The Dixie Cragger's Fall 2014 Mixtape

Bouldering season is here in the Southeast; Rocktown via @a_harrison

#dirtbagswag is down, but it isn't defeated. Not yet. Time to climb is hard to come by right now, never mind trying to write about climbing. But #dirtbagswag is back, back for now, and back with the Dixie Cragger's Fall Mixtape for your autumnal sending.

"Place is space which has historical meanings where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity and identity across generations." wrote Walter Brueggemann. Many of the songs are rooted in a yearning for a specific place and/or time. The yearning to belong and to have a sense of place is a deep and meaningful pursuit. Land gives us meaning and well-being. Place expresses the wholeness and joy of belonging.

A few months ago, I moved to a new city for a new job. Tony Horwitz is right to observe in Confederates in the Attic, that Atlanta is the "Anti-South," a cultureless concoction of urban sprawl and Northern industrialism, "a crass, brash city made in the image of the Chamber of Commerce and overrun with corporate climbers and carpetbaggers." So in many ways this playlist is self-therapeutic as I cope with this exile from the people and place that I love.

Thus, when Matt Woods laments, "My boots belong in East Tennessee, I carry her hills inside of me. When I lay down my head, she's in my dreams," I'm singing lament with him. But it is hopeful lamentation, because like Woods, who finds himself dislocated on the windy, prosaic plains of west Texas, I too can sing "I'll get back there someday, if I don't blow away."

If you've been listening to these seasonal playlists for a while, maybe since the beginning (2011), you won't be surprised to find an array of country, bluegrass, and folk music; all of which fall under the umbrella term of "Americana." And you won't be surprised to find them interspersed with an assortment of old-guy-who-still-reads-punknews.org punk songs. And all that is sandwiched between two Manchester Orchestra tracks (the latter of which is as near a perfect song as has ever been written). If you're right in the place where you belong or you're living in exile someplace outside -- or within -- the Mason-Dixon, there's something here for you.

Listen to it on Spotify HERE.

1. Manchester Orchestra - The Only One (Mean Everything to Nothing)
2. Chris Wollard and the Ship of Thieves - No Exception (Self-Titled)
3. Drive-By Truckers - Part of Him (English Oceans)
4. Deep Dark Woods - All the Money I Had Is Gone (Winter Hours)
5. Old Crow Medicine Show - O Cumberland River (Remedy)
6. Matt Woods - West Texas Winds (With Love From Brushy Mountain)
7. Chuck Ragan - For All We Care (Till Midnight)
8. The Wonder Years - Local Man Ruins Everything (Suburbia, I've Given You All & Now I'm Nothing)
9. Possessed by Paul James - Songs We Used To Sing (There Will Be Some Nights That I'm Lonely)
10. Steve Martin & Edie Brickell - When You Get to Asheville (Love Has Come For You)
11. Blue Mountain - Mountain Girl (Dog Days)
12. Honeywagon - New Slang (The Shins cover) (A Bluegrass Tribute to The Shins)
13. Uncle Tupelo - Looking For A Way Out (Uncle Tupelo 89/93)
14. Billie Bragg & Wilco - Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key (Mermaid Avenue)
15. Peggy Honeywell - Green Mountain (Green Mountain)
16. Have Gun, Will Travel - Finer Things (Fact, Fiction, or Folktale)
17. The Menzingers - The Talk (Rented World)
18. The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit - Very Best Of (Old Excuses)
19. Hackensaw Boys - Alabama Shamrock (Love What You Do)
20. Manchester Orchestra - Colly Strings (Like A Virgin Losing a Child)

Listen to it on Spotify HERE. 

Listen to The Dixie Cragger's Summer Mixtape HERE. 

The 3 Stages of Belaying Someone Crushing Your Project

Marshall makes quick twerk of my project Ride the Short Bus 
and looks like a Greco-Roman god doing it.

This summer, I started climbing hard -- well, hard for me. Climbing 5.12 was actually in the realm of possibility if I would ever take the time to actually work on something for more than three burns. And since I was spending a week at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch (where the routes are short and the grades are relatively soft), I thought I would take the time to actually "project" something: Ride the Short Bus, an Obed-esque tiered roof 12a in a pretty impeccable and secluded area of the Ranch. And it didn't hurt that my friend Marshall had tagged along for the ride; a climbing coach and an all around master of psyche, Marshall helps people send.

So after a few pathetic displays of human strength and endurance, Marshall tied in to the business end of the rope to show me some things. And boy, did he. The following are the three stages of my response to his on-sight/flash/whatever/crushfest.

Stage 1: The Student "You are the master, and I am the learner. Teach your ways. Show me your beta." 

In this stage, you are genuinely interested and excited about seeing someone better than you try your climb. You're asking yourself what can you learn from this person? How will they work the crux? Where will they take a rest? What do they do differently? You are inquisitive and open to new possibilities.

Stage 2: The Stoked "Heck yeah! He just cruised that crux! Maybe I can too!"

During the second stage, your psyche dyke has been breached. By now, you have yelled ample "yeah!"'s and "come on!"'s. Your partner is crushing and you are stoked. You are stoked for him and you're stoked at the possibility that maybe you can crush too.

Stage 3: The Stupefied "Are you effing kidding me? There's no way. He never even shook out."

By the third and final stage, your partner has clipped the chains and you're not even sure he took time shake out or chalk up. "What part was I supposed to watch again?" you ask yourself. "He moved so fast I didn't even notice his beta." You are left perplexed and dumbfounded. You begin to question everything you ever thought about yourself. You contemplate your existence and begin to ask if it's really all worth it. "What is the meaning of climbing?" And thus, "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I even here?" "What has this all been about?" You recognize your physical, mental, and human inferiority but instead of getting into the fetal position and crying yourself to sleep on the bathroom floor like you did on prom night, you reluctantly tie in to try again.

"Try hard. Fail often. Succeed next time." - Dave MacLeod

photos by Logan Mahan and Jamie Van Tassle

#dirtbagswag whips 005: Kyle's Mighty Morphin' White Ford Ranger

Kyle emanates the #dirtbagswag spirit

For those of us who remember the every-movement-over-exaggerated, gratuitously-electric-guitar-laden-soundtracked, live action children's television series, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, few things were as egregiously epic and anxiously anticipated as Tommy Oliver's revelation as the White Ranger. Together with his talking ninja saber, "Saba," the White Ranger summons Tigerzord and finally defeats the evil Lord Zedd and his minions (or at least, that's what I learned from wikipedia). 

Or who could forget Tommy, the White Ranger, skydiving -- on a snowboard! -- in the opening scene of Power Rangers: The Movie? (That, I actually remember.) Basically, Tommy was a total bad astronaut and was asked by Zordon to be the new leader of the Rangers , completely usurping power over Jason, the Red Ranger, who was a total poser anyway. Ivan Ooze and his Ectomorphicon Titans never stood a chance. 

Like most of our goateed, bleached tipped, spiked haired heroes of the nineties, Tommy Oliver faded into obscurity. Or, according to the internet, became a washed-up, poorly tattooed, mixed martial arts fighter doing appearances at sci-fi, comic book conventions. But the legend of the White Ranger lives on, forever a figment of our childhood nostalgia. And, of course, as my friend Kyle's 2008, white, Ford Ranger. 

Tommy in the Rockies 

Kyle bought his truck used from a commercial fleet; meaning it has no bells and whistles or fancy thing-a-mabobs. It's just a truck, as a truck should be. And he has driven it to climbing destinations all over the United States. He has to, because he lives in Florida. The Power Rangers needed Tommy to create the Ninja Falcon Megazord and fly Ivan Ooze outer space to his cosmic end. Likewise, Kyle needs a Ranger of his own to get to higher elevations. And it's a beautiful thing.

After a multi-week, cross country road trip with little to no rain the whole time, it finally deluged in Colorado Springs and Kyle learned the hard way about not having a truck bed top. Back at home, Kyle set Tommy up with this sweet dirtbag rig that keeps him and his girlfriend snug and dry during the cool, wet, southeastern climbing seasons and stores all of his climbing gear and vegan friendly kitchen.

Kyle and Tommy spent the summer in central Florida, working on a farm and learning about permaculture. But not without going climbing at the Obed first. And rumor has it he wandered out west again too. You can watch a beautiful and short travel video of a climbing trip Kyle, Tommy, and myself took a few years ago HERE.

Tommy at the Obed

Whip Specs

make and model: 2008 Ford Ranger
moniker: "Tommy,"  AKA "Dirtbag Dragon," AKA "Piece of Trash"
under the hood: 4.0 L SOHC V6
dirtbag mods: truck bed cover, shelving unit, raised platform bed with essential storage cubbies underneath.

#dirtbagswag

An Open Letter to Every Outdoor Retail Company Ever

The warm alpine glow bounced off the face of White's Peak, down into the valley which separates it from Mt. Antero. It was cold but the early morning light and the urge to relieve myself beckoned me from my Black Diamond bivy bag. I stretched my legs and wiggled my toes and then began to unzip my bivy hood.

SNAG.

The zipper was caught on the NanoShield fabric. I muscled my index and middle fingers into the minuscule unzipped hole, loosened the fabric, and unzipped some more.

SNAG. 

Repeat a half a dozen more times.

With my head finally dislodged from my delightfully lightweight but agonizingly difficult-to-get-out-of rain shelter, I was a step closer to urinating and starting my day. Reluctantly, I started to unzip my beloved Mountain Hardware UltraLamina 32 sleeping bag.

SNAG. 

I wiggled my left arm free from the mummy bag to pull the ultra lightweight synthetic material out of the teeth of the zipper and pulled some more.

SNAG. 

Now I really had to drain the main vein. My right leg began to bounce a little bit, a little like Elvis but a lot more like a toddler standing in line at a urinal. They can put a man on the moon! I thought to myself while wrestling out a few more snags, crawling out and putting on my Chacos. Thankfully, my campers/clients were still asleep so I didn't have to walk far to relieve myself. I spread my knees in a semi-athletic stance and pulled down the zipper of my Marmot Precip Pants.

SNAG. 

SNAG some more.

A string of unmentionable language vomited from my mouth before I barely could access the crotch zipper of my Kuhl Liberator Zip-Off Pants under my rain shell. I wore my Precips over my shorts because the zipper had fallen off the left pant leg on another mountain another week. It took all that was in me to hold my super charged urine while fiddling with an assortment of zippers and zipper teeth on an array of outdoor retail.What had started as a pleasant, peaceful morning in a lovely valley between two beautiful mountains had turned into urinary nightmare.

Chances are if you have ever spent a night in the woods, you had at least one piece of equipment with a zipper on it. And chances are you have a story similar to my own. Which is why I have written an open letter to every outdoor company ever. "Open Letters" are kind of a thing right now, what with the power of the internet and advent of social media and everything. But I believe in them. In 2007, I wrote an open letter to my congressman to end the Taco Bell monopoly of Mountain Dew Baja Blast. And in 2014, purchasing Baja Blast was made available in gas stations and grocery stores everywhere. You're welcome. Unfortunately, I don't drink soda anymore.

So without further adieu, my open letter to every outdoor retail company ever:

Let's spread this thing around. Let's start a movement. Let's be the change in the world we want to see. 

#dirtbagswag whips 004: Mark and Alex's 1971 Manabago

Makin' friends, Manabago style!

Remember when dreams were fueled by little more than peanut butter and jelly? When choosy moms chose to send their kids outside to imagine better worlds powered by high caloric food paste made from dry roasted peanuts? When Peter Pan was a tight-wearing, pirate-fighting hero and a delicious sandwich spread? Not a psychiatric syndrome or a psychological complex? When spreading the fun was all that mattered?

Well, those days never ended for two mustached dreamers named Mark Slagle and Alex Cox. 

Mark and Alex have a dream to reduce severe acute malnutrition across the globe. And like so many big dreams, this one starts on the open road.

Shortly after the turn of the decade (the 2010 one), Mark and Alex partnered with MANA, a non-profit company that makes Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food (RTUF). Three servings of RTUF a day can totally save a child's life by providing basic nutritional needs. And people needed to know. 

So they bought a 1971 Winnebago.

whip specs

make and model: 1971 Winnebago Brave
moniker: The Manabago
under the hood: Dodge 318 cubic inch V8
gas mileage: "9 miles to the gallon, if the wind was at our back."
dirtbag mods: Ejection button (!), 20 ft. military tent strapped on top, mood lighting and orange leather, shag carpet, 8-track player, brodie knob, homemade paint job, swivel pilot seats, and basically everything you've ever wanted.

They took "The Manabago" from MANA's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina to preach RTUF's evangel in the halls of the nation's capital and then across the United States -- roughly following the I-40 corridor -- through Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and on to California.

One of those stops was at a bar -- the Cannery Ballroom -- in Nashville, Tennessee where I stood in the back waiting for the lights to dim. It was the day after I moved for grad school and I knew absolutely nobody. A big guy with a bigger mustache introduced himself to me as "Mark" and he was driving across the country with his friend in an old camper. He was literally the first person to talk to me in my new city. I found out later that evening why he was driving across the country and I found out two years later that he worked for the same mountain guiding outfitter in Salida, Colorado that I now work for. 


According to Mark, The Managabo had "the shape of a toaster oven, but the spirit of a rebel pirate ship." And driving her "felt like waltzing with an elderly woman." An elderly woman who had once been a flamenco expert.

But she was still an old woman after all, and a few short months after my encounter with Mark and Alex in Tennessee, she had to go in for a brake tune up somewhere along California's State Highway 1. 

Minutes later, what sounded like a canon went off and a small flame erupted from the rear tire well. By the time the fire department got to her, the two rear propane tanks caught and exploded into a raging, 30 ft. tall cloud of black smoke and open flame. And in less than 25 minutes, over 2,600 miles of hopes, dreams and memories turned to ash.

Yet, like a phoenix, the dream rose from the ashes and while The Manabago took to the great highway in sky, Mark and Alex took to the great highway by foot. And after 2,500 miles of hitchhiking, the peanut butter company, Good Spread was born.

Good Spread exists to help good spread. And for every individual pack of all natural peanut butter mixed with organic honey you buy, a packet of ready-to-use therapeutic food is sent to a child in need. And that's pretty neat. Because unlike TOMS or other 1 for 1 business models, Good Spread provides a simple, healthy, ready-to-eat life-saving food that otherwise could not have been provided. It won't solve world hunger or global starvation, but it will feed a starving child in the arms of a desperate mother.

Help good spread, help Good Spread.

Big things are happening for Good Spread. You can still order packets online. They have jars now. The Southeastern grocery chain, Harris Teeters, now carries it on their shelves. I ate a whole jar in a less-than 24 hour period more than once now. They even have (unpaid) interns. And they're helping more and more mothers feed malnourished, starving children everyday. 

Mark and Alex keep some of the ashes in an urn in their Good Spread office so they never forget. The spirit of the Manabago lives on. Never underestimate the power of the great American road trip -- where miles turn into dreams and dreams turn into conversations and conversations turn into reality. 

Fuel your next road trip, your next climbing weekend, and feed a malnourished child. Help good spread.


learn more about MANA here. 
learn more about Good Spread here.
watch The Manabago in action here. 

5 Ways to Poop With Your Ice Ax

"The ice ax and skill in its use allow climbers to venture onto all forms of snow and ice, enjoying greater variety of mountain terrain during all seasons of the year." - Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills

The ice ax is among the most basic and essential of climbing equipment. It has helped mountaineers reach their summits since the nineteenth century and by 1889 the tool was heralded by the Italian Alpine Club as an "inseparable companion of the mountaineer."

As mountain guides working in the summer months on mostly non-technical mountains with teenagers, passer-byers often ask us why we have ice axes on our packs. Yes, it is true we are required to carry them in the early months for emergency glissading; but also, and perhaps more importantly, because they are valuable pooping posture facilitators.

"The ice ax, an inherently simple tool, has many uses," says Freedom of the Hills but what it does not include in its bountiful purposes is taking a dump. The ice ax is perfectly -- though inadvertently -- designed for disposing human waste according to Leave No Trace's cathole method.

First, we must reevaluate the anatomy of the ice ax. The adze is more than adequate for chopping through hard ground and digging a 6-8 inch cathole while the pick or the spike help stabilize the practitioner and find solid ground no matter what angle terrain they find themselves in. If you are one to carry toilet paper with you, the shaft is an excellent toilet paper dispenser. Just make sure you pack it out.

Here are five ways your ice ax can enhance your high country pooping experience.

1. The Standard AKA "The Tug and Poop": This is the "standard route" of using the ice ax as a toiletry tool. Dig your cat hole with the adze, turn the ax around and thrust the pick into the ground. Grab and squat with your pooper over the hole and let it rip.

"welcome to my woods."

2. The Harley Davidson: This method is perhaps the most effective but only below tree line. After preparing your poo receptacle, simply wrap your ax around a sturdy, stable tree and hold on like you're on a fat hog and let her ride.

"hey girl, where yo aspen?"

3. The Jackhammer: Soft ground? Jab the spike into the ground and grab the head (pick and adze) like a jackhammer and pound that poop out.

"mmm, corn!"

4. The Throne: Feeling frisky? Situate your ax like the jackhammer but instead of grabbing on, plant your posterior on the pick and adze and let it drop 60 to 70 cm to its target. It is very, very important that you aim well and sit far enough back that you don't crap on your shaft.

"Robin, you look like a woodland nymph when pooping." - Jamie

5. The Dangleberry: Feeling even friskier? Dig your cathole and dangle over the target area from a select and sturdy tree branch.

Note: select your branch carefully

Special thanks to the lovely ladies of Wilderness Expeditions, Robin and Jamie, for modeling.

#dirtbagswag whips 003: Graham's $500 Volvo

Graham (orange jacket), his boys, and his beloved Volvo

Some people can buy a new car and not drive but ten miles before having to go to a mechanic. Others can buy a twenty-five years old beat up Volvo for $500 with over 100,0000 miles, and only pay for gas, an oil change, and a window sized sheet of plexiglass. Graham is a lucky son of a gun in the latter group.

When Graham came into the guides' bunkhouse and said he was going to buy an old Volvo station wagon for $500 to drive 1,242 miles from Salida, Colorado back home to Nashville, Tennessee most of us laughed. Others offered wise economic council that Dave Ramsey would have been proud of. But Graham wasn't kidding.

The Swedish engineered, 90 degree, V6 engine rumbled like a good, old fashioned, American monster truck. The rear right panel window was missing. And the registration was of questionable legality but it had enough room for his gear, his bicycles, and his girlfriend so it was a done deal. All he had to do was drive it clear across the country.

Not only did "Marley" make it to Nashville, but in December it made it back to Salida for the ski season with four other passengers and only a few minor hiccups. And it almost made it back to Nashville again too -- and it did eventually get there -- but not without a tow truck. You can peep a rad little video of Graham and his buddies' cross country adventures HERE.




Whip Specs
make and model: 1988 Volvo 240DL 4 Door Station Wagon
under the hood: PRV 2.8L V6
gas mileage: "we'll get there when we get there... we're here."
dirtbag mods: plexiglass rear right window, homemade ski and snowboard rack

 

Graham's other vehicles include a 4x4 19XX Chevy Blazer lifted up on tires bigger than Muggsy Bogues, a bicycle he attached a lawn mower engine to, and a bicycle he just spent the last five days peddling the length of the Natchez Trace Trail (444 miles).

After putting some work into the engine, Graham brought Marley back to Wilderness Expeditions in 2014 and is leading groups to trailheads each week. And it's still the best $500 he ever spent (in one place).

#dirtbagswag approved (peep the guide's bunkhouse in the reflection)

Horseshoe Canyon Ranch

"The gods of the hills are not the gods of the valleys. The valleys raise corn but the Ozark hills produce extraordinary men and women. Their passing closes one of the most romantic and colorful chapters in the history of our country." Vance Randolph, The Ozarks: an American Survival of Primitive Society

The Boston Mountains slouch over the Ozark Plateau, creeping across northwest Arkansas like a tired old woman lost to an ancient war of time and erosion. Deep hollers like potmarks and creeks like wrinkles cover her aged face. As far as mountains go, she is humble in stature but her dense timber, deep hollers, and dark caves conceal mysteries that capture the imagination like a hex or a vision. Witches were said to have roamed the woods of Pulaski County "thicker than tick seeds," and Jesse James himself found refuge in the hills near Jasper, Arkansas. 

The people who live in Ozark country "were, until very recently, the most deliberately unprogressive people in the United States," wrote Vance Randolph who loved these hills enough to write their withering history in the early 1900s. Time has a way of hiding -- self-editing -- so Randolph not only wrote about Ozark dialect, folklore, and folk songs but also the witchcraft, violence, and bootlegging that was hidden in the hills. When asked on his deathbed, why he devoted himself to these stories, he replied "The stuff is like whiskey, you get fooling with it and it's difficult to stop."

Resistance to change was not only the chief characteristic of the Ozark people but also, until very recently, the land itself. While modernity encroached rural Appalachia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the advent of logging railroads, the TVA, and a certain national park, the Ozarks remained on the other side of things. For a time, hidden from and unaffected by "progress."

Jamie cruising The Greatest Show on Earth

Time hides and time reveals. And over the course of millions of years, lazy old time reclaimed for itself large escarpments of sandstone that rise above the valleys. Climbers from all over come to pull on the bullet hard, orange and grey and black rock. And there's plenty of rock to go around. The greatest concentration of which lies in what is now a four-star dude ranch near Jasper, Arkansas named Horseshoe Canyon Ranch.

The ranch boasts hundreds of bolted lines, a plethora of enticing splitters, and the highest concentration of beautiful boulders in the state so whether you're clipping bolts, plugging gear, or stacking pads -- there's something for everyone. Beautiful rock, pleasant camping, luxurious cabins, and short approaches make the ranch a veritable playground for sandstone junkies. If you like the steep stuff, get your pump on at the Goat Cave; a beautiful and rarely visited crag with enough 5.12s to keep you busy, shade to help you send, and goat droppings to give a soft landing in the event of a ground fall.




While climbers are welcomed guests and treated with the highest level of southern hospitality, Horseshoe Canyon is first and foremost -- a ranch. Horses and goats and their canine protecters roam at will. They are, most likely, the happiest mammals between the Rockies and the Mississippi. It is not uncommon to fall asleep (or wake up) to the sound of galloping, grass munching, and neighing outside your tent. The ranch's nonhuman hosts make for a truly unique climbing experience and are hospitable enough, but a word of caution: free range animals will freely range into your unattended food. And goats really like bananas.

If you find yourself lucky enough to call the ranch home for a few days in the layover between spring and summer: climb in the morning shade until the heat overcomes your ability to grab the North 40's monster jugs, then drive back down the mountain and cool off in the Buffalo National River. Here you can float in its clear, blue water, deep water solo or jump off its limestone cliffs, or grab a bag of margarita in the adjacent Boone County and simply bask in the river.

May means cool nights for campfires and midday dips in the Buffalo River

Newton County, her mountains, and her people are still reminiscent of another time. Fewer people live in Jasper, Arkansas than sit in the pews of most churches in Nashville, Tennessee. Old men with canes and dip cups sit outside diners and talk to you about the weather. There is a definite "Mayberry-ishness." Get your fill at the Blue Mountain Deli with the tastiest sandwiches, pizzas, and breakfast omelets and made with the freshest ingredients. And then go into full on glutton mode with their made-from-scratch baked goods. We literally fought over the apple pie a la mode made from local Ozarkian apples. The town recognizes climbers pretty easily and, in our experience, are one of the most climber-friendly communities out there. When -- not if -- you go, don't spoil it.

Climbing at Horseshoe Canyon is like whiskey, you get to fooling with it and it's difficult to stop. 

the biggest jugs I've ever fallen from: Ride the Short Bus in the Goat Cave

#dirtbagswag whips 002: Eli and His Subaru

Many say it is the greatest public works project in history. Some say it was a military conspiracy to transport  nuclear missiles during the cold war. Some say it helped destroy small highway towns like those along Route 66 (re: Cars). Still others, hopeful romantics like myself, claim that the United States Interstate Highway System is a testament that the best parts of the human spirit are still alive.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, he could not have anticipated the far reaching impact it would have. It's not perfect, but its 47,000 miles of highway are the physical manifestation of the human desire to go. To go where we haven't been before. To go to the places we love, the places we need. Driving is, for me, a sacred space where human spirit, deep thought, and the open road meet in an almost divine triune.

There is a stretch of Interstate 40 that runs 105 miles across Tennessee between Nashville and Crossville that holds a very special place in my heart. It is the quickest route to my favorite place in the world, the confluence of Clear Creek and the Obed River. And most of those trips have taken place riding shotgun in Elijah's 2004 Subaru Forester. In that liminal space between origin and destination, we've talked about our differing but deep appreciation for Quakerism, how Renaissance era humanism propelled French exploration, and asked why yogurt companies advertise almost exclusively to women. Over the course of two years, Elijah has become one of my closest friends and I owe much of that to Dwight D. Eisenhower and Japanese auto engineering.

They say there's more Subarus per capita in Boulder, Colorado than there are broken down RV's in the entire state of Alabama. And it's rumored that some Subaru dealerships give out free whey grass and coconut water enemas with every test drive. In 2010, a Subaru study showed that "lesbians are four more times likely to own a Subaru than their heterosexual counterparts." And in 2013, Subaru basically told the Super Bowl, "we're not a part of your system," and opted to buy ad time during Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl instead. When my roommate suggested buying one, his American-made car dealer father replied, "No son of mine will drive one of them hippie cars." And oh, by the way, Subaru's signature, symmetrical All Wheel Drive drivetrain is more rugged than John Wayne and Ronald Reagan combined. 

When it comes to Subaru's consumer demographics, Elijah is the standard -- the poster child. He is an Ellen Degeneres doppleganger, a coffee fanatic, a "grow local, eat local" enthusiast, and a pretty darn good climber too. And he has the bumper stickers to prove it. Subaru, if you're reading this and looking for a commercial or advertisement model, Eli won't answer his phone but I know where he lives and he accepts payment in Coronas and burritos. 

the quintessential

Eli may be the embodiment of Subaru's stereotypical marketing demographics, but he is also the embodiment of the human spirit and desire to go. From the northeast to Southern California, from Okinawa to Nashville, he's lived in more places than I've traveled to and he has traveled to even more. He's seen covetous amounts of the world over and yet no place enraptures his soul like the burnt orange desert landscapes of Moab, Utah and the hidden strips of sandstone along the Obed River. To hear him talk about these places is to listen to Edward Abbey or Wendell Berry or even Jefferson himself. Elijah's desire to go has never triumphed his love of place and his 2004 Subaru Forester is the mode in which those best parts of the human spirit stay alive.

Whip Specs

make and model: 2004 Subaru Forester X
under the hood: 2.5 liters and 173 wild ponies
dirtbag mods: Eli installed curtains, a bed platform, and cooking apparatus for his cross country road trip around Edward Abbey's American West, but now just prefers to lay the seats down and roll up in a comforter with his dog Rocky. It also has a CD player.

Elijah and I graduated this May and we just had our last climbing trip at the Obed for a while. Life -- the human necessity to go -- means I'm leaving for guiding work in Colorado and he'll be God only knows where (possibly Antarctica) when I get back. The good news about the interstate is it is a never ending thing. It is as unending as the human necessity and desire to move and to go. And just as the interstate's 47,000 miles merge and intersect, so does the limitless movement of our lives.

Here's to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Father of the Interstate Highway System.

Here's to Subaru Foresters marketed almost exclusively to outdoor enthusiasts, lesbians, and outdoor enthusiast lesbian look-a-likes.

Here's to Elijah, a travel companion, study buddy, lunch date, margarita enthusiast, belay partner, and friend.

The Dixie Cragger's Summer 2014 Mixtape

(via google)

The Southern Agrarian, Robert Penn Warren once said, "Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure." If you grew up in the Deep South, that much is clear. What's fascinating is the intrinsic link between the former (possibly the latter as well) and southern music.

The counter-narratives of black spirituals subverted white racist sensibilities with hope.

In Appalachia, fiddle and banjo attempted to preserve the rural way of life against the threat of industrialism and recency.

Bluesmen and blueswomen kept catastrophe and celebration in balance amongst the systemic oppression of Jim Crow America.

Lynyrd Skynyrd (in its original conception, at least) attempted to tell another side of southern experience beyond its negative national perception: good, smart, artistic people dwell in these parts.

The North Carolinian poet James Applewhite wrote, "The South has been notorious for mythologizing itself." These songs both celebrate the South and lament her cultural contradictions. These songs are the soul of the South laid to bare. Folk, country, gospel, hip-hop, bluegrass, rock n' roll - it's all there. Whether you're driving down dusty roads, chasing the shade at the crag, sitting on your front porch rocking chair, or finding yourself out there in the land where they don't hold doors for folks: this one's for you.

As for me, I've headed out west for the summer again. And as always, it is a bittersweet departure; I'm stoked for the big mountains and high country but leaving your friends and kin is always a major bummer. While driving across those great midwestern plains, you better believe I'll be screaming along with Dallas Taylor on the opening track, "we can't help but be blessed, when you've been raised by God's finest." 

CAUTION: mixtape may cause you to slide across the hood of your car and crawl in through the window like Bo and Luke Duke. Listen to it on Spotify HERE.

1. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster - Raised by the Tide (II)
2. Possessed by Paul James - Sweet But Bitter Life (There Will be Nights When I'm Lonely)
3. Rising Appalachia - Cumberland Gap (Filthy Dirty South)
4. Hurray for the Riff Raff - Blue Ridge Mountain (Small Town Heroes)
5. Doc Watson - Omie Wise (The Definitive)
6. The Osborne Brothers - Georgia Mules and Country Boys (From Rocky Top to Muddy Bottom)
7.  Ralph Stanley - Dixieland (Old Time Pickin': A Clawhammer Banjo Collection)
8. Mandolin Orange - There Was a Time (This Side of Jordan)
9. The Drive By Truckers - Three Great Alabama Icons (The Southern Rock Opera)
10. Carl Perkins - Tennessee (Sun King Collection)
11. The Drive-By Truckers - Carl Perkins' Cadillac (The Dirty South) 
12. The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (The Band)
13. The Golden Gate Quartet - Go Down, Moses (Negro Spirituals)
14. The Sacred Harp Singers - The Trumpet (The Fiancee)
15. Nappy Roots - Awnaw (Watermelon, Chicken, and Gritz)
16. Carolina Chocolate Drops - Cornbread and Butter Beans (Genuine Negro Jig)
17. Muddy Waters - Deep Down in Florida (Hard Again)
18. Killer Mike - God in the Building (I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind)
19. Mavis Staples - Down in Mississippi (We'll Never Turn Back)
20. Austin Lucas - Alone in Memphis (Stay Reckless)
21. The Showdown - Breath of the Swamp (Temptation Come My Way)

Listen to it on Spotify HERE. 

#dirtbagswag whips 001: The Vinson Van

Andrew, Bethany, and their big green van

I met Andrew in high school, and for a season of my life, we, for all intents and purposes, lived together. Skipping school, skateboarding, listening to punk music, and eating honey butter chicken biscuits; we were, at that moment, living the dream. 

But dreams change and I think that's a good thing. I moved away to grad school and his band started to get to get serious. So he bought a big green van. They toured a little bit. They were living the dream. 

But dreams change and Andrew fell in love and got married. They had a little house, a little cat, and they still had a giant green van. All in all, they were living the dream.

But dreams change and now they're selling their things, moving into that same giant green van, driving across the country, working at Yosemite Park, and living every dirtbag's dream.

Andrew and Beth are teaming up with ACMNP (A Christian Ministry in the National Parks) to help lead Sunday services for staff and guests, while also serving the park's rangers, hospitality staff, and the

hundreds of other people employed there. They'll be there all summer and through the fall, leaving with the last bit of committed, cold-weathered climbers. Andrew prefers surfing, but I have a feeling he'll send The Freerider in a day within months of moving there.

Dreams change and I think that's a good thing. And I think this one is totally awesome. They leave at the beginning of May and you can follow their adventures through the eyes of Gatlin, their garden gnome totem to all things fun on instagram @gatlintravels

WHIP SPECS
make and model: Ford Econoline 150 Hi-Top Conversion Van
under the hood: 5.4L Triton V8
gas mileage: "not great"
dirtbag mods: took out the passenger seats and put in a raised double bed with storage space beneath; surf board rack; privacy curtains.
Andrew's favorite: the comfy captain seats
Bethany's favorite: the handmade curtains (not pictured)

@gatlintravels

A Man and His Hat: A Eulogy

The relationship between a man and his hat is perhaps one of the most intimate relationships that can ever be had this side of eternity. Rain or shine, nothing comes between a man and his hat save for hair alone. Only marriage, or a beloved Golden Retriever, has such relationship status. It is a relationship for all to see, free and open to public judgment -- god or bad, warranted or unwarranted. And still, man and his hat go alone to be alone in the quiet of their shared life together. Shared life, as ordinary and spectacular as daily life itself.

A man with such a hat knows that the relationship between man and hat cannot and can never be built upon utilitarianism. A hat is more than a head covering or harbinger of shade. Nor can a the relationship be built upon the sandy foundation of mere fashion or attractiveness. Superficiality only goes so far. A man and his hat share a common bond, a common thread, a shared fabric of being. Lucky is the man who knows such a friend and companion as a hat. 

My hat stumbled into my life unexpectedly in the summer of 2009 as I was perusing the shelves of Goodwill when it caught my eye. She was a 90s era snapback hardly, if ever, worn. Her perfectly Crayola Crayon red bill was flat and crisp. The "M" stitched on the the front was elegant and noble. Her perfectly sewn panels popped the sharpest royal blue. And of course, the bubble print "Mickey" and the iconic Mouse himself were stitched exquisitely on her backside. She was beautiful. 

Together, my hat and I skated all over Tallahassee and the southeast. We attended innumerable punk

hardcore shows. Sweating and crowd surfing and stage diving. More than a few times, she would go missing in the bustle of the pit only to be returned after the show by a stranger who had picked her up off the beer soaked floor. It is true that on more than one occasion, I have been recognized in other states by people I had never met before who had seen pictures of the royal blue Mickey Mouse hat at shows. 

Together, my hat and I paddled Florida's scenic and wild rivers and surfed the coast in my short-lived whitewater kayaking days. 

Together, my hat and I moved to Memphis for an internship. Suffered through the mid-south's ungodly hot and humid summer working with teenagers and painting houses in Memphis' Orange Mound neighborhood where mischievous seventh graders would try to splatter or swipe paint across her majesty. We got over it. 

Together, my hat and I graduated from Florida State University and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. She was there by my side, or on top of my head rather, through two relationships.  

Together, my hat and I logged countless miles on the Appalachian Trail, traveled thrice times across the country, worked as a mountain guide in Colorado, summited over a dozen big mountains, climbed hundreds of pitches on steep southeastern sandstone, suffered through two Wild Hog Canoe Races, three broken bones, and three years of graduate school. 

My Mickey Mouse hat has accompanied me nearly every day since that fateful afternoon in 2009, minus a few unintended extended absences where she went missing (like the time she got eaten by Amanda's couch in 2010 or the alpine storm debacle on Wetterhorn Peak in 2013). 

Over the years, her age has begun to show. Her vintage snapback, now coveted by hipsters and hip-hop enthusiasts alike, has been mended by electrical tape, duct tape, crazy colored duct tape, and finally climbers tape. Her bold royal blue has darkened to a near black and her crisp red bill is bent to perfection and tarred by grease. The giant "M" stitched on her front panel is all but lost to paint and grease, and chalk. Her sweatband has all but completely disintegrated. The iconic Mickey Mouse has lost most of its stitching. To many who knew her in her earlier days, she is completely unrecognizable. 

But like cheese, I thought, she was only getting better with age. 

But well-intentioned friends and family members and malevolent naysayers and detractors would sling harmful, hateful words like "gross," "nasty," and "disgusting" at us. I always dreamt of a day when a pretty girl would wear my Mickey hat, as pretty girls wear their beau's hat at the beach or in the woods. But no girl would touch the hat on my head, let alone put it on her own. It was true that she was in a permanent state of greasy, grimy, moist dampness. But how could they? How could they if they knew of our adventure, of our history? How could they if they how much my hat and I had been through together? So together, my hat and I pressed on for a few more years. 

She was more than a hat. She was a part of me. A veritable appendage of my head. Together, my hat and I had more shared life experiences than I have with most people. And saying good-bye is hard. 

Like a cowboy who must put down his noble steed, it was time. Perhaps I had been in denial for sometime. Perhaps I couldn't let go. Perhaps I let it go for too long. Perhaps I should have put her out of her misery sooner. How does one determine such things? Ask any dog owner and they'll tell you that you cannot. In an inexplicable moment, you just know. Something triggers it and the compassion to let go overwhelms the compassion to hold on. And it is no easy thing. 

She was more than a hat. She was a part of me. And saying good-bye is hard. Together, we rode to Goodwill, the Drive-By Truckers, "Goddamn Lonely Love" on the stereo, windows down, wind in her bill one last time. It was right. And it was right that she should be there to determine and meet her successor. Though no hat "successes," replaces, or fills the void in the heart that your old hat will leave. They only carry on the story, build upon the tradition and legacy left before them. 

She was more than a hat. She was a part of me. And saying good-bye is hard. No "thank you" could capture my sincere gratitude. No obituary could narrate our biography. No eulogy could tell the intense feeling of deep affection. May she rest in peace. 

In this difficult time of mourning, friends, family, and readers are encouraged to leave comment expressing their favorite Mickey Mouse hat story.