 awesome new snow tires and put them on spare wheels for that car!” (I can sell those on Craig’s list). 
• “I dread the prospect of shopping for a used car and all that entails!” (it’s not that bad, and if you don’t want to do that, buy a new car). 
• “I dread even more the prospect of walking into a dealer and buying a new car!” (it’s not that bad, it’s only one morning of non-recreation so pipe down, and people do it every day.)
• It’s so much more money for a new car!” (yes, but a car is a necessary evil, and how much would we be willing to pay for a “good” car when it dies 150 miles down a burly road in Canyonlands?)
• “There aren’t any other good cars out there now!” (this is actually sorta true in our book; why the manufacturers haven’t been able to combine “good” (>35mpg) gas mileage  with driveability with a medium-size that has decent clearance without a ton of forgettable, breakable, and expensive gadgets in an affordable price range…I don’t know).
• “I’m gonna fix that car because that’s what old pappy told me to do, that’s what I’ve done and it’s worked out just like he said!”  (Even old pappy knew when to throw in the towel, and the only thing stupider than buying and selling too many cars is throwing good money after bad). 

To buy?

• “What if the old car breaks?” (well, we had a mechanic we trust look it over, much of the guts will be rebuilt
• “I want a new car!” (really?  why?  Because I’ve dropped too many crumbs between the seats and stained the seats with my spilt beer?  Can’t we just buy a spray can of “That New Car Smell”? and call it good?)
•  “New cars are so much safer!” That is a true statement, from what I can tell, but how realistic is it that we will “use” that aspect? A low likelihood. But given that there were three auto fatalities in the SL Valley on Tuesday alone, perhaps not that unrealistic? 
• “Having a new car is so exciting!”  Daniel Kahneman writes about the human condition that makes us oblivious to the rapid demise of excitement as the newness of anything wears off.  Thus the next new shiny thing seems so exciting, but wait…..weren’t we just as excited about this now-“old” thing not so very long ago? 

My mind was spinning so hard on this issue over the past week that I was getting dizzy.  But generally speaking we came around from “fix” to “buy”; while the appeal of less $$ was strong, we realized that the risk of having a possibly-compromised car and wondering for the next several years when it was going to strand us and/or we’d have to throw another $2k into it was not worthy. 

And then to buy:  EVERYONE said “NEVER buy new!  They lose so much value when they are driven off the lot!”  Of course they do:  everyone “knows” that. But is it really true, and does it really matter?  Feeling a bit like the Freakonomics guys, I thought I’d actually put that theory to the test and do a bit of research.  

The truth is that many cars do not devalue quickly; many famously-durable and popular cars/trucks don’t devalue very much at all (our friend Jim – who provided invaluable advice during this process – said that he would have a tough time now buying the Honda Element he bought several years ago because the value has gone UP! To be fair, Honda inexplicably dropped that popular car….).  But generally, yes it’s true: cars lose value over time/miles.  But as brother Paul put it, that’s assuming that the car is an asset – ­as opposed to simply a good, and that asset will be sold.    But given that Ash and I are (thankfully) on the same page of the “buy a car and keep it for a long time” theory, that point actually becomes moot:  we fully anticipate that in 15+ years we will likely sell/trade in/give away whatever car we have for less than $1000.  And the difference between a 10 year old, $2000 car is not much different than a 15 year old, $1000 car. 

Yes, we could buy a car with 10-30k miles on it and take advantage of what I like to call “humans’ inherent propensity to make irresponsible purchasing decisions”, but the truth is that every car has a finite life, and buying a car with 30k miles on it means that we would ultimately arrive at the exact same point as we would with a new car…..two years earlier.  No one talks about how their riding lawn mower loses value the moment it’s “driven off the lot”, or after driving their beautiful sofa off the lot, knowing in the back of their mind that ultimately it will sit on the curb for days with a “free” sign on it.  But because of the emotion, personality, reliance, and expense associated with cars, we tend to apply more “value” to them  - and also tend to turn them over for those very same reasons. 

This was Ash’s theory when she bought her Subaru Loyale in new 1991 for $12k and sold it for $900 in 2008, and thinking through her rationale brought me full circle in these last few days.  Therefore, in lieu of going out to ski some corn on a high-value nice spring Saturday morning, we put on our virtual armor and grudgingly headed down to the new car dealer to see what fate awaited us. 

We got an early start and rolled into the Subaru dealership just as they were setting up for….a big party.  Huh? “We are giving away a 2 year lease on a Cross Trek Hybrid!”  Wow.  Bands, radio stations, kids’ huge bumper tent thing, barbeque, the works!  We were tempted to just check into that and spend the day in this awesome car lot party.  But instead we walked past that into the building, walked up to a sales guy and said “We want to buy a standard transmission Cross Trek”. 

 

It was so exciting that we were tempted to just stay at the party all day!  

The truth is that it was not that painful of an experience.  We took the car for a 4 1/2 minute test drive, came back, and said “ok”.  We were a little chagrined to find that not only did they not have any standard transmission models (less than 5% of cars sold today have standards) but there were none in the entire state, and ordering one was going to be 8 weeks. It could have been a serious test of our resolve, but they found one in Jackson, WY and said they could get it.  Then we settled into negotiating.  Ash was the bright, affable, good cop (which was an easy role for her) and I was the sullen, grumpy bad cop (also an easy role), and I realized that the old school perception of negotiating over car prices has sorta changed, because the Interweb now tells us what the dealer paid for the car and what consumers have been paying for them, and we all know that we all know that information (known knowns, as it were).  The fact that it was coming from Jackson at their expense eroded our position a little, and we bought some of the plastic cover stuff in a feeble attempt to avoid the car getting Diegel-ized, but we were out of there in three hours and were relatively satisfied.  Though it was hard not to feel a little weird about being so dramatically consumerish for a coupla folks who like to fool ourselves into thinking we are not!  

So it went, and we now own a new car, ready to whisk us off to adventures both near and far, for many years to come.  

any pangs of regret or sense of loss?  It's just a car.....

Am I excited?  It's just a car.......or is it more??!