On the month of January, fire guys, and clearcuts

 

bikepacking in Prentice Cooper State Forest

I decided to keep my 2021 new year's "resolution" very conservative: sleep outside once a month. Many of these nights outside will come in the form of "microadventures."The New York Times described microadventures as "short, perspective-shifting bursts of travel closer to home." These little write-ups will serve to dicument those shifts in perspective.

On microadventure #1

Max and I bikepacked to Davis Pond campground in Prentice Cooper State Forest. We met our friends Reid and Josiah who backpacked in on the Cumberland Trail. It was a dreary day but the clouds parted long enough for a nice sunset and long campfire before the floodgates of heaven were released. It was a cold, wet, and really good time.

On the month of January

January is the month equivalent of the state of Ohio. "Ohio," of course, being Native American for a shoulder shrug. Nobody cares about Ohio outside of elections. Nobody loves January except for the first day of month and even that's about the last day of December. The initial high of New Years and its resolutions quickly wear off in the month's cold, wet, dark days. The holidays are over and everybody's exhausted and broke. The joy of fall and the hope of summer are equidistant goal posts from these, the doldrums of winter. No wonder more people die in January than any month. I used to like January for its prime Southeastern climbing conditions but the more and more I ride my bike the more and more I long for warmer days. Thank God February is our shortest month.

On campfires 

I love looking at fire. My friend Reid wrote a while back, "Around a fire, the lulls in conversation that sometimes sandbag the whole affair are changed into pleasant meditations. There’s nothing to say, but there is a fire to look at." But I don't need a lull to stare. In fact, I don't say much around the campfire (this is my modus operandi at most social gatherings). Instead, I sit listening to the conversation around me; soaking it all in. The lull is the brief moment in time in which I insert myself through a joke, anecdote, or factoid before retreating back to my warm cocoon of silence, looking at the fire, listening to the sounds. 

campfire at Davis Pond campground

 

In defense of the "fire guy" 

We all know a "fire guy:" the guy who tends to the fire throughout the night with the eagerness of a boy scout and is often derided as such. The fire guy gives off strong "eager beaver" vibes. They meticulously build tiny twig tee-pees. They tend to the small sparks with motherly care until their baby fire grows into a roaring flame. They get down on all four and they huff and they puff at the coals. They snap sticks over their knees. They tweak and they poke and they prod at the fire all night long. They seldom sit. And all the while we benefit from their action. We sit and drink and laugh and converse never minding the intense labor of love that is taking place before our eyes. We are the birds on the elephant's back. The elephant is neither helped nor harmed but the birds eat their fill and enjoy their lives. Max was our elephant and what an elephant he was! All hail, "fire guy."

On clearcutting

clearcuts along Tower Road

Clearcutting is the harvesting of an entire stand of trees in a single operation and leaves behind a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Dig a trench, add some barbed wire, throw in a horse wearing a gas mask, and a clearcut looks like every picture of World War I you’ve ever seen. The gravel ride along Tower Road passes many such atrocities.

Much of the plateau in Prentice Cooper is subject to logging prescriptions that involve clearcutting and — I cannot decide if this is shocking or not — Tennessee has no statutes regulating the quality of this high-intensity timber harvesting. The Forest Service intends that these clear cuts are re-established but as Janisse Ray says in Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, "there is no way to re-create a forest. Not quickly. And the trees will just be cut again." The replanted stand of trees near Davis Pond campground is typical of these "re-created" factory forests: systematic rows of identical trees more reminiscent of a plantation than a forest.

Clearcutting destroys biodiverse forests, accelerates climate change, contaminates watersheds, depredates healthy soils, and decimates native plant species. Monitoring already shows a drastic decline in biodiversity in Prentice Cooper. Oak and hickories fail to regenerate in the degraded soil and only poplar and invasive autumn olive remain. The volume of cutting is increasing and clearcutting is becoming the norm.

But why should I care? I mean, I still use toilet paper to wipe my butt*. I am an imperfect conservationist. But I do think that trees and forests have intrinsic value beyond unsustainable market mechanisms. "The trees encountered on a country stroll, reveal a lot about a country's soul," wrote W.H. Auden. And I fear for our country's soul for so many reasons.  

FURTHER READING:

*Toilet paper wipes out 27,000 trees a day.  (National Geographic)
Tennessee Heartwood (Tennessee state forest advocacy group)

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray

"On the Bosom Of This Grave And Wasted Land I Will Lay My Head," in Orion Magazine by Janisse Ray

Gospel of the Trees curated by Alan Jacobs

The Joy of Sharing Mountains

Emily burst into my class on the first day of school. "Mr. Butterworth!" she exclaimed, "my dad and I climbed the First Flatiron this summer!" The words sputtered out before she put her backpack down. I showed her the pictures where I also climbed the First and we spent several minutes bonding over our shared experiences on the same huge piece of rock some 1,300 miles away. Lots of people climb the Flatirons - large, orange, sandstone fins on the Colorado Front Range, loaded with long 5.easy routes - but not that many, and certainly not many teenagers in Tennessee. Emily and I were part of a special club; our own little society of mountaineers.  

With a rope and a rack, you can go to places few others have gone and despite climbing's ever-growing popularity, even fewer have stood on top of. “Climbing,” we are warned by the tiny labels on cams, quickdraws, and carabiners “is an inherently dangerous activity that may result in serious injury or death.” The alpinist RLG Irving likened the person who claims to love mountains having never risked anything to climb them to one who claims to be a sailor but who's never left the shore. And unless you're Alex Honnold, you almost always have to climb with somebody else. Rock climbing and mountaineering, for me, has always been about the shared experience: the memories and miseries made with close friends in beautiful places.

I've had the privilege of sharing fine places with great people over the years. Every summit is mentally cataloged not by its elevation or its difficulty, but by the people I was with: Eli, Paul L., Joy, Julia, Vance, Jamie, Logan, Leah, Barrett, Robin, Daniel, Josh, Becca, Evan, Andrew, Paul H., Ben, Russ, and a hundred or so teenagers I guided in Colorado. 

When asked, "what are your most cherished memories?" These are them.

The mountains belong to us all yet no one can claim them as their own, so too are our memories shared belongings. Rebecca and I still smile as we remember our time getting off route and blown off by a storm in the Canadian Rockies. And I know that the next time I see Josh we'll remember that belay ledge that was the size of a bar stool, the wind whipping our rope around, my truck, a tiny red dot in the valley below, and debating who led the next terrifying pitch. One of these days, I'll see my buddy Vance again and we'll recall that time we woke up thinking a bear was clawing at our tent but it was Barrett having another night terror. 

Psychologists say shared memories are crucial for our ability to interact with others, to form important, meaning-making social groups, and even our perceptions of the self. Many of my climbing partners are now spread across the country, but our collective memories made in the mountains preserve already established bonds. Therefore, even if I haven’t seen Eli in a long time, I know when I see him again that meaning is held between us through the conscious expression of shared memories in the mountains. That’s part of the special bond of tying into a rope with your partner. It is as if that rope becomes some kind of sacrament; the mediator of a deeper, almost transcendent, relationship. 

Shortly after Emily and I convened our meeting of mountaineers in my classroom, she went on to help start our school's first rock climbing team. It isn’t scrambling in the Canadian Rockies or jamming up splitter dihedrals at Tennessee Wall, but it is tying into a rope with another person and, to some degree, trusting them with your life -- even if the holds are plastic. Paul and I were asked to coach the ragtag group of teenagers--they were band nerds, soccer jocks, thespians, the valedictorian, and a young punk who listened to Black Flag and read Kropotkin. Kids who never talked to each other in the cafeteria were now convening between classes to discuss “the pink 5.11” in the back corner of the gym. The only thing they had in common was this shared experience of climbing rocks. It was so much fun watching them belay each other, figure out beta, and then go to Burger King together afterward. 

 

The school climbing club reminded me of all those Friday nights spent flailing at the bouldering gym with friends and then heading to Las Palmas for mango margaritas. They reminded me that I didn't have much in common with Josh when we loaded up for a multi-month road trip together. And they reminded me of the pure joy of seeing someone accomplish something they thought beyond them. The students made me hopeful that as they graduated and went their disparate ways, that one day they might crawl into a corner booth somewhere and spray about micro crimps or remember airy belay ledges. Those kids made me hopeful that they too will have the collective memories --the transcendent relationships-- that I have had the joy of having. The shared experiences of climbing connects strangers who climbed the same route in the Flatirons and deepens the bonds of friends who shared a remote summit all to themselves. 

 

This is the joy of sharing mountains, so pass it on.

Like this post? Continue to support megasplitter by subscribing to the mailchimp, commenting on, and sending the posts that you like to your friends.

In Praise of the Things Left Undone

watch on youtube

"Pendulum" chronicles the life of a man doing it all. Rob Pizem is a husband, father, high school teacher, gym instructor, and professional rock climber. I've followed Rob on Instagram for some time; since I am a teacher and a climber and a husband, Pizem is a kind of inspiration of mine. At one point in the film, the person behind the camera asks Rob, "Could you tell me how many days a year you would consider yourself to be productive?" Without blinking and without sarcasm Rob laconically responds: "365." And it made me sad. 


Something ought to be said in praise of the things left undone. The clothes left unfolded. The emails unread. The bouldering projects not sent. The unfinished book on the nightstand to return to. Let us give thanks, even, for the missed deadline because our value is not determined by our production capacity. 



In graduate school, a guest speaker urged my cohort to be a people that fight for sabbath. Sabbath, being rest or specifically, work stoppage. It is an archaic word from the Hebrew Bible. There, the story goes, that God rests after the act of creation. Thus, building into the cosmic order a rhythm of work and rest. It is later codified by Moses in the Ten Commandments as a public act of resistance and a communal identity marker.



“Sabbath,” “rest,” or leaving things undone is very difficult. There is an invisible hand always pushing us to do. Moses names it Pharaoh, Marx calls it capitalism, and Pizem describes it as "the pendulum." Whatever it is it is the thing that tells us we have to be doing, achieving, accomplishing, performing, and acquiring. Rest defies the logic of the production-obsessed society where we have to always be more than we are. Later in the film, Rob speaks over panoramas of the Western Slope conceding, "If I am not achieving, it is the worst moment of my life... what's the point of living?" Likewise, we constantly struggle to do more and get more and we never slow down because we believe if we do, not only will we not have enough but we won't be enough.  
 


Even our "rest" falls under the omnipresent purview of the market. Our "time off" is often measured by production pressures, schedules, and quotas. How many miles can I run? How many pitches can I get done? Or how much progress can I make on my project? I have chosen to not go for a bike ride because it wasn't going to be more than 12 miles and anything under 12 miles wasn't worth doing because it wasn't enough. That is a very dumb thing to do. Shouldn't just riding my bike be enough?



If riding my bike is fun, it shouldn't matter how far I go. And if I am a human being, my worthiness is not a function of my utility and productivity. I am not my capacity to produce. And I am certainly not the grade that I climb or mileage I can bike. I have intrinsic value shared with all just because I am. This isn't an argument for slothfulness, nor is it a manifesto against setting goals and pursuing them. It is a celebration of life beyond productivity. It is a summons to rest. 



So here's to that stack of ungraded papers because I went rock climbing instead.
 


Here's to that unfinished bouldering project because I got drinks with friends.
 


Here's to not going anywhere and not doing anything but sitting with my dog and marveling at how content she is doing absolutely nothing but just being. 

Here’s to that ancient Hebrew word, shabbat. 

(And Mr. Pizem, if you're reading this: you're still my hero. I just want you to take a day off. Maybe ride a bike?)

Like this post? Continue to support megasplitter by subscribing to the mailchimp, commenting on, and sending the posts that you like to your friends.

On Pooping Your Pants Outside

In the summer of my twenty-third year, I pooped my pants in Sunshine Canyon, Colorado. Eight years later, I can take you to the exact spot it happened, to the exact place I buried my underwear in shame.  

A few years ago, my friend Paul and I were hiking to climb at the Obed and discussing the lyrics of Ice Cube’s “Good Day” when somewhere along the way the discussion turned to pooping your pants. I recounted my experience in Colorado: my first real cross-country climbing trip with my friend Kyle. He was a vegan and I was not but to keep our budget reasonable we shared his diet for a few weeks. Of course, if you’ve ever made the transition to a totally plant-based diet you know that your bowels will take some adjusting. Mine did exactly that one evening after a very bean-y dinner. I reared back (as one does) and forced out what was supposed to be a hilarious fart. Except, it was more. It was a lot more. And I waddled off into the dark and dug a shallow grave for my underpants.

Most people think of pooping your pants as a bimodal probability across one’s lifespan, as an inverse bell curve: babies poop their pants and old people poop their pants. But, according to Paul, pooping your pants is a multimodal probability — not just for infants and the elderly. 

There must be some account for people who spend a lot of time in the woods. It would appear that another “peak” or “local maxima” should be added to our graph for the potty-trained aged outdoor folks who, for one reason or another, have their own muddy butt stories. Whether the inability to dig a hole fast enough, a beany vegan diet, or giardia, take it from professional rock climber Jason Kruk who reminded all of us about the statistical probability of pooping your pants when he said, “It’s just an odds thing, really.”

Here are some stories shared by friends, whose names have been redacted or changed (to characters from Gilligan's Island), where the odds were definitely not in their favor. They are posted here in solidarity with all those with similar stories, for educational purposes and, of course, a good laugh. You may notice a recurring theme of burying one's underwear in the woods. This is not LNT and should be avoided at all costs. Learn from us.

On Giardia or "Beaver Fever"

“Summit day, the first week of July. Two weeks prior, I’d come down from the summit with an inner-city group from Houston and three kids had run out of water so I gave them all of mine. I grabbed Ginger’s water bottle and started chugging before she told me that she had not purified it yet.

Two weeks to the day, I felt it stirring and had 10 seconds before I had to go. I went 55 times in 10 days and lost 14 pounds.

By the end of it, I got so sick of water and crackers, that I chugged a Coke. It shot through my system in 35 seconds and came out carbonated. In my pants. Still smelled like Coke.” 

On Our First Backpacking Trip 

"The most memorable was with you. The first time we used my water filter, we had forgotten to flush it out before using it. The first bottle was filled with purple water, black specks, and being young and dumb, I drank it. Since the system was now "flushed," your bottle was just fine. But I had to cut my man panties off and bury them in the woods. Then I stuffed my extra underwear in my pants to soak up the diarrhea that kept leaking out my butt while we hiked. Thanks for the memories!”  

The Text Message that Inspired this Post

"Me and Mary Ann went on a breakfast date this morning and stopped at the skateboard park. I skated around it once and destroyed my pants. Like an explosion of diarrhea in my jeans. I had to strip naked in a parking lot and just throw my underwear away." 

On Inadequate Wiping Opportunities

“Well not as much 'pooped the pants' but I had diarrhea at the top of the big hill at Radnor. I barely made it off the side of the trail and I dropped trousers just in time. But there was nothing good to wipe with. So I had muddy butt the rest of the hike back to my truck.”

On IBS and Possible Divine Judgment 

The following comes from a phone conversation with my friend Gilligan: “You know I have more poop in your pants stories than you could ever handle. If you ever write a second edition and it’s not in the woods, I have some amazing stories but I did poop my pants in the woods hardcore once…”

“I can’t remember what mountain I was guiding but I was with The Professor and Mr. Howell. I left them with the kids at high camp, I snuck out and hiked to the truck and drove into Buena Vista, which we're not supposed to do, and I go to K's Dairy Delite and get hamburgers and milkshakes..."

“I have IBS, I don’t know if you know this but I’m lactose intolerant and have irritable bowel syndrome and a spastic colon so that’s a good detail. And of course, I load up on ice cream and cheeseburgers and the whole deal...”

“So I’m trying to be sneaky and I’m hiking back off trail and I remember my daypack is full of burgers and I’m in the middle of nowhere, like this big field with tall grass and nothing else and I had to fart, so I just let it out and I diarrhea’d everywhere.”

"I’m in the middle of nowhere: no leaves, no toilet paper, no wipes, nothing. I wiped with clumps of grass — think about that — and then sacrificed my t-shirt. And I just left it. It was destroyed and I littered. It was not good... For me, it's the textures: my hairy legs, the runny poop, my merino socks, the clumps of grass, and the smell of burgers. I returned to high camp shirtless and covered in poop and nobody ate the burgers."

Have your own story to tell? Leave it in the comments and take full advantage of the anonymity of the internet. 

*

Like this post? Continue to support megasplitter by subscribing to the mailchimp, commenting on, and sending the posts that you like to your friends.

Coffee Political Compass

I've put a lot of thought into this but I reserve the right to be wrong about everything. 

The moka pot is authoritarian-left because it's working-class espresso. There are some rules and regulations. When the rules are followed it works and it works well. But when the rules are broken it is as brutal and unforgiving a cup as winter in the gulags.  

The Chemex is authoritarian-right but in a fun, weird, Catholic integralism kind of way. The Chemex is for people who like to control every aspect of the brewing process. There are rules but, like medieval art, when followed it renders something exquisite, meaningful, and beautiful. 

The Aeropress is libertarian-right because of the Elon Musk level of nerdy experimentation that it encourages, even if it means disastrous negative consequences. Also, it is cheap, plastic, and looks like drug paraphernalia.

The French Press is libertarian-left. It is laissez faire in its attitude toward how much coffee and how much water you put into it; you can French Press without even thinking. It is also a bland and feckless cup of coffee because, despite its best intentions, it demands nothing and therefore achieves nothing.   

Thoughts? Comments? Cries of disbelief? Leave them in the comments. 

Like this post? Continue to support megasplitter by subscribing to the mailchimp, commenting on, and sending the posts that you like to your friends.