An Ode to Michele and Team Gray

Back in about nineteen hundred and eighty-five or so I had an opportunity to take a semester out of school and come to Utah try my hand at being a ski bum, so I worked at Snowbird and skied most days (I even have an “I heart Snowbird” sticker somewhere in my archives; ironic considering I just bashed them last week in an op-ed in the Deseret News and haven’t skied there for a dozen years!).  Brother Paul was living here and I was able to see and ski with him a bit, but since he was a working guy in his first real job he was pretty busy, so most days I was skiing alone. 

And thus I stood in the corner of the tram car by myself, day after day, just watching and listening to my fellow Snowbirders.  Therefore, I couldn’t help but notice that every weekend I saw the same very attractive girl who always had about a dozen equally attractive kids circled around her, yukking it up and clearly keen to be in her space.  That is, as long as they could keep up on the descents; she was as graceful and quick on skis as she was with a compliment and a big laugh. 

Soon enough I left Snowbird and went back to school, but Paul stayed and I would bust back out to Utah for Christmas breaks, and invariably I’d see the same attractive girl casually slaying Great Scott, Upper Silver Fox, etc with her posse in tow.  And then on one of those Christmas vacations I saw her doing it on tele gear, and of course my infatuation only increased.   One year Mike Elovitz came out with me for the annual Utah Christmas foray, and in the tram line I pointed out to him the Tele Queen of Snowbird and mentioned that I’d been seeing her for years, but she always had such magnetism that there were too many people attached to her to ever bust into that circle.   I did a bit of snooping about to get some beta on her, but of course to no avail.  So it goes in the formative years. 

Some weeks after we returned to Portland Mike and I walked into the Bridgeport Brewery after an ultimate game (as was our wont), ordered a beer, turned around, and stopped dead:  there she was.  The Tele Queen of Snowbird! Right there in Bridgeport!  But this time there was no magnetic posse; just one other woman.  Emboldened, since I was now on my own turf, I marched right up to her and said “Hi! You’re Michele Martin, you’re a tele skier from Salt Lake, you went to Georgetown, you’re a diver, and one of your parents is named Pep, but I’m not sure which one!”  To which she wisely responded:  “Well now, who are you, and why are you stalking me?”  which of course was exactly the right response.

We have many “moments” in our lives, and very few of them are actually very substantial.  But that one was very much a “Sliding Doors” moment, where both of our lives fundamentally took on a new trajectory that continues literally to this very day. 

It turned out that Michele had just recently moved to Portland – with a boyfriend, much to my chagrin  - and was already wise enough to know that her passion for skiing was going to get muted by the relatively lackluster skiing available on Mount Hood, so once she realized I wasn’t a stalker (or was I?) and we were chatting she mentioned that she really wanted to get into kayaking.  “Kayaking!  We’re kayakers; we’ll teach you!” Mike and I exclaimed.  Little did she know what she was getting into, but she applied the same grace and athleticism to the rivers as she did to steep ski lines, and soon enough we were driving all over the Northwest paddling its great rivers.  

formative backcountry skiing on the north side of mt hood

a very flattering picture getting ready to mount up for some formidable river!

And as it turned out, she later dumped her boyfriend and Mike swooped in, but a trip to Utah where he got absolutely shelled trying to keep up with the Queen’s posse at the ‘Bird was the beginning of the end of that romance, though fortunately the friendship remained.

Not long after this a fourth musketeer was added:  Barbara Harper, fresh from a similar migration to the West to find good adventures and fun folks, and the four of us and our broader community proceeded to spend years charging down rivers, skiing  peaks, playing bad ultimate frisbee (though Michele later captained national and world championship teams), and generally yukking it up. 

At some point in that frenzy I met Ryan Gray, a strapping young videographer for Nike, and he asked me if I knew of an outdoorsy woman who had a size 7 (sample sized) foot and was a medium apparel size who would be a good model for Nike’s ACG outdoor line. Did I ever!  Michele was willing to stuff her size 8+ feet into size 7 shoes for the cause (and money) and for Ryan, and in addition to him making her into the early-90’s poster child for ACG he - like many  - fell head over heels for her. 

Our carefree lives got a gut-wrenching blast in 1994 when Barbara died in an accident on the river (the subject of another post, or maybe not….); I was not there that day, but Michele was, and as I returned home and stepped off the plane I realized there was no one I needed more at that point.   We had shared so much together already, but this was big, and even as she grieved and had survivor’s guilt she was a rock for the rest of us. 

 

a year later, at a ropes course with Barb's friends and family

A year later Michele and Ryan got married, and she honored me with the request that I be one of her bridesmaids, which I happily accepted.   As such, she made sure that I didn’t lured out on the groomsmen outings, which was fine with me; I was in very fine company!

 

I was willing to wear a low cut dress myself, but Michele knew where to draw the line. 

Some years later I was again out in Utah for a Christmas holiday and she introduced me to a woman named Ashley, who was very similar to Michele in her abilities to laugh, ski, and make other people feel great.   At the end of the day Michele sidled up to me and slyly said; “You know, Ash is single!”  I protested that she knew that I had a nice girlfriend, but Michele just gave me her famous smile full of brilliant teeth, and that was all that was needed.  Michele knew better than I did what was best for me, and now - almost 20 years later - Ash and I are still making the most of it. 

The years flowed by and Michele and Ryan added to Team Gray, having three great kids who grew to love rivers and mountains as much as their parents.  And Michele  inspired an entire generation of Portland kids as high school English teacher (and as one who could out-ski all of her students!).   But their idyllic world got rocked a few years ago when Michele – as avid and regular of an athlete as any of us – fell over on the tennis court with a stopped heart.  Fortunately there was a defibrillator nearby, and they were able to keep it going for the quick zip to the closest hospital, where a renowned cardiologist was just checking out for vacation happened to still be around, and he was able to bring her back.    One of her heart vessels literally tore open due to a difficult/impossible-to-predict and very rare condition.  Since then she’s had multiple stents put in and some fairly aggressive and unusual treatments to address it, but is always pretty dismissive about it:   “Oh, it’s fine”, with the only nod to what could potentially be a fatal condition that she just not run quite as fast! 

Michele and I both put in for our Grand Canyon permits in the early 90’s, and The List for the GC was epicly long.  I was able to use my permit in 2002, but  - because she wanted her kids to enjoy that trip with her – she put it off for a few more years doing many river trips with brother Scott and family and others to make sure she and her family were ready for The Grand.  In the meantime she was gradually rising to the top of the list where she could choose any date she wanted, and finally she got her much-vaunted launch date in August of this year.  And they honored Ash and I with an invitation to finally join Team Gray on their Grand Canyon journey. 

However, their world was turned upside down on Friday morning:  their oldest daughter Ruby had died in her sleep that night after a glorious week of skiing in Sun Valley with her friends, telling Ryan she loved him, and going to bed like she did every night. 

Team Gray has had their fair share of challenges, but this…..this is big.  Too big.  Ruby was – like the rest of her family – a goofy and lovable force of nature, and her passing will clearly leave a gaping hole in not only the Gray’s lives but that of their vast community, since the tragedy of the loss of youth in general and children in particular is desperately acute. 

Indeed, that moment in Bridgeport Brewing was a turning point in both of our lives, and I’ve many times been thankful that I was bold enough to confront Michele with my stalkage that night.  She’s tough as nails and Team Gray has been through a lot together, but this is a whole new dimension for she and her family to process.   Undoubtedly they will do so with the grace and courage that they’ve inspired in all of the many friends and students who have grown to love them. 

Multi-modal on Deseret Peak

Deseret Peak is the most prominent peak in the Stansbury Range out in Utah's West Desert, named after the "state" of Deseret that the early Mormon settlers were trying to establish.  It's actually just the highest point on a long ridgeline there, but I think that Brigham Young and Co. probably looked up and imagined slaying the phat couloir that comes almost off the summit on his slat skis and had to give the high point a good name!   As such, skiing the three mainlines of Dez has become a bit of a spring ritual for skiers looking to escape the busy central Wasangeles.

Historically we've waited until April or May to head west to Dez, but February - and, really, March's - bleak snowfall and warm temps have brought the feeling of spring early this year, so when Chad Bracklesberg - finally freed from the rigors of organizing the Wasatch Powder Keg and bizzy business life - suggested giving it an earlier-than-normal go, Brother Paul and I were in.

The first time I did Deseret Peak a few years ago we knew that there were a couple of Forest Service gates on the road into Little Willow canyon that were sometimes locked, sometimes not, and debated about bringing mountain bikes for the road approach.  However, not only did we blow off mountain bikes, we also weren't very attentive to our morning footwear, so a couple of us did the 4 mile road climb - and descent - in clogs and other non-appropriate footwear.  Therefore, it's become a multi-modal effort of riding to ski regardless of the snowline/gate closures.  I love the concept of riding to ski, which Chad calls "Skiking" or I call "Skicycling".   Later in the spring the lower gate is unlocked and the upper gate is locked, with the road clear up a few miles to the campground; this early the lower gate was locked, but the snowline wasn't much above the 2nd gate. So off on our bikes we went.  

After a few miles we ditched the bikes and switched to skis/skins, and soon enough we were out of the low-elevation goo and breaking through some powder, with views of the main couloir in the distance:

 However, I forgot to wax that set of skins:

 "skin wax" really doesn't work that well, especially since it is contradictory to the human propensity to only react to adverse conditions, not think pre-emptively.....

So we were booting somewhat prematurely toward the couloir that Brigham lusted after.

yes, it's really as non-steep as it looks!

A ways up we dug a little and got some borderline stability results:

Me picking a notso-safe place to wonder if it's safe! 

But we talked ourselves into persevering, because it was such a sweet line

and skied it with aplomb:

Given that it didn't avalanche on us, we charged back up:

went up the ridge for the gratuitous summit bid, where some tasty-looking chutes loomed off to the north, but we were "pretty sure" that they cliffed out:

did you forget to take the beta picture?  Are you feeling lucky?  

We weren't feeling lucky so we carried on, but after getting to the head of the iconic twin chutes that run north off the shoulder we looked to the south, and after about 2 seconds of debate decided to blast down the 1500 feet of perfect midday corn at about 60 mph.  

this isn't the "blasting" part, but you can imagine heading down to the flats far below.  Note the nice north facing glades and burn lines in the background.....

And a nice long gradual climb brought us back up to the twin chutes, where we charged down one, climbed back up it, and hit up the other.  There are enough funky winds blowing off the desert that they can funnel up the couloirs and create just enough windjack to make them quad-burners. but nobody cared about conditions.  

We had good untracked white dog shit skiing back down to the road, and once on the road it felt like an Austin Powers car chase, skiing down a decently-steep road at barely above walking pace due to the watery snow, with the occasional awkward shuffle across dry patches.  But eventually we hit the bikes - which of course we had pushed too far up the snowy road - and engaged some creative bike/ski transport options:

skiing and pushing the bike simultaneous works pretty well, but you gotta remember not to use the bike brakes to slow down, since the brakes don't affect the skis!

Paul figured out one other way to skicyle: straddling the bike with both skis on the ground, which I copied:

But actually putting the skis on the pedals is a pretty effective way to skicycle along!  

Can I get a ski-crampon-like attachment for my ski bases?  

A great cap to an awesome birthday weekend of shredding with Ash and Colin (Saturday, in Big Cottonwood and Mill Creek) and Paul and Chad!   Brigham woulda been proud that his "state's" namesake mountain delivered yet again.  

Wasatch Powder Keg 2016

Yowza!  Lately it seems like T-Dawg Sleeps, or at least Rests, instead of Speaks.  I don't know why I haven't written any blawg posts for 2 months, but I am keen to get back on it.  I got tales rattling around in my head of floating the Rio Usumacinta and an amazing trip to the Carlyle Lodge in the Valhalla range in British Columbia among other things, but the story that's at the top of my head at the moment is this past weekend's 14th annual Wasatch Powder Keg Skimo race.

The Powder Keg has become a late-winter rite for the Utah "competitive backcountry" folks who like to ski uphill as much as going down.  And because it's the oldest/biggest/best skimo race in the country, it typically attracts a solid crowd from around the west as well.  I've realized that there are few road warriors as willing to drive great distances for events as ultra athletes!  It attracts folks from Montana, AZ, CO, ID, OR, and always a good cadre of Coloradans who scoff at the relative low elevation of the Wasatch!

A brief overview:  "Skimo" is short for "ski mountaineering", which truth be told is not necessarily representative of most races, since they usually held in or near resorts, and while yes, sometimes there is some rope work to ensure backup safety by oxygen-deprived athletes determined to charge, it's not really "mountaineering", per se.  I prefer the moniker used more in Europe:  ski running.  But even that isn't quite appropriate, because - like regular backcountry skiing - it's mostly hard walking uphill on skis (between harrowing descents over icy moguls, punchy mank, and screaming groomers).  But skiwalking doesn't have the same ring to it.  So it's skimo.  For more general info Paul at the Utah Adventure Journal was kind enough to publish an article of mine in his winter issue:  http://utahadvjournal.com/index.php/skimo-where-spandex-and-the-backcountry-collide

The Powder Keg actually hosted the fastest folks (Euros) in the world in 2004 and 2005 as a stop on the World Cup tour, but since then it's "just" become the premier US race; there are others that may be more competitive at the top end, but the PK typically has almost the best competition and always has the most participants across the spectrum.   There are a few different races/divisions (including a fairly well-attended junior division) with the "elite" and "heavy metal" (skis and bindings over 1200grams; gotta delineate this in an era of mixed ski genres) divisions doing 6200' of climbing and skiing over 10 miles, both within and just outside the boundaries of Brighton ski resort. And a few years ago a "technical teams race" was added for the next day, where two people race together, never more than 30 seconds apart, and do some steeper/hairier stuff, for longer:  8600' over 14 miles.  This year it got the nod to be the "North American Championships", which theoretically would lure some of the fast Canadians (and Mexican?) skimo-ers to Utah.

Historically the race has been blessed by good weather, and Saturday was no exception:  sunny and warm, as much of February and early March has been.  However, a strong cold front was projected to stomp into the Wasatch on Sunday morning......

Chad Bracklesberg has been a driving force for skimo for years, and he took it over when Andrew McLean and Butch Adams  -the pioneers - were ready to hand it off.  Chad and his wife Emily and their cohorts Eric Bunce and Nick Francis pretty much take a week of vacation to put the Powder Keg on, and rely on >60 volunteers to help make it happen.  I am not a big race volunteer guy, but I helped Chad set some skin tracks earlier in the week; we needed to put them in when the snow was soft, because the early morning race start meant that it was going to be very much pre-corn, and having some semblance of a flattish skin track was going to be important on a few of the climbs.  Chad was very appreciative of my help, tho really all I think I was doing was keeping him company and keeping his mind off the zillions of race details that were blasting through his head.

But enough about all that:  what about me!  That's what these blawgs are about, right?  The start was a bit of a frenzy, as always:

only 30' off the line and I've already lost 10'?  And eventual winner and Wasatch Strongman Tom Goth is already out of the picture to the left!  

But I tried not to blow up in the first 10 minutes, as I've been wont to do in the past, so I tried to keep it at a "moderate push" to keep my lungs inside my chest.  It appeared to me that Tom was going to march away with it and then there was a posse of 6 or so guys clustered in a "chase" (when you're only walking fast it's hard to image actually "chasing" people....) and then local goofball/physicist/aerobic animal Elliot Barcikowski and I keeping them within sight, with plenty of other strong Wasatch locals lurking not far behind on the first thousand-foot climb.  Elliot came out of the first transition a bit ahead of me, so it provided some incentive to charge the first descent, but for being inbounds at a resort, "charging" down off the icy, bumpy, rocky, and cliffy Millicent bowl on little skimo skis felt pretty spicy, and then waited 'til it mellowed out a bit before straightlining to a tear-jerking speed.  Elliot got away from me a little on the next climb and I was chasing him down the icy, south-facing descent when suddenly I saw him clawing his way back up onto the old mining road I was tearing down after blowing a turn.  Exciting stuff!

I faded a little on the next long climb as Elliot pulled away and two guys caught me; and after another couple of long climbs and descents there was one more 300' climb and descent where the 2nd guy - local Joey Campanelli - and I pretty much blasted into the finish line simultaneously, though he was kind enough not to try to "take me" at high speed in the last couple of corners.  I ended up 9th, 13 mins behind Tom Goth:

Tom pretty much skied by himself off the front all day, and totally crushed it in the sprint finals Friday night as well, winning by a big 8 second margin.  

Which is about where I usually am.  There were lots of absentees:  the Flying Dorais bro's were apparently out snowmobiling (?!?!) there was no SLC Samurai nor Viking, Chad, Eric, and Nick were all busy putting on the race, some of the phast boyz from CO are racing in Europe, my last-year partner and ever-faster Noah was out of town, and the two fast old guys from CO -  Michael Hagen and Pete Swensen  - weren't there to beat on me for the master's win.  But I'll take it; I've been trying to make this 20 year old hydration pack work for years as a small/light ski pack:

But - what a surprise - my modifications have been mostly a shit show, so winning this actual skimo pack:

will hopefully enable me to be a cool skimo guy!

Brother Paul had an interesting day:  after tearing his ACL last spring and getting it mended in May he'd been doing quite well leading up to ski season, and his doc said "yes, you can ski this year, but it's NOT fully strong and you CAN'T hurt it again!"  Which may have been ringing sonorously in his ears as one ski caught in a bush, came off, and launched him out over his remaining tip in a high speed somersault just above some trees.  He came to an abrupt halt actually hitting one of those trees and heard the sickening crunch......of his ski as it snapped on impact.  Better ski than knee, I always say.....(actually, I've never said that before, but it seemed appropriate).

On a more somber note, well-liked-and-known hard-girl Emily Sullivan was volunteering instead of racing this year and slipped off the course while setting ropes, fell off to the wrong side of the ridge, tumbled over a cliff band and was stopped by a tree - that kept her from going over an even-bigger cliff - with bad injuries.  A challenging rescue was mounted and she was finally extricated and flown out, and is stable in the ICU with broken ribs and lacerated liver.  Really unlucky, and really lucky at the same time; no head/spine injuries, and alive.

I recovered Saturday afternoon by hefting a literal ton (or two) of mulch:

isn't mulch-moving what sport scientists advise doing between races to recover?

Colter Leys was my able pard for the 2014 teams race, and even though he towed me around that entire day, was willing to possibly do it again this year after being in NZ last year on a multi-month bike tour with his family.  We hoped that we'd be just as smiley but not quite as bloody as we were in '14:

Day 3 of the PK had a stormy forecast, but until Sat night it looked like the brunt of the front wouldn't hit until late morning. However, it was snowing  -and raining, just barely downcanyon  -and blowing super hard as daylight came, and Chad, Eric, and Nick were scrambling on course reroutes.  But once they got word that the patrollers were kicking off windslabs that had already formed, and the fact that visibility was going to near-zero:

they wisely pulled the plug.  I think no one was as disappointed as those guys; they put in so much effort and try super hard to make a great event for everyone that it was crushing to not allow folks to...crush themselves.  But everyone knows that's the way it goes.

We did have time to do a couple of brisk laps up the first climb, and it was great:  a fun chance to chat with folks you normally don't "chat" with since every ounce of oxygen is going towards trying to beat them!  it was still a bit stormy when our posse topped out:

Colter and I made the most of it by taking our little skimo getups into the "real" backcountry (the Park City ridgeline) and doing a few laps on the fresh snow that had blown in, and had a great day skiing a few inches of powder, which is perfect for Voile's Wasatch Speed Project skimo skis.  The truth is that I was more wiped out than I anticipated after Saturday's effort and I felt like I could barely move uphill, and I literally would have been a drag on the fresh  -and very strong - Colter, but after a Brighton (Costco) muffin calorie bomb finally kicked in I was able to march a bit and at least be able to keep up with him as he broke trail!

Thanks again to Colter for being willing to give 'er a go:

Not quite as exhausted as last time.  And just wait'll next year!  

And thanks again to Chad and Co for once again throwing down hard for a great event!

Mayan Whitewater Adventures part 1

The impetus for our recent trip to Chiapas was severalfold:  I first heard about the Rio Usumacinta over 20 years ago, as the biggest river between the Mississippi and the Amazon and a hundreds-of-miles long jungle river trip that had unfortunately been "closed" for decades due to the locals' (Zapatistas) unfortunate recognition that their 1990's insurrection against the Mexican government would (correctly) get more attention if they attacked gringo river runners but had been recently "re-opened" and was being successfully navigated by our great friend Rocky Contos, the Rio Agua Azul is globally famous for it's big-but-friendly waterfalls, and the other associated rivers in Chiapas were equally good.   Ostensibly we went down to run the Usu, but I decided to go down a few days early and get some excitement on some class 4-ish whitewater before we embarked on the mostly-flatwater Usu. And I got some excitement, both on the rivers and off them.

Rain.  It rained a lot when I lived in Oregon, but not so much in SLC, and it's easy to forget what "real rain" really means.  Whenever I go to the tropics, I am reminded of the power of rain:  in Ecuador I saw rains that made rivers flash to 10x their size in minutes, in Vietnam last year we rode through rains that felt like we were getting waterboarded, and on a work trip to Bangkok I watched the city pretty much go underwater in a day.  But when I saw that rain was in the forecast for Chiapas I didn't think much of it:  "oh good, there will be some water in the rios!"  Little did I know....

When I arrived in Palenque, the tourist capital of Chiapas (due to the big Mayan ruins there) it was raining, and coming down hard.  It really takes seeing tropical rain to fully appreciate the accumulation of it, and when we got to the first river's put in -where the river was brown and roaring past at about 10 mph  - I got a good reminder.  Our first day was on the Rio Trujilla, which started at a "natural bridge"; a place where the river went fully underground and the opportunistic Mexicans had built a road over it.

right below us the river simply ends, and then starts up on the other side

There's a new river guidebook for the Chiapas area and fortunately my good pard Rocky had written the book's description for this run, and it (he) recommended a flow of 300-500 cfs.  We guessed that there was probably 2000 cfs in the river, so we knew it would be exciting.

Clearly, I have a sense of what I'm getting myself into....

Despite the copious notes from the guidebook author we still took a bit of time and conversing with the locals to find a viable way back down to the rio after paddling 100 feet and taking out above a 35 foot waterfall

"Yo amigos, is el rio nearby?"

but with a bit of jungle bashing we got to the river.  We slid in and got on the brown freight train of a river, blasting along through the jungle in the middle and hoping that there were no trees around the many blind corners.  Despite us both taking a good beatdown in a big hole that "looks like we can punch it" all went well that day, and the next on a fun run  - also with booming flows - near Palenque.  I didn't take too many (any) pictures on these runs because I was too busy hanging on and staying in the middle!

Our third day we decided to hit the Rio Chich, with a put in on the Rio Canela.  In typical Rocky fashion, our plan was to do three consecutive "runs" in one day, with the assumptions that a) the high flows would enable us to go fast, b) the class 4+ rating at 500cfs (this run had been done by Rocky's guidebook-writing partner Greg) would not be "that bad" with 4-6x the water, and c) that's what Rocky does.  The first couple of hours went according to plan, with really fast water, some fun class 3's, a coupla 4's, a big limestone ledge that was essentially a natural weir with one barely punchable line up against the bank, and a fun 15' waterfall that was enabled by the high water just barely going over a boulder that typically is far out of the water.

Downstream, however, things got a bit real.  A rapid that was likely a "normal" class 4 was a class 5 ripper with a phat hole at the bottom, and we decided to portage, which necessitated a time-consuming rappel to reach river level again. Shortly thereafter we encountered a super-stompin' class 5+ that led directly into a vertical-walled gorge with multiple horizon lines, and since it was by now 4:30 (with full darkness looming at 6) we elected to take our chances hiking out in lieu of taking higher-risk chances on the river.  So we stashed the boats and paddles, stared up into the seemingly-impenetrable jungle looming above us on a 45 degree slope, took a deep breath, and plunged upward.
One nice thing about Latin American rivers is that you are never far from someone's small farm, and after an hour of serious thrashing through the jungle (I saw that there's a reason local Mexicans are rarely seen without a machete!) we popped out at some cultivated fields and a couple of shacks.  The locals mostly spoke the local language (Chol?) but fortunately we found one guy who spoke Spanish, and he informed us that it was a 3 hours' walk out to the highway.  Well, we better get going then!

Darkness fell was we trudged up the path that eventually turned into a double track, and from what we could tell we ascended to a ridge and then started plunging down.....back down to the river?  Right about the time we were getting fairly convinced that we were about lost a small sedan packed with guys came chugging up the "road", got stuck, the guys piled out and gave it a push up to where we were, and informed us that we were within a few hundred meters of the highway.  A half an hour of trying to wave cars down and we were finally in a truck and were shortly reunited with our kind shuttle drivers, who were just hunkering down for a night's sleep in the van.

So that was our on-river adventure; little did we know what was to come!  After a day of checking out the Palenque ruins, I convinced Rocky to stay in town and prep for the river trip leaving the next day and we got fellow river tripper Brian (coincidentally, also from SLC/Sugarhouse; an old-time river rat who was keen for some adventure), Andres (chain-smoking, gringo-looking but non-english speaking Argentinian), Eeta (Mexican), and German ("Her-man"), our gentle giant, Isis-bearded river rat from Mexico City to help me retrieve the boats.

We made the 2 hour drive back to where Rocky and I had reached the highway, then turned off onto the steep double track and proceeded to take about as long to cover the 12k/7 miles and reach the little ranchito as it took for us to walk out due to the burliness of the "road".  Once at the ranchito, we were surprised that about a dozen people came out, and it became pretty clear that they were not happy; apparently it was hard to grasp the fact that gringos could be so stupid as to go down a flooded river and then so scared that they would get out, what the hell was a kayak plastico, and by the way the last gringos who were down here poisoned the river and killed all the fish (?!?).  A woman nursing a baby was our main protagonist and after an hour of German's patient and professional explaining and apologizing for his loco gringo, she abruptly said "OK" and the villager we had met on our escape was kind enough to lead us down a trail to the river that we had unfortunately missed on our exit.  Getting the boats out was still a challenge (we had to work back upstream to the locals' trail on a steep, jungly bank) but finally at sunset we ended up back at the village, tired and beat up but happy:

we had mostly changed out of our sweaty, muddy clothes, and thought we were "done".....

Not surprisingly, the locals didn't want their picture taken, but one of them was willing to take this pic of our crew; little did I know that this simple photo would contribute to our later travails....

We made our way slowly back up the trail in the truck, and after about 20 minutes we stopped for one of the cattle gates, and another group of locals came out to talk to us, and the same explanation ensued.  By this time it was dark, and suddenly a vehicle appeared out of the darkness and a bunch of guys piled out.  "What a coincidence!" I thought "another car down here today?"  But in the fading light I saw the colored lights on top of the truck, their matching hats and black shirts, shiny boots, and belts laden with the various items that police the world over typically carry, and realized that a) it wasn't quite a coincidence that there was another vehicle in that valley, and b) our adventure was just beginning.

After a lot of animated talk in both Spanish and Chol (the local language) suddenly there was some resolution and I got shoved back into the back of our truck, only this time without my buddies and with only the policia and a couple of the locals there to keep tabs on me.  We bounced back up the road until we hit a muddy spot that  -on our descent  -we had barely made it through and now  -climbing - we got stuck.  Everyone piled out of both trucks, and I was relieved to see that not only was German still driving the truck but my other amigos were still at least in the convoy, just under the supervision of the police in their truck.  We all heaved ho to get the little truck out of the mud, and I took a bit of pleasure as I watched the policia get as absolutely splattered with mud as the rest of us, which took a bit of luster off their polished boots!

After another hour of bouncing along the "road" we hit the highway, and I was disappointed but not surprised to see that we turned the wrong way and started driving through the night.  It was around this time that I started to wonder if this little soiree was going to turn out well!

After an hour we ended up in a town, and of course at the police station.  We were shepherded in, made to wait a while   -as mud-splattered ragamuffins  -until el commandante showed up, and then had to wait for another guy to show up from the state's ministry of tourism who had been alerted of our shenanigans.  Finally those two, the five of us, most of our "captors", and a few locals all were stuffed into the commandante's office and yet another animated discussion ensued, and again enough of the local language was spoken enough so that we couldn't really figure out what was being said, but the body language and volume indicated to me that they couldn't quite decide whether to throw us in jail or let us go, and even the locals seemed to be arguing between themselves; I think that the guy who showed us the trail was saying "these guys are legit and meant no harm; they are just idiots" but an older guy still kept gripping his machete too tightly and staring at me malevolently between bouts of yelling at the cops. And I was able to glean that they were furious that we had taken a photo; what was up with that?  what was El Gringo going to do with that photo? (German patiently explained that was sort of a gringo "thing").   I still wasn't sure how this situation was going to end up.  The thought occurred to me that a photo of this scene could be priceless  -and the ministry of tourism guy did actually get a couple of cell phone pics of the accused and the accusers, I think to get documentation of such a nutty situation - but in a brief moment of clarity I decided against busting out my camera again, which German later confirmed was a good move, or we'd likely still be there.  

Finally el commandante pounded briefly on his computer and printed out 5 copies of a state-letterheaded document that basically said "we are absolute idiots, we are so sorry we trespassed on your river and land, and we will get permission next time."  We all signed our own personal copies, and then German asked "do you have 500 pesos?" (about $30).  I immediately busted that out, handed it with as much deference as I could muster to el commandante, who then passed it to the locals, and instantly everyone got up, shook hands, and we were done.  So it goes in the southland!  (ironically, I had offered the villagers 100 pesos earlier for helping us get to the river and get the boats, but they wouldn't take it??).  A long drive finally delivered us back to our beds in Palenque in the wee hours.

Basically, this was a minor version of the Zapatista uprising that had plagued the region in the 90's and early 2000's; basically the rural locals felt threatened by outsiders and were tired of being picked on, so they revolted; fortunately this one ended peacefully instead of violently, as had happened in years' past.

And thus is the tale of  -as German then called me for the next week on the Usu - the (gringo) Bandito De Rio Chich.   I can't thank my crew and German in particular for their hard work, support, and patient, articulate defense of el gringo stupido in my hour(s) of need!

next up:  the tale of the (far more mellow, thankfully!) trip on the Rio Usumacinta.....

Remembering Doug Tompkins

For Christmas in nineteen hundred and ninety six, Mike Elovitz and I flew to Chile a week prior to meeting a posse of guys for a kayak trip in Patagonia to paddle some of its legendary rivers.  We flew to Puerto Montt with no agenda; we had the vacation since it was the holidays and wanted to see and do more in that amazing region than just hustle to the rios.    We had originally thought that we would hang out in Puerto Montt and then follow the tourist trail to Bariloche, but a chance encounter took us on an unexpected encounter with a guy who singlehandedly preserved 800,000 acres of virgin rainforest and changed an entire country in the process.  

I was working for Patagonia (the company) at the time, and Kris McDivitt-Tomkins was the former Patagonia CEO who had left the company a year or two before I came on to get married to and move to Chile with the iconic Doug Tompkins, who had founded and sold both The North Face and Esprit before setting his sights on Chile.  Kris was still on the Board of Directors at Patagonia and therefore came to Ventura a couple of times a year, and I’d been introduced to her before, but it didn’t even occur to me that we should “look them up” when we were in the country.  But as luck would have it, when Mike and I walked into one of the Puerto Montt grocery stores to grab some food for our journey to Bariloche, there was Kris doing some shopping herself, and was quite surprised to see us.  She asked what we were doing and when I said “going to Bariloche” she exclaimed:  “Don’t go there; come visit us!  Our place is way more beautiful than Bariloche!”  That was all we needed.

Now this is actually something that I knew already, and it bears description here.  Doug Tompkins first went to Chile to run rivers there; he was already part of the legendary river adventurers who had done first descents up and down California’s Sierras that even by today’s standards are at the upper end of difficulty. Like a lot of adventurers, he fell in love with the wildness of Patagonia and decided to move there.  But true to his roots as a competitive and dedicated adventurer, he didn’t just move there, he went big.  Over the course of several years he quietly bought up land in the Renihue valley from local landowners in the area, and by the time the Chilean government realized it, he had bought 800,000 acres that literally stretched from the big fjord his ranch was in all the way to the Argentine border.  He had literally cut the country in “half” (not quite; Chile’s a really long country!), with much of that now-private land being perceived by the Chilean government as exploitable, extractable, harvestable natural resources.  By the time we arrived in Pumalin, Doug Tompkins was a household name in Chile, and was a serious threat to the Chilean government. 

Pumalin is a challenging place to get to, and our travel there (and back) was an adventure unto itself.  But it ended with us riding in a skiff for an hour in driving rain and pulling up on a mudflat in the dark, with the vague directions to “look for the casa grande.”  We stumbled up the path until finally  - kind of like a Chilean version of Dracula’s castle  - we saw the outline of a big house and a glimmer of candlelight inside.  We knocked on the door, and after a long wait in which we tried to pull off our sodden shoes the door opened, and there, looming above us, looking very proper in his Dockers and pink button down was The Man himself, Doug Tompkins, who took a long look at us and then growled:  “I thought you were coming tomorrow!”   So much for getting off to a great start! 

Fortunately Kris came bustling over, shoved Doug out of the way, and made us feel a bit more welcome.  As it turned out, it was Christmas Eve and they were having a nice dinner and she insisted that we join them, and – since I really didn’t know her, nor she us  -we had lots of “catching up” to do.  Doug sat in silence; it was hard to tell if he was absolutely uninterested in the drivel from a couple of miscreants, pissed at us for ruining his Christmas eve dinner with his wife and eating his potential leftovers, was simply a misanthrope, or all of the above!  At one point I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and when I came out -  in a feeble attempt to engage him a little   -I asked “so Mr. Tompkins, that picture of you kayaking in the bathroom” – and he barely looked up, trying to feign interest and acknowledge that he was being directly addressed – “is that in Kings Canyon?”  His eyes abruptly widened and said “Why, yes it is!  Have you been there?”  It was so weird; all of a sudden, since I had been on a burly and beautiful section of river that he had a lot of respect for, all of a sudden I became   -in his eyes – a worthy dinner companion, because his demeanor changed and we were all buddies from there on out!

The next day the rain continued to pound, and after we paddled around the fjord a little in one of his old Dancers and gone for a hike and dried off again, he announced that he could use some help moving some stuff from one outbuilding to another, which we were happy to do.  We went into one of the outbuildings and prominently placed in a big room was a ping pong table, which we were surprised to see.  Doug asked “do you play?”

A little known Diegel fact is there was a time when ping pong was the family game; not only did we have a table (lots of people did/do) but we were also members of the mighty Ping Pong Palace, which occupied the 6^th floor of a building in downtown Portland and at the time was pretty much one of the table tennis capitols of America.  The phase ended as I got into high school and tried hard to be cool enough to not like ping pong any more, but the skills were there, if a bit rusty.  So when Doug asked  -somewhat too hungrily, I thought –“do you play?” I thought “well, this might be interesting!”

As I anticipated, Doug Tompkins approached his ping pong like he approached rivers, climbs, business, and conservation:  very aggressively.  He beat me the first game, but in the meantime I realized that he had a surprisingly undeveloped backhand, so I kept forcing that side of the table and was able to take the second game.  Mike was being quite amused to be privy to this peculiar Patagonian Ping Pong party (I couldn’t resist that one) and saw what was happening and wondered how it would end.  Doug also recognized what I was doing and tried to adjust accordingly, and it went back and forth to match point, when I thought “man, he’s so competitive, this is his place, I should just be a nice guy and gracefully let him win”, but then I got ahold of myself and put him away with a slam to his backhand! 

After another day or two of continued rain we were getting a bit bored (I demurred at a request for a rematch), and Doug decided that he needed to go back their Puerto Montt place himself and he’d fly us there in his plane.  He’s an accomplished pilot, but the wild look in his eyes as he revved the engines at the end of the grass runway with the rain and wind still blasting gave me a pretty good nervous buzz, which I’m sure he saw in my eyes, and was quite pleased to provide a bit of excitement for us.  

In 2005 the Chilean government – having finally moved past tapping the Tompkins’ phones, threatening them, and publicly declaring that they were cult leaders (the whole scene did remind me of the crazy, rich bad guys like Bond's Goldfinger who owned tropical islands filled with minions committed to the cause) – declared all 800,000 acres the Pumalin National Park, which is now one of the biggest tourist attractions in southern Chile and preserves forever a whole biosphere of incredibly rich plant life (I think mostly because it rains incessantly!).  It’s a remarkable tribute to Kris and Doug’s vision and tenacity.

Doug Tompkins died today after swimming out of a sea kayak in big waves in frigid waters.  I’m sure he was probably furious to have been compromised in flat water kayaking, of all things.  I’ve often thought of him as the short, adventurous, capitalistic, conversationist, curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, but there’s no doubt that he’s one of the few individuals to not only use his considerable resources for conservation but also literally change a country for the better due to his passion for The Right Thing, and his vision and passion will be missed, though his legacy will live on. 

Here's a nice article in the NY Times