Gear up and slow down

 Got a call at the shop last week from a guy asking to reserve snowshoes for an upcoming hike. I could tell he was new to winter, and steeped in the new fixation with carrying and wearing only exactly what you need for the trip.

"I have spikes," he said. "I just don't know if I want to have snowshoes."

That's silly. No one wants to have snowshoes. Snowshoes are a necessary evil of winter travel. No matter how convenient someone makes a binding system or how light someone tries to make the snowshoes, they're still a nuisance whether you are wearing them or carrying them. But you will bless them when you need them, and you may die if you don't have them. At the very least you will end up paying for your rescue if you tried to go without them and were lucky enough to have cell phone signal when you figured out that you were hopelessly mired.

I have noticed a lot more news items about hikers in trouble since 2020 sent a whole lot of people out to find healthy outdoor fun. Lots of people discovered the simple joy of hiking. Equipment suppliers were happy to provide beautifully advertised and sometimes functional gear to meet the untrained tastes of the novices.

Hiking and climbing have always had their share of minimalists, many of whom manage to survive long enough to be perceived as wise rather than merely lucky. The internet has given lucky survivors and overnight experts much greater reach.

The mountains are ancient. Nature is unforgiving. Humans may mutilate the natural environment, but natural forces will always be strong enough to snuff out your individual life if you do not respect their potential. Warmer than the historical average is still colder than your body temperature. Rain instead of snow can be more deadly. A trail report can't possibly cover every yard (or meter) that you will traverse.

Winter rules: gear up and slow down. Adjust your ambition to conditions. Train for the weight. You deserve no sympathy if you are not willing to prepare. This means not just your load of gear but your attitude. Winter is much harder than summer. The rewards can be greater in a slightly better chance to find solitude, and the beauty of the winter landscape.

Bought with my blood

 

1987 Koflach Ultra double boots

On August 10, 1987, I was riding my bike southward into North Conway, NH on Route 16. There was a wide shoulder marked as a bike lane, but that abruptly narrowed where some railroad tracks crossed the road. I edged to my left, closer to the line of stopped traffic in the travel lane. The Mount Washington Valley traffic jam was a standard feature. Because of it, I would typically drive from Tamworth to the Kanc, park my car wherever I could, and proceed by bike to do whatever I needed or wanted to do in Conway or North Conway. So I was miles from my car when a passenger in a stopped vehicle shot a door open into the narrow shoulder just as I arrived.

The impact drove the edge of the car door into my left thigh a couple of inches deep. I crashed to my right. From long experience, I swung the bike up above me so I could undo the toe straps and release my feet from the pedals. The ugly, flapped gash in my leg welled with blood. I pressed it shut with my gloved hand and asked the instant gathering of bystanders if anyone had a clean handkerchief. They kept asking if I was okay and offering things I didn't need. Eventually, a nurse on her day off showed up and did a nice first aid job to hold me over until the ambulance arrived. A police officer who had been tending to the impatient motoring public took information from the occupants of the car that nailed me, and took my bike to International Mountain Equipment, where I had made a couple of acquaintances in my short time as a new resident of the area.

The gash in my leg was deeper than anything I had suffered in a fairly full career of getting lacerated. I had to take the ambulance ride, complete with back board, because that's what they have to do when they scrape somebody off the road. I suppose in more desperate circumstances I would just have bound the whole mess up tightly and stayed off of it as best I could for a few weeks, but why not go for the posh treatment when someone else is most likely paying? The funny thing was, we were practically across the street from Memorial Hospital. The ambulance barely got one "whoop" out of the siren before they were pulling into the driveway.

As the doctor was finishing the long job of stitching up first the muscle and then the skin, I asked him if I would be able to walk.

"Could you walk before?" he asked. I knew the joke.

"I meant today," I said. "I have to get myself around."

He said I was cleared to walk as much as I found comfortable. 

The motorists' insurance company agreed to a settlement. The money paid for my medical bills, bike repairs, mountaineering boots, a sturdy tent, and a deposit on a rental house. I had just started a new job with a new outdoor magazine, and needed to upgrade my gear for the things I expected to write about. That endeavor didn't pan out, but the long process of its failure still managed to throw me into some adventures. The boots got a lot more use than the tent.

The picture above was taken today, January 15, 2024. I wasn't even thinking about 2024 when I got those boots and started finding trouble to get into with them. But I never got rid of them, even when I was temporarily doing other things for almost 30 years. I still might, which is why I scraped thick dust and fuzz off of them and put them on today to see if they're in usable condition. They are. Remains to be seen if I am.

I've paid with my life for my dreams and decisions. I mean I'm still alive, but the time has been spent on something other than what our consumerist society calls success. As much as it was startling and painful, I owe that lady in the car a debt of gratitude for unintentionally providing me with needed funds. Within a few months, the outdoor magazine started writing me rubber paychecks and I had to get by on unemployment for a while until I got a copy editing job with a newspaper, and supplemented that with a job at an outdoor sports shop. Life always hinges on accidents. Some of them are more obvious crashes than others.