Finding Freedom on the Japhy Rhyder Route
“Last winter as I was finishing up the AT, I had grown tired of being told where to go. Every other snow coated tree had a white blaze on it, which during blizzards and late night headlamp lit hikes I found reassuring, but for the most part regarded as if I was a teenager & they were the overbearing parent. I usually hike to feel free, to have unpredictable adventure, to see new places & to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of. The AT certainly met the later two expectations. I had never seen any of the amazing nooks & crannies of the east coast & the wintery trail was more challenging than anything I had ever done in my previous 31 years of living or 7000 miles of thru hiking. But I wanted my freedom back.
The Japhy Ryder Route was born from that need for anarchy, challenge, & true wildness, all tempered by homesickness. I grew up in California’s Mendocino county & wanted to connect my home with the Sierras. I pulled out the maps, drove a bazillion back roads & spent the winter planning. Now my dream is taking shape in the form of the 1000ish mile route called the Japhy Ryder, named after Gary Snyder’s character in Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums”.
Traveling with me on this experimental route is Adam Drummer, an outdoor educator & field biologist who decided to give thru hiking a try. So far he has risen to the challenge of 20 mile days through unknown marijuana and poison oak infested hills like a duck taking to water. I found a hiking partner!
At the moment Adam & I are returning to the trail after a week of logistics via our thumbs. Today’s hitch has included two different tricked out climber vans, a long stint in a highway patrol SUV & now the open air of the back of a pickup. We are watching the late day sun turn the Sierras golden & I’m beginning to feel the distance we have covered over the past month. We are far from the overwhelming heat of the Sacramento river valley, the black hawk helicopter scoured marijuana fields of the emerald triangle, and even further from the crashing waves & thick salty air of the Lost Coast. Finally, we have hiked up to the spine of the Sierras &after 500 miles on the Japhy, we find ourselves on the northern edge of Lake Tahoe following a well maintained Tahoe Rim Trail. Walking on this beautiful path, it is hard to imagine the days when we were wandering dense hillsides of chaparral searching for ancient long forgotten trails, drenched in our own sweat during the mid July heat. Soon we will leave the Tahoe Rim Trail and continue south towards Whitney. Ahead looms the infamous Sierra High Route and it’s navigation challenges & unsurpassed beauty. We are hoping that waiting until mid August to hit the higher passes and peaks will have given last winter’s monumental snow pack enough time to melt off & make the rest of the Japhy a joy to complete.
The hitch is over and I’m standing on the side of the road again already missing the back of that truck- what a great way to travel bouncing along with coolers & fly rods in the wind eddy behind the cab! Tomorrow we will hit the trail again & see where it takes us!
-Sage”
The End of the World
Oboz Ambassador Fern finishes up her pilgrimage through Europe and sends her final reflections. Congrats Fern!
“Good greetings to you!
Here I sit in Finnesterre, my final destination for the Camino. It has been a long but wonderful past two months covering 2000km across France and Spain, 57 days of surprises, trails, errors, excitement, and meeting many interesting and amazing people from all across the world. Here the trail opens people up, you pass people and say hello, where perhaps at home you´d just keep on walking by. We´re all walking the same way, and at times I fell into stride with other pilgrims, sharing the trail and learning of who they are. It is amazing how much you can learn of a person just by walking with them. You don´t have to ask their name, nor what they do for a living, instead, almost instantly, you fall deeper into the conversation asking things like ¨how do you feel?¨or ¨why are you doing this?¨ there is no hesitation out here to be bold….in a way the camino teaches you to reach out to your neighbor and take the time to learn of them.
My final weeks on the camino were both the loveliest and the hardest. Hard not in the sense of terrain, but hard knowing that the distance to the end was drawing near. So much wanting the last days to last forever, taking in each moment. But also hard because there are SO MANY PEOPLE! By 2pm in the afternoon, the trail is virtually empty, except for the crazy long-distance pilgrims. We tolerate the heat, and find fountains along the way celebrating the cool refreshing water before carrying on. This is the life. Nothing else matters. At night, when at last arriving to the albergue, shoes come off, and it is as though the feet smile to get some air and can stretch out, wiggling in the last hours of the day. You eat with other pilgrims, sharing experiences of the day, or of the other folks we have met. Almost instantly, when your head hits the pillow, you fall into a deep sleep, sometimes being awoken by someone else in the room snoring…or someones, but otherwise, a long day takes it right out of you. Then true to the day, at 5am, someone stirs, a plastic bag is scrunched, and soon, you are back on your feet, blinking in the first morning moments, eating a breakfast and commencing. This I shall come to miss. The routine and rhythm. Each day yes, starts and finishes like the last, but it is never the same.
Yesterday I arrived in Finnesterre. What an incredible moment to first see the ocean and then to stand in front of it, look out and see the whole world drop away from sight as ocean turns to sky. Though I walked alone the past two days, I met a few friends I had made along the way, and we made the final journey up to Cap Finnesterre to watch the sun set. It was a beautiful way to put an end to my camino. As it grew dark, we sat by the ocean, listening to the peace. Each of us brought a piece of clothing we wore along the trail. As is tradition for many pilgrims, we set our clothes on fire, and said a small word to celebrate the distances we had come. How strange it was to wake up this morning, knowing that I wouldn´t be walking far. Knowing that in the evening I would be on a new adventure, slowly making my way back to London, and then home. It´s a different camino now. A personal camino back into society. Where I will again have to learn and adjust to a new routine and rhythm, and take my experience and reflect on all that has come to pass.
fern”
Journey’s Over. What a Trip.
Pepper & Trauma’s journey along the Great Himalayan Trail has come to an end. Been pretty exciting following their trek as I sit here jealously scrolling through their photo reel. Check out this video the duo put together and you’ll certainly want to climb some of those peaks & passes, too!
8000mE:8000mW from Shawn Forry on Vimeo.
Take a Hike. Plant a Tree.
Here is our challenge to you: Lace up your shoes or boots, and get out and take a hike. Every hike plants a tree and every hiker can win a pair of Oboz.
To participate, simply go for a hike between May 23rd and July 8th, and we’ll plant a tree for every hike logged on BOLDER—a website devoted creating a collective community around positive challenges and rewards benefiting health, fitness, the environment, community and education.
At the end of the challenge, every hike logged on BOLDER will mean one more tree planted through Trees for the Future, an international organization dedicated to improving livelihoods through beneficial planting of trees. We work with Trees for the Future on an ongoing basis to plant a tree for every pair of boots or shoes we sell.
Here’s how the “Take a Hike, Plant a Tree” challenge works:
- Go for a hike, walk, trail run, ski or snowshoe between May 23rd and July 8th, 2011. If you’re outside and moving under your own power on your feet, that counts!
- Go to bolder.is, log in and record your hike. Add pictures, a short story or any other creative twist to get a chance to win Oboz shoes.
- Share your hike on Facebook and encourage your friends to give it the thumbs up. The most shared and liked hike—the people’s choice—will win shoes.
Every hike or ‘action’ recorded on bolder gets a reward: Oboz—through Trees for the Future—will plant a tree. Additionally, three people will win a pair of Oboz shoes for their response to the challenge:
- People’s choice—the action or hike that gets the most Facebook ‘likes’
- Coolest photo—best photo, judged by the Oboz team
- Most creative—the most interesting or creative response, judged by the Oboz team.
After the challenge is complete, winners will be contacted on how to obtain their prizes.
We always enjoy hearing stories from people getting outside and are especially excited to see what stories emerge from this Bolder Challenge. These hikes will put a few more trees in the ground and get a few more pairs of feet in Oboz, too. So, take a hike, plant a tree, and get creative for your chance to win a pair of Oboz!
We’ve just heard from Pepper and Trauma again on the Great Himalaya Trail…on a brief respite in Kathmandu, typing a long recap and indulging in ice cream, potato chips and an air-conditioned room. They’d finished up a trek through the ever popular Everest region, and Pepper had this to say:
So yes, we just came back from the Everest region, yes we saw Everest itself, yes we made the trek to Base Camp and yes it was as amazing as you can imagine. Everything had a bit of a Disneyland feel to it, but, the elevation, views and glaciers were all very real. Our high route through the region took about 4-5 days and culminated with a crossing of the Tashi Lobsta pass into the Rolwaling District for a further 4 days of trekking.
We started our trip by flying into Lukla (2800m) from Kathmandu. The flight alone is worth every penny. People flock to the left side of the plane after take off, because nearly ever high range in Nepal in visible during the flight. Clumps of snow capped peaks sit like pimples on the horizon. So prominent, they look fake. The airstrip in Lukla is also as much of a heart stopper as the scenery. The runway sits perched on a short plateau strip of land and can’t be more than 300m long. The entire runway is tilted upwards to help planes stop, like a giant runaway truck ramp you see on highways. As soon as the plane’s wheel touch down, every effort is taken to get the plane to stop before slamming into the rock face at the end of the runway.
Lukla runway
From Namche, the hub of the Everest area, the duo headed up the easternmost valley to Everest Base Camp.
Everest Base Camp is one of those must do’s. It’s a circus with the plethora of colorful tents, elaborate camp set ups and the constant influx of porters bringing yet more supplies to the numerous expeditions taking place. But the basin the EBC is situated in is stunnery. It is all a bit surreal to be there in person, taking it all in. We spent a little over an hour at base camp, watching the daily routines of base camp life and even a short display of powdery ice fall pluming down off of some of the nearby peaks. First you hear the crack of a serac, and then scan around for where the excitement will take place. If you are lucky and in good time, you can see the whole avalanche event of falling snow and ice from start to finish.
Ice fall viewed from Everest Base Camp
From Everest base camp, Pepper and Trauma’s route was west over Cho La, 5420m and Renjo La (5360m), before finally crossing our highest and most ‘technical’ pass of the trip, the Tashi Labsta, which Pepper calls a “wind sucking 5755m.” Tashi Labtsa is followed by a drop of 4000 meters (13,500 feet!) into the Rolwaling district to Singati Bazaar at 950m.
Tashi Lasbta is a pass we’d heard so much conflicting information on—anything from it’s a full on technical pass where rock and ice gear are required, much less a guide, to it’s a walk up and should be no issue this time of year. That’s been one of the most frustrating things about this trip is getting accurate and unbiased information about our route and these technical passes. It’s hard to break people from the porter-guide-client model. Things we’ve been routinely told as ‘impossible’ or ‘unsafe’ have been normal affair for us on other trips and treks. So when someone tosses around the term ‘technical’ pass, I’m beginning to become a bit skeptical. Truth be told if I went over the Tashi Labsta pass with a fully equipped guide and all of the weight of our gear, I would have been a little disappointed. There was one short ice couloir to ascend, a 200m or so snow covered ledge to traverse and a very short section to down climb on the descent—nothing that really got the heart pounding. About the most difficult section of the entire route was navigating the maze of glacial moraine at the tail end. It’s like a stormy ocean of ice and rock as wave-like formations make getting from point A to point B and time consuming nightmare.
Pepper trekked much of this alone, as Trauma succumbed to the ill effects of ascending too quickly and not being acclimatized. All the typical symptoms—headache, nausea, loss of appetite, diahhrea, mild fever and exhaustion—led him to return to Namche and then Kathmandu. Pepper wrote, “Lesson learned, we will be much more cautious at acclimatizing for future high routes.” So Pepper forged on without his partner to Rolwaling.
The rest of the hike was a breeze, even though I did manage to find myself ‘misplaced’ and in the wrong valley for about half a day. There is a lot of new road construction going on in this area, which is both changing the landscape and the dynamics of these small villages. Supplies are easier and quicker to get trucked in, but the quiet and simple life seems to be getting covered up by all the dust and silt of construction. I think soon these far off corners of Nepal will take on a whole new feel and rhythm as modern times creep their way up valley.
Peaceful fields
Next up for the Pepper and Trauma: the trail will take them through the Manaslu and Annapurna regions to their next resupply point at Pokhara, a 250-mile stretch. Their final section in Nepal will be in the high and wild Upper Dolpo area, a section that is 10 days long above 4000 meters and crosses seven 5000 meter passes. Then it’s on to the Grest Himalaya Trail through India. Just 30 days left!
View back to Olangchun Gola, Nepal.
We recently receive a long missive from Pepper about his (and Trauma’s) travels in Nepal as they set out to trek the Great Himalaya Trail from east to west. First off, he wished us Happy New Year 2068! That’s diving into the future too quickly for our tastes, but Pepper explained that Nepal generally follows a lunar calendar, which gives each year 354 days instead of the 365 of our western Gregorian calendar. The pace may be slower in Nepal, but the calendar is faster.
Pepper and Trauma have spent a couple weeks out, and having made a trek back into Kathmandu, he wrote this on the topic of trail, terrain and trekking:
“Holy change in elevation! It still boggles my mind how long you can keep climbing in this country and still be below tree line, never mind the fact that your next pass could be well over 4000 to 5000 meters above you! The different eco zones you can go through in just one or two days are staggering! For instance, we began our trip in the foothills village of Taplejung, (a respectable 1500 meters or 5000 feet in elevation). Over the course of the morning we dropped to the jungle river valley below (800m) and then proceeded to climb over the next 3 days to our first major pass, the Nango La, at a quad burning 4800m (16,000ft) in elevation. The real kicker is that the trails here are never graded well, contouring is far from their vocabulary, and your entire day can give you that nauseating feeling of riding a roller coaster; one climb and descent after another. Keep in mind that grandma is passing you with a 40-pound rice sack on her head and wearing little more than flimsy flip-flops. Humbling.”
Always the center of attention in villages.
Pepper also tells rich tales of their guide—temporarily hired—that carries “a full set of designer clothing for when he gets in town (right down to a second set of sunglasses), 3 pairs of boots, his cell phone and a plethora of hats and gloves. I estimate his pack to be in the 60-70lb range and yet I never see him carry food or even eat for that matter.” The guide has been a great source of amusement, especially the convincing story about the midget-sized yetis that broke into his tent one night and tried to choke him and steal his stuff.
As best we know, the duo headed off to Lukla to pick up the trail about 60 miles from where they last left off. They made the decision to take alternate means around the region connecting Makalu to Everest, since three high passes they would have encountered are impassable due to snow.
View of Makalu! The duo at Lhambha Sambha La, 5100 meters.
“It’s a bit disheartening to miss out on some of the highest passes we would have gone over, but what I’m coming to realize about Nepal and the Himalaya is that you cannot force anything upon them. The mountains will always win, take what you can get and be thankful.”
Pepper’s Himalaya Traverse
In a few short weeks, Oboz athlete Pepper and his good friend Trauma will be setting up for another long hike. This time , they are aiming to tackle the Great Himalaya Range with the goal of connecting the easternmost 8000m peak in the world (Kanchenjunga) with the western most 8000m peak in the world (Nanga Parbat). They will be traveling through Nepal, India and Pakistan and flying out on March 22nd. They estimate this distance to be around 2500 miles. The pair will work in conjunction with the Great Himalaya Trail Alliance to record waypoints, place names and village services to further the development of the emerging Great Himalaya Trail (GHT). Check out a map of their planned trek courtesy of www.thegreathimalayatrail.org.
Connecting the Gems trailer
Wanted to share the new Connecting the Gems trailer with all of you. Gregg & Deia will be speaking next week at the Emerson for all you Bozemanites.
Wednesday, February 23
Doors open at 6pm, presentation at 6:45
Emerson Theater
$5 per person
Beer, wine & snacks provided. Plus door prizes.
Take a Hike, Plant a Tree
We recently paired up with a wonderfully creative group out of San Fran called BOLDER to put out a challenge for people to get outside and go for a hike. For every hike that people reported on Bolder’s website, we would plant a tree through another awesome organization called Trees for the Future. 94 people got out there and explored wild places. Some hikes were a quick romp along urban greenways with the dogs, but others were a bit more involved like Matt & Rob’s 21 mile climb of Clouds Rest or Jeremy’s hike in Tahoe that afforded him a few ski turns on the way down. A fella named Jerred won the title of Boldest Action with his five day, 76.2 mile tromp along the Foothills Trail in South Carolina. Call me cheesy if you like, but I love to hear stories from people who are getting outside, exercising and enjoying the company of friends. The 94 trees that were planted as a result are simply icing on the cake.
Backpacking through Snow in Trail Runners
No one ever said Sage Clegg was a wimp. When a blizzard hit in the North Carolina mountains, Sage continued her trek with each post hole step bringing her closer to her goal of finishing the triple crown (completing the PCT, CDT, and AT) in under 18 months. Good luck Sage!
