Surprise!

So the trick to keeping a secret from my wife seems to be to tell everybody else. But they all have to believe that they are the only ones you’ve confided in. Just to make sure nobody freaked out and to get all of our responsibilities taken care of ahead of time I had to tell the kids, the babysitter and our substitute nursery teachers for Sunday. And they all kept the secret so Victoria was completely surprised.

Friday after I dropped Aaron off for Sunday I kidnapped Victoria and took her off to a cute little bed and breakfast in Hot Springs NC. The drive up was relaxing and very pretty. The last hour was a bit curvy and I though we might have to pull over so Victoria could toss her cookies but she made it.

The folks at the inn upgraded us to the best room in the house since they knew it was a special occasion for us. The inn was very nice and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who just needs a little getaway. The food alone would be worth another trip up that way. Seriously, I haven’t eaten that well for quite some time.

We took a nice walking tour of the town. I could move there in a heartbeat. The Appalachian Trail runs right down the main drag. It was cold but we made the best of it and enjoyed each other’s company. See her blog for a bunch of pictures.

Saturday we took a trip in to Asheville and toured the Grove Park Inn and saw the really cool gingerbread houses. Then we headed down to Biltmore House. In hindsight we could have passed on seeing Biltmore House. I don’t think Victoria and I could have been more underwhelmed. That has to be the single ugliest building I’ve every been in in my life. There was a lot of hype about the house being really done up for Christmas. Honestly I didn’t even notice besides the Christmas tree in the dining room. And even then I wasn’t too impressed with the tree. I was just curious how they got the tree into the house. At one point during the tour Victoria told me, “You know it’s really a shame that somebody with this much money didn’t have better taste.” The only rooms we enjoyed were those in the basement. I thought the pool, the kitchen and the servant’s quarters were really cool. The bowling alley was neat, but I just felt sorry for whoever had to set up the pins each time.

We spent the rest of our trip primarily sitting around the inn taking it easy. Victoria whipped me 4 out of 5 games of chess. We each were able to get quite a lot of reading done as well. Then after another amazing breakfast Sunday we headed home to the family.

Thanks to all innkeepers, the sitters, substitutes and everybody else who helped me surprise Victoria for our 20th anniversary.

Get Outta Town

I need to get out and backpack more often. It just really felt good to get several miles away from the car and well into the backcountry. The air just tasted different than it does around here.
Last Friday was a teacher work day for our county. In spite of the fact that I had passed a kidney stone the week before I really needed to “get outta Dodge” just to return to sanity. Aaron still needed to hike one 20 mile hike in a day in order to earn his Hiking Merit Badge. Most boys just do this as a day hike and don’t carry a pack. It didn’t take much convincing and Aaron agreed that we should do something bigger than that.
We broke out the maps and found several nice loop trails that would accomplish his goal. We eventually choose a 24 mile loop in the Smokies that covered about 6 miles of the Appalachian Trail on a very pretty section that I did in 1992.
We got an early start on Friday and made it up to the trail head around 10:00am. We started out at Smokemont Campground at about 2400’. The first 4 miles of the trail ascended gradually and hiked along the Bradley Fork River. The trail was wide and the river gave us constant great views of rapids and waterfalls.
A little after the 4 mile mark the trail left the river started climbing steeply for the next 4 miles ‘til it reached the Appalachian Trail at around 5700’. We weren’t quite making as good a time as we had planned but were still going pretty fast considering the terrain. In spite of the constant drizzle and overcast skies this was the prettiest section of the trail. The AT walks right along the Tennessee and North Carolina border on a knife edge ridge. At times you have drops of several hundred feet on each side of you. Yet the ridge itself doesn’t gain or loose much altitude. When the clouds would break Aaron would stop for several minutes just to admire the view.
Since we were going as little slower than we expected we stopped and made camp at Peck’s Corner shelter. The shelter was full so we set up our tent a little ways away. We had to put the food in a bear bag and it rained pretty hard on us all night. We stayed pretty dry but the gear was wet so our packs weighed a few pounds more than when we started.
We got up pretty early on Saturday and started hiking out in the dark. We wanted to make sure that we got to the 20 mile make before 10:00am so we could honestly say that we did 20 miles in one 24 hour period. Considering that the whole day was pretty much down hill we were able to get that done in spades. We were back at the car around 1:00pm and had 24 tough miles in the Smokies under our belts.
I really enjoyed just spending time with Aaron. At times when the trail was wide enough we were able to have some deep philosophical discussions. He’s a good kid and I can’t express how proud I was of him for sticking it out and finishing this merit badge the way he did. Most scouts do their 20 miler on much easier terrain and they do it without a backpack. I did mine in 8 hours just walking from my house to Stone Mountain and back.
The whole event inspired me to get outside with my family more often. Eve has been really bugging me to go camping too. I need to make this more of a priority than I have been. I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed just being around the mountains and the trees.

Fallen Arches

I was saddened by the news today that Wall Arch had fallen. We're National Park groupies and Arches National Park is one of my favorites. Although these elegant structures take millions of years to form their death can happen in a few seconds. Perhaps it is this fragile piece of frozen time in the form of stone that make these structures so beautiful.
The photo above is not of Wall Arch, although we did see it that day. If you ever get any excuse to visit this beautiful park please do. I've been there several times and it's never been very crowded. Even on a crowded summer day You can still find a quite spot for meditation amongst geology's wonders.

Climbing

Several years ago I had a realization. As much as I enjoyed rock climbing I was never going to be a world class climber. I also found that even though I really enjoyed the sport what I loved more was exposing others to it for the first time. So with that goal in mind I really had a good time this weekend.
Friday after work five of our best scouts got together with me and another leader and we headed up to Mount Yonah. Our goal was to hike up to the base of the main face and camp for the night. Then on Saturday we'd climb as much as we could until the heat took over.
We got up to the boulder and camped there. The weather was clear so we just pulled out our sleeping bags and slept under the stars.
Saturday morning after a light breakfast we finished our trip up to the main face. I went up and set top ropes on a few of the easier routes. They were probably 5.6 or 5.7 but no harder than that. We got lucky and all of the guys were able to fit into some of my hand me down shoes. That made a big difference. All five of our guys were able to make it to the top of each of the routes that we set up on.
Once the sun started coming around onto the face we decided to go work on something else in the shade. In retrospect we should have just stayed there and toughed out the heat.
As we started walking back to the boulder and the lowers area we passed a huge group of kids who were part of an "at risk" youth group. They were pretty much infesting the lower half of the rock. They had as much right to be there as we did. I just wish they'd have split the group into smaller more manageable numbers, so they could have shared the rock with others.
So we bailed out a little earlier than I'd planned but the guys all got a great chance to look at the world from a new perspective.

Man v. Nature

There are a couple of shows with kind of the same "man v nature" theme on TV right now; one which I really enjoy and one that really disturbs me. First the good news: I really enjoy the show Survivorman. Les Stroud is the host, photographer and the only person in front of and behind the camera. The idea of the show is that Les puts himself in serious life threatening situations and then films his own struggle to find water, food, shelter and just stay alive. Many of his adventures don't go off quite as he had planned. Nevertheless, he continues to film and document what can happen if you were to make the same mistakes. While hiking in the snow he makes the mistake of sweating and getting wet. He then realizes that if he stops he'll get cold and hypothermic very quickly, so he walks all through the night rather than risk death. The show never takes a "Hey look at me" tone. It always takes a very humble and respectful view of the natural world. He's quick to point at that nature is simultaneously beautiful and deadly. I'd recommend this program to anybody.
Now for the bad news; Man v. Wild is one of the stupidest, most artificial programs that I've ever seen. The host Bear Grills is this cocky little punk who walks around bragging about all the adventures he's done. It's obvious he has multiple cameramen following him. He also flat out lies and tells people to do dangerous things. The most grievous of these lies was when he tells people that the best way to go downstream along a river is to "inflate" your pack and use it as a life preserver. Yet in the footage of this moron sliding down class 3 rapids he's floating way up out of the water. Later it's obvious that he has a PFD on under his shirt. He drags himself up on a sandbar and finds a nice pile of dry sticks that lights with one strike of his flint. I've started a fire with flint before and it took over an hour of just smacking these rocks together. The only way he did it in one strike is with a serious dose of kerosene.
What makes Survivorman so enjoyable is that it shows that with even years of roughing it experience it's still a humbling experience to be out on your own. What make Man v Wild so personally intolerable is that it conveys this unrealistic man can conquer anything attitude, even when it's clear that at least that man can't without a PFD and help from his crew. As a Scoutmaster I worry that boys will accept Bear Grill's pompous advice and actually try them out. Many of his stunts are seriously life threatening. On the other hand, I hope that my scouts would adopt Stroud's attitude and heed his advice. It may very well save one of their lives in the future.
In May I'm going to be teaching the Wilderness survival merit badge. We're going to be building primitive shelters on some property behind the church and then sleeping in them. We'll have power and a covered shelter just a few feet away but even considering this I'm still rather concerned that things might go wrong. I will respect the situation and try to teach these boys reverence for nature at the same time not teach them to overly fear it.
This weekend we went backpacking in the Cohutta Wilderness. We had to cross several rivers and streams. One proved to be more than we were up for. The river was very cold and moving very fast. It was about 100 feet across and probably mid-thigh deep. Even if we had forced our way across it we'd have had several more crossings and then have to walk 7 miles out with wet feet. We'd have all had nasty blisters. The biggest reason that we didn't force our way across was that we were very unprepared for anything that serious. The boys had too much cotton clothing and nothing was stored in water tight bags. One little mistake and we'd have been in rescue mode trying to keep a boy warm with minimal resources. I have no regrets about the decision to turn back rather than attempt the crossing. I would like to return with Aaron, properly prepared to show him that the crossing would have been possible with the proper equipment. If we do head back we'll be sure to take Les Stroud's advice and attitude with us and leave Bear Grill's fool heartedness and arrogance at home.