#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.