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I’ve always had this feeling that I’ll die young…or youngish–at 41 young is no longer available to me. Assuming I take my dirt nap in less than the industry standard 75 years then I am, somewhat, running out of time. I want to get a number of things done before I shuffle off. Why I don’t know, it’s not like I’ll be sitting by the pearly gates saying, “sweet, I checked off ‘Stay in one of those cool cabins on stilts in the Maldives before global warming wipes the islands away.’” I mean, when you’re dead, you’re dead and presumably at that point you either have larger things on your mind or really, nothing at all. But that doesn’t change the fact that every time Outside or Men’s Journal comes out with a “100 Things You Must Do Before You Die” issue, I’m suckered in. And their lists just don’t jibe with mine. I really don’t need to run with the bulls in Pamplona…it just seems like a pointless brutal exercise.

So, in short, here’s my list:

1. Ski Alaska—I mean really ski it, spend a month, fly with Dean Cummings and ski aspects I won’t have the stomach to ski in five years. Have Paul Claus fly me and some friends into the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and drop us off for two weeks on the glacier….always with the ominous threat that he may not be able to get back to us because of inclement weather.
2. Mountain Bike the San Juan Hut Route (Durango to Moab)—I missed this trip when friends did it before and it sounded like a muddy bloody mess. Can’t wait to check it out.
3. Lotoja—the Logan Utah, to Jackson Hole Wyoming ride. Not just for the cool sticker on my car. A 206 mile one day road ride is epic and I want to say I’ve done it. It’s also a kick-ass training goal. Sadly that amount of saddle time seems to guarantee a nice bout of erectile dysfunction. Sweet.
4. Sail around the Greek islands—nothing gnarly about it, just looks like good clean fun to loll about the deck of a boat in Greece with frosty cocktails and the crisp feel of fresh sunburn.
5. Utah Slot Canyons—All of ‘em. Utah is beautiful beyond words, but the slot canyons, for me, are the pinnacle of the Utah desert experience.
6. Raft the Grand Canyon—ideally on a friend’s trip, but if not then paddle only…not motors please. Three and a half weeks away from everything electronic deep in the Grand sounds like paradise.
7. Appalachian Trail—sadly, this looks farther and farther from the realm of possibility. I just can’t see finding six months for this. But having hiked much of the Long Trail North in Vermont, I long to see more.
8. Chamonix for the winter—I can’t stand crusty French bread, I like mine fresh and soft like the people at Hostess intended. But a winter living among the premiere alpinists, choosing terrifying and exotic massifs to ski might be the finest winter of my life.
9. Haute Route—seems silly to list this after the winter in Chamonix, but it’s my dream and I’m sticking to it. Simply the pinnacle of ski touring.
10. Summit some monster—I’ve never had the “climb it because it’s there” urge. But after forty years of trekking up a slew of relatively piddly peaks, I feel like I need to knock off one big one, just to understand the experience.
11. Alaska to Patagonia—with a big honking V-8 Sportsmobile and all the toys I can stuff in it. Six months on the road.

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1. A letter to Penn

Penn,

I want to tell you about a world you may never get to know. Its fall 2008 and my new skis are on the way…ungodly big mothers that are more than I should be meddling with. The winter is coming, still full of promise and prayer. And you turn three on Sunday and I hope to be taking you skiing soon. It will scare you and excite you and hopefully become for you what it has been for me; a lifestyle, a vocation, a way to find my partner in life and the only connection with an ethereal plane that I have ever known.

In a graceless world I find fluidity and rhythm on the hill. The mountains forgive me my runaway-freight-train-fu that is often described as unwise. But it’s mine and anyone who knows me can spot my plume from miles away.

I want you to feel what I feel Penn, I want you to know the bitter cold of the High Traverse in whiteout, the relentless dumping that seems to be Alta’s gift to the world. I want to ski with you and show you all of the shots that I love. Maybe you will let me tell you the stories of when Dad was unafraid. Of a time when to turn meant to admit defeat.

I am a skier. And Penn, I’d like you to have that chance as well. I just pray for the snow to stay in the mountains for enough years that you can know the pure joy of bottomless relentless foolishly deep powder. And when you ski the deep, may it still exist, perhaps you’ll find a church within and be instilled with a faith that only those who enter the white room can know. And when you do, please pray for it to continue for generations to come. It’s good this thing we do, letting gravity have her way with us, ending up soaked head to toe in powder and happy once again that the world is just as it is.

On a rapidly warming planet I know fresh tracks shouldn’t be my first concern…but on your third birthday and the many you have in the future, they are.

Love Dad

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1. Welcome Penn

Sara is holding my hand as I roll into heart surgery. “You haven’t changed The Will have you?” Uh, no, its minor surgery, it’s like the toe-nail clipping of heart procedures…baby please, focus, healing energy. Her questions continue until the anesthesia kicks. “Who would you like to read your eulogy?” James Earl Jones. Can you think of anything cooler than Darth handling the show? “Where do you want your ashes spread?” Ideally there’ll be no ashes…but she’s onto an interesting question. Easy answer, off the top of Wolverine Cirque, full on paddle-out, everybody hoofing their own way up and taking their own line down, but with prizes for biggest huck and best line, and somehow…somehow Sublime playing really loudly across the whole cirque. These are my thoughts as I drift off.

I wake imagining a list of favorite places and realize I don’t have them as geography but instead as a fusion of locations/times/people that create that perfect, y’know, Zen thing. And sitting by my hospital bed, patiently (for days), is Sara, a storm of tears and bewildered upset trailing across her face.

The moments that I most often try to recreate are the deepest powder days when people stream like ants away from the mountain and the blizzard rages sideways and upside down. On the stormiest days, I like to stop, plunk down trailside in the snow and just hang for a bit. I watch freezing people race home as I sit toasty, layered perfectly with a warm core, clear goggles, wriggling hot fingers. And then I get antsy, because instead of lamenting the intensity of the storm, I soon get to rage right back at it as hard as I can on ungodly powerful skis, busting a track viewed by no one through the deepest snow. Rinse, repeat please.

During the fall equinox I biked the Crest trail with a friend, a pure freerider who descends like mercury and has little patience for “hippy stuff.” A hard snow squall blew across the Solitude ridge-line, heading fast toward our path; we decided to cross back down in a hurry. The fusion of white graupel on brown trail and yellow aspen leaves was intense as we pedaled our legs off. Being at-speed on my bike in bitter weather, yet all of my gear working seamlessly, chasing a ripping rider through epic fall colors, sliding the banks, trying to beat the weather was, well, perfect. The anti-hippy wanted no part of my faux-Zen musings and forced me to chase or be left behind.

Yet if forced, if I just had to choose just one best place/time, I guess I’d go with 6(ish) a.m., September 1^st, 2007, Black Rock City, Nevada, sitting on the hard alkaline soil of the deep playa as the sun rose pink. I wore the perfect piece of gear to sit and watch a cold Burning Man dawn; a GlowFur* jacket powered by sixteen AA batteries, glowing kryptonite green as 47,000 neo-hippy’s dance in the foreground to a thousand different beats, weaving endless fluorescent trails in the desert sky. It’s a very different kind of storm and it’s just too cool. –John Bresee

* www.glowfur.com; courtesy of the king of the playa, David Lee. Respect!

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1. Right time, right place

I’m chasing the Pink Girl across the ridge line, riding as hard as my short stems will spin, trying to reach the crest before the snow. The graupel is starting to come in but it’s mostly aesthetic on top of brown trail and yellow aspen leaves. Pink Girl is a fast descender, even though she says she isn’t, so I’m pushing to keep up, sliding the banks, popping off little rocks and everything is just flowing.

Four weeks earlier she’d asked me what my favorite place is and I’d been unable to answer accurately; “uhh, Maui is nice but I also like Alta”, or something.

Somewhere in the Aspens, faster than I should be going, when I didn’t crash, when the steam and heat flowed off of me but the rain and snow were repelled, I hit that moment…I don’t know, I guess it’s that Zen thing. I realize that I’m exactly where I want to be, doing the only thing I want to do, with the right person. “Pink, this is it, it’s not a place, I don’t have a favorite place, I just have favorite moments that I try to recreate.” She looks at me, with mud on her face and says, “fucking duh!”, and rips back into the trail. Zen is not for her.

For the rest of the ride I collect all of those moments in my head: bottomless wallowing deep powder days when I’ve chosen the right skis (Sqauds), right jacket (Burton AK 3L), right gloves (those same leather Scott gloves they have been making for years) and right goggles (Smith Regulator TurboCam- So dorky but so key on deep days). I feel like a gladiator, armored perfectly for the battle. I watch others who have not chosen their gear wisely, streaming back inside. The mountain empties as the storm intensifies and I’m toasty and I just couldn’t be more in the groove.

–John Bresee

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1. Same as it ever was…

The snow blows like stink above the ridge at Eddie’s High Nowhere, my favorite place in the world. The spume kicks across the rocks, cutting through my goggles. It’s up at Eddie’s, while six of my fingers are numb, that my partner points to the valley and says, “spring is coming, you can feel it, we’ll be biking soon.” I couldn’t feel shit, but I trusted him because he has a weird Rain Man like connection with the weather.

Spring is a kick-ass season, top three for sure…and it always seems to come right when you need it. When your knees are shot from endless turns, your shins reduced to rubble and you just stone-cold need a break from the relentless nature of Old-Man-Winter.

My son was just born and my aspirations on day one were simple; keep him breathing. Days two through thirty it was all about keeping him from turning blue. And then I just began to hope that with hard work I could keep him from one day ending up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle. I’m not aspiring to eagle scout status in parenting, a man has to know his limitations.

But as spring comes along I start to think about what I have to teach him about the outdoors…the simple stuff like, wet = cold or sand in your bathing suit just plain sucks. Somewhere along the way I was taught to laugh at rain, to revel in it rather than being one who scurries, head bowed …I hope he gets that. He will learn to pack light…probably by packing heavy a few times. He will learn that the answer to the question, “how far to camp” is always answered with “about a mile.” Somewhere, accidentally, he will learn that he has far more strength than he ever thought possible. That when others in the group are hitting the wall, wigging out about being lost, or are just plain cold and miserable…he will have reserves deeper than he ever knew and be able to help the group move on.

The gift of the outdoors often starts simply, as it did for me, with a beautiful brass whistle and compass from my grandfather, Big Bill. I didn’t understand what he gave me but I raced through the Vermont woods shrieking with the whistle and failing completely to navigate anything with the compass…and I rubbed them raw as I played with them and tried to understand their purpose.

I’m not sure how I’ll foster Penn’s gear addiction, but I’ll probably start it with something simple, permanent and beautifully made like a Gerber multi-tool. Shortly afterwards he’ll get his first pack, sleeping bag and tent. When he has these pieces the world will expand for him, first to the backyard, then to a campground and one day to the whole world.

Welcome to your first spring Penn. –John Bresee

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1. A letter to Penn

And like a thousand days before I stood alone at the top of a line, fully gripped. Riddled with self-doubt…and then I dropped. And I came out the ass-end of the chute–jacket chattering in the wind—ripping like I was channeling Seth Morrison, alive! Seth would have laughed at this shot but it was great to be me.

It’s amazing how we have to keep relearning the same simple rules; the risky way is the safe way and the safe way is the risky way. There isn’t much difference between dropping that line and taking a risk at work; or committing in relationships, having a child, starting a company, riding your first century. In all cases the easy way, the safe way is not to go, to stay at home, stay single, stay on the couch.

Eddie Aikau was one of the pioneers of big wave surfing. He disappeared in 1978 attempting a 20 mile life or death paddle between islands. Afterwards his friends would look at the surf and say, “Eddie would go.” I think about Eddie, I think about him in the boardroom, in the backcountry, on top of peaks and during especially tense and painful moments in relationships. Eddie would take the risk, Eddie knew that only in risk is there reward.

As I look at 10 years of work on this company, the hundreds of thousands of man hours that have gone into this, I see the fruition of many hard and painful decisions. Every worthwhile thing seems to come through hard fought gains. Appreciation only comes with sacrifice. And thankfully the people at Backcountry.com have had the courage to ask and answer the question of whether Eddie would go. And they do, time and again, hang it/out risk it all, until they succeed.

Every time I have to relearn this lesson I am surprised at myself, surprised that the lifelong battle is always against fear and if I am not consciously fighting it then I am quietly losing to it.

Thank you Edward Ryan Makua Hanai Aikau

And thank you Larry Hamill for writing the inspiring book, Leading the Revolution. I use your ideas to shape my life.

John on the Playa, happy

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“On Thursday, April 09, 2009, my husband and I and our two children,
ages 6 and 3.5, checked into the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC.

After a bad experience with the front desk manager, who made a
number of errors, then upgraded our room to a suite in apology, we
ended up having an experience so negative that one can only label it
surreal.

Things started out bad but not horrible. For example, one of the
gifts promised to us did not arrive originally. The desk manager
insisted numerous times that my credit card was being declined, then had to eat her
words after calling American Express. And, worst so far, our suite
had a huge crack in the window, which we requested that the hotel
repair while we were out for the afternoon.

When we returned that evening after dinner, my husband ran an errand
while I went to the room with the two children. We had all undressed
and were ready for a nighttime bath. I was in the living room
looking for the children’s shampoo and my two children were naked in
the bathroom when I all of a sudden heard a crash, then a blood
curdling scream. My 3.5 year old son ran out of the bathroom,
screaming at the top of his lungs. I asked him what happened, what
happened, but all he could say is that it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!!!
I examined him and noticed that his penis was extremely dark purple.

I picked up the phone and called the operator. I asked the operator
to call a doctor, to send a doctor to my room, to call 911. The
operator kept asking me what was wrong. I was trying to tell her that
my son was injured but she couldn’t hear because my two children were
screaming at top volume. I asked her please to call for a doctor, and
she said she would not do so if she didn’t know what was wrong. So, I
hung up the phone and called 911.

The 911 operator could barely hear me, as I tried to explain that I
was at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, and of course I didn’t know the
address. They kept asking for the address, for the address, it didn’t
show in my call. I said I didn’t know. The children were melting
down.

I put on my jeans and sweatshirt, and asked my 6 year old daughter to
put on her clothes, and we all went down to the lobby. We saw my
husband arriving at the same time. I asked the concierge for ice, but
he said he was helping someone with an emergency. I told him that
this too was an emergency, that I had called 911. The concierge
glared at me and told me to stop interrupting. I again asked him for
ice.

Just then the ambulance arrived. The security guards came to talk to
me about what was wrong. I explained that I had called the front desk
for a doctor but they refused to call one for me, so I was forced to
call one myself. He said it was hotel policy to find out what was
wrong first. I explained that I did not know what was wrong because
my child was in too much pain to speak.

I ran away from the security guards to obtain ice myself from the bar.
The ONLY helpful person in the entire hotel was the bartender, who
quickly wrapped up ice for me in a towel and helped me bring it to my
son, who by then was sitting naked on the concierge’s stand with my
husband. The paramedics found him and began examining him.

The paramedics explained that they believed that a toilet seat fell on
my son’s penis, causing severe genital injury. They said that the
needed to bring him to the hospital to examine him more fully. My son
then left in the ambulance with my husband.

I then returned to the room with my 6 year old daughter. We went into
the bathroom and examined the toilet seat. It was currently down. I
lifted it up to see if it would stay up unassisted, and it quickly
fell down and crashed onto the toilet below, making a loud sound. I
lifted it again. It stayed for a short while and then fell again, in a
very heavy manner. Clearly the toilet seat was defective and
dangerous.

Thinking only of the safety of my family, I immediately called
housekeeping and asked for my seat to be replaced. In a few minutes,
an engineer arrived with a screw driver and tightened the seat. I
pointed out that the seat was still loose. The engineer left.

I received a phone call asking me if I was satisfied. I said I was
not satisfied and would prefer a new toilet seat as my current toilet
seat appeared to be defective and dangerous.

A few minutes later, my husband called me up, alarmed: how will they
return from the hospital, given that they did not bring a car seat? I
meanwhile was in the room with my daughter who was exhausted and
needing to go to sleep.

Having stayed at many high end luxury hotels in the past, including
several stays at Ritz Carltons, Four Seasons, Loews, Fairmounts and
other Omni hotels, I did what most people in my situation would do: I
called the front desk and the concierge for help. Here were my
questions and their responses:

Q: can you please send a car to pick up my husband and son when they
are ready to leave the hospital?
A: No. Car service is not available at this time.
Q: Can you help me arrange an alternate car to bring them back with a car seat?
A: What is a car seat?
Q: A car seat is the device that is legally required in most states
and provinces for children to use when they ride in cars.
A: I don’t know about that.
Q: Can you please ask someone if they know what a car seat is?
A: Hold please. (10 minute break.) The concierge said that car
seats are required in D.C. but for liability reasons we don’t provide
them.
Q: Can you please find out if car seats are required in cabs?
A: (long break) Car seats are required in cabs.
Q: Is there someone who can take a car seat from my rental car and
bring it to my husband?
A: No, we will not do that.
Q: is there someone who can arrange for a babysitter to watch my
daughter sleeping here while I go to the hospital and pick up my son
and husband?
A: No, we do not provide babysitters.
Q: Can you think of any other idea to assist me in helping my husband
return from the hospital?
A: I am sure they can catch a cab. Have you thought about a cab?
Q: Are you aware of why my husband and son are at the hospital?
A: No.
Q: They are at the hospital because a broken toilet seat fell on my
son and injured him.
A: I’m not aware of that.

I had to get off the phone because an engineer arrived with a new
toilet seat. He installed the new toilet seat.

I asked to keep the old seat in case my son’s injuries were severe.
The engineer insisted on recovering the broken seat. I refused to
give him the seat. He told me that he was going to call security on
me if I did not give him the seat. I told him that I had no choice
but to keep the seat.

I had just managed to finally get my 6 year old daughter down to bed
when 2 security guards who appeared to be armed arrived at my door.
In an intimidating manner they ordered me to leave the hotel. In no
uncertain terms, they told me that I was being kicked out of the
hotel, that I needed to gather my belongings and leave.

I explained to the two armed guards that I needed to stay at the hotel
because my son was in the hospital with my husband and that my other
child had finally fallen asleep, and leaving the hotel was not an
option at this time. They told me that they were under strict
instruction to kick me out of the hotel and that they were instructed
to call the police if I would not leave. I told them that they were
going to have to call the police as I would not leave. My daughter
meanwhile woke up and started screaming in fear, “mommy, mommy, why
are we being told to leave? Mommy, mommy, but Ari is in the hospital?
Mommy what is going on????!!!”

The armed guards heard the screaming and said that they would not kick
me out of the hotel for now. I asked them to whom I had to speak to
explain the situation and they would not tell me.

I picked up the phone and called down for the manager. After several
times where I was sent to voice mail, a woman named Ann Peterson
finally picked up the phone and explained to me that she is the
General Manager of the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

I asked her if I could explain to her what I had been through that
night, and she said: “I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN THROUGH. ALL
I KNOW IS THAT YOU HAVE BEEN MISBEHAVING ALL NIGHT AND I WILL KICK YOU
OUT OF THE HOTEL IF YOU DO NOT IMMEDIATELY PROMISE ME THAT YOU WILL
BEHAVE AND SAY NOTHING ELSE.” (I am putting this in all caps because
she was, in fact, screaming at the top of her lungs.)

I asked her again if I may please explain to her my situation, that if
she understood what had happened perhaps she would see my point of
view. She screamed, “I WILL NOT LISTEN TO A WORD OUT OF YOU OTHER
THAN THE WORDS, ‘I PROMISE TO BEHAVE.’ ALL YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SAY IS
‘I PROMISE TO BEHAVE.’ IF YOU CALL ME OR ANYONE ELSE AT THE HOTEL ONE
MORE TIME, OR SAY ANY OTHER WORD OTHER THAN ‘I PROMISE TO BEHAVE,’ I
WILL CALL THE POLICE ON YOU AND HAVE YOU ESCORTED OUT OF THE HOTEL.’”

Again, I said, “But, maybe…” and she interrupted “ALL I WILL HEAR YOU
SAY IS ‘I PROMISE TO BEHAVE.’ WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO CALL THE POLICE
RIGHT NOW? I WILL CALL THE POLICE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!”

I said, “I promise to behave.”

Ann Peterson said, “GREAT, YOU ARE NOW ALLOWED TO STAY THE NIGHT, BUT
I WILL SEND SOMEONE UP TO ESCORT YOU OUT OF THE HOTEL FIRST THING IN
THE MORNING.”

I said nothing.

I called up my husband, my parents and my local friends for
assistance. I posted my predicament to facebook. Soon my husband
arrived back with my son. They traveled by cab without a car seat and
were not happy about that. They made it safely.

My son is in recovery. I am angry. We still don’t know the extent of
my son’s injuries, but we do know that we are appalled by the behavior
of the Omni Shoreham Hotel and its General Manager Ann Peterson and
seek an apology, at least.”

Yo R, I’m sorry for the little one’s pain. Perhaps you could spend some time training him on up and down of  seats. Zippers are also torture machines for the young males of our species. I speak from experience. The heady pellmell pace of our society combined with the razor edged knashing of an endless number of YKK products can lead to shocking insta-briss with nary a moment for prayer. Luckily, it’s self teaching. One never gets caught unawares again.

But sensing that you have some ire (it creeps around the edges of your story, unintentionally i’m sure), i’m willing to bet that you decide to ignore that fact that our legal system is groaning at its limits and instead choose to take the wee ones penis into court. There is circumcision and then there is brute force tort emasculation. The boys traumatized penis will never see the light of day again.However I’m not sure what will do more damage, a free swinging toilet seat or his mother’s angry free swinging mouth. See, it’s scary to be a young boy toddling toward pubescence and scarier still if one’s mother litigates about his tiny Johnson. Go easy.

More damage is done by emotionally emasculating mothers than all of the toilets in the world.

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