Hills Upon Hills

My brother Travis called me one afternoon this late winter and asked me, "Hey West, what do you think of going on a backpacking trip with me for my spring break?" It took little more than a flicker of thought for me to respond, "Awe, hell yeah!" So it was decided that we would be spending the better part of the first week in March somewhere with warmth, wilderness, and inexhaustible lengths of trail.

In the succeeding weeks we debated several locales for our venture, with our only prerequisites being that it would be a place where we had the potential to be alone in the woods and also (for the first time in months) warm. Eastern Tennessee and Northern Arkansas turned out to be the frontrunners, and upon news that we could carpool with some rock climbers down to Arkansas, our decision was made.

The Ozark Mountains have the fortunate grace of containing some extremely vast areas of wild land, mostly in the form of National Forest and Parks. One of the largest of these tracts of forest is the Ozark National Forest, just south of the Buffalo River. After researching the area and discovering that there exists a trail called the Ozark Highlands Trail running 160 miles through the heart of it, we had only but to pick a 50 mile section of the trail and excitedly anticipate the trip.

I met Trav in Marquette, Michigan, where he goes to school at NMU, on March 9th. We spent a couple of days quizzing each other on what we were bringing or should bring, unpacking/repacking our packs, and buying trail food at the co-op there. The process of preparing for a week in the woods, dreaming up scenarios that could unfold and how much food we'd need, was really fun. Trav had gone on a solo spring backpacking trip last spring, so he had a vague idea of the amount of food we may need, but for the most part, we were winging it. We left the co-op with one $50 bag of provisions, which looked awfully small before we assured ourselves that many of its contents were of the dried variety.

Our ride, a pair of climbers named David and DJ, picked us up around 5 pm on Sunday, March 3rd outside of Trav's dorm. David was the owner of the vehicle, a roomy Nissan Xterra. He was an incredibly nice, soft-spoken guy who was not shy to let on about his excitement to climb in the Ozarks. DJ was a tall red haired Jesus-looking character who was a joy to get to know. I laughed many times to his simple one-liner-style philosophies. My notes contain a few DJ quotes from the trip, such things as, "I just pissed on Subway!" and "I'm gunna eat a banana." Or my favorite, after describing his love affair with a certain cliff face, "I just felt I needed to get closer to that rock. And I did."

David and DJ were bound for the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, a sort of climbing mecca, located about 40 miles from our desired starting point. The duo turned out to be outstanding traveling company for the entirety of the time we spent with them.

After driving straight through the night and gleefully watching the Midwest snow disappear in the morning light, we reached our destination of Ozone, Arkansas (or rather the trailhead very near the small town) in the early afternoon of Monday morning, March 4th. The preceding careen down the small county highway just before the trailhead had prevented any chance of sleep-deprived lackluster. The time was suddenly now, and after a brief overview of our vague plan, a celebratory shot of whiskey, and a photo-op, we bid our new friends a happy week and set off into the woods.

I will shy away from a day-by-day analysis of the rest of the trip, but will instead try to describe as best I can the experience as a whole.

The Ozarks are tremendously beautiful. Though Trav and I had taken two trips when we were very young with our family to Arkansas, we didn't know quite what to expect from the flora, fauna, or topography of the area. As we walked from one remote gully to the next, the tree demographic seemed to be ever-changing. On one ridge we might be surrounded by swaying pines, and halfway down a slope the forest would switch dramatically to oaks. It made for captivating scenery. Trav and I agreed that at many places our surroundings were similar to our Wisconsin home; in other places, its appearance was completely foreign.

The plentiful rock cliffs, boulder fields, and waterfalls made for a perpetual highlight reel. There was rock and water everywhere. In the larger creeks, the water invariably had a blue tint to it, not unlike the glacial waters of the Rockies. I plied a few of the bigger creeks for early-season smallmouth, but to no avail. Normally, when traveling hundreds of miles for a trip, it is so I can fly fish in a new environment. On this occasion, I was content without the catching (a bizarre occurrence). It was enough to go through the motions and imagine what the fishing would be like there in another month or so.

We averaged about twelve miles a day, our longest day being a fifteen-miler, and I found myself enjoying the pressure that the pack and the miles put on my body. I was surprised at how spry I felt in the mornings after a night in the tent, cowboy coffee, and a hearty oatmeal breakfast. That being said, I was not immune to fatigue, and ten miles of trail made the camp dinners taste damn delicious.

Campsites were not designated by signs, though every mile or two a ring of rocks would appear next to the trail from where others had camped.

Meals were fun, and consisted of oatmeal in the mornings, spruced up with raisins, honey, chocolate chips, and sunflower seeds. Dinner was usually quinoa-based, with additions of dried refried beans, cheese, onions, olive oil, and salt/pepper. Everything tasted awesome, and we ended up with exactly enough food to remain fairly satiated throughout the trip, with hardly any left over at the end of the five days. Not bad for winging it...

At night, after assembling camp and dinner, we'd just lay around the fire, sip bourbon, puff on pipe tobacco, and enjoy each other's company under the stars, which were visible every night but the first.

I had along a couple of books, one of which was Jack Kerouac's Book of Haikus, and that became a topic of trail debate for Trav and I, as did the Beatnik generation as a whole. We tried our hand at American haiku-writing, despite the acknowledgement of our novice experience:

Cool breeze through the hills
Chickadee contemplating
Two Strangers on trail. -T

Ash from fire
falling
on camp poems. -W

From my journal:

For supper we cooked up first a pot of spaghetti noodles/olive oil/garlic salt/pepper/the last of our cheese. "Rucksack mac&cheese." It was fucking good. Feeling we deserved a bit more today, I cooked up some brown rice and black beans, which we added salt, pepper, and olive oil to in order to sufficiently fill us up. We ate our meal while drinking chai tea that we made. Now we're drinking bourbon and restoking the fire every half hour or so, while reading and writing. Trav has an old copy of a short stories collection and I, Jack Kerouac's Book of Haikus. 

I brought the old Pentax film camera along and the photos below are from the first two rolls of film. There's still another roll in the camera that I'm excited to get developed soon. If you click the photos you should be able to see them in a larger view.

Food organization, pre-trip, in dorm hallway.

In short, the trip was nothing short of amazing. It was a week that I have relived many times in my thoughts the past month, mostly because of how genuine the whole thing felt while out there with my brother.

Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.     -John Steinbeck

Winter Musing

It has been a good winter. I have stayed active to a healthy degree and even made it out trout fishing a few times in the new year. But, winter being what it is, I have spent a considerable amount of time in my living room the past few months, usually accompanied by a pot of French press, my dog Bleu snoring at my side, and some reading or fly tying materials. I have enjoyed it, and in some ways considered the simplicity and calmness of winter oddly essential. I guess you could say that restless feeling that creeps into many people's thoughts during a Midwestern cold snap has yet to hit me, and for that I am grateful.

Much of my time spent at home lounging in my long johns and wool socks has been fed by excitement for the spring and by a near constant daydream of road trips and new scenery. So, naturally, the things I read and write and listen to have generally reflected that.

There is a particular trip that my brother Travis and I have planned this spring that has me feeling pretty invigorated. All we know so far is that it will entail backpacking for a week straight somewhere in the Southern U.S. (maybe Arkansas? Tennessee?) and I must say that this sort of trip is overdue for my brother and I. Last April, while I was laboring over college courses that I would eventually end up failing, Trav was picking wild leeks and cooking them over an open fire while backpacking solo along the North Country Trail, a two-week long trip that took him across Northern Wisconsin and into the heart of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In total, his trip spanned 14 days and about 220 miles. 

Since his year-long hiatus from school, during which Trav lived in Bozeman, Montana for ten months, car-camped for a period of time in Utah, and spent a summer growing veggies/foraging mushrooms with our dad, he has re-enrolled in classes at Northern Michigan University to major in woodworking. This winter, while visiting me in Eau Claire, Trav shared with me an excerpt from a paper he had written for an english class. I found it to be a beautiful piece of writing and it has been deservedly added to the list of literary inspirations I have compiled for myself over these winter months. Here is the excerpt: 

A shudder wakes me from a frozen dream.   As I shake the sleep from my tired eyes, I am met by the sullen glow of dawn as it patiently works to melt a whole through the layer of frost covering the fly of my tent.  It is a struggle, but after much coaxing I force myself from the safety of my sleeping bag and step into the morning.  Outside the forest still slumbers under a blanket of sparkling ice.  The vulnerability of my situation hits me and it is a race to gather wood and get a fire lit before fingers are deemed too useless and stiffened by cold to strike a match.  Coffee is my only motivator this morning and a warm mug of brew is a near heavenly reward after half an hour of waiting for the water to boil over open flame. 

There is little thought as I tear camp and fit each item into it’s own place on the pack.  This process has become routine the past week and a half, smooth and rhythmic as breathing itself.  As I shoulder my home and step onto the overgrown trail, the sun crests the ridge ahead and a spear of light pierces through a gap in the pines.  As it alights upon my face a shiver of warmth comes over me and quickens my pace, each step falling with a newfound confidence.   There is no goal in mind, no point down the trail that must be reached.  Today I will follow the sun on its journey across the sky, and tomorrow will be the same.  One day soon I will come to a road and this trail will end. But I can be sure as the sun that another will meet me and together we will go for a walk in the woods.  

-Travis Thier

Needless to say, I am excited to share the trail with my little brother. It will be a different experience than his last trip or than any that either of us have ever gone on before or ever will embark on in the future. And to me, it is that endlessness inherent in every adventure that makes it so deeply personal and valuable to the soul.

January 10th, 2013- Ice & Bluffs

"As the shadow of the kingfisher moved up the stream, a big trout shot upstream in a long angle, only his shadow marking the angle, then lost his shadow as he came through the surface of the water, caught the sun, and then, as he went back into the stream under the surface, his shadow seemed to float down the stream with the current, unresisting, to his post under the bridge where he tightened facing up the current.
         Nick's heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling.
         He turned and looked down the stream. It stretched away, pebbly-bottomed with shallows and big boulders and a deep pool as it curved away around the foot of a bluff."

-Ernest Hemingway, from  Big Two Hearted River: Part 1

Last of 2012

My apologies for the unoriginal title...

I'm not very much into making New Years resolutions, but on January 1st I decided that I had waited long enough to get my last roll of film from 2012 developed and therefore resolved to make the trek to Walgreen's and do so. I was glad I did, because it felt purposeful and was an easy enough resolution to fulfill. As for healthful revelations and steadfast promises, I will save them for when I am old and slow. 

Reflecting on the past year, I would say that 2012 was, all-in-all, pretty cool. I did some traveling, formed real friendships, caught a few trout, and made some important decisions on where I'll be living and what type of profession I will be pursuing in the foreseeable future. I also dropped out of college after four and a half years at UWEC (sorry mom and dad), but I think that even that was for the best. In fact, I can't recall another time in my life when I have been so thoroughly excited to seek out fresh experiences and move somewhere new. So cheers to 2013!

As for this winter/spring, I plan on keeping busy with fly tying, writing, and serving people coffee. 

And taking photos...I may even save my tip money to purchase a couple more film cameras this spring. I love my dad's Pentax and think it takes sweet pictures, but unfortunately the light meter is f-ed up and that sometimes makes low-light situations and appropriate exposure tricky. But regardless, it's a fun thing to experiment with and I kind of enjoy speculating whether a roll of film or a specific photo will turn out or not. 

I hope you enjoy the hodgepodge of photos I have assembled below, all of which were taken in November and December of 2012. 

Cyber-wizard Nate Wick silently cursing and writing code for our upcoming website.

I think the out-of-focusness here kind of works? 

Summit Ave. light trails.

The inside of "The Red Shed," where Loras Thier and I have had many memorable conversations.

Halloween on the Bois Brule.

A pretty gal from a deep pool. She took me through some rapids before letting me kiss her.  

Two passionate steelheaders swapping fish stories...or possibly just discussing what type of beer they will be drinking that evening. 

Eau Claire images



A regular Dean Potter.



The photos below were all taken in October, which is indeed a very fine time of year in Central Wisconsin. Taking photographs, along with fishing, writing, and hunting, has provided me a much needed respite from the urgency of school. One could say that I've hit the "fifth-year crunch," or have a case of "super-senioritis." Whatever term suits your fancy, I have it bad, and holding an old Pentax in my hands has been thoroughly therapeutic. Hope you enjoy the photos! I always enjoy sharing.







The New Glarus Brewery



"When in Brule"

One of my very favorite things about being a trout junkie is that every season presents opportunity. Whether it's in the form of hitting the summer mayfly hatches just right or brewing up an absurd amount of coffee and churning out new flies once winter settles in, there is never a time when I feel like I'm disconnected from the sport. Late fall is no exception to this seasonal fly fishing equation, and for my friends Ryan Alger, Nate Wick, and I, our trout sonars pointed north to the Bois Brule River and the opportunity for fresh fall steelhead. 

The online fishing reports prior to the trip revealed that the water was extremely low and clear and the steelhead that were there did not come without diligence. However, the sluggish report did little to quell our enthusiasm. With boxes of freshly tied nymph and egg flies, we left Eau Claire in the rear view and, after a few ceremonial nips of whiskey, made camp in the 27 degree Northern Wisconsin air. 

In the morning, I checked the USGS water data for the Brule on my iPhone, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the area had gotten rain in the past 24 hours, and the river had come up a bit. We hit the river early, and the conditions didn't disappoint. By 1:00 on Friday morning, all three of us had hooked up with fresh fish. Ryan nearly landed a 23" hen that snapped the tippet as I was trying to net it. If I were on top of things, I would have got a shot of the poor guy's face after his first ever steelie snapped off. The caption would have read, "fuuuuuuck." However, Ryan would go on to land a smaller jack, and Nate and I followed suit with fresh fish of our own, solidifying the trip's success within just a few hours. 

We spent the rest of that day and the next letting the Brule's water soak into our souls. Amid scattered snow showers, we smoked cheap cigars and sucked down hoppy craft brew. 

So that's what this time of year means to me...another opportunity to catch some kick-ass fish in a unique setting, and it never hurts to share it with some amigos. Enjoy the photos!

I reserved a roll of film for the trip, and all but the last photo (taken by Ryan) were from my Pentax. 

Good beer is photogenic.  

27 degrees and the coffee tastes alright!

24" silver stunner.

The things I would do to own that shack...

25" hen