“Right, it’s all scree and bushes for the first thousand yards,” Cook declared. “So you’d better not worry about those spoons.”

I enjoy spoons. Had a coat made of spoons and intended to wear it all the way up to the summit, but Cooky was having none of it. I reasoned that he’d thank me if he needed a spoon for his pudding, and he shot back that he already had a spoon of his own. Needless to say, the expedition fell apart.

As luck would have it, the local native chief had an old farm tractor and some petrol, and I offered him my sleeve as fare to the Ivory Coast, from where I rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun. And the colors of the sea, find your eyes with trembling mermaids, and you touch the distant beaches, with tales of brave Ulysses, how his naked ears were tortured, by the sirens sweetly singing, and the sparkling waves are calling you, to kiss the white laced beach.

That was dodgy, you see? I was directly quoting from Disraeli Gears, Cream’s forth album.

Ginger Baker is a re-organized Mormon. I’m not kidding. He plays the drums for Cream, who are a popular rock and roll act from the 1960′s.

It’s true. Have you ever enjoyed a pile of spoons? I’ve three satchels full of them in my study and at night I rattle them around. They make an enchanting jangle when held properly, but don’t try and use them as a spade… You’ll be out there until Bastille Day trying to dig your way to safety. And when the Germans are closing in, a spoon is the last thing you’ll want to use.

Say it: Spooooon. It rolls off the tongue. Spooons. Pantaloooons. Nooooon.

Try it, really. I’ve been trapped in jails in places like Toronto and if it wasn’t for my spoons, I would have never made a friend.

Moving on. I want to talk about soups. They work well when hiking, Neville Newberg had soup, and he swears by the Queen he’s seen ghosts. Told me so in Tunisia. I’ve got a rash. Do you wish to be considered for my next expedition? If you do, post a letter telling me so. My next expedition will involve Jeeps. And belts. And a cannon. And buisqits. Is that how you spell buisqits? That’s how I spell buisqits. And if you’re going to be on my next expedition, you’d better get used to it, hadn’t you? We’ll also bring along some ribbon. And a cap or two. While on expedition, you’ll need caps. I also think anyone who has some paper should consider joining my next expedition.

I can’t stress this enough.

Present in almost every seatback pocket on every American-owned airliner is a printed representation of consumerism run amok. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m an advocate of disposable incomes, and even hope to have one myself some day, and I can’t fault anyone for spending that income, but the SkyMall catalogue has crossed the line. Let’s take a look:

Page 15, the Ionic Breeze Personal Air Purifier.
Here’s what the blurb says about this charming, and obviously necessary device. “Create your own ‘personal comfort zone’ wherever fresh, clean air is in short supply.” My first question, of course, was does it work in space? I know for a fact that fresh air is in short supply in space and it says,”wherever.” If only NASA had known about the Ionic Breeze… millions in R&D spending could have been saved. It goes on to say, “This discrete, portable ionizer is worn around your neck and uses electronic propulsion to silently direct cleaner air toward your mouth and nose.” The device in reality is about as discrete as that banana clip Jordi La Forge wore over his eyes in TVs Star Trek. All yours for only $59.95.

Splintek 4′N’1 Oral Companion.
When I first read this product description I thought the SkyMall catalogue had finally become interesting. Despite the obvious insinuations of this product’s name, however, I quickly discovered that it is nothing but a twenty-dollar device for holding dental floss… a necessity because we all know that the opposable thumb has been highly overrated for such work. I am still intrigued though, by the possibilities of the “Tongue cleaner and ergo-pick” features. Not only does this little ditty make food taste better, but it comes fully equipped with “Adjustable Tension Technology”, ATT for those in the know. Dig it. Get it now for just $19.95.

Nature Monitor 1lb. Turn to the “Outdoor Rewards” section to purchase this wonder of audio technology. If you’ve always loved the sounds of nature, but were too afraid to leave the comfort of your “favorite room,” look no further than the Nature Monitor. It utilizes a “microphone” to “detect” outdoor sounds up to 75ft away. It says, “Leave it on and drift to sleep with the soothing sounds of the night.” That’s right. Now you can live vicariously a life that is happening up to 75ft away. Acquire it today, simply $39.95.

Ok people, here’s the deal. The SkyMall catalog should scare the crap out of you. These products are not anomalies, they are purchased everyday by people you could know. They could be your neighbors, or buddies from the PTA. Trust no one. The day will come when we are all enjoying nature from the tranquil comfort of the spare bedroom, picking at our teeth with patented technology, and breathing ionized freshness from discreet devices. Will you be ready?

I would abandon myself altogether to the sole quest of her, like people who set out on a journey to see with their own eyes some city that they have always longed to visit, and imagine that they can taste in reality what has charmed their fancy.1

When we talk of tourism and authenticity, we must begin with several questions that demand answers: What is authenticity? Why do we want it? How do we decide what is authentic? It would seem that the first question is the one to begin with. But a clear understanding of what authenticity is cannot be had without first understanding why we want such a thing. In the single sentence above, Proust has set up the conditions of our longing for authenticity: the gap between our expectations and reality. I will argue that the primary objective of tourism is to eliminate such a gap, and that through its success in doing so, it has created a vacuum of meaning which has been filled by the concept of authenticity. But what is authenticity? Again, we can look to Proust for a hint.

I longed for nothing more than to behold a storm at sea, less as a mighty spectacle than as a momentary revelation of the true life of nature; or rather there were for me no mighty spectacles save those which I knew to be not artificially composed for my entertainment, but necessary and unalterable.2

Here Proust gives us his concept of the authentic as something that is not composed, but necessary and unalterable. Authenticity, then, is primarily a measure of a thing’s resistance to manipulation. It is a measurement that is only necessary in an environment that has obviously been manipulated in some way. This is the paradox of authenticity; the success of tourism has created an environment in which the gap between expectation and reality has been eliminated. The result is increased demand for proof of necessity. That proof is authenticity. In environments where the demand for authenticity is highest, the conditions for providing it are most absent. The only way to eliminate the paradox is to look at authenticity as a relatively modern concept and not as a necessary and universal property.

WHY WE WANT AUTHENTICITY

The heaviest of burdens is [...]an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.3

Discovery and Reconciliation
It is difficult to make the case that meaning–that sense of importance we invest our lives with–is somehow dependent on participation in circumstances beyond our control. It is tempting to believe that the most meaningful moments in our lives are the moments in which we exercise mastery over a situation, where we eliminate the unexpected with our powers of reason and wisdom. But in spite of this temptation, I believe that a minimal amount of meditation on the meaningful situations in our lives will reveal a deep connection between that which we find significant, and that which is outside of our control. Or more accurately, the most meaningful moments in our lives are the ones in which we exercise mastery within a situation.
Let me introduce two terms that I wish to use specifically: Discovery and Reconciliation. Discovery, in the sense I intend to use it, can best be defined by its contrast with invention. To discover something is to suggest that the outcome resulted from a complex interplay between a person and the constraints imposed by their environment. That is, the process of discovery admits the relevance of the natural (and uncontrollable) world, whereas the idea of invention minimizes this relevance. It is commonly said that scientists make discoveries, and engineers invent things. While there are obvious reasons for the distinction, the gap is not as wide as it would seem. Engineers may have more options available to them in their process of discovery, but they are still constrained; the engineer that says he has discovered a way to solve a problem is more honest than the engineer who says he has invented a useful process. This conception of discovery does not deny our own relevance either. To discover something is not to happen upon that thing by luck. It is an active process, one that deeply involves the discoverer. It can’t be stressed enough that discovery (opposed to invention) does not eliminate or in any way diminish the individual’s contribution to the process. As Bugbee puts it, “…capacity for true response cannot be defined in terms of the resources at our disposal, even though the availability of our resources to ourselves, and the very richness of the resources at our disposal, may be intimately proportional to the truth or falsity of our mode of commitment.”4 Discovery, then, is our interaction with the world in a way that recognizes and appreciates the constraints of that world. It is a process that involves our personal resources of knowledge and creativity, with the burdens of reality. When we are discovering, we cannot do what we want and expect success. For successful discovery, we can only do what we must. Heidegger suggests a similar idea with his “four ways of being responsible” for an outcome, which he describes as consisting of (1)the material of an object, (2)the aspect of the object, (3)the bounds that lead to the aspect, and (4)the producer himself. Of these, he places the initial boundary as being “above all responsible,” for the object. He writes: “Circumscribing gives bounds to the thing. With the bounds the thing does not stop; rather from out of them it begins to be what, after production, it will be.” The last way of responsibility is the human agent. We can think of our engineer here, who is responsible for the production of the object, “but not at all because he, in working, brings about the finished [object] as if it were the effect of a making; the [engineer] is not a causa efficiens.” He also hints at the distinction noted between discovery and invention when he writes, “Whoever builds a house or a ship or forges a sacrificial chalice reveals what it is to be brought forth, according to the perspective of the four modes of occasioning…Technology is a mode of revealing.”5
Taking this idea we now have of discovery, and narrowing it a bit further, we come to the process of reconciliation. Reconciliation is similar to discovery, but relates specifically to what Bugbee describes as, “…the fatal discrepancy between what we intend and the way things turn out.”6 For everything we do, there seems to be an inherent amount of expectation. We make plans, we have fears, we have hopes, all of which we carry with us into the thing we set out to do. But, as anyone who has ever done anything can attest to, these expectations are not always realized. There is a discrepancy between what we expect (or intend) and what actually happens. I will argue (and I think Bugbee does the same) that this discrepancy is not inherently fatal and is, in fact, completely necessary if we are to find any semblance of meaning in our actions. It is the existence of this discrepancy that allows us the privilege of reconciling the difference between what we imagine and what we end up with. And it is through the process of reconciliation that meaning is generated. The only way to show this dependency between meaning and reconciliation, is through example, so here goes.

The Child’s Game
When we are very young, but old enough to speak, we all engage in a sort of verbal warfare with other children that entails made up attacks and defenses that are traded in rounds of back and forth one-upmanship. I say, “I just shot you with a missile.” And you say, “I have a force field.” This is a classic defense, but there are ways around it. Thus, I am forced to fire another missile at you, only this missile has been specially developed to penetrate your force field. Sure enough, my missile penetrates your force field and hurtles toward you. But, at the last moment you pull off a swift and brilliant maneuver, “I just shot your missile down with an anti-missile missile,” you say. And by golly, my missile gets shot down without even causing you a scratch. Of course I come back at you with increasingly faster missiles and you respond with stronger force fields (the infinitely strong force field is another classic defense). Unbound, this cycle continues indefinitely, or it would, if not for our eventual realization that the whole endeavor is pointless. That without some sort of limitation on the possibilities, something to constrain our minds, the game becomes a puff of arbitrary nonsense. It is not long before we grow out of the game, never to return to it.7
As games become more complicated through restriction, they take on more significance. As we move through the hierarchy of games, from the unrestrictive child’s game to chess, for instance, we see more semblance of meaning. Of course the most complicated game we know of may be the game of life itself. Our interaction with nature and other human beings is seen as most meaningful when the outcome of such interaction is not easily bent to one’s will. Bugbee writes of the meaning generated through his efforts to steer a ship in a rough sea:

Perhaps you are dead, dead tired, dead asleep in your bunk. A hand shakes you and a voice calls you once again to go on watch. The ship is reeling through the night. Wrenched from oblivion, you sit upright, clutching the chain by which your bunk is hung, staring into darkness, swallowed up in the crazed enormity you have been summoned to endure. Sick, sickened, dreadfully alone, you stagger onto the main deck, into the openness, into a darkness, a madness of waves from which one water-laden gust has drenched you before you have even secured the door. If you endure your way to the bridge you’ll never make it; a smash against the bulkhead jolts you out of endurance into fighting your way along. By rushes and hand-holds you reach the pilot house. How is it the ship isn’t pounded to pieces? You turn toward the man at the wheel and the ship tilts upward, hanging in the air. She pitches forward, throwing you ahead; you grab the man before you and hold on against the shuddering shock at the bottom of the fall. “Don’t grab me, take the wheel,” he yells. “Course is two-three-five. Steering engine is out; it’s on manual.” “Two-three-five,” the words come quickly from your tongue. Manual. With the first attempt to move the wheel you have the full weight of the ship’s departure from course, backed by the thrust of wind and sea, translated from the rudders to your arms and shoulders and back. You begin desperately, you fight back. But gradually you are drawn into it in the only way it can be done, working with the wind and the waves and the ship. [...] Maybe the next time you go to steer that watch, you go to steer. Not to fight, nor endure, but to hold a course in a difficult sea.8

Not all experiences, however, are as harrowing as Bugbee’s. I do not wish to suggest that meaningful experience can only be generated through life-threatening adventure, though I do think extreme experience is a good way to ensure the generation of meaning. The popularity of sports like mountain climbing and BASE jumping is due, I believe, to the way in which such experience demands attention. Just as in Bugbee’s experience with the ship, many extreme sports require absolute attention and commitment. And I am not talking about the kinds of scripted extreme experiences where one pays to rappel off a cliff while guides fix ropes and oversee the operation. While such experiences may be exhilarating, they strip away the crucial aspect, the knowledge that only you are responsible for the outcome and that the activity in which you are engaged will not tolerate anything less than total acceptance of its demands. To find yourself with your life absolutely in your own hands is very rarely an exhilarating experience, but it is almost always an honest one.
But again, honest, meaningful experience need not be extreme. There is much to be gained from the unpredictable and demanding interactions between people. For many, personal interaction can be just as important as a life-threatening situation. Julia Harrison relates the experience of a tourist named Louise, who she interviewed for a book on tourist behavior:

He had never seen a white person before, and I was like a monster to him. I didn’t approach him [right away] because I realized that I scared him. But I was always hanging around the same place as he and his mom, grandmother, and uncle, so he got used to seeing me. Shola [the boy's sister] was five and she wasn’t scared of me. She would come to me and we’d play, or maybe I had some gum… I can’t even remember the exact situation, but it would just kind of be like adult and kid playing. [...] One day, after I’d been around for two or three days, Shola and Dapo were walking along. I remember saying, “Dapo, come here, Dapo.” And Shola went to Dapo. She took him by the hand, brought him up to me, then she took his hand and with his hand she caressed my arm. She said words to the effect of “See, Dapo, she won’t hurt you.” She was basically having him pet my arm, so to speak, to get used to me, and that was a really neat experience, winning him over.9

While this experience may have been somewhat life-threatening for poor little Dapo, its meaningful nature did not come from danger. Whereas Bugbee’s objective was to steer a course in a difficult sea, Louise’s objective was to interact with those around her. And Dapo, simply by being a reluctant participant, made the experience more meaningful for Louise, while her interaction with Dapo’s sister Shola, she takes for granted. In both situations, the environment makes demands on the actors involved–demands that they must submit to. Neither Bugbee’s nor Louise’s expectations will suffice to carry them to their objective. The meaning is discovered as they reconcile the demands of their environment with the demands of their expectations.
But so far, all that has been said pertains to the source of meaningful experience. We have yet to answer the question: why do we want authenticity? An outline of the answer to that question would go like this: We want to have meaningful experiences. Because meaning is generated when experience makes demands on us, and because our modern technological world has become so adept at removing those demands, we needed to come up with some other process to replace reconciliation. We came up with the concept of authenticity to meet the need for meaning. We took it so far, in fact, that we began to see authenticity as meaning–to the point where we all want so desperately to lead authentic lives, to surround ourselves with authentic friends, authentic objects, and authentic experience. This is, perhaps, the most difficult proclamation to accept, that authenticity is incapable of giving us what it promises and that if we feel ourselves searching for authenticity, then we are not in a situation in which we can find meaning. When authenticity is invoked, it is already too late to find what authenticity promises. Perhaps it would be useful to compare the multitude of writing that has been published on the topics of war and travel. Though my analysis is by no means thorough, I have noticed that descriptions of war experience by those who have participated in it, lack significant mention of the authenticity of those experiences; it is not a judgment to consider making. Whereas the literature on travel, as told by tourists themselves, is rife with judgments of authenticity.
It is no wonder, of course, that authenticity has such a powerful hold. Most would rather go on holiday than to war. But we have no reason to assume that meaningful experience will make us happy or is in any way easy to achieve. Meaningful means having a serious, important, or useful quality. Enjoyable means having a delightful or pleasurable quality. It is not surprising that we should desire to merge the two. And if authenticity can make even the most arbitrary and superfluous experiences meaningful, then it’s no wonder authenticity is a hot commodity. But now the question is: how does it do that?

HOW AUTHENTICITY WORKS
Authenticity works by acting as a stand-in for the process of reconciliation. It is simulated, pre-digested reconciliation; as such, it is no longer even a process, but a product. The effectiveness of authenticity is measured by how clearly it shows an object or experience to be resistant to manipulation. This is a tricky concept because authenticity shows this resistance by fixing an object or experience in a web of explanation; but there are tricks. At this point I think an example is in order.

The Basket Weaver
Keeping within the context of tourism, let’s imagine a native of the Pongo village who weaves baskets for sale to tourists. We’ll call our weaver Shirley. Now let’s imagine an interaction between Shirley and Bob, our tourist. Bob has his eye on one of Shirley’s baskets. Bob, in this case, will be making an authenticity judgment about Shirley’s baskets. Bob asks Shirley a few questions and determines that her baskets have been hand-woven by members of her family and that they are all dyed red because that is the color of the dye that they are able to produce with the locally available materials. This all sounds very good to Bob who concludes that the baskets are indeed authentic examples of Pongo basket weaving. But Bob is a shrewd consumer and so he thanks Shirley for the information and moves on to the next booth. Here, he learns from Marge that her baskets are hand-woven as well, but she admits that they are woven in a village factory. She is not sure exactly which of the villagers wove her baskets. But she assures him that they have all been dyed red using the locally produced dye. Bob thanks her, but decides the Shirley’s basket, which has been woven by her family, is more authentic. But he’s one heck of a comparison shopper so he moves on again, this time to Ethel’s booth. Now Ethel’s baskets aren’t anything like Shirley’s or Marge’s baskets. They are woven in a strange design that Bob has never seen in Pongo. And Ethel has baskets in all kinds of crazy colors. Bob determines that Ethel’s baskets have been designed by a Pongo artist who refuses to submit to traditional designs. And they are made by machines at a factory just outside of the village. And they have secured a supply of many dyes so that they can offer baskets of nearly any color. Bob decides that Ethel’s baskets are clearly not authentic examples of Pongo basketry.
So Bob determines that the family-woven naturally died, traditionally designed basket is most authentic, followed by the traditional, red, village-woven basket, and that the crazy, multi-hued, machine-made baskets are nothing more than tourist trinkets. But let’s say that Bob finds out that all of the basket makers have access to any color dye that want, and in fact, keep supplies on hand of the same crazy hues that Ethel sells. Suddenly, the authenticity of the red baskets drops, because Bob’s no longer sure why he baskets he saw have been dyed red. Do they dye them red because they know tourists buy more red, or because they care about tradition? Things were much easier for Bob when he though the redness of the baskets was fixed by a technological limitation.
In order to replicate the process of reconciliation, authenticity must show a resistance to arbitrary manipulation. Thus, the things that seem most inauthentic will be things (or experiences) that are clearly manipulated, but for reasons that are unclear.
I have begun working on a simplified model of authenticity judgment that attempts to explain and predict the authenticity judgments people make. More work needs to be done to show the model’s usefulness, but I include a sketch of it below.
The Number Line Model
The Authenticity Model is based on the observation that authenticity judgments are related to some fixed constraint. The model is constructed on a number line with the left bound being zero and the right bound being set by the evaluated object. The individual terms are described in detail below.
Each instance of the model is defined by three elements: an Object, a Producer, and an Observer. Every unique combination of these three elements is a unique instance. Comparisons between models are possible, however, because they all start at zero on the left and they all have common units. The zero on the number line is the Natural Law.

Natural Law (NL) is the fixed constraint mentioned earlier. It equals zero because the unit of measurement used in the model is that of a single choice. For every Object, a fixed number of decisions had to be made by the Producer during its production. Choices about an Object’s color, shape, use, marketing, etc., all contribute to a value known as the Degree of Manipulation (DM). Even choosing not to do something is counted as a choice if the producer was aware of the choice at the time of production. In actual practice, this value can be very high, especially when evaluating a complex product in a technological society (a hint at the reasons for the animosity seen between technology and authenticity).

The scope of the model is defined at the left by Natural Law (0) (the point at which the Producer has no more choices available regarding the production of the evaluated Object), and at the right by Degree of Manipulation. Two important variables move over this interval and are determined by the Observer making an authenticity judgment: the Limit of Perception and the Limit of Understanding.
The Limit of Perception (LP) is the total number of choices available to the Producer that the Observer is aware of. Put another way, it is the Degree of Manipulation that the Observer thinks an Object has. And, from the perspective of the Observer, the Degree of Manipulation and the Limit of Perception are the same value.

The Limit of Understanding (LU) is the total number of perceived choices (LP) that the Observer understands. That is, the observer knows not only that a choice was made, but also for what reasons it was made. For example, a tourist might be aware that a woven blanket was made on an old fashioned loom, but might not know if this is because the producer doesn’t have access to more modern methods, because they just prefer the old loom for personal reasons, or because they know it makes the blankets more attractive to tourists; there is a gap between the perception of choice and an understanding of it. This gap is the measure of authenticity as judged by tourists. Or, more accurately, it is the amount of perceived inAuthenticity (the higher the number, the less authentic an Object).

Graphic Model

The model is actually very simple when seen in graphical form. The value (PA) is the measure of inAuthenticity. The higher this value, the less authentic an object is perceived to be.
Definition of Elements
Producer
The Producer is the person responsible for creating the Object. The Producer knows the most accurate value DM for a given Object.
Object
An Object is anything (a physical object, an idea, a person, etc.) that is evaluated for authenticity by an Observer and has a unique value DM as perceived by the Object’s Producer.
Observer
The Observer is the person making an authenticity valuation on an Object.
Degree of Manipulation (DM)
One unit of Manipulation is a single choice available to a Producer in the production of an Object. Therefore, the DM is the total number of choices made by the Producer in the production of an Object.
Natural Law (NL)
The left bound of the model. It always has the value zero (0). NL is the point at which a Producer has no choices available in the production of an Object. NL can be based on a physical law or on a concept such as historical tradition.
InAuthenticity (A)
InAuthenticity is a measure of the gap between what the Producer knows and what the Observer knows. A is defined as the absolute value of the difference between the Degree of Manipulation and the Limit of Understanding. A=|DM-LU|
Perceived inAuthenticity (PA)
Perceived inAuthenticity is the gap between the number of choices an Observer perceives as available to a Producer, and the number of those perceived choices that the Observer understands. PA is defined as the absolute value of the difference between the Limit of Perception and the Limit of Understanding. PA=|LP-LU|

Limit of Perception (LP)
The Limit of Perception is the total number of choices (DM) available to an Object’s Producer that the Observer is aware of. DM may be greater than LP and when it is, the Observer is completely unaware of it and assumes the value of DM to be equal to LP.

Limit of Understanding (LU)
The Limit of Understanding is the number of perceived choices (LP) that an Observer understands and can explain. That is, the Observer is aware the Producer made a choice and knows why the Producer chose as it did.
Preliminary Observations

Stereotypes
This model has the potential to rationalize the connection tourists make between authenticity and scarcity. The connection seems strongest when the object is one that gives identity to an observer. Taste in music, travel destinations, name brand clothing, all of these objects are tied up with an individual’s self-identity. And it is precisely in such situations where mass adoption has the most detrimental effect on authenticity.
These types of objects are valuable because of their defining power. As more people adopt them as identifiers, the (LP) of the early adopters must increase because it becomes plainly obvious that others are choosing to be identified by the same object for reasons other than those of the early adopter. While (LP) increases, (LU) lags behind, if it ever catches up at all. The resulting increase in (PA) is experienced as a reduction of authenticity.
To deal with this problem, producers must artificially reduce the limit of perception. To do this, they employ what I term a Stereotype, which is any method of artificially lowering (LP) and, from the perspective of the observer at least, lowering (DM) by an equal amount. This idea of a stereotype is similar to MacCannell’s idea of “negative education,” which hides the experience of the market from the tourist (29). An example of a stereotype would be the blanket producer who uses the old-fashioned loom to make her blankets because she knows that it appeals to tourists. A stereotype in this case would be her claim that she has no access to modern equipment, or that she weaves in the tradition of her people out of cultural respect. Another example would be the little stories on the back of food products that paint a picture of primitive artisans making wholesome foodstuffs using the arts of their forefathers. These stories, usually fictitious, seek to simplify the perceived production of the object, thereby increasing its authenticity (31).
Imperfection is also frequently employed as a stereotype. Given the refined state of modern manufacturing, it is perfectly natural to assume that a product with imperfections is somehow more authentic because it is produced with simpler methods.
Marketing
Marketers employ stereotypes. In the graphic model above, there is a value labeled (ARZ). This is the Arbitrary Zone. The ARZ is the favored operating space of marketers because within it they are free to work, unburdened by the constraints of consumers or the natural world; it is the realm of arbitrary choices.
Marketers seek to maximize authenticity while reducing the observer’s perception. This desire can be defined as the reduction of the following ratio:
PA/ARZ+1
In an ideal marketing situation, the perceived inAuthenticity is zero, and the arbitrary zone is as large as possible.
This goal is evidenced by observable marketing campaigns. Whenever possible, marketing strategies seek to reduce LP as a first measure. Witness the tales of master brewers on the backs of beer bottles, or the “native rituals” performed for tourists and portrayed as a component of their daily lives and culture (though their present reasons for continuing the tradition are much more complex).
When this reduction is not possible, the only solution is to increase the limit of understanding, incorporating the consumer or tourist into the process, and thereby reestablishing authenticity. The outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, offers a good example. Angela Wyant writes for Fast Company:

But in a rare display of radical corporate honesty, Patagonia found itself wanting and posted “Louder than Words,” a self-indictment, in each of its stores. The statement reads, in part: “In fact, we’ve come to understand that the [headquarters] building is a monument to superficial satisfaction over environmental priority. We used virgin materials everywhere — new wood, new fixtures, new gypsum board, carpeting and paint. And the vertical grain fir [ used in the ceiling beams ]? It’s made from the old growth forests that groups we now support are fighting to protect. Surrounded by these persistent reminders of our own naïveté, we are committed to a new approach (3).

Here the consumer has been invited into the process of making the corporate identity. This marketing strategy, whether it is sincere or not, effectively increases the limit of understanding in an arena where it couldn’t have reduced perception (its customers being too active and environmentally aware).

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Trilling, Lionel. Sincerity and Authenticity. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
Van Beek, Walter. “African Tourist Encounters: Effects of Tourism on Two West African Societies.” Africa. Vol. 73 Iss. 2 (2003): 251.
Wyant, Angela, “Working Naturally,” Fast Company, August 2000, <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/37/benchmark.html>.

by Neil Zawicki

Sailing is a thing to be done for the thing itself. And if any two sailors get together and start talking in terms of “I’ve been here,” and “I’ve been there,” you can be sure that before long – and allowing there is an available boat – the pair will find themselves clipping along famously, sails full, hull leaning smartly to leeward.

Generally, such last-minute trips are cooked up in bars, and this one was no exception.

It was around 9 p.m. at the LaurelThirst Public House in Portland when we started talking boats. We spend our days working on boats at a Columbia River yard, and several pints into the evening, we began swapping yarns.

I’m an ocean sailor. River sailors are different. They know different things, like currents and submerged logs and sandbars and wind patterns and channel markers.

Todd sat leaned over his fourth pint, explaining to me how well he can read the river. He talked of knowing the wind patterns and being able to use the current to his advantage. I listened carefully, leaning over my pint as well.

“That’s why I don’t have a motor on my boat anymore,” he declared, amping up his rivermanship. Of course, and to the foreboding favor of this story, Todd keeps a sailboat on the river, and it was only right of me to suggest we go out for a sail immediately. After all, I wanted to see how to sail the river.

Next, we drove north in his 1982 rather used Jaguar – The “superior machine,” as I call it. After around twenty-seven minutes, we came to a stop by a dark stand of trees, and started down a gangplank. We moved down the wood dock, past sleeping boats and rustic boathouses, until we came to the tip of the moorage. I found myself alone at the very end, looking out at murky walls of trees that framed a narrow waterway. It was like the old south had taken hold of reality, and I couldn’t help, in my altered state, to feel a bit spooked.

Todd’s boat sat silent near the end, and to get to the main river, we made our way up a narrow channel, lined by thick leafy forest. We ghosted upwind through this bayou-like, pitch-black landscape, tacking to within feet of the shore on either end. Once we cleared the channel, we set a broad reach for the middle of the river, but not until after I came about to ensure a return to the dock was possible. Assured, we made for the river.

Once on the open main channel, we had a fresh breeze for a good run across, but then the wind weakened, and made the current seem a little louder.

I could see the shore in the form of a jagged black wall, and it was moving rapidly past. We were drifting down river. We had no motor, and Todd’s ability to read the river seemed to vanish with the wind. Next, the sound of rushing water grew off our stern, and it became clear that we were headed for an unsafe spot, with no light and no way to see or judge distances. All of this would have been perfectly fine, and actually was, except for the small detail of the morning. I was due to pick up my one-year-old daughter Gwen at 9:30, and that superseded everything. Also, and not withstanding being late collecting her, it would not help matters if her daddy ended up stranded and shivering on some muddy island half way to Astoria.

We threw out the hook and called it a night.

Safely at anchor – or so we hoped; massive cargo ships pass through this channel several times a night – we settled in to sleep, and wait for dawn. We had a jug of water but no food or flame, and no booze, and Todd had left his cell phone in the Superior Machine. For lack of a sleeping bag, a Dacron headsail made a fine blanket, and I wrapped myself up on the portside bunk, and Todd did the same on starboard.

The rush of the river put an urgent gurgle on the hull.

“You know, the German Army planned to have Russia all wrapped up by the fall of 1941,” I said, bundled up in Dacron and pub-going clothes. “So they brought no winter gear along. So, when they found themselves bogged down in the snow months later, Hitler asked the German people to send the troops winter clothes. So, at the Russian front, there were hardened Wermacht soldiers dressed in women’s fur coats.”

Todd let out a small laugh and rolled over to sleep.

When I poked my head out in the morning, a cargo ship, all red and black, named the Sammy Aurora, churned by in the channel, its bulb keel breaching the surface, creating white, rolling waves. We climbed out and hoisted sail, catching the early morning breeze, but we heeled hard to port in a gust as Todd attempted to pull up the anchor, and he went in up to his knees. Then, it started to rain.

We washed ashore at Sauvie Island around 7 a.m., and the smell of bacon filled the cold air as tree bark camouflaged fishermen milled about with beers in their hands. I borrowed a cell phone to tell Gwen’s mom what was happening. She was less than surprised.

Within an hour, we were motoring swiftly back to the dock, more than two miles up river, with the help of a pack of fisherman in an 18-foot boat with an 8-horse outboard. I slipped them a 20 for their help, and soon we were back on the road, the Superior Machine carrying us in a gently British way back to Portland, and back to our busy days.

Had my daughter and her mom not been counting on me, I might well have spent the day jousting with the river, trying to exhaustion to sail upstream. Regardless, I did learn something about sailing the river, and it is a lesson that runs counter to my purist ideals as a sailor. The lesson is this: Bring a motor.

]]> http://jaunt.wordpress.com/2006/04/21/river-wisdom/feed/ 1 neilzawicki http://jaunt.wordpress.com/2006/04/14/finding-a-backdoor-sneaking-into-the-most-heavily-guarded-national-park/ http://jaunt.wordpress.com/2006/04/14/finding-a-backdoor-sneaking-into-the-most-heavily-guarded-national-park/#comments Fri, 14 Apr 2006 06:45:04 +0000 Wiley Davis https://jaunt.wordpress.com/2006/04/14/finding-a-backdoor-sneaking-into-the-most-heavily-guarded-national-park/ ]]> by Wiley Davis

It has long been my philosophy that if you’re going to do something, you should do it right. So for my first visit to the Grand Canyon, I decided to do things a little differently. No way was I going to go to the South Rim, which everyone knows is infested with picture-snapping, thimble-buying tourists! In fact, I decided that due to principles, I wasn’t even going to purchase a permit. No self-respecting person is going to pay hard-earned cash to some Ranger Rick type, for use of his own land…that’s ludicrous! So to avoid the fees, and the masses, I needed a backdoor. A quick check of the map revealed a chunk of user-friendly BLM land that butted up against a five-mile long side canyon that provided direct access to the Grand Canyon itself! An hour later, the plan was set into motion.NOTE: To preserve this route for the die-hards, and to keep the lazy people away I won’t tell you how to get to this canyon, but I will tell you the name of it, and start this story there. That way if you want to go badly enough, a quick map-check of your own will yield pleasurable results.

Heaving our overloaded packs (Torry, my hiking partner, insisted on taking a can of SPAM with us) we descended into North Canyon, the small inlet that would be our backdoor to the heavily guarded Grand Canyon National Park. It was a narrow defile, about 300 feet across and 150 feet deep. As we walked farther into the canyon, the rim above our heads shrank further away. Thunderheads in the distance reminded us of the flash-flood danger, and by the time the canyon had narrowed to about 100 feet, the rain was unleashing its vengeance with glee. Undeterred, we pushed on through the downpour, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. Three hours later, the rain finally stopped, and we came to an extremely narrow crevice that opened up into a spillway thirty feet below.

The extra weight of the SPAM had begun to take a serious toll on our bodies, and the terrain ahead was getting severe, so we decided to set up a base camp on the rocky ledge above the spillway, and continue the rest of the way unencumbered. After a hearty lunch of that rubbery, meat-type stuff, we were off. Without the packs we felt like agile mountain goats (we smelled like mountain goats at least), and we started making better time. The canyon was now a narrow gash of rock, embedded deep in the earth. Smooth white sandstone ebbed and flowed down toward the Grand Canyon, forming what would have been a perfect waterslide if that flash flood had ever materialized. Small silver-colored frogs were everywhere, and several of the emerald-green pools of standing water were filled with the largest tadpoles I had ever seen. To bypass one of the pools, we were forced to traverse a heavily overhung section of rock that threatened to send us flailing into the puddle, which we were certain was filled with man-eating frogs and other unsightly creatures.

We descended into a series of hollowed-out bowls in the rock, each one spilling over into the other one below. Sliding down into the third bowl, our hearts sank. Ahead of us was a 60-foot sheer cliff that opened up into a gigantic rock cathedral. There was no way down, and no way around. Not without climbing gear, and we had none.

Not willing to admit defeat, we climbed out of the bowls, and scrambled up the rocky-edge of the canyon, hoping in vain to find a way around. Torry saw it first, I saw it a spilt second later. We both looked at one another, a grin spreading on my face. In the bushes just above us, was what appeared to be some sort of homemade rope ladder! We rushed over to the pile of PVC pipe and steel cable. Sure enough, it was a rope ladder! Who knows who had left it there, but we knew that opportunities for adventure like this rarely come along, and that we would be fools for not taking advantage of it. So what if the ladder looked rickety, and had been sitting exposed to the elements for years. This was high-adventure, and we were going over that cliff!

The ladder was long enough, and the 3- foot rock that we had looped the ends of the steel-cable around seemed secure. I’m no rigging expert, but I lived on the engineering floor my freshman year in college, so I consider myself knowledgeable when it comes to matters of structural integrity, I figured it would hold…more or less.

As I shifted my weight from the safe confines of solid ground, and out onto the creaking, swaying contraption hanging over the edge of the cliff, the confidence in my engineering prowess began to wane. What was I thinking; we had no idea if this thing had ever been tested. For all we knew it could have been put together by halfwits, it certainly didn’t feel stable. My arms were wrapped around the rungs of the ladder like a couple of scared boa constrictors. With every shaky step down, I made sure that my feet were at the edges of the rungs, because I didn’t trust the one-inch PVC pipe with my weight. After an eternity of precarious dangling, I finally reached the bottom, and yelled for Torry to follow. I snapped a few pictures to document the heroics. We had to have evidence; no one would ever believe this hair-brained rope ladder story without hard proof.

Once Torry was on the ground, that feeling of supreme confidence overtook us. We had just stared fear in the eye, and called it a ninny, right to its face! Oh, if only there were girls to see us now, we knew they would have no choice but to be impressed. We had yet to make it to our destination however, and we had no idea what else lay ahead. Our delusions of grandeur had to be put on hold, so that we could focus all of our attention on the task at hand.

Still high on our recent victory, we galloped down the canyon. All was looking good, until we galloped right up to the edge of a pool filled with murky-green water that completely blocked our path. It was standing water, and it looked as if it had been standing for quite some time. A thick sludge had formed on the surface, like the head on a Guinness that has been left out for a few days. We knew that insidious flesh-eating bacteria must be thriving in such a spot, but we had no choice other than wade across its ten-foot span. Torry went in first, and when it became apparent that the flesh-eating bacteria didn’t like the taste of him, I waded in as well. The water was room temperature, and didn’t smell too bad. You never know about those flesh-eating bacteria however, sometimes they wait for weeks to strike after latching themselves onto your skin.

It was after the pool of water that we began to see footprints, so we knew we must be close to the Colorado River, and the base of the Grand Canyon. Ten minutes later we saw the rapids, and the muddy burbling of our destination…we had made it! After all the worry of imprisonment, drowning, and being eaten alive by bacteria, we had arrived at one of our Arizona’s treasured natural wonders. Was it all worth it, getting to the river the hard way? I say absolutely! You can have your gift-shops, your railings, and your informational kiosks. I’ll take the narrow chasms, the bacteria-filled pools, and the rickety rope ladders any day.

"Do you want to go first?" This is what he asked me."Sure. Why not." I said. I didn't want to go first. "It's just a little hole." I threw the coil of rope into the horizontal tube and followed it with my feet. The tube was so small that my size twelve feet were unable to point upright and had to be turned sideways to fit.

John, the experienced caver among us, and leader of the expedition to Papua New Guinea that we were all here training for, said "It's about ten feet long. Go in feet first, kick the rope ahead of you. You'll know you're at the end when you feel the bottom drop out. Clip in to the rope there and rappel down. There should be enough rope."

Then he disappeared, off to find another hole. Halfway through the tube I started wondering what he meant by "there should be enough rope." I had never been caving before. After ten minutes inching on my back through the tube I decided that I should have turned my head to the left instead of the right. It was too late to change that now.

Yellow and black millipedes crawled slowly, in inch from my nose. They don't bite, but I had to force them from my mind. Small discomforts and irrational fears quickly result in panic when you are crammed into a tiny space.

In the tube I could only go forward or backward and whichever way I chose, it would take considerable time before I could get out. Relaxation and a giddy sense of humor are important pieces of gear to bring along.

"How's it going down there?" Jim yelled. He was only fifteen feet away but I could not see him and he was a world apart. There was nothing he could do to help with the rope that was tangled around a root running across the tube. I stretched and fumbled with my fingertips to free it up.

Twenty minutes later I had traveled ten horizontal feet. I heard the whipping sound of the rope as it plummeted. My feet no longer had a surface to belay them. I listened intently but never heard the rope hit bottom. Luckily, It was knotted ten feet from the end.

When my feet found ample footholds I slid out of the tube completely and clipped my rappel device onto the rope and descended into the vertical shaft, saying goodbye to the outside world and hoping that the rope reached bottom.

It's a scene where everyone goes a little batty for two weekends. I don't think there is a way to describe in writing what the white winter does to the head, but let us pause and reflect on Admiral Byrd, who elected to be locked in an underground shelter in Antarctica equipped with only a radio, some paper, and some canned peaches. Eventually — he snapped — begging to be rescued. The expedition was written off and kindly swept under the carpet to retain his national hero status. But why he cracked, no one knows.

Which brings me back to Fur Rondy. The name comes from the annual mobile market and fur fair (the rendezvous). What was once a practical meeting for trappers — a frontier mall and carnival — has morphed into a cabin fever elixir and/or insane breakdown on the ice.

There are sled dog ski races, a Ferris wheel, an actual grand prix, costumes and a parade. The only thing resembling a real Fur Rondy are all the wolf head hats, which turn out in force on the heads of school teachers and grocery clerks. The parade itself is surreal, and as we walked past it, we were confronted with a troupe of "community service patrol" vehicles — SUVs and F-250s with magnetic signs announcing their neighborhood: Mountain View Community Service Patrol, etc. In the back of one of these vehicles, an older woman was sitting, wearing her patrol's matching blue satin jacket, with vivid red lipstick, and from behind tinted glass, she was mechanically waving to… nothing.

Welcome to winter in Alaska. Right now, it's near blizzard conditions outside, and I am gearing up to walk the half-mile to work at the bookstore (we all have to do our part for high adventure). Don't worry about me; just think of ol' Admiral Byrd, whimpering like a fish-ripe Laura Ingles Wilder as he rattled out desperate Morse code pleadings to all the ships at sea. It's a robust life, for certain.

"Right, it's all scree and bushes for the first thousand yards," Cook declared. "So you'd better not worry about those spoons."

I enjoy spoons. Had a coat made of spoons and intended to wear it all the way up to the summit, but Cooky was having none of it. I reasoned that he'd thank me if he needed a spoon for his pudding, and he shot back that he already had a spoon of his own. Needless to say, the expedition fell apart.

As luck would have it, the local native chief had an old farm tractor and some petrol, and I offered him my sleeve as fare to the Ivory Coast, from where I rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun. And the colors of the sea, find your eyes with trembling mermaids, and you touch the distant beaches, with tales of brave Ulysses, how his naked ears were tortured, by the sirens sweetly singing, and the sparkling waves are calling you, to kiss the white laced beach.

That was dodgy, you see? I was directly quoting from Disraeli Gears, Cream's forth album.

Ginger Baker is a re-organized Mormon. I'm not kidding. He plays the drums for Cream, who are a popular rock and roll act from the 1960's.

It's true. Have you ever enjoyed a pile of spoons? I've three satchels full of them in my study and at night I rattle them around. They make an enchanting jangle when held properly, but don't try and use them as a spade… You'll be out there until Bastille Day trying to dig your way to safety. And when the Germans are closing in, a spoon is the last thing you'll want to use.

Say it: Spooooon. It rolls off the tongue. Spooons. Pantaloooons. Nooooon.

Try it, really. I've been trapped in jails in places like Toronto and if it wasn't for my spoons, I would have never made a friend.

Moving on. I want to talk about soups. They work well when hiking, Neville Newberg had soup, and he swears by the Queen he's seen ghosts. Told me so in Tunisia. I've got a rash. Do you wish to be considered for my next expedition? If you do, post a letter telling me so. My next expedition will involve Jeeps. And belts. And a cannon. And buisqits. Is that how you spell buisqits? That's how I spell buisqits. And if you're going to be on my next expedition, you'd better get used to it, hadn't you? We'll also bring along some ribbon. And a cap or two. While on expedition, you'll need caps. I also think anyone who has some paper should consider joining my next expedition.

I can't stress this enough.

The Anchorage International Airport has recently been re-named after Ted Stevens, our beloved senior Senator who's been bringin' home the bacon since about 1803. It's under heavy construction. As I guide my rusty Oldsmobile through a maze of toppled pylons and half-erected signposts, I reflect on Ted's career and the beautiful woman I've just sent off to Fairbanks.

Senator Stevens, who is not yet dead, managed to get an airport named after himself by, among other things, convincing animals that oil-drilling is in their best interests. It's even rumored that he personally saw to it that all caribou who agreed to mug for a photo next to the pipeline were handsomely compensated with fresh blueberries and junkets to Hawaii. Jane, my beautiful Fairbanksian, commented just yesterday on an oil company ad she'd seen (and this is no shit) which depicted two caribou standing at the edge of a pool of oil, inquisitively sniffing it as if to say, "Hey, you know this stuff is pretty neat . . . dig those tripped-out swirling colors". But it's all a sell, isn't it? I'm not sold on the prostitution of Alaska's natural resources and Jane's not sold on Anchorage. I pay my buck-fifty for parking and try to get me and the Oldsmobile the hell away from Ted Stevens and his airport. Soft pink clouds hover over the Chugach Mountains, heralding the efforts of a February sunrise. I turn left toward downtown, overcome with the melancholy associated with seeing off good friends and getting back to normal.

She flew down for the weekend to see me and to ski. Or was it the other way around? At any rate, ski we did. The forty-mile drive down to the alpine town of Girdwood and the Alyeska Resort is a winding two-lane highway which hugs the furthest reaches of the Pacific Ocean's fingertips. It is a road impressive equally for its forbidding geography and its proximity to urban Anchorage, which stops abruptly here and is quickly forgotten.. Tides are swift and dangerous and the icy Chugach loom all around. I pop Radiohead into the tape player and sneak looks at Jane. She's watching a group of ice-climbers make their way slowly straight up a cliff on our left side. Crazy exhilaration. "That Jane, she has quite a head", I muse, "there's a strange feline process in there and if I squint like this . . . her hair looks like raven feathers".

The Olds winds its way around a corner and we pass by a group of four or five Dall sheep at the base of a mountain. Rare it is to see even one so this group must be some kind of harbinger totem. They do come back to me hours later on a ski lift when I'm tired and frustrated with my inability to cut sharp turns in deep, tracked powder. I lament this problem to Jane, alternately blaming my aging equipment and my own focus, when she and a chorus of four or five Dall sheep say to me, "Let it go . . . ".

Simple philosophies ring in my ears as I guide the car north toward a skyline shared by mountains and office buildings. I live alone in a small apartment above a bookstore and playhouse in downtown Anchorage. It's an old building, named after a near-forgotten territorial governor and still showing scars from a powerful earthquake that hit here in '64. "Jane's in the air now . . . getting back to normal . . . ", I mutter to myself as I search for a place to park on busy Fifth Avenue. I find one close to my building, get out, and laugh out loud. Normal, indeed.

Alaska, like nearly every place else in the Empire, has had its history and culture compressed and watered down into an easy-to-digest paste for tourists. Perhaps no place in the state better illustrates this better than downtown Anchorage. Proud traditions like mushing and cultural iconography like Grizzly bears and Native art have been mutated, bastardized into stuffed toys priced to sell in innumerable downtown shops. Inside, there are moose poop candies, Iditarod flannel boxers, and those cute little "Last Frontier" license plates available in 'Aaron', 'Zachary', and everything in between. A local journalist once astutely coined the word "Alaskrap" for the truckloads of such shit that is cheaply made and shoveled out to the hoards of tourists who mill about here in the summertime. But then, Alaska does belong to the Empire and the Empire was built on the buying and selling of things. And if we're going to prostitute ourselves, I suppose tourists make gentler johns than oil companies.

I make my way up to my apartment, pull off my boots, and pause to admire the view. The large window in my living room faces East, toward the Holiday Inn and the mall parking garage. Between these, off in the distance, the snowy Chugach mountains reflect a brilliant white. It's going to be a clear day.

The idea for this article started with a question. What would it be like to illegally enter the United States from Mexico? We had all read the stories about increased Border Patrol activities, including their use of high-tech surveillance equipment developed for the U.S. military. It was mostly a challenge, an adventure, a jaunt. Rather like playing hide and seek when you were a kid, only this time the stakes would be higher. What began initially as an idea for a stunt over a few beers quickly evolved into the article you are about to read. Jaunt Magazine is about travel, adventure, culture, and exploration. What better way to combine these elements than to use a daring illegal border crossing as a glue that ties together a story about an issue that has tempers flaring, politicians in a reactionary uproar, and human beings given the title "Illegal Alien". So on November 5, three of us, Neil, Ron, and myself drove to Douglas, Arizona with the intent to enter the United States Illegally.

Wiley Davis:

Indecision gets the best of me and I just stand there, holding the video camera, unable to decide whether to remain standing, or to crouch behind the bushes. Ten yards ahead of me is a single file line of illegal immigrants approximately thirty-five in number, shuffling silently through the hushed desert, towards an uncertain fate. The decision to hide wins out, but before I can bend down behind the dry brush, the last in line, a boy no more than fifteen years old, turns around and looks at me. I slowly lower the video camera and give a quick nod. The boy turns around and catches up with the group, not willing to linger too long in a world that is foreign to both of us. I have difficulty imagining how pronounced the differences between his childhood and mine are.

Growing up in San Diego, California, I have been surrounded by the immigration issues between the United States and Mexico from day one. There was a time, during the height of my hormonally driven political escapades in high school, when I was a staunch supporter of the Border Patrol and the immigration policy it enforced. I went to rally's and held up signs championing causes such as proposition 187, and generally ignored the fact that the immigration issue's heart and soul wasn't the statistics and rhetoric, it was the immigrants themselves and the hope they had for better lives. I will be the first to admit I allowed myself to be caught up in the bullshit. A battle between groups of narrow-minded people culled into a unified stance by the lies and half-truths of statistics. But growing up in San Diego it was also hard to ignore the influence of Mexican culture. It was a part of everything I knew. Taco stands were more American to me than McDonalds, and my home was built on a plateau city named La Mesa, or "the table". All around me, the Mexican influence was apparent, but to me it wasn't Mexican, it was American. Back then my perspective wasn't wide enough to see that the distinctions between "Illegal Alien" and neighbor are built on misconceptions and hatred.

In researching this article I have talked with vigilante ranchers, conflicted border patrol agents, impassioned lawyers and activists, frightened senior citizens, and several militant Latinos. I have gone to INS scoping sessions, ridden along with the U.S Border patrol in Douglas, Arizona, and illegally entered the United States through an area other than an authorized border-crossing checkpoint. Through it all, what struck me repeatedly was the age difference between the two sides. Demographically speaking, the anti-immigrant group is comprised of the elderly, a group resistant to change, scared by the cultural shift that has taken place along the border cities, they are the most vocal opponents in the game. This was most apparent at the INS scoping session held in Tucson, Arizona. The session was designed to field input from citizens about the INS plans to increase Border Patrol activity east of Douglas. Included in these plans are an increase in the number of Border Patrol agents, installation of portable lighting units, installation of more infrared camera towers, and the necessary infrastructure that goes with these enhancements (roads, clearing of brush, etc.). The meeting allowed for public comment and that is exactly what was given. One after another people spoke at the microphone, voicing their opinions, almost forty in all. Of the dozen anti-immigration speakers, not a one was younger than fifty. All of them talked about living in fear of the immigrant problem.

The pro-immigration speakers lacked such demographic unity however. They ranged from bright-eyed teenagers intent on making a difference, to well-traveled seniors speaking from a wizened perspective on the injustices of INS policy. Patchouli scented neo-hippies preached about the evils of light pollution caused by the generator powered light towers used by the Border Patrol to make it easier to spot illegal border crossers. They complained of the damage done to the environment by new roads built to aid the Border patrol in its duties. They lamented the plight of the bunny rabbits, called the meeting's arbitrator a Nazi, and at times created a disturbance. As the meeting progressed, and the tensions rose, a thread of similarity emerged in the varied ranks of the pro-immigration speakers. It wasn't readily noticeable at first, the many speakers being so diverse with numerous agendas, but eventually it became clear that all of them had either the perspective to see that diversity is a strengthening characteristic of a society, or they had the myopic aggression of youth that mandated a bucking of the system. A system that we intended to buck ourselves.

Spotting the group of immigrants had me psyched. Adrenaline was surging through me, and suddenly the rain jacket that I had on was providing more insulation than I needed. It was one of those moments on the cusp of going in any direction. That boy could have shouted, alerted the group and caused a panic or worse, a confrontation. Instead, he maintained a level of composure not normally found in a person so young, and continued without a word on his journey. Slightly confused I'm sure by the sight of three Americans with cameras walking around in a desert that to him was hostile territory. In that moment the sum of all the research I had been doing for the past few weeks, and all the news stories I had seen about illegal immigration came home to roost. This was not an issue of statistics and political wrangling. This was an issue about human beings with as much right to do what they are doing as any legal citizen. Here in the desert, passing one another in the calm of the evening, we are simply people, outside the influence of governmental bodies. Out here it is easy to see how it is a mistake to think that the U.S. government grants us the right to act freely when in reality these things are inherent in us as people, not citizens. Governments are only capable of taking away our liberties, not granting them.

Earlier in the day, we had gone on a ride along with a Douglas Border Patrol agent. His answers to our questions were tainted with equal parts hesitation and calculation. His uneasiness is understandable given the Border Patrol's mission, and the fine line it walks while performing that mission. I can imagine that their job is one giant public relations nightmare. The agents themselves are often torn between duty and personal feelings. The agency's demand for new recruits must be tempered with the public's demand for compassionate officers that aren't out there to fulfill racist agenda's. The individual agents are not bad people. They are at the front lines of the issue and deal with the problem on a human scale that has to cause doubt about the moral justification for their actions. It is a tough position to be in, and it makes sense why the agent driving us around seems to debate our questions amongst himself without ever arriving at a definitive answer.

Definitive answers, I've come to find, are rare. Solutions are even scarcer. The problem is not immigration. Immigration is only a symptom of the disparity between the economic situations of Mexico and the United States. Until this disparity is equalized, immigration will be a factor. In fact, movement as a means to better oneself is an entirely American trait. Morally, the only just policy can be one of an open border, without immigration constraints. An open border is not an economic solution however, and it will not solve the problem.

Ahead of us lies a four- foot barbed wire fence. On the other side is a brown steel tower topped by two infrared cameras facing east and west. The cameras are capable of picking up body heat in the dead of night, but the cameras have no way to see what they aren't pointed at. In this case, that means north or south. We have followed a narrow path of footprints through the desert that makes a beeline directly for the tower. By taking this route, the cameras are unable to see us as we approach the U.S. border, which is protected only by this myopic tower and a humble fence intended primarily to keep out livestock. Ron is the first one through the fence. I watch closely as he ducks beneath the strands of rusty barbed wire, looking for any noticeable change as he crosses from one nation to the other. To my untrained eye he still looks like just another person trying to earn a living.

Neil Zawicki:

There is a battle in the desert, waged with high-tech machinery, six guns and raw will. The opposing forces are locked in a circular clash of policy and determination. Along the Mexican Border in Arizona, thousands of immigrants risk the elements, arrest and betrayal each month to make a better life. A federal frontier force of 1,241 spends every waking hour trying to stop the influx from the south, and ranchers are picking up their guns and guarding their property from theft and damage. While hundreds of immigrants die each year in southern Arizona, the problem has activist groups holding the Immigration and Naturalization Service responsible, accusing the agency of everything from racial profiling to negligent homicide. Cochise County Sheriff Dale Deever, who has lived in southern Arizona all his life, said the problem lies not only with the lack of control on the border, but with issues of private property; 40% of Cochise County is privately owned.

"I've had immigrants come through my back corral here," Sheriff Deever said. "We've long ago surpassed a point of frustration, to a point of anger toward the INS and its policies." The Sheriff is addressing the INS policy of funneling immigrants away from the Texas and California borders, into Cochise County in Arizona.

"Doris Meisner, the INS Commissioner, said she thought if they funneled the immigrants into the barren deserts, they would all go home," Deever said. "The thing is, these people don't have a home to go back to. They've already made up their minds." The edge of our nation in Arizona is by all accounts a war zone.

Outside looking in

We made our way up the main drag, past the pale concrete shops, loose dogs, and old lanky gringo cowboys who walked silently through sunlit dust that floated in the Mexican air. Agua Prieta at midday has the eerie whisper of a ghost town, although it is home to 170,000 people, a huge jump from the 15,000 in Douglas, and receives hundreds by bus each day, each with the resolution to run the gauntlet and head north.To the north is the United States, the empire. The land was once Mexican, until the empire purchased it. Now, the separation of economic prosperity and power is made brutally apparent through the presence of steel sheeted walls, floodlights, and armed officers parked in their trucks on the empire side, facing Mexico.

At night, we walked through the neighborhoods that lie feet from the wall. Floodlights blare like white suns onto the Mexican homes, casting pale shadows down the dirt streets. Holes are dug beneath the wall, sending the bright light upward into Mexico. Stray cats come and go from these holes with diplomatic immunity.

The defensive posture is needed in a country with so much allure. The U.S. Border Patrol in Douglas, AZ, a force of around 450 officers, carries out its orders around the clock, apprehending 250 unauthorized immigrants each day-a drop from the 1500 per day just one year ago. Still, the condition is urgent.

In the trenches

Officer Justin Bristow of the U.S. Border Patrol showed us the areas of conflict.The strategy of containment is known as "gain, maintain, and expand." On the line that separates Douglas from Agua Prieta, a "gained" area, walls sheered with corrugated tin, separate the two nations. Foliage is stripped away to prohibit concealment. Trucks, muddied from constant use, sit parked and manned, "maintaining" and scanning the fence line for illegal activity. Busses transport relief officers, rotating shifts, keeping a 24-hour watch on the border. The trucks have steel cages on the windows, to prevent injury or death from flying bricks; anonymous mortar volleys from the Mexican side. Officers have been hit and even hospitalized from these assaults, while the entrance activity in these areas has dropped off to nothing.

In the "expand" areas, the walls are absent, substituted by a three-strand barbed wire fence. The desert is thick with mesquite and yucca plants. These areas are patrolled by mounted teams, riding ATV's. Motion sensors and cameras are also employed.

"This is the area we don't yet have control of," Officer Bristow tells us, rumbling down a backcountry road. "This is a big frustration because we get a lot of walkers through here."

The immigrants will move through this area, about 6 miles west of Douglas, crossing low mountain ranges and vast stretches of dry country, to meet with "Coyotes," people who are paid large sums to transport these determined people north to Tucson and Phoenix, and ultimately to all parts of the country.

Chewing the same dirt

This is what we wanted to know: what is it like out there? What does an illegal immigrant face to get here? The only way to know was to do it ourselves.

The plan was made to enter the country through the desert-right through the back door. This is unmanned country, patrolled sparsely and filled with stray cattle. The only people out there are trying not to be caught. Some are armed smugglers. Others are desperate and nervous. They all have a lot to lose. This is the most ill-advised day hike in Arizona.

Pulling the Job

So, we came back around to the Hotel Gadsden in downtown Douglas. We were tooling up to pull the job, as it were. The lobby of the hotel is tremendous. Real old west action. We were in the middle, back dropped by the opulent marble staircase that Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa rode his horse up back in 1906. His ghost was breathing through the walls as the Hispanic bellman looked on, and a fattened family on vacation stood with cameras around their necks. The plan was changing. At first, we held to the model of two crossing as the third orbits out in the empire, waiting to pick the ground crew up. But a random search at the border by Customs put a new edge on our mission. Now there was no interest by anyone in being the "outside" operative. The move was made to get out of town, ruck up, illegally cross the border into Mexico, and then return.

The Army Field Manual on Survival Evasion and Escape (FM 21-76), page 259 suggests, "Customs of local people require study to avoid being conspicuous." As the afternoon sun lit the vast expanse of desert heading south, we parked our car, an upscale, waspy, Champaign colored import sedan, at the Cochise County community college, a modest campus along a blank stretch of desert highway.

There it is, the tip off: Our staging area for this bold adventure into international law breaking was a community college campus. We chose this because the abandoned Spanish Fort just down the road, which once gave host to bands of mustachioed bandits and renegade Apaches, and had stood for 240 years, was now being used as a golf 'n stuff, and so was entirely too crowded for our covert activity. After all, we are still in America. The air of romance was our first casualty.

But Any dull eyed security guard witnessing the three of us suiting up with field gear and camera equipment would surely conclude that we were just some happy students going camping, and not three low-rent adventurers out to break in to Mexico.

In it now

It was near dusk and about 30 minutes into the incursion when we came across the dead coyote. Partially decayed, but still half covered with fur, it had a death snarl, and one arm held up across its head, as if it died protecting itself from a brutal predatory act.

As we continued to move through the flat, high grass desert, which was peppered with yuccas and low mesquite trees, we became silent. We moved with a swift efficiency, highly alert to any sound. This was odd because we were wearing bright orange or cobalt blue jackets, not the picture of sneaky at all. And we were still safe, being residents of the empire, but the spooky nature of the area gave us cause to move with careful precision. As we neared the border, we became more like ghosts.

On the horizon was a camera tower, which stoically surveyed the border for any immigrants, or even random, stunt-driven adventure journalists moving toward the edge.

We decided to head straight for the camera tower, assuming it was only looking east and west, and not north at all. The worn footpath and stashes of water jugs under trees provided clues we were right in our strategy, and we would soon receive confirmation in the form of a northbound train of nervous new Americans.

Contact

Deeper into the desert, and near dusk, our crackerjack ground team held up in a stand of creosote. I remember turning around to see Wiley operating the camera, and Ron silently motioning to be still and look to the right. I couldn't see from where I was, so, using an improvised hand-and-arm signal language, I asked him if he had seen another bull, or other people. He drew a large circle around his head, and then mimed the strumming of a guitar. This is clearly the universal hand-and arm signal for Latin Immigrants. I looked out to notice a line of at least 25 people, moving quietly but resolutely. They were not more that 20 yards from our position, and we watched as these bold new U.S. residents plodded toward the prize. The last one in line turned in time to see me, and we both stood silently, not moving, until he turned and continued north. Ships in the night. One free, one desperate, and probably now very confused.

Survival, Evasion, and Escape (FM 21-76) page 299: "The best way through a wall or fence is the gate." The camera tower was unmanned, and still warm from the passing of our earlier northbound company. A quick jog across the dirt road that runs the border line put us on the Mexican side. Ron was the first one in, creeping through a wide spot in the fence. A quick look at the GPS confirmed or occupation of Mexican soil. We were in. We moved further south, and observed a railroad bridge, which gave way to an obviously well traveled footpath.

Stacks of blankets and water jugs decorated the crawl space below the bridge. This was a major hub, a rally point for the huddled masses at the back door.

From here, we returned north. It was nearly dark now, and we had another country to break into. Our skip across the road and back into the empire was punctuated by the unmistakable rumbling of an approaching truck. As it rounded the hill just 50 yards from our position, we identified it as a U.S. Border patrol vehicle; just like the kind we rode in only that morning. It seemed we were about to get another ride.

Survival, Evasion and Escape, (FM 21-76), page 237: "To avoid being killed or captured by forces searching an area, select a hiding place at a safe distance." Our team quickly selected a hiding place at a safe distance. I was convinced the truck was heading straight for us. I began to consider how the conversation would go."Yes sir, we're just three happy students out for a hike at dusk with camera equipment feet from the Mexican border." Surely, the officer would be the same one we rode with that morning, causing for an awkward reunion at best.To our surprise, the truck kept moving, and was soon out of sight.

Later, once it was dark, we thought we might stake out the footpath and wait for a new column of immigrants to come through. We thought better of it in favor of a swift completion of the mission. We were eager to return to the wasp mobile, to say we did it. To laugh. Besides, just 20 minutes away was the rustic old west town of Bisbee, where whiskey, tacos, and pool with latter-day gold prospectors wearing Van Halen T-shirts awaited us. If those immigrants we saw are worth their blisters, they'll go no further north than to the outlaw, stranded comfort that is the town of Bisbee.

R D Phares:

It was certainly an offense. That may have been the only certainty. We were trespassing in another man's domain, of ownership or exodus depending on the direction of your foot prints. I'm just not sure which we we're mocking more: international or natural law. Curiosity had drawn us to the American/Mexican border, but curiosity is a difficult defense. And anyway, it wasn't as simple as guilt or innocence, not for anyone involved, not for the law man, not for the illegal immigrant, not for the rancher who owned the land and, least of all, not for us. We were on more than a political border. We walked the periphery of ethics, laws and languages. And as on all perimeters, everything was in degrees: the light, the right, and the sense of security. All these shadows of ambiguity emanated from a single floodlight lit fence of steel or barbed wire or protocol demarking not only nation states, but also states of being.

Thin, dark clouds let in enough light to see, funneling strands of sun out to the flanks of distant mountains. We walked into this, a suspension of day and night, stepping through knee high yellow grass and clawing thickets of mesquite and creosote. The cloud cover provided a false dusk. Dusk has long been held in sacred esteem as a time when neither light nor dark dominates, opposites are in balance, and revelation seeps in through cracked clockwork. The clouds kept it dusk for hours. We had come at an appropriate moment.

Initially, the way was easy. We hustled across the interstate marking the start and eventual finish line and set out across a long strip of grass, punctuated in spots by patches of dirt and shrubs, which swept out from the freeway. We were casual, as though just returning from a trip to a convenience store, laden with the muted hope, fear, brashness and self doubt latent in all us well meaning suburban boys. Wearing a red coat and khakis. Wearing a company hat and cargo pants. V-necked, name brands and hiking boots. We strode, Wiley, Neil and I like some crossbreed of Musketeers and Muppets. The talk was wide and I don't remember about what, but only occasionally touched on our strategy and direction. Perhaps it reflected our path, which, as I've said, was easy. The grass, parted by animals, immigrants, ATV's, or perhaps all three, laid directionally down, defining a trail running roughly south. This is not to say we were unaware. Cavalier as we may have been, we were not ignorant of the dangers. But here it begins to muddle. What were the consequences of discovery? Border patrol detain, identify, advise and generally release first time illegal immigrants back in their country of origin. So time, pride and money are risked. But were we, U.S. citizens who, at that time, had crossed no border, under the jurisdiction of that federal agency? What of the local NGO's? The drug and human smuggling operations in the region do not labor under the restrictive weight of procedure that slows justice north of the border. Where did we fall on their ledger of risk versus consequence? Our well rehearsed Spanish, "No desanar, soy escribero de revista," or "Via con dios, viva libre," may well wind up more of an epithet than a pacifier. Is it death then? Or would all of them dismiss us as mere interlopers? Harmless idiots joy riding on the hope stained backs, fear strained faces of desperate people in rags and uniform. On a slow day in Douglas 250 illegals are apprehended by the U.S. federals. However, more robust numbers of 1,500 fill what must be infinite tomes of the daily arrest logs during the high season in the spring. 1,500 people in one day. And that's just the ones that are caught. And that's just in Douglas. The Border Patrol facility there has become the largest employer in town. They labor under policies they did not create, and perceptions they'd rather dispel.

Earlier in the day, we were escorted by Agent Justin Bristow in an INS converted Ford 4×4 along the border road. Still fresh faced, the grizzled countenance of an old hand was some years in the future. But if his face did not betray an accrued wisdom, his measured responses to our questions were every bit the five year veteran he was. This was a young, ruddy faced border cop come out all the way from New Jersey because he'd studied Justice at Rutgers and the INS was hiring. He'd since been able to write home telling of the time he'd walked in a hundred people from the desert all by himself. One man leading one hundred out of the Promised Land. That is not to suggest that he is that callous nor that commanding. "If you don't have a sense of compassion, you probably won't make it as an agent with all the things that requires," he said as we bounced over the rain rutted truck-gutter cut out of the desert bush. Most of the crossers don't carry the armaments of those smugglers who stand to lose profit if caught. Most of them are packing just juice, cookies and diapers.

That evidence littered the desert floor. Empty water bottles and food wrappers indicated that we were on the right path. The remains of human passage nudged open the door of reality and our conversation, so bold moments before shuffled into silence, Bristow's comments of the general passivity of crossers fading with the sun.

It became starkly clear in the settling dusk that this entire operation, from our own participation to the law enforcement and the desperation of the illegals was an all too human affair. As such it was fraught with invisible fears and fallibility. There was something terribly wrong out there that was not caused by the border, but nonetheless manifested there. It hung in the border air like the hot breath of Shiva and was itself the human reaction to destruction. And we were headed straight for it.

It was dusk and there were no shadows. But the things that were dark were getting darker and I hadn't thought to note the sun for some time. We walked quietly, stepping with care, bending and twisting to create the least sound possible. The path still stretched clearly before us and had entered another band of dense, tall scrub. These bushes were skeletal and had been so for some time judging by the carpet of mulched leaves underfoot. Ahead of me Neil was about to disappear into their arms. Behind me, Wiley had halted still. Strange. He was slightly crouched but rigid, like an old bloodhound on the scent. I followed the direction of his video camera's eye and upon seeing his subject, immediately whistled to Neil like they do in war movies. It worked. Neil turned and I managed to convey urgency through pantomime. We three frozen expeditonaries held our breath and listened.

From my sunken vantagepoint, I could see them clearly; a line of some twenty immigrants walking through the high desert with out a word. They were ghostlike, as if they had already been reduced to spirit in a distant life and moved now across Shiva's land without effort, and without consciousness, as though they were the very currency of the loss taking place. But they were not ghosts. Of course not. They were people who's hopes and means converged here, in the middle of nowhere, outside the law. Some of them may have been from as far away as South America. Those would've hitched, walked and worked themselves through the jungle, through the high, cold forests of Mexico and down into the sparse Sonoran desert. To them the heat and dryness would be shocking and often fatal. They would be lucky to be in this group. The weather was fair, and they were close to America. Heat and aridity would not be the only incomprehensibility. They were about to come up against a nation, an entire culture that composed their idea of the world in a fundamentally different manner. The right to private property is the backbone of America. On the contrary, many of the people coming up out through Mexico and into the U.S. compose themselves differently. Their identity is shaped less by the ownership of land than ours.

"In the movies, he's the good guy. In real life he's struggling as much as any of us to mitigate the transgressions of a border policy that is ineffective."

Sheriff Deever, the elected law in Cochise County, brought this idea to my attention. He is a lawman in the tradition of the Old West; careful of speech, considerate in demeanor, honest in appraisal. He possessed a glare that could freeze a rattlesnake in mid-leap and a gritty kindness that wasn't going to get in the way of the carrying out of his elected duty. In the movies, he's the good guy. In real life he's struggling as much as any of us to mitigate the transgressions of a border policy that is ineffective. "Let's look for solutions that accommodate all our positions," he said. "Meanwhile, reality sets in and I can't sleep at night because I've got people walking through my backyard." The immigrants now flood into his County, an area lacking the structure to deal with the onslaught. The Sheriff continued, "And the problems here are ten fold on the other side of the border town." He notes a worldwide surge in immigration and understands that a solution is not likely to soon be found. But until then he understands something that the migrants may not, "With rights come responsibility," he explained. "And if you lay claim to those (rights) that this nation has paid for, then you must also accept the responsibility that goes along with that. In the same way, ranchers not only have a right, but a responsibility to defend their land."

It became clear then, that this situation had all the thematic makings of the Viet Nam War. Sheriff Deever's, "Either you have a border or you don't," and Agent Bristow's ethically sound resignation to duty are postures highly reminiscent of soldiers in that conflict. Furthermore, on the one side of both issues was a group of people struggling for a dream of self-determination, a dream they'd see through at the expense of whatever stepped in their way. On the other side was and is a nation divided in its sympathy whose effort at containment was corrupted by a disconnect between policy makers and policy enforcers. The result of these ingredients, as it was then, is misery, fear, and destruction. Fortunately, the loss of life in the current engagement is nothing to what it was in Southeast Asia. And though this is the case, I found myself more than a little frightened by the fact that the passing band of immigrants had spotted us in our hiding places. We were, after all, on the front line. A bizarre dance of evasion and identification ensued as all parties tried to scout each other and run from each other at the same time. The bobbing baseball cap of the last in line soon disappeared into the bush.

We followed their footprints from where they'd come, right up to the base of a camera installment, which looked like a praying mantis on its hind legs; its eyes rolled in opposite directions along the border road. We crossed into Mexico and found a staging area, crossed back into America, and made our way to the lights of Cochise College under cover of dark. The moon crept up and lent to the whole scene its lunar aspect. The traverse back was less exciting. We just walked. We talked, but of nothing. It was a beautiful night and the grass and empty water bottles caught the moon's light and glowed in bulbs, tufts, and patches. I couldn't seem to grasp the entire situation. I'd found no neat conclusion and forgotten most of my questions, most of my reasons for being there. I kept returning to one disturbing premise; in a conflict of law, but well beyond law, in a conflict that exists fundamentally in differing World Views and Identity, where is there Hope?

Sheriff Deever faces this question on a daily basis and has come up with a consolation that could apply to everyone involved. "Hope," he said, "lies in understanding what your best effort is, and then making it."

Planning a route using a topographic map is an innocent and potentially dangerous affair. With a keen eye for contours, and a lust for adventure a topo map becomes more than just a jumbled collection of curvy lines and cryptic symbols, it becomes a blueprint for epic journeys. The planning of routes on a map however, has inherent dangers that are difficult to avoid. The problem has to do with scale and environment. The USGS 7 1/2 minute quads are exceptionally detailed maps, relaying the intricacies of the natural landscape with unrivaled precision. Because of this accuracy, it is easy to forget that despite the large scale, the map is still an incredibly inaccurate version when compared with the real thing, and that 1/50 of an inch can translate to missing a trail by forty feet…enough to have us searching through the brush for hours. The scale issue also increases the possibilities for small errors to become major catastrophes. Just think, every mistake you make while planning your route, is magnified 24,000 times! Environment also tempts disaster. Let's face it, we do most of our trip planning indoors, sipping coffee in our fuzzy slippers. We don't fully realize that the route we're planning will take place in the out of doors, among storms, mountains, biting insects and scratchy brush. It is entirely too easy to overestimate our potential when the present environment is so comfortable and the route environment is minimized by map scale.Had I been shivering under the flailing strips of a torn space blanket, trying in vane to pretend that the rain, the cold, and the exhaustion were all just figments of my imagination, I might not have chosen the route that I did. Back at our warm, cozy apartment however, this trail looked easy, and the space blanket remained something that I had only read about in magazine disaster stories. Because of my strange outlook on hiking however, all of that was about to change. In my opinion, hiking as an activity unto itself, is pointless. To me, hiking isn't so much an excuse to walk around outside, as it is an exercise of spatial problem solving. The more elements involved, and the more varied the challenge, the more I enjoy it. This attitude presents a problem when it comes to dealing with established trails. I don't like them, not because I consider myself too manly or too anti-establishment to utilize a trail, but because the trail eliminates the very thing about hiking that I like…the spatial problem.

Sitting in my apartment, planning the trip, this need reared its head and inspired me to find a "new" way to The Jug. Intently I studied the contour lines of the topo map, looking for a manageable alternate route. After an hour of sipping coffee, and squinting to read contour elevations I had an acceptable path mapped out. This new trail of mine also had the added benefit of variety. To get to the new "trailhead" we would have to drive six miles up a jeep trail, ascending 2000 feet in the process. I knew that this particular USGS map was last field checked in 1976, but that was the beauty. The jeep trail could be anything from a graded road, to a perilous goat path. I am not one of those people who eschews motorized transport in favor of walking. My philosophy is, drive until you can't drive anymore, then get out and walk. I view my truck as a tool in much the same way I view climbing rope and carabiners, all of it is merely a technological extension of our intellect. Intellect is what we use to solve problems…especially spatial ones. On paper at least, I had concocted a nifty challenge, on land it would turn out, I had concocted a nightmare.

The jeep trail was a cakewalk, requiring me to get out and lock the front hubs into four-wheel drive, but free from any white-knuckle moments. At the "trailhead", Erica and I cinch up our packs and begin the descent down the small drainage that will dump us into Salome Creek 1000 feet below. Time…11:43AM…

As we tromp through the brush, the drainage continues to become narrower and steeper, eventually turning into a series of beautifully carved spillways in the pink granite that forms the base of the ground beneath. It is this splendor that the map fails to convey. It has no way to relate the delicate windings that a waterway can cut through a mountain, and no way to replace the pleasure of actually standing in such remote places. The map also has no good way to reveal the entangling mire of brush and thorns that this drainage is turning into. With the spillways behind us, Erica and I now find ourselves halfway to Salome creek with one mile remaining…Time…2:30PM…

Sitting on a high ridge overlooking our route below, we eat granola bars and ignore the bleeding wounds inflicted by thorns and hiding cacti. Both of us know that we have a problem. It has taken us over two hours to go just one mile. Making it to the creek and back before nightfall is rapidly becoming an impossibility. We know this, but choose to continue anyway, saving the problem for when things get desperate.

The drainage gets steeper, and therefore faster, and we make it to Salome Creek an hour later. From here, it is a three-mile hike down the bank to the Salome Jug. When we arrive at our destination, the sun is considerably lower in the sky, and the pink crystals in the granite give off a spooky glow, making the slot canyon below us seem like a fissure that exposes the earths fiery core…Time…5:30PM…

It is here that we make a critical decision. The way back is five miles of creek bed and steep thorny slopes. Two miles south however, is a dirt road that leads back to the truck, then another ten miles to where this whole ordeal started from. We choose to take the twelve mile option rather than have to scramble up cliffs in the dark.

Darkness has enveloped us, and we have been hiking along the dirt road for three miles now. Muscle spasms send bursts of pain throughout my legs and my dreams turn to thoughts of hot tubs and sleep. We decide to stash our packs by a cattle guard and pick them up on our way back out. Erica leaves her cameras. It starts to rain…Time…8:30pm…

In the darkness we try to locate a critical turnoff. I stop occasionally to get our bearings by taking a compass reading off shadowy figures I hope are the peaks I think they are. A storm is on us now in full force, the cold isn't so bad if we keep moving…Time…10:30PM… I'm having doubts about the last left we made. Confirmation of those fears comes in the form of a dead end. Tired, worried, and cold, we decide to huddle under a mylar blanket and sleep. In the wind the blanket tears and we become wet, muddy and colder. After 30 minutes of hell we decide to press on and find the truck…Time…12:30AM…

The truck should be around the next bend. If it isn't, we will have to spend the night out here for certain. Erica is growing weaker by the minute and my resolve is hanging on the giddiness that a lack of sleep produces. We have run out of water some time ago, and sleep and liquid are all I can think about. The minutes stretch on and I wonder if we'll ever find the truck…Time…2:15AM…

In the fading glow of my flashlight I see the reflection of my taillights. The adrenaline rush of excitement cannot overcome the fatigue, but I am joyous on the inside believe me. We climb into the cab and fall asleep. …Time…2:30AM…

We drove back home the next morning. While watching the news later that evening we hear a story about a couple that was hiking on a trail just north of phoenix. They became lost and disoriented and had to spend the night in the unusually cold storm. The woman died from exposure. Maps I realize, can be friends, but never underestimate their faults.

Non-maintained roads, and non-maintained plans, share a similar end. Both converge on the unexpected, and create adventures in the process. Our plan last weekend was straightforward. We would drive to the Mojave desert in California, and pay a visit to the now famous (and now non-existent) phone booth in the middle of nowhere. There used to be a phone booth situated alongside a lonely stretch of dirt road in the middle of the Mojave desert. Not only was this phone booth isolated, but it was fully functioning as well. Word about the booth leaked out, and soon websites began springing up, paying homage to a simple Pac Bell telephone, that due to it's locale, had taken on mythic proportions.The interesting part is what happened next. People from all over the world began to get word of the Mojave Phone Booth, and demonstrating that innate curiosity which makes us human, began calling the booth on the off chance that someone might actually answer it. Our mission for the weekend was to be there…to answer the world's call. The world however, with the help of a dusty old stretch of historic route 66, and a one-horse town called Goffs, had it's own call, the call of adventure in unexpected places, and we answered it obediently.

Boredom was the deciding factor. I was trapped on Interstate 40, heading west, surrounded by the magic of the billowing desert, and confined to the straight and narrow path of asphalt that leads to falling asleep at the wheel. Salvation came suddenly, with the swift approach of a sign that read "Historic Route 66…Mountain Springs Road". Lured by the nostalgia of the old 66, and a longing to know whether or not Mountain Springs road led to a mountain spring, I took the exit.

Mt. Springs Rd. it turns out, is not maintained by San Bernardino County…nor any other county for that matter. Originally paved, it had succumbed to the weather and the harsh Mojave summers, and was now a pleasing mixture of soft desert sands and gooey patches of asphalt. Six miles from the turnoff, due north, was the town of Goffs. Goffs is the sort of place that begs you to question its reasons for being. Originally used as a watering stop for the Southern Pacific railroad, it was now a dusty little bump along a road that had long lost its necessity. It boasted a restored schoolhouse and a general store that is famous for the glass doors on its bathroom stalls.

The proprietor of the General Store, a man whose name I never caught, seemed to get a kick out of the conversation the glass doors generated, and was unable to understand why anyone would have a problem doing their business in plain view of others. The Proprietor used to teach elementary school in Los Angeles, a 27 year stint that he lovingly referred to as "My time spent in hell", not because of the job, but the location. Retired now, he moved to Goffs and spends his time constructing additions to the store and talking to passers-through. When asked why Goffs existed he said matter-of-factly, "well now, if it wasn't for this town, there'd be nothing here.". He was absolutely right.

With confirmed directions and a map in hand, we left Goffs and headed north on Lanfair Rd. From there it was a left onto Cedar Canyon rd., which was part of the historic Mojave Road, originally established by the Colorado River Mojave Indians to transport goods to the coastal areas for trade. This road would lead us to Cima rd., where the turnoff supposedly was for the phone booth. Halfway there however, the unexpected rang again, and I found myself turning down the driveway of a man named Carl Faber…Artist, a man I had never met, but felt compelled to visit nonetheless.

Carl Faber it turned out, had lived in the Mojave desert for most of his life. Before that, he was a denizen of Hollywood Blvd. Convinced from the time he was eight years old that he wanted to be an artist, he spent his early days being a part of the burgeoning hippie scene on the Boulevard in the sixties. Then, in his twenties, he moved to the desert, and lived in a tent, alone for seven years. It was during this time that he experimented heavily with hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and Magic Mushrooms.

He eventually moved into an old stone house at the OX ranch called "The Rockhouse", and made a living by painting incredibly detailed desert scenes. It was also at The Rockhouse that he was shot in the head during an attempted robbery. He remembers sitting in his living room watching TV, when all of a sudden, a bullet tore through his left cheek and exited his lower jaw. Confused, he grabbed a flashlight and went outside to confront his attacker. Finding nothing, he grabbed a rifle from his truck. He was unable to start the vehicle though, because the battery from it was wired to the television that he had been watching when he was shot. With rifle in hand and a single-minded will to survive, he walked into town for medical attention. His attacker was never found.

He now lives with a woman named Adrian and spends his time painting and gardening, and fussing over the finicky propane refrigerator that gives him nothing but trouble. We spent several hours looking at art and talking with the odd couple, enjoying a fine day in the desert. As we prepare to leave a white truck pulls into the drive and a man wearing yellow-tinted sunglasses and a large-billed hat gets out and walks up to Carl's house to introduce his son who is in the military in Texas. As they are talking a neighbor from a few miles down the road shows up to return some videos he had borrowed. I take one last look around and have trouble picturing what this particular hodgepodge of people must look like to a casual observer. We bid farewell and continue toward the phone booth.

Several wrong-turns, and twelve miles of rough, sandy road and we find the booth. It is as isolated as the publicity has made it out to be, but with fame comes crowds, and we find ten others camped out around the phone, taking turns answering the calls that kept ringing into the small hours of the night. Everyone there had nicknames, like Evil, the girl who came to greet us when we first arrived, or Boog, one of her friends. We met a teacher from Los Angeles who taught English to inmates, and we got to see someone skin a rabbit they had killed earlier that day. We talked to people from Germany, Massachusetts, and a bar in Texas. People form all over the world were calling to talk to us, and while the phone calls poured in one after the other, we sat around a campfire and drank beer with the people who had come to answer those calls. Drawn here by nothing more than the desire to participate in oddity. We drank of the gritty experience that the non-maintained road has to offer.

It is hard to do the good bars justice. A skillful craft with the words is necessary to capture the magic that hangs like the secondhand smoke over a torn, dimly-lit felt, quarters at the gates. The table is never level, but in this twisted landscape of depravity and brotherly bond, this is a pleasant sprinkling of character. The truly good bars are all dives, holes in the wall, places that you wouldn't take your grandmother or a client of any sort other than the illicit. This is the tale of my journey to a place of confusion and intrigue made possible by the Palo Verde Lounge.Well hey there Sid Vicious, So last night, twas a Friday one if ye must know, I went with Dick Rickles to Ziggys on mill fore some liquor cuz he knew this guy that worked there, but it turned out that we weren't getting any good deals and the place sucked, but the kicker of it all is, we ran into heather and Jake there, whom we convinced to go to the Palo Verde with us. So we all go over there, and for some reason the more I drank the more I began talking in this Irish accent. Then the more I drank after that I began YELLING in an Irish accent. So there I am yelling craziness in an Irish accent, that I refused to stop speaking in, and this girl kept walking around with a tray of vegetable and dip because its her boyfriends birthday and she's making everyone at the bar eat carrots and beer. Vile. So then people start throwing the carrots at one another, and when the old bar hag calls last call, everyone, including myself, starts yelling at the top of our lungs because that's the only way we can deal with the sadness of it all…the bar closing that is. One of the things stands out clearly from the night, and that was my yelling of the phrase "Jesus Christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which I yelled several times, and which as well was called and I quote "The most heartfelt Jesus Christ I've ever heard", so I sais it again, only louder this time, and it was the best Jesus Christ I've ever muttered in a bar straight away, but the stink of the whole godamned scenario is I haven't the foggiest notion of my reason for yelling it at all in the first place!!! it's a hateful feeling when a guy can't even remember the motivation behind his most emphatic Jesus Christ of all times? Is sobriety the answer?

So there we is all, me, Jane Lee, Jake and Heather. Dick Rickles had ducked the festivities earlier after the Ziggy's debacle which was good for nothing other than the running into of previously mentioned Jake and Heather.

So we all be at the bar-rail, or pad in this instance, shooting the shit that strolls by in the gallery, and drinking the beer that comes out of the wall in the corner behind the bar. Makes ya wonder a bit when the beer comes out of the wall…ah hell, this line of reasoning is going nowhere, no more talk of anything coming out of the walls.

If you're a scrutinizing reader, one that pays proper attention, then you may have noticed that I mentioned a few words earlier about carrots and beer. If you missed it, go back and re-read the damned words and then come back. This carrots and beer thing is absolutely important, as it has everything to do with the underground cabal that a select few of us have unknowingly become a part of, and nothing to do with the beer coming out of the walls, as I've said there will be no more talk of any of that business.

This carrots and beer situation is all new to me, so forgive my lack of understanding. It first became apparent the other day when, low and behold, Wilson, my neighbor down below, asked Jane Lee out on a date while she was valiantly taking orders at the pizza kitchen. He sais to her she says, "do you want to go to the desert and shoot a gun?", at which point Jane Lee is thrilled as any good girl would be at the chance to pop off rounds in the dusty landscape. But alas, and a very sad alas at that, Wilson says he is only jesting and amends his previous invite to coffee instead. None of this matters except, that before all of this went down she sais, he asked her if they had carrots and beer at the pizza kitchen, as if to order such a concoction.

So then, that very same evening, we are at the Palo Verde, and as I said earlier, this girl who had a birthdayed boyfriend on the premises was running around with a tray of carrots and dip, making everyone eat some, so it was there that Jane Lee and I had our fist helping of carrots and beer. Is Wilson who he seems to be? And does he know the type of girl he's dealing with by asking Jane Lee out on a date? The girl who dreams of bud-guzzling construction workers who'll watch football and eat pork-rinds, then give her quick, unsatisfying romps before passing out in time to wake up for tomorrows whistle blowing shift. Does he know that we belong to this underground cabal, or did he just stumble upon this carrots and beer thing haphazardly?

Above the pisser is a vending machine that sells condoms, that elusive French Tickler, and pussy galore photos. Always a curious one, I decide to purchase a sampling of "the finest pussy photos on earth", and deposit my two quarters with anticipation. A little packet pops out in the dispensing tray, and I walk out proudly displaying my new toy! Re-seated at the bar next to Jane Lee and Mariah, I tear open the package only to be disappointed by one solitary photo of a naked woman with enough bush on her crotch to make us all think she's wearing some kind of furry bikini bottom. But making lemonade out of the situation I paste it to my moist beer mug and there it remains for the rest of the evening. When the last-calls have been cried, I take the photo and put it into my wallet, but at the time I had no idea that the very next night, in the very same place, the same girl who had facilitated the carrots and beer phenomenon, would have some porn of her own, and that my pussy galore photo would be required. The underground cabal draws us in even farther. The Next Night Of course it is with great reluctance that I will admit that it twasn't the Palo that we be going this night, as the Palo is a good bar as I've said before, and good bars are like good dogs, good golden retrievers in fact and they live for your companionship and they're just so damned lovable sometimes that you hate to ignore em as much as you do, but sometimes you just can't overlook the fact that they shit in your yard and smell like ass. Besides, we went to the Palo last night, and I was still leery of this underground cabal business and the carrots and beer thing had me wary of the grim implications of it all. So this night we are driving in the blue-bespeckled bass boat of a car that good ol' Dick Rickles drives around in his best Vanilla Ice impersonation, and I jest with Jane Lee over his two George Michael CD's and his Ricky Martin disc as well. On our way that is, to the Limelite, a bar we hear has inklings of ill-repute as well.

Dick's the kind of guy who is your best friend in a way, and he's always got some kind of plan, but mostly they involve ways for him to feel secure in his surroundings. He needs devices, objects, women, hi-fi components, toys, etc..to make him feel safe, and I tell him like me own brother that what he really needs is some perspective. I sais to him, "goddamnit Dick!!! Sell that damned hoo-ride of yours (I refer to his car here) and all that other crap you think you need so badly and hop on a freighter which will take you at least to Panama, cuz of all that canal business, and see what the world has to offer…hop right now onto the perspective express and see for yourself that there is more to this life, and all the others for that matter, than just the frequency response of a new car stereo!". He looks at me with some understanding in his eye and says that he agrees, and the scary part of it all is, I know he's telling me the truth. I know deep down, that he knows deep down that this is what he must do, and immediately at that, but I also know, and he knows this too, that he won't. And for the life of me I can't figure out why all this takes place as it does when we both know what ought to be…it scares me to the bones, and makes me think that something else is going on that I'm not seeing. Something is sucking all of the life out of good people and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

So here we are this Saturday evening, driving around in his car, which Jane Lee believes to resemble a retainer, which I trust it mighty well does, but I have no way to relate as I've never seen nor had a retainer that was all sparkly and blue like Dick's car, but to me it looks like a bass boat, though it's really only an old Nissan Sentra that was once, I was told, under the water and had to be salvaged. Now the only thing sunk is all the money that was poured into the wicked little machine to make it so sparkly. In flamboyant style we arrive at the Limelight but the window neon is black with death and the bar is closed, so we defaultly head west towards the Palo Verde and a depressed fog settles over my mood as I begin to realize that it is all futile, the cabal is pulling us in despite our illusions of free will. Once again we head to the Palo, where the carrots and beer made their first appearance in the flesh, and I realize that we were fools for trying to go against the great magnet, helplessly we glide toward fate in a sparkly blue representation of stuck in a rut.

We arrive, and strolling in come to realize that we aren't alone, as Laura and her boyfriend, sporting a new buzzed doo, are here, and they've brought jay, whom I last met wearing leather pants, him not me that is, and as we will later find out has an incredible capacity for flow. But now we must saddle up at the bar and order the beverages so we go to do that, and once again they have run out of Killians Red, the only decent beer that comes out of the wall here, and I look to my right at Jane Lee, and I sais to her "Janie, yer not a bud girl is ya?", and then she sais back at me, "why heavens no", and I think to myself that this is a good thing, as there's nothing worse for the soul than bad beer, so we both order bottles of Fat Tire, which Janie says tastes like meat, and I can't for the life of me figure that out.

We go off into the corner and sit with the rest of the group, but there's no chair so I must stack two empty cases of beer on top of one another and it makes for a wonderful chair of which I am quite proud. We are seated next to the pool table, the off-kilter one, and as such we are constantly being greeted with the butt-end of a pool cue, and the rear end of whichever shark is running the table at that time. Jay begins to tell us that earlier he was approached by another drunkard who began speaking in tongues and waving his hands about like a mad mime. I see the man off on the other side of the bar and he keeps staring me in the eye and mumbling something, but I pretend not to notice because I have no desire to deal with mimes this evening, especially not the sort who channel spirits.

The stories go round, and I look to my right once again and I see that Jane Lee has a pitcher of beer, but it is Budweiser, and my heart sinks just a little as any heart should whenever quality is sacrificed for quantity, and I say nothing, but am reminded of me own beer's emptiness and I get up to order another one. At the bar again I order another fat tire, and the well-bosomed bartender lady comes back with two beers and I have to tell her that I only ordered one, which I feel sad for doing, but I can only afford the one. So I'm heading back to the table when I see in the corner of me eye the naked supple flesh of a young woman with no clothes on, and I center the image in me eye, and I see that a person is busy scrawling some incantation on the smooth creamy thigh of some girl in a hustler magazine. This perks my curiosity as this isn't normally seen in just any place you go, so I walk up and inquire. A voice to my left answers my inquiry and I look over and low and behold, it's the very same girl who was here yesterday making us eat carrots and beer!

The hustler was for her boyfriend, the one with the birthday, and she was having everyone sign it, so I says to her that I will too sign it, and I do so right on the taught derrière of some young nymphet name starla. But then I remember the pussy galore photo in my wallet, and I sais to her, the carrots and beer girl not Starla, "By god woman, I've got some pussy galore photo in me wallet, I must give it to yer birthdayed man". And she positively beams at this proclamation, so I begin fishing around in my wallet for the woman with the fuzzy crotch, but she's nowhere to be found. Vile.

I sit back down at our table, but have trouble listening to the conversation because all of this underground cabal business is swirling around in me thoughts, and I can't for the life of me understand how all the porn and the beer and the vegetables and the limelite being closed on a Saturday can mean anything, but I know that they do and that one of these days it may well all come together, but right now I feel helpless and confused and so I drink some more and nod my head in all the right places at all the right times and no one is the wiser.

The talk begins dying down as the last calls have been called quite some time ago, and I think to myself that calling last call at the top of your lungs must be one of the most satisfying things you can do when you work at a bar, but also how it is one of the saddest things you can hear when all you do is sit and drink in a bar. Looking up I see on the TV a strange scene involving men wearing jump suits putting some kind of powder onto the naked behind of a newborn baby then throwing him carelessly like a football into the crowd of people watching a NASCAR race, and I can't believe what I'm seeing so I turn to Jane lee and I sais to her "Janie, did you just see that?" and she sais to me "yes, I can't believe I just saw that" her eyes bulging moreso than normal, and the I sais "why do ya think they pitched that baby into the crowd like that?" and she stares at me as if I were an idiot, and says "huh?" and then I realize that she hadn't seen the baby spectacle and was talking instead of Jay and his ability to down whole mugs of beer in single gulps. Jay repeats his stunt so that I can see, and I dare say that I am impressed, but we are being kicked out now and we all stagger out to the world and run through the routine of deciding who goes where and how. And this is the way the Palo Verde Experience ends.

I think I became a journalist because I was too much of a punk to become a pilot. In truth, I'm a certified geek about aircraft – especially military aircraft. So when the 517th Airlift Squadron offered to take me along on a re-supply mission, I hopped on board.The C-130 has been in production since 1955. It's the big four-engine plane, made familiar in the film reels of the seige at Khe Sahn, skipping across the dirt runway as shells explode in front of it, cargo pallets skidding out the back.

"For its mission, it just cant be beat," said Tech Sgt. Jeff Begley, load chief on the aircraft. Like everyone in military aviation, Begley has a special place in his heart for the plane on which he serves. "I was watching footage of the UN inspectors returning to Iraq, and they came in on a C-130," he said, grinning.

It's cold outside. It's dawn. Large hoses are attatched to the engines, heating the oil. The plane is being de-iced as well. We're about to take off and fly north to the interior, to land on Indian Mountain, a remote radar site, pretty much in the center of the state. It's an uphill runway, and apparently to get to it, the pilot has to drop the plane between two peaks, and then plop the massive beast down at the last second. There is only one chance to do it right. The training video for landing at Indian Mountain says it all:

"A successful go-around is improbable."

"I love that part," said the pilot, Major Wiley Dickenson, during the pre flight briefing. In the belly of the craft, as crew members load pallets on board, Dickenson stands in his leather flight jacket, overseeing the operations. I'm inspecting all the parts of the plane. Cargo racks, roller tracks for the pallets. I think of the fact that small helicopters can fit in the cargo hold, and notice the familiar cable for static line jumping. I did it when I was 19. Then I notice the pararchutes. The Air Force is big on safety. Still, things happen, especially in interior Alaska. A C-130 crashed a few years ago when a flock of Canadian geese flew into its props. I have a friend who was an army medic at Fort Richardson at the time, and he was first on the scene. The carnage was absolute. He's not an army medic anymore.

This is what rushed through my head when I noticed the parachutes. I think everyone has a "what if' hum in the back of their mind when they get on a plane. Still, that's the fun part: buy the ticket, take the ride.

I counted the parachutes. There were seven of them. Eleven people were on the plane. I mentioned this to Major Wiley Dickenson, in an off-hand, humorous sort of way. But he's heard it before. Pilots know the risks, non pilots dwell on them, and even invent them. He knew just what to say.

"Yeah, I've often thought of what it would take to get me to strap on a [OE]chute," he said matter-of-factly. "The flight decks on these planes are connected to the fuselage with tiny bolts. If one of them goes, they all pretty much pop. And these planes don't ditch very well. I think that's the only instance where I'd strap on the 'chute."

Well, that's encouraging.

After a short pass by Denali, we began our descent for Indian Mountain, but a 29-knot cross wind prohibited a landing. The people at Indian Mountain wouldn't get their re-supply today. We pulled off at 600 yards out, and banked hard, 400 feet above the ground. We did this for the next half-hour. It was like playtime [^] five good ol' American boys spinning donuts in a giant plane. The co-pilot, Captain Sean Finnan, would point out the window, and we'd all look. A herd of caribou on a frozen lake. Dickenson banked again, this time to the right, and even the navigator, 2nd Lt. Micheal Morris, who's done this many times before, stood up and laughed. It's part of their day, having fun like this.

An hour later, we were making our final approach for Fort Yukon, our cargo hold still full. We would have to drop the load here, and another plane would have to pick it up later. Weather is fickle in the interior.

The load chief climbed up into the flight deck, got my attention, and shouted a contingency plan. "If we skid when we land, sit tight, because we'll whip around and take off again!"

Fort Yukon is one of ten radar sites throughout Alaska, meant to alert NORAD of any incoming threats. It was activated in 1958. We had a brief tour of the site, met some of the people who man it through the winter, like station Technician John Nodus from Chicago who wears a fur hunting cap he never removes. He gave us the run down of what there is to do, way out here in the dead of winter.

"Yep, pool and ping-pong," he said.

But leave it up to the United States Miltary to make sure, out here in the middle of nowhere, there is ample supply of blueberry cheesecake. We had a fine feast at the radar site.

The people who man the site seem to enjoy the remoteness, and project a jaunty sense of humor about it. As we were leaving, the site engineer, Clay Shaw, his huskie, Duker, sprinting around in the snow, waved and shouted, "Come on back, we'll be here!"

In the end, the mission left supplies intended for Indian Mountain at Fort Yukon, and the gear we were to collect at Fort Yukon couldn't be loaded. Just another day in the unpredictable climate of interior Alaska. Major Dickenson, a pilot since 1984, is used to it.

"When we leave the building in the morning, we think we're landing," he said. "But it changes fast out there."

By now you've received the packages, and I can say with confidence that you'll be tickled when you pry open the blue can. It's got mints. Further, I wish to thank you, Steve, on behalf of the expedition for all your warm-hearted letters of well wishing. It's people like you, Steve, that make this business of charting the crags of southeastern Vermont all the more enjoyable.

Very well, Steve, now that we've had that, I wish to offer some pertinent advisory counsel. First off, If you're spelling your name with "ph," (ie: Stephan) you're just off. I can't very well call you Steve if you use a ph in you name, can I? Right, let's pull along, shall we? No more with this silly insistence on spelling preference.

You are Steve. A Steven. It is derived from Steven of Shagalot, who rode from Leeds to Edinburgh with a sack of beef under his coat, trumpeting loudly on his bugle in order to complete a dare put upon him by the Bishop of Newcastle, who made the now famous statement, "Steve, you'll never, ever ride from Leeds to Edinburgh with a sack of beef under your coat, trumpeting loudly on your bugle."

So, you see, Stephan is right out. Unless of course you're related to Randy. His mum named his brother Stephan, and even he insists upon Steve. The tragedy is that he is a true Stephan.

Now, if you're tolerating a Stephan who goes by Steve, you MUST intervene. This may be done using chloroform and a rag. Barring chloroform, you can use turpentine. The object is to creep up behind any Stephans calling themselves Steve and cover their mouth and nose with the soaked rag — just like on TVs Charlie's Angels — where Farrah Faucet would be lurking through a darkened hallway, and a mysterious set of hands would cover her mouth and nose with a chloroform-soaked rag, causing her to feint just before they broke for commercials.

That must be the fate of all Stephans calling themselves a Steve. God speed, Steve,

-Dilmoore

That was well over 50 years ago, but it seems as vivid as my foot, which is presently being crept up upon by several pumas. I'm being very still. No need to startle the pumas. Now then, on the subject of Pasqualle. That was his name. Pasqualle the Italian Duke, soldier to Mussolini. Loved mayonaise. Which I do as well, but only at night. Can't stand to look at mayonaise, you see. It came from my time in France. We were charged with the task of locating the final Monet print, which was rumored to be hidden in a villa outside of Cannes. No such luck. But we did manage to find a cellar filled with mayonaise, which was left over from Napoleons, "Le grande arme'." After 23 cans of mayonaise, I developed a taste for it, as well as a hearty regimen of dependable nightmares, all of which involve turtles and spoons.

Anyway, our Duke had an "in" back in Tuscany. Not for sleeping. An "in" as in "connection" to some Roman gold. If we could only get to Tuscany, we could pilfer the stash and make off. But Tuscany was held by the Yanks, and they were our allies. I don't know about you, but Neville and I were loyal to the queen, and could not compromise our duty to the war, even if we weren't in it any longer.

So, we decided to turn south, into the Congo, and discover dinosaurs.

This proved to be a terrible idea. Almost as terrible as the hat that I once constructed out of lint. Have you ever studied lint? It's a lot like gum. Dry gum. Lint is like dry gum made from fabric. But don't try and chew it. You'll be disappointed in the lint, I assure you. Nonetheless, I've never seen Pasqualle since the war. Last I saw him he was atop a mule, shouting about parasites. Did see Neville, though. Ran into him at a shoe shop in Sussex. We said hello, and then his Irish Setter, Waverly, piddled on my trousers, which are made of millions of pieces of neatly arranged lint.

Adventure is the buzzword these days. People no longer go on vacations, instead they spend their money on lavish, guided jaunts into the wilds of places like Antarctica, or the rain forests of Costa Rica. Adventure travel is the fastest growing segment of the travel industry in this country and it show no signs of slowing down. There is however, a darker side to all of this premeditated adventure business.As Americans we have come to expect a certain level of safety and comfort in our daily lives. We live in a society that cries foul if our coffee is served too hot, if our cars tip over too easily, or if we have to go without cable television for more than an hour. Many of you are probably old enough to remember one particularly nasty crisis of national proportion back in the eighties… the horror brought on by New Coke. Protest rallies were thrown, picket lines formed, and the Coca Cola Bottling Company was brought to its knees and forced to pay retribution for its horrible crime against humanity by re-releasing Coca Cola Classic. I bring this up not to rekindle any buried emotional trauma, but to illustrate how cushioned our society has become. While other countries experience bouts of genocide and famine, we have to endure the hardship of unfamiliar beverages.

It comes as no real surprise then, that these adventure travel companies go to great lengths to ensure that every member on their tour receives the care and attention they deserve as Americans. Flat tires are dutifully repaired by good-natured guides and meals are prepared by gourmet cooks. As a nation, we have lost our adventurous spirit.  Judging by the ads in the back of magazines like Outside, adventure is an “elegantly appointed Tundra Buggy” or a “four star staff to cater to your needs”. These advertisements of course, are wrong.

Adventure is a willingness to court the unexpected. Adventure can be as mundane as driving to work on an empty tank of gas, never knowing if or when you’ll become stalled out in the middle of the freeway. It can be as daring as riding motorcycles to South America or summiting an unclimbed peak. The constant element is the unexpected. Unfortunately, the unexpected is exactly what most of the adventure tour companies are trying to eliminate.

A recent article in USA Today stated that Americans want the thrill of adventure, without the hardships and dangers usually associated with that kind of travel. In a side-bar to said article, was a dispatch on the state of fashion. Abercrombie & Fitch has released a line of clothing that comes with grass and dirt stains built in. Don’t worry about maintaining that “active healthy look” either, company representatives claim that unlike “real” grass stains, theirs won’t wash out. Whew! Now I don’t have to worry. Now we can all have the luxury of going on adventures that won’t cause us to worry, sweat, perform, or work, and our clothes can be tailored to look as if we have.

Here’s what I would like to see. I would like to see people who can fix there own flat tires, cook their own meals and stitch up their own wounds. People who can come back from an adventure feeling a little more capable as human beings. By embracing the unexpected, and rolling with it, we enable ourselves to rise to the occasion and use our ingenuity and humor to overcome hardships. To me, the best trips are the ones where halfway through, you wish you had never come. Afterward, these trips are the ones that make you feel alive. When the sour worry of doubt makes an exit, it leaves behind a solid feeling of strength and accomplishment that no premeditated tour can provide, no matter how good its French Crepes are.

I want to see people heading off for Mexico in cars of questionable reliability. I want to see people drive for no reason to places with funny names like Why, Arizona. I want to see people striking up conversations with total strangers in coffee shops and elevators. All of these are adventures.

Adventure travel shouldn’t be a term for a growth industry, it should be a way of life that demonstrates our best qualities as human beings: ingenuity and a desire to learn. I for one feel like heading off to who knows where on a motorcycle with bald tires, in search of scalding coffee and that dusty six-pack of New Coke stashed in some two-bit gas station alongside a highway devoid of reflective striping. Now that’s adventure.

I have recently started a new company. My new company manufactures trekking helmets and is called the TrekSafe Corporation. We stand behind our motto which says: trek hard… trek safe.

We believe in this motto. We paid a lot for it and we think you should believe in it too. Oh yeah, because TrekSafe is a corporation, I have to refer to us as it. For example, I can no longer say “TrekSafe says _their_ products will protect your knoggin,” I have to say “TrekSafe says _its_ products will help to protect your knoggin.”.

We ran into considerable skepticism when we started TrekSafe. People said things like, “isn’t trekking really just like walking really far?” What do you say to someone so jaded?

I always point out that people who are just walking, don’t use poles. Trekkers, use poles. Trekkers need poles and they like to wear fleece. Our research has indicated that a sport is dangerous whenever poles are involved. Jousting, for instance, is a very dangerous sport.

So, we formed TrekSafe. At this point, however, it still didn’t have a product so it did some more research. Unfortunately, the research was marketing research and the only thing it was able to come up with was a logo. But it’s a great logo.

The TrekSafe Kokopelli is a wonderful logo. People all over the world recognize the Kokopelli as the symbol of laid back southwestern living. TrekSafe wants to be associated with southwestern living and tex-mex cuisine. The TrekSafe Kokopelli is wearing a helmet and has dual trekking poles.

After it drew the logo, TrekSafe realized that it had inadvertently developed a product. Without thinking, the designers had placed a helmet on the Kokopelli’s head, assuming that helmets implied safety. When it realized that no one else was making helmets specifically tailored to the special hazards involved with trekking, it knew where its first thrust into the marketplace would take place.

Original designs were based on a Styrofoam bicycle helmet from Taiwan but it quickly realized that the graphics were not at all suitable for trekking. It was redesigned with new graphics and is now the penultimate trekking helmet. (Next year’s model will be the ultimate trekking helmet.)

Its new catalogue will be out soon. Please buy TrekSafe products and always: trek hard… trek safe.

Buckminster Updike,
President,
TrekSafe Corporation