Every Bit The Journey

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, and this is mine.

Montana Mountains

Author: Every bit the journey

A traveler, adventurer, outdoors-man, International Time Traveler, and a guide to making it happen. Based in South Carolina, I am an experience camper and hiker with a love of the outdoors. I've been camping, hiking, and paddling here for over 20 years, teaching, training and learning as I go.

A true and fictum history of S’more

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On July 23, 2017

In Fiction

How history wasn’t really made.

Back in the very early 1900’s (some believe it was either 1897 or 1901 but no one is really sure), a small group of misdirected entrepreneurs were down and out on their luck. Samuel Moore (a little known corporate motivator at the time) invited Milton Hershey, Sylvester Graham, and a few other unknown inventors to the first every “Guy Bonding Weekend” in Highmeadow Pennsylvania. To help break the group of food inventors out of their rut, Sam had asked each camper to bring with them an idea they had been working on but were stuck.

Sam’s idea was to try to get the group out of their funk and back to making money so he could keep being paid to motivate them and make more money. The whole weekend was a total disaster with almost constant bickering and fighting amongst the group. The weekend ended with a massive food fight involving various diet crackers, chocolate samples and white sugary confections, and fisticuffs between Milton and Sylvester at the Saturday dinner campfire.

The fight broke up only when a group of young women hikers looking for a suitable camp site unexpectedly happen to show up. Sam was completely embarrassed and apologized to the group of young women campers. The guys quickly packed their gear and left the woods never to see or talk with each other again. The women hikers were left to clean up the mess left by the brawling food fighters.

Most of the inventors were so depressed following their “motivational” weekend they never invented anything again. Samuel Moore gave up corporate motivation as a profession and sold his business interests to his mail room clerk Dale Carnegie. Sylvester Graham found religion, was born again, and became a reverend. He preached a health food diet called the Graham Diet which didn’t work so well as it also focused on abstinence.

Milton Hershey was probably one of the more successful survivors of that fateful weekend. He ended up settling in Pennsylvania and abandoning his prior entrepreneurial pursuits, he entered politics. He did well for a while and even had a small town named after him. However he was later was indicted for soliciting kisses from students at the local all women’s college (he claimed he was trying to make ends meet selling candy, the charges were eventually dropped and the case never went to court).

It was years later when the group of civic minded women hikers would form the Girl Scouts of America and claim credit for the invention of the S’more.

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Go where life is lived … (2)

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On July 19, 2017

In Travel

“Go where life is lived out of stuff sacks and gourmet meals require only hot water.”

This caught my eye this morning and I would be remiss if I failed to follow up with why I love this line so much.

As I said this morning I begin my travels to hike Pikes Peak shortly. My kids (including spouses), will be joining me on this adventure. This in of itself will be wonderful time, but there’s more. These words invoked a kind of Indiana Jones image of adventure travel (at least in my mind, but maybe with less bad guy Nazis).

It’s one thing to travel around and live out of a suitcase, as I have many times and I know the vast majority of people who travel do as well whether for business or for recreation, it’s just not inspiring. It sounds like a burden. To exist. To slog from point A to point B with the least amount of joy. So to pare down your luggage to simply living out of stuff sacks and eating meals so simple they just need some hot water to make them wonderful, implies you are not traveling the beaten path, you are not stopping long enough to unpack, you relish even the simplest foods, the journey is the destination. Imagine yourself  traveling across the a continent with little more than a few essentials in a small satchel. It’s not about what you take on a trip which makes it an adventure, it’s about what you leave behind.

It’s a little difficult to put in to words, why there is a certain joy in adventure traveling and why these words so exited me. Admittedly there can be some boring moments and there is a level of some slogging which happens. But some of it is the euphoric feeling when you crest a summit, when you break out of the tree lined trail on to a mountain bald, you drop you gear in the grass, and just sit in the warm sun for a moment looking out across the mountains and hills of the earth all the way to the horizon. Or the feeling of awe when you are walking along the trail and discover a new fawn laying in the ferns just feet from you. I think it’s these moments when you connect with the natural world which drive the desire to do it again. To travel new places, to experience new things, to push out to the edge of your comfort zone. The words which caught my attention this morning as I was sitting drinking coffee, were almost like a blessing for the upcoming journey, “Go where life is lived out of stuff sacks and gourmet meals require only hot water.”

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Go where life is lived … (1)

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On July 19, 2017

In Travel

Sipping a morning coffee, this ad popped up in my feed this morning, the tag line was “Go where life is lived out of stuff sacks and gourmet meals require only hot water.” This concept excited me for a number of reasons. The biggest being I begin my travels to hike Pikes Peak this weekend. My kids, whom I love very much, will be joining me on this epic adventure. Sigh RT calls more later
#LetsCamp

Everybitthejourney.com

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The end of hike meal

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On July 16, 2017

In Life

One of the joys I find in hiking is a celebratory meal at the end of the trip or section. As a group we would try to pick out some kinds of food everyone had been craving over the miles of trail and feast. Hikers burn an amazing number of calories per day. After a couple days on the trail it’s not uncommon for the conversations to shift to food. People will gush about their favorite foods, the way mom cooked it, the best restaurant, the strangest combinations (Easter Peeps & peanut butter sandwiches). I think part of this food craving talk is kicked off by a physiological need for the body to refuel and rebuild. I also think it’s part “happy place.” Sights and smells can trigger memories and emotions and foods are no exception. Its not that hike makes you sad but often when stressed people will seek food for comfort, they are looking for that happy place. I think there is a sweet spot a few days in to a hiking which occurs where your body is aching a little and you’ve hiking enough not to be able to eat more than you burn, and that’s when thoughts turn to food.

But it’s not just about the food either. I have done a couple solo hikes and had post hike meals (the food was fine) which were nothing more than the next meal and I’ve had amazing post hike meals at places where the pizza is little more than a pre-formed crust assembled by a staff with a less than mediocre care factor. It’s also about the company you break bread with. The magic happens with others to share the celebration of the adventure. To eat, drink, and be merry with, whether friends or family, the group setting for tales to be told, a meal to share, is the making of a celebration.  These are what I savor.

1995_Welcoming_feast_2

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Uncle Nick Grindstaff – AT 2017

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On July 11, 2017

In Travel

In early June of this year I was hiking over Iron Mountain while backpacking along the Appalachian trail and happened across the monument/grave of Uncle Nick Grindstaff. The inscription simply read:

“Uncle Nick Grindstaff
Born
Dec. 26, 1851
Died
July 22, 1923
Lived alone, suffered alone, and died alone”

Standing at a man’s grave on a mountain top, I could not help but wonder about the man behind the monument. This was the best back story I could find about him (https://bcyesteryear.com/uncle-nick-a-hermit-found-serenity-in-his-iron-mountain-shack). He died alone in his cabin in 1923. While he was a hermit, he was well known to his neighbors and they erected this monument to him after his death.

Ironically Uncle Nick, in search of solitude, found popularity. Remembered by his friends and family, he is now visited by hundreds of hikers each year, most of them in search of the same thing in some shape or form … solitude.

I left a pebble on his monument as I walked away.

(link updated 3/28/2023)

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Pikes Peak

Pike’s Peak for 2017

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On July 7, 2017

In Travel

I blame my oldest son. A couple of years ago, while attending his wedding in Colorado Springs, Colorado, I was enchanted by the amazing views of Pikes Peak. The mountain was incredible to watch in the morning sunrise. To my surprise and joy I learned there were hiking trails which lead to the summit. As an avid hiker, I thought this sounded great. My three children (and their dear spouses) all were very supportive and offered to go on this adventure with me as well.  Originally I wanted to make the hike in 2016. I was researching online, monitoring the weather at the peak. For motivation, I even had a large picture hanging in my office of the East side approach trail. However as life would have it, a number of now seemingly minor things intervened and I back-burner-ed the idea as the fall approached. Anyway we had been batting this trip around for a while so my New Year’s resolution was to nail it down and dedicate to making the trip and hiking the mountain.

Looking back, the delay actually worked out for the better. By watching the weather for a year, I was able to pick the best weather window for the trip. The picture with this post is from April 2015 and the entire top of the mountain to covered in ice and snow. So after much team discussion I have set a trek window set for the first week of August 2017 to hike this 14,115 foot tall iconic mountain. The delay also allowed me to figure out there was an alternative route to the peak.  Originally I had looked at taking the Barr Trail to the peak and riding the Cog Railway down. This 12 mile climb from 6000 feet might have been a bit much for us lowland folks. Again after much discussion I am planning the trek to start from West side at the Crag’s, come up through the Devil’s Playground, and on to the peak. We will overnight at Mueller State Park (about 10,000 feet) and then start hiking first thing in the morning. This will help both with altitude acclimation and give us the maximum amount of time to reach the peak in time to catch the rail down.

Besides the logistics of getting six people from two coasts to the top of a mountain, one of our major challenges is we all live at sea level. My daughter and her husband are stationed on the West coast in San Diego California, and my sons and daughter in-law and I live in the Charleston South Carolina area on the East coast. The air is very thin and breathing difficult at 14,000 feet and because we are all sea-level dwellers, we will need to spend some time at the Colorado Springs 6,000-8,000 foot elevation to help acclimate before we attempted the climb to over 14,000 feet. I plan to spend a couple days training on local hikes in and around Colorado Springs to acclimate to the elevation and finish physical preparations for the attempt to summit Pikes Peak.

Sometimes the first of something always seems the hardest. I think because of all the perceived unknowns prior doing the first. Sure someone can tell you how to bake a cake or climb a mountain, but until you do the first one it’s only an idea. The more you do, the easier it gets. And there are always mountains.

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The first step

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On July 7, 2017

In Life

Like every journey, you need to start somewhere, and for me this is the start of a new one. We all travel somewhere. Whether across continents or simply across the room. These stories, adventures, skills, and insights are what I offer to maybe make your travels a little more interesting. It’s a little difficult to explain all the things I’m thinking about right now, but my hope is you find these posts and ramblings entertaining at least, if not useful to some degree.

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