Only Mountain Bikers Care About Trails

This is not going to be a popular opinion, but then I guess it’s really more a statement of fact than opinion at all: only mountain bikers care about trails.

And, now, before you start yelling, we should make a few ancillary points clear. Obviously, many more people than mountain bikers use trails, use them very often, and cherish that experience. Many more user groups than mountain bikers participate in trail stewardship projects (though not nearly to the same extent). Land managers, obviously, are charged with caring for trails each and every day of their careers.

I don’t dispute any of this. In fact I point to it with one hand as a scratch my head with the other: how is it that with trails helping to drive the new western economy, with trails as the central draw to our state parks and open spaces, that so few people put any thought into them.

 

An important distinction here is that we are talking about the trails themselves, and not the places they go. Many people care about going to the places that trails go, and are passionate about those experiences. But the trails themselves are apparently binary for most people. Is there a trail or is there not a trail? Is there a lot of trail or not a lot of trail? And that is where the conversation ends in most rooms.

Other users may have opinions about the aesthetics of a trail and where it goes. Is this a pretty place with a view? Are there rock outcroppings that will make me look cool on Instagram? But only mountain bikers ask the question of whether the trail is good.

Does it flow? Is it sustainable? Was it built thoughtfully and carefully? How are the switchbacks? Many users care that trails exist, and some feel strongly about where they go. But it is only mountain bikers that care deeply how they are made. It is only mountain bikers who care for the gentle nuance of how a path lays across the contours of a hillside, and how the tread surface will grow and change and evolve. Only mountain bikers care about the trails themselves.

This is not a slight to other trail users. As mountain bikers we understand that you do not. But we do, humbly, ask that when we speak about trails, you consider listening. Because we’ve spent a lot of time on this. Trails are expensive and time consuming to build, and when done wrong can scar a landscape or create a lifetime of ongoing maintenance.

But when done right they can save a timber town’s economy, and build healthy communities. They can be sustainable and require almost no annual upkeep and they can inspire armies of volunteers to make that work cost nothing. They can be really goddamn fun.

All it takes is someone who really cares.

Have You Not Shot An Elk Yet?

Have you not shot an elk yet? That’s fine, me too. Actually, I’ve never even seen an elk with a weapon in my hands, and I’m starting to think that they don’t even really exist. Or maybe they do, technically, exist, but that they all just file into those FEMA camps we’ve been hearing so much about and just chill there for a few weeks each fall. I bet that’s it. I’m sure it has nothing to do with me as a hunter.

All part of an elaborate hoax.

But hunting is funny. It’s one of those past times where the stated objective (killing another of God’s creatures) isn’t really the point. In fact, it’s almost antithetical to the point. Because remember, after a “successful” hunt, you need to deal with the mess you just made.

You need to walk over to the thing and get your knife out, and then spend what must be hours elbow deep in a bloody, smelly mess. And then you can be sure that critter isn’t going to walk itself back to your Honda Civic, no sirree, you have to carry it. Which, what’s all this about everyone trying to shoot the biggest animal they can? Don’t they know that’s just more weight to carry?

This is all totally missing the whole point of going hunting, which is of course to go sit in the woods and just shut up for a while. You know, to put the phone away for a few minutes and just look around, shiver a bit, maybe have a grouse scare the living hell out of you. The point is to slow down, and really think about not stepping on any sticks. To smell an animal before it sees you and runs away (like it always does), and feel every moment of darkness seep into the evening air. To regroup with your friends and have a beer and laugh at how bad you are at this, but how worthwhile it really is, and then to head home and get warm again.

That’s all.

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You Need to Buy a Hunting License

I understand that hunting isn’t your thing. I understand that maybe you don’t get jittery every April, June, September, and October as successive seasons open. I understand that getting out of bed well before dawn to go outside and shiver in the dark is not everyone’s idea of fun. I understand that there’s not a scrap of camouflage in your closet, and that bloody photos of elk make your stomach turn. I understand that you want to repeal the 2nd Amendment, and that you live in a large city, and that you’ve never hunted a day in your life. I understand that you’re a vegan.

You still need to buy a hunting license this year.

Because hunting doesn’t really have anything to do with guns and killing and meat. And, you know, sure: nominally that’s the goal. But in reality it’s much, much bigger than that. At the end of the day, hunting lives at the center of conservation.

Each fall I head out to the woods as much as a single time, to take my rifle for a hike. I don’t even call it hunting anymore, just rifle hiking, really, because I so rarely pull the trigger. Fishing bores me to tears, but I buy a license every year.

Because hunting and fishing contribute $800 Million each year to conservation and management in licensing alone; Federal excise tax on guns and ammunition contribute another $250 Million or so directly to habitat conservation, management, and law enforcement. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars that sportsmen contribute to private conservation organizations to protect and improve the landscapes that allow hunting and fishing, and comes at a time when public land and management agencies are under constant attack through slashed budgets and threats of privatization.

90% of duck stamp fees go directly to habitat conservation by acquisition or easement, and has protected more than 6 million acres. Since hunting equipment taxes began to support conservation, the US elk population has grown from 41,000 to more than a million. And while conserving a species with the intention of going out to shoot that species may raise an eyebrow, we can’t forget what’s threatening these animals in the first place.

Take, for instance, the regal sage grouse, which today teeters on the brink of the endangered species list. As the US Fish and Wildlife Service scrambles to study stint the bird’s decline, hunting is allowed and encouraged. Of 1,300 collared sage grouse in a recent study by Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, only nine were killed by hunters. The threats to game species are no longer the over hunting that killed the passenger pigeon and the dodo, but fragmented and paved habitat as we make room for pipelines, parking lots, and Verizon Stores.

Sure, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is fired up about huntable elk, the same way that Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever belie their true intentions in name alone. But in order to protect these charismatic game species, we need large scale habitat continuity and resiliency against a changing climate. In essence, game animals need the same thing we all do, and efforts to improve game habitat are efforts to improve global habitat. We need to build broad based coalitions to protect broad landscapes, and this begins with joining those guys who unironically wear camouflage and blaze orange at the same time.

So go get a license. It’s twenty bucks, and that directly funds conservation and wildlife professionals. It’s sort of like if you could pay your taxes with a note to please not use that money to bomb civilians – it’s great! And once you get a license you might as well pencil in one morning this fall to get out for a rifle hike.

When you do, you may find that the coffee tastes better when the road out of town is quiet, and that you enjoy the sound of your feet crunching a frozen dew. You may find that sitting perfectly still, perfectly silently is just the thing you’ve missed. You may find yourself standing in a place that you would not ever have visited for any other reason than that perhaps an animal would be standing there as well, and that it just happens to be a perfect place to watch a frozen sunrise.

You may even find your crosshairs drawn to the heaving ribs of an ungulate, at which time you may choose to pull the trigger or not, and that whatever you do you may find that it is the very least important moment of the hunt.

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Cheesy Allegories (From France)

Skiing uphill takes a long time, even when a gondola does most of the work. It gives you an opportunity to look around. To take it all in. To think about stuff that you usually wouldn’t think about, because you’re usually up to something more productive than slowly walking uphill just to come right back down again.

Sometimes you think about little things like how your boots don’t fit, or the the differences in French and Italian espresso, or how high 4,000 meters is in American and whether that has anything to do with why you’re so tired. But then other times you’re just kind of in awe of the mountains around you and that makes you feel small, and that makes you think about bigger things. And so here we have:

Cheesy Allegories (from France)

  • Ignore Everyone Else – It’s like a ski partner said once: “Ignore everyone else out here. They’re just a bunch of assholes trying to kill you.” It’s not necessarily that they’re bad people, but a lot of them are just out of their element. And when they’re setting skintracks in dangerous places, or kicking rocks on your head, or skiing way too fast for anyone’s good, they’re definitely trying to kill you, whether they know it or not.

    DSC09881
    Here we have someone speedflying through a sea of English tourists. Seems legit.

    The same goes for real life. Sure, outside of texting motorists most people won’t go out of their way kill you, but they’re definitely not worried about not killing you. And it extends to everything from business to waiting in the ice cream line. You do you, and think critically about where you’re going and the best way to get there. Who knows what all those other people out there are even up to, anyway?

  • Don’t Waste Your Weather Window – It turns out it’s pretty easy to burn a few days sipping coffee, booking lodging, and comparing foreign McDonald’s to home. When you touch down for two weeks and you’re graced with warm, sunny days and freezing, starry nights, it’s hard to imagine that changing. “High pressure is stable! We’ll get the lay of the land today, ski that stuff tomorrow!”But then a storm rolls in and you’re stuck in town, forced to choke down espresso drinks and anise liqueur and strange cheeses. You blew it. Ski when it’s time to ski, screw off when it’s time to screw off*. It’s easy to think that you’ve got more time than you do, whether you’re trying to ski corn, write that screenplay, or make all that money in the stock market.
    If you don't go skiing when you're supposed to but go later on instead it looks like this.
    If you don’t go skiing when you’re supposed to but then go later on instead it sometimes looks like this.

    Chances are, the best you can probably rely on is about 30 more winters of skiing hard, and that’s assuming you don’t get pasted later on this week by some distracted driver. How many places do you want to ski? Are you going to make it?

  • Know What You Want To Ski – Of course the other way to blow a weather window (or your irreplaceable youth, in case I’m not laying it on thick enough), is not having any idea what you want to ski. While just showing up and picking ski lines from a terrace while you sip espresso does, actually, kind of work in Chamonix, it’s not a great plan for getting the most out of a short trip. Maybe do a little research before you get on the plane.

    And it’d be silly to seize the day and get to work on that novel you’ve been rolling around in your head if you have absolutely zero interest in writing a novel. The idea that we each have a linear path to happiness is kind of ridiculous, at some level most of us are kind of just bumbling our way through life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an idea of what you’d like to get mixed up in. You might only have 30 good winters left in your knees, but that doesn’t mean you’re dead yet and it’s not too late to pivot. What are you doing with yourself, anyway? Do you actually like it?

  • If You’re Going To Screw Off, Enjoy It – Sometimes you miss weather windows. Other times you get off a plane in Guatemala City and your only plan is to hope that some guy who’s name you don’t know and whom you cannot contact will pick you up from baggage claim before you get murdered. That’s fine too! Know when you’re beat (or when you blew it), and just let it ride.Good weather in Chamonix is for skiing objectives, but sometimes it doesn’t come together. If that means you’re sipping espresso while you should definitely be skiing, then, well, shit. Roll a cigarette while you’re at it. If it means you got laid off from work, maybe take those unemployment checks and go to Canada. Or Mexico. Read a long book, drop into a steep line, and remember that skiing isn’t so different from life.
  • Not Everyone Likes Hawaiian Music – Ok so this one is not one of the cheesy allegories. This is just the hard, straight, truth. As much as you and I know that the soothing vocals and hypnotizing ukulele of Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole is, like, real fucking relaxing, not everyone will always see it that way. Don’t ask me how I know. You’ve been warned.

 

 

*This logic built on the premise that skiing is somehow different from screwing off.

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Hut Trip Basics

You did it. You signed up for your first hut trip. Whether you’re heading into an old Forest Service cabin for a night or two, or taking a helicopter into the middle of Alberta, you’re in for a good time.

You’ve gone through the packing list three times and you’re ready to go. Your skis are waxed, you’ve got extra batteries for your gadgets, and you’ve been wearing those little down booties all over the house because, well, they’re the best. But are you ready? Do you know what to expect? If you’ve never been on a hut trip before, probably not.

Here’s a few pointers:

The Skiing Will be Terrible – Which, obviously I hope it’s not. But chances are, that for much of the time you’re out there the avalanche danger will be high, or visibility will be poor, or the snow will be crummy. I hope every turn you make is the stuff of Instagram heroics, but you’ll have a better time if you measure your expectations and don’t plan on blower face shots all day every day. And in the end this won’t really bother you, because of the next point:

This Is Not a Ski Trip – Again, this is clearly not the case. You just got your skis tuned, after all. But if it was really a ski trip, you’d be sleeping in a tent and cut your toothbrush in half and packed the unabridged Moby Dick to help you through the storm cycles. This is better than a ski trip. This is a hut trip.

UpperBasin-1
A few minutes from the front door.

And yeah, you’re going to ski your face off. But when you hike from the front door, you can get a solid 6-8 hours of touring in and still have pretty much the entire day to screw off. Relish that. Bring board games and strange cheeses, good whiskey and bad beer. The hut is your bastion of gaiety against a twisted world. A long weekend in Valhalla. Savor it.

Bring Worse Beer – This is a common trap that even seasoned hut trippers fall into. In an effort to save space and be efficient with weight, folks always seem to bring big ‘ol 11% double IPAs and the like. Those big beers are great, sure, but not what you’re actually going to want while you sit in the hot tub for 5 hours after skiing all day. Bring Schlitz, or Modelos and lime,  or hell – even a wine cooler or two. Your friends will mock you on the approach and beg you for a Rainier on day two.

pioneertrip-8
Hut trip essentials.

Dinner is Competitive – A communal meal around a roaring fire is the most basic, beautiful, truly human experience. It was the first thing we did to separate ourselves from the rest of God’s critters, and meal time in a yurt is a direct connection with hundreds of thousands of years of human ancestry.

It’s also an opportunity to vanquish your friends and loved ones. Dinnertime in a hut is, whether anyone will admit it or not, competitive. It must be filling, delicious, and copious. Canned tomato sauce and spaghetti will not be tolerated. You will be judged by your efforts – be sure to bring enough butter.

Beware the Groupthink – Hut time on a hut trip is for telling jokes and eating butter. Ski time is real. You’re going to be secluded in the middle of nowhere, probably with no cell reception, perhaps a helicopter ride away from the nearest help. Do try not to get hurt.

It's easy to do.
It’s easy to do.

The good times and cohesion of mealtime at base camp is great, but it’s better to keep it there. Don’t be afraid to peel off in 3’s and 4’s to go find your own adventures on the skintrack. Even people who do this for a living get into trouble when group sizes swell and the stoke gets too high. High fives are for the hot tub – you have to make it there alive.

Book the Next One Now – Hut trips are so hot right now. The best ones are booked two years out. So pick a date and get it on the calendar, it’s the best thing you’ll do all winter.

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