On Monday, I got a call from a television producer friend who just began pre-production for a SAR documentary. So much for saving the best for last, that’s actually my favorite announcement, and it’ll be fun to contribute and see the finished product, possibly sometime this fall.

On Tuesday, we had a short rescue mission. It actually came Wednesday morning at 1:00 a.m. A motorcycler somewhere above Cedar Hills called in with possible head injuries. Due to a kink in the notification system, we got paged 20 minutes later than we should have been, and we had scarcely begun sending out search teams to comb the foothills when a team member watched the rider roll slowly out of a canyon on his own. I would have arrived home by 2:00 had a few of us not hung around talking for another hour.

On Wednesday night, I gave the keynote address for the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce Great Kids Awards ceremony, where a pair of 7th graders from every junior high in the valley was recognized for being generally awesome people. They received some awesome prizes, and you can watch my presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH5xf1RLiCg

Thursday night was our monthly team training and business meeting. It went quickly and it was nice to see everyone. I replaced my 200′ rope and prussiks since my old ones were showing some wear.

Lindsey and Rob had their baby with them, who has better attendance than some of our team members, so when I got home, I photoshopped this picture of her, making her an official member of BSAR (baby search and rescue).

On Friday, I finished working out the details between the Mountain Rescue Association Education Committee’s Webinar Training Subcommittee (which I founded and chair) and PMI (awesome climbing rope manufacturer) for monthly training that we’ll create for members of the MRA. The rest of you can watch them on our websites afterward.

Saturday brought our monthly team training, which was swiftwater rescue this month, despite low river flow levels so far this year. I covered the foot entrapment station where groups practiced retrieving people from the river by capturing them with throw bags (and ropes) from the river banks. You can see some footage of our training on this news story: http://www.kutv.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_11048.shtml

And on Sunday, not to be outdone by the other days of the week, NPR’s All Things Considered played an interview they recorded with me on Thursday afternoon.  Listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/2014/05/04/309075885/calling-off-the-search-the-emotional-toll-of-search-and-rescue

Now let’s see if this week can somehow top last!!!!

A lot has changed since I last wrote, so in case I don’t get around to posting all the trip reports for this summer, here’s a quick overview:

1. I Quit Teaching.

I enjoyed teaching, but quitting is a very good thing, and I’ll tell you why. If you went to college, you were probably taught by many adjunct faculty. This means someone not on tenure track taught your class for a fraction of what “full time” faculty earn. Recent research shows students learn more from these instructors, but they usually don’t get offices or benefits, and they either have second jobs, like commuting to another college or university to teach there as well, or maybe it’s a successful business person who teaches one class per week, or live in their car and have no living expenses.

Anyway, farewell, Utah Valley University. It was fun meeting all you students, and I’m glad that you learned something and even learned to like writing a little better (or hate it less), but I’m happy to be through with that career. Onward & upward.

2. I went on lots of awesome trips!

On June 1, I met a girl who I wanted to get to know better. She and three friends were planning a 200 mile bike trip around Tahoe, through Yosemite, and a couple days down PCH1. I got myself invited along, bought a road bike, built a 5-bike rack at my friend’s shop, and became that girl’s boyfriend.

A large group of friends also did a ~30 mile backpacking trip around the Tetons, and Jen and I did a lot of hiking, biking, running, backpacking, climbing and sailing on our own. We also read and talked, held hands while walking in the rain, cooked and snuggled, I met her super-cool family, and in the end, even though we’ve been really good for each other…it didn’t quite work out. Too bad. But at least we’re still on great terms and have only good to say about each other.

3. I quit my job, again.

The job that pulled me away from UVU (THANK YOU!) was working for a pair of radio stations in Evanston, Wyoming, 95 miles from my house. I rebuilt their web pages to support a lot more content and advertising, then set them up to stream high school sports live on the internet, plus produced a few video ads for their customers and various other things.

I only had to commute to Wyoming a couple times a week, at most, but I learned that driving for 3 hours a day and spending 1/4 of my pay for gas is not my dream. So when my new responsibilities would have required me to be there every day, I told them no thanks and finished up my task list on the last day of the month.

Yesterday I had my second interview at an interesting company 4 miles from home, and it looks promising and interesting and should pay well and be rewarding. I expect to hear back from them soon and am excited to get started.

4. I started writing another book.

I like it, and I think it will be enjoyable and insightful and useful, but I’m only at the end of the brainstorming/design phase, so I won’t say too much about it since I can’t estimate how long till I finish writing it. I’ll just say that it’s one of three titles I’m sort of working on that will change your perspective and make life easier to live well.

And that’s about it. It’s been a pretty darn good summer – the best I’ve had in many years, for sure!! Thanks very much to everyone who contributed.

My bike has been out of commission for a while, so Brent lent me his extra KTM CXRW530 (or something like that) – thanks! I love that bike. Tight, responsive suspension, excellent power. It was nice to discover that I still feel perfectly comfortable on a dirt bike as this is my first ride of the year, and lower Days Canyon provided ample warm up with all it’s large and loose rocks to navigate. 

We rode for about five hours – up Days, Kirkman, Pumphouse Ridge, Packard (the long east variation and normal route), and back again. I *loved* tackling rocky climbs, staying forward on the pegs and steering carefully between boulders and roots to keep the front wheel on the ground, sometimes wrenching the handlebars quickly back and forth to avoid hitting a tree trunk without riding off the trail, banked corners, fast open meadows that flashed by between winding curves, the feeling of my hands on the grips and my shoulders steering the bike and letting it do all the work, jumping the occasional hump in the trail, watching small flocks of wild turkey race away as we drove by, occasional patches of red leaves carpeting the trail, and stopping now and then to chat and make sure no one had crashed.

Afterward, when I rode my street bike home (Yamaha FZ6), it felt sluggish and unresponsive in comparison to the dirt bikes.

I haven’t been out playing nearly enough this summer, instead trying to work and get things done. But now, after a couple weeks of school, picking up an extra class and two more classes for a charter school, writing for hours some days, grading others, creating new curriculum, and other tasks, I’m feeling slightly burned out, which explains why I’m writing this blog post instead of polishing another chapter or two of the book I’ve vowed to finish writing by Halloween. But I guess I’ll get back to that now anyway. One more hour tonight. It’ll be rewarding to get a few more steps closer to completing another task.

<– Adam on Pyramid of the Sun (MUCH bigger than I expected! Awesome!!) with the Pyramid of the Moon in the background at Teotihuacan.

–> walking up the steep stairs up the Pyramid of the Sun.

<– Adam and I at a taco stand in Amecameca. We LOVE the atmosphere in Mexico and enjoyed walking around downtown at night.

–> Inside the Amecameca cathedral. With two 17,000’+ volcanoes towering over the city, think of Amecameca as Mecca for alpine pilgrims.

<– We left the trailhead at 5:22 a.m. and 13,000′ feet above sea level. An hour or two later, the sun rose and showed Popo behind us as we made our way up the steep, rocky trail up Iztaccihuatl. The Popo half of this national park is closed since it’s an active volcano. It had a major eruption a month earlier. I was kinda wishing we’d get to witness that again!

<– Dad’s school. Looks fantastic.

We went to mass next to a 600 year old cathedral and welcomed in 2012 with the family of the pension owner where we stayed. Great people! All very nice. ^ note the Mayan calendar t-shirt.

I caught the bus back up to the DF and flew home the next day.

1. Cruise ship from Florida to Spain. The best rates go for about $700 right before and after spring semester finals. If my students really come along, we could spend part of the 7-9 days studying creative writing (which some want to learn) and we could write and publish a book about our trip so anyone can follow us later.

2. Once in Spain, we might as well take a $40 ferry to Morocco and spend a day or two, just to add another continent to the itinerary.

3. Maybe catch Barcelona for a couple days, just to check out Sagrada Familia cathedral and the bizarrely awesome Parque Guel. Plus hike up to a dilapidated Roman castle above any old town.

4. For sure stop in Paris for a while. And maybe Germany where I have three friends and relatives I could stay with…though probably not if we’re a large group. If students really come along and “hire” me as their tour guide, I’ll spend as long as they want anywhere they want to go!

5. Make our way to Moscow and catch the Transiberian railroad all the way over to Irkutsk. While living in Beijing way back when, Transiberian tickets went for $113 and I really, really wanted to go. But I was quickly running out of money saved up from working in Taiwan and had a return ticket home through Hong Kong. Now is my chance!

6. It’s also my chance to spend a few days riding horses in Mongolia and staying in yurts (gors), another activity I missed in Beijing and promised to return for someday.

7. Beijing deserves a few days to see the sights, and I can drop in on some friends & relatives living there. Plus catch the Great Wall on the way by. Maybe backpack and camp there again.

8. From there, we could check out a few cities like Chengdu, maybe visit Everest North Base Camp in Tibet, and definitely Yangshuo on our way south.

9. From there, pass through Viet Nam (more friends there), then on to Thailand, where I’ll either settle down or take a boat over to India and continue up to Nepal for a 5-day hike up to Everest South Base Camp. Perhaps I’ll stay in Nepal for the summer, and move to Thailand for winter.

I think that much is doable for around $3,000. So worth it! Then I can live in Thailand or Nepal for a few hundred bucks a month.

10. And then?

Nobody knows. Probably teach English. Write a lot and publicize what I’ve got. Maybe guide tours around Asia, teach energy work, and whatever else comes up. Then ponder life until I figure out what happens next.

A real estate agent heard I was thinking of moving and is bringing some potential buyers by tomorrow to look at the place. With some cheap foreclosures nearby, I doubt they’ll buy it, but the market is showing signs of improvement soon, and if they offer what I need…then this grand adventure is that much closer to reality. If not, I’ll keep planning and scheming and see what happens.

In this photo (click to zoom in), I’m the top left bright green dot. A girl fell 30′ and tumbled another 60′, and luckily stopped on a steep scree slope just down and right from me. You might call that a miracle.

She had serious injuries (but is expected to be okay) and no one knew exactly where she was. Her boyfriend, who had earlier hiked down the trail, got worried and borrowed a cell phone to call 911. The people who lent him the phone hiked up and, when the wind was blowing toward them, heard her screams. She had probably been there for an hour or two before they found her and tried to keep her warm while waiting for SAR and North Fork Fire to arrive. She was found high on the mountainside and far from any trails. Another miracle.

We set up 6 lowering stations to bring her down, including one I built with five pitons set in tiny cracks in the cliff just above her with water flowing over them. The operation went smoothly (of course), and a waiting Life Flight helicopter flew her away.

Maybe you’re thinking that none of these events are really miracles. It was just people doing small things. Like lending a cell phone. The bystanders who found the girl were hiking in the area anyway. SAR and NFF have rescued dozens of people along that stretch of mountain, and we consider it simple and easy. But that’s how most miracles come about, with just people, usually doing just small things.

If you were thinking these are no miracles, try looking at it from another angle, like the girl’s, who lay in pain for hours and who now recovers safely in a warm, soft hospital bed rather than dying on cold, hard rocks.

Now look around. Who do you see who needs a miracle? What small thing can you contribute? What are you waiting for?

Some of the boys had very little fear and thoroughly enjoyed the whole adventure, which is great; but the ones who impressed me most didn’t start out that way.

Two 12 year olds were visibly shaken as they eased over the first awkward cliff. One – after hanging just over the edge and trying to get started for a few minutes, glancing down repeatedly despite everyone’s admonitions not to – started to cry.

But neither one ever backed out! One moved steadily downward despite his shaking knees, and the other did the same once I tied a piece of webbing around his harness to offer an extra belay (a fireman’s belay on the end of the rope could stop them at any time).

When’s the last time you did something that scared you? Have you ever done anything that TERRIFIED you? I highly recommend it. It changes your life as you discover that you’re more capable and courageous than you ever knew.

I’ve long believed that courage is one of the most underrated values in the world. We sometimes speak of it as if only daredevils and heroes have a right to it. Not so. Courage is for everyone.

By the second outing, the kids were running laps up the trail and down the rope as fast as they could go, loving nearly every minute. They made me proud. With determination and courage like that, what can ever stop them?

The point is no longer to collect things that may be useful, the question is now how to get rid of everything so I don’t have to find a place to store it. I wonder if I could reduce everything I need to a single backpack. I’ll need a small computer and a camera, a few clothes that don’t take up much space, and that’s about it, right? That plus my favorite water bottle and a passport. A Kindle so I can study the languages I’ll need and read the classics I haven’t had time for for too long. Sunglasses and sunscreen, running shoes, credit card.

I just took a stroll around the house and garage to assess what I want to keep, and it’s not much. It’ll be hard to get rid of things like climbing gear – I should store those in case I come back. Other things are easier – skis and mountain bikes and motorcycles can be replaced later. I have too many of those and cameras and backpacks and sails (I don’t even have a sailboat anymore) and other things anyway. My x-c ski pulk sled is too cool to sell, so I’ll leave it with someone who will put it to use while I’m gone. I’ll get rid of all the boxes of papers and things I’ll never look at again. Maybe I’ll have a bonfire. I might have a box or two of momentos that I really want.

I hadn’t thought much about finding someone to go with me until a student brought it up on Tuesday. He’s coming down with a mild case of wanderlust and wanted to talk about it. That led to a discussion at the beginning of class that led to this question: “If I led a tour somewhere around the world, how many of you would come?” One third of the class raised their hands.  So maybe I won’t start out alone after all, and that sounds fun.

Some of them want to go to Europe and some prefer Asia. That got me thinking about my best idea yet. Buy a one-way ticket to Paris, make my/our way to Moscow, and take the Transiberian Railroad to Ulan Bator and Beijing, then continue on south to Thailand and stay for a while. If summer gets too hot, move to Nepal and visit Everest Base Camp. I have friends living in Beijing and Viet Nam right now, so I may as well drop in there, too.

Will this really happen? Will I really go? I can’t say for sure. It probably won’t happen for at least six months, and you never know what can change in that much time. But if it’s anything like the last few years, then I’m definitely gone. I should have picked up and gone then. Ah, hindsight. I’ll keep walking that direction and see what happens.

Do Hard Things

If you ask me to list my all-time favorite call outs, the list will include two types of missions: fun and hard.

Fun calls include zipping across the lake on a PWC on a bluebird summer afternoon and pulling an attractive girl from the water moments before she sinks below the waves where her boat sank. She would catch her breath, discover a brand new perspective on life, and we would become fast friends on the ride back to the marina with her arms wrapped tightly around my waist. We would go on a picnic that weekend, fall madly in love, and live happily ever after.

Nothing remotely like this has ever happened, of course, but I won’t complain if it ever does.

Hard calls are not always fun. Their rewards come at the expense of fatigue, endurance, and technical challenges. They may include rushing up tall, steep mountains in dark, inclement weather, carrying a heavy pack filled with ropes, hardware, medical and survival gear on my back. They may include severely wounded victims who we must quickly transport through challenging terrain, knowing they will die if we don’t. They may include ————.

I didn’t always like hard things. I wanted everything easy and comfortable – who doesn’t? But then something happened. I did hard things because I could not avoid them, and I learned. I changed my mind. I discovered the deep, exciting, satisfying appeal of the word “challenge.”
Sometimes the reward of difficult things comes after the fact. When I reached the 13,770’ summit of the Grand Teton after climbing the full Exuum Ridge, for example, I had a splitting headache from dehydration. I looked down at Lupine Meadows and the anticipated elation did not materialize. I merely felt tired and uncomfortable.
While planning the expedition, I often wished aloud that the Grand was 35’ taller to make it the highest point in the state. As I sat down on the summit block, I thought, “This is high enough.”

After dropping 7,000’ and slowly swinging my 45 pound pack from my stiff and sore shoulders, after taking a short nap in the shade while waiting for the rest of the climbing party to catch up, and after climbing into the car and starting down the highway toward home, I looked up. I saw what we had just accomplished. I noticed how thick the air was below 7,000’, that I no longer had to catch my breath after a drink of water or saying a long sentence.

And I felt good. Happy. Satisfied. Hard things, at least if they’re also worthwhile things, are rewarding.

Becoming converted to doing hard things doesn’t mean I actively seek out difficulty and danger, but perhaps I’m wrong and my perspective has grown skewed. After solo climbing an extremely steep route 7,000’ up Mount Timpanogos one spring, a friend asked me if it was hard. “No,” I replied, “you just have to keep going.”

“You never think anything’s hard,” he responded, “unless you can barely do it.”

Maybe so. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I hardly know the meaning of the word “hard” anymore. If that’s true, I can’t say that I mind such delusion.

…that said, life *is* hard. There are things I can barely do, or at least they take time. A lot more time than I ever expected. But I’m doing them. I’m keeping going. I will come out on top!!!!!!!!!

Three men in their 20’s went hiking up the extremely steep, rocky, precarious AF canyon, then decided to hike back down. They downclimbed a 200′ cliff that was a big mistake for two reasons: they could have fallen to their deaths, and once they reached the bottom, they couldn’t get down the next 200′.

So they called 911. Good call. It’s easier to walk people out than carry them.

We got paged out around 7:30 p.m. I was assigned team leader for the top team, and I picked three other members of the Singletrack Special Team – Bryan, Jake and David. This was partially because Jake is a ranger and read in the manual this week that certified motorcycle riders from another agency can use the NPS motorcycles in an emergency.

So up we went, up the cave trail on the Kowasaki and Honda ~110 cc minibikes. We drove to Dead Dog point, almost to the cave, parked the bikes, and started hiking. We crossed steep snowfields, loose scree, climbed up and down cliffs, and finally, guided by teams on the road and across the canyon, came in right above our victims.

We rappelled 200′ to them and lowered them another 200′ to waiting teams below, who walked them to the road. Several times, such massive rockfall tumbled down the mountain that the sound echoed through the canyon. We made sure everyone was clear before dislodging anything, and other than some scrapes and a few bruises, no one was injured.

The last of us got back down to the highway by 2:15 a.m.

On Wednesday, the pager went off again, again at Timp Cave. Many of us wondered if it was a mistake, but it wasn’t. An 11-year-old girl had accidentally stepped off the trail and fallen about 50′, then tumbled down steep scree a ways farther.

Along with NPS and Alpine Fire, we packaged her up and brought her back up to the trail, then down to a waiting Life Flight helicopter.

So far, National SAR Week was going great.

Thursday, the pager went off again, and again to the cave. Some SAR members didn’t even check the radio, assuming this time it HAD to be a mistake. No such luck.

A maintenance ranger had driven a motorcycle off a 40′ cliff. The bike stopped another 50′ down the hill against small trees, but the ranger did not. He went another 300′ to the same steep, narrow, rock-filled gulley where the Russian had fallen several years earlier.

Again, I was put in charge of the advance team, and we climbed a steep snowfield, bringing helmets, water, jackets and harnesses to the rangers who had immediately hurried up the ravine in case the ranger was still alive. The operation slowed considerably once it was verified that he was not.

Other SAR members brought up a stokes and additional gear, and we packaged and lowered the ranger down the mountain to where his family had gathered below.

This ranger had a reputation for making you feel like you were his best friend every time he spoke with you. He sounds worth knowing, but in this case, I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad I could shift into rescue mode, get the job done, and not think too much about the loss that everyone around us was feeling so deeply.

National SAR week ended as six of us returned once more the next day to retrieve the motorcycle and gather any additional photos and clues for the sheriff’s report.

Here’s the part where I say something about how great SAR is, but anything I think of sounds trite compared to the actual stories I’ve participated in over the past ten and a half years. I’ll simply say this: it matters, and I’m lucky to be a member of our outstanding team of volunteers.