If the wealth of a man is measured by friends surly I am easily the wealthiest man in history:
A disembodied familiar voice from the near distance, in the dark of predawn. Slowly enunciating the name ‘Steve Buschemi’ That’s all the voice says. He heard my first awakening movements in the sleeping bag. It’s amazing that at five a.m. two words start me laughing my head off. For hours the previous evening the group recounted the movies and the lines but we couldn’t put the guy with his name. There in the crystal clear predawn it came to him and he couldn’t wait to say it to someone.
We’ve been here before. Sometimes it’s me that gets the words right and laughter comes, but usually one of the other goofy guys, and most often it’s HIM. There always seems to be a laugh on the edge of the situation. Some of the situations are the laugh… Looking for adventure usually puts in the factor of fun. Or madness. What do we want?
Pain. what do we need! …PAIN!
Laying on the ground at the top of a fairly steep climb in the deep remote parts of a legendary mountain bike ride, is a gasping heaving form of a human. His bike is tossed on the ground near him, and he is heaving. ‘Jeez are you alright dude?’ she asked him.
‘I’m wheeze gasp “de” wheeze gasp “comp ..wheeze.. gasp.. osing,’ he replies.
‘HEE HEE…don’t you mean composing yourself?’
NO- gasp gasp-‘I’m de-comp-os-ing.’ Then the dam broke and the laughter came. All of us had suffered the climb, and the whole regular crowd of misspent youth was breathing hard, but not like him. He didn’t die but sorta looked like it for a while. Matter of fact he got up (the Lazarus man) and rode the rest of the ride. It is a legendary place; the route is hard and the hills are steep. It feels remote for a place not far from home.
‘Man oh man you alright back there?’ The ride was pointed sharply up and the air was getting a bit thin at altitude. The scenery was far beyond the routine stuff, even for us. We had hit the holy land of Crested Butte and were Flagging the Bear or You’re a Deadman, as they call it. ‘Gasp … gasp.. wheeze.’ he speaks, ‘my head’s on loose but my shoes are tight.’ The morning had been a trip all it’s own. My brother had managed to un-eat his breakfast very early on during the first climb, and I had my hand on his back pushing him along uphill until his land legs returned, and he could do his duty and guide us on this legendary ride in the original home of mountain biking. We had miles to go and rex galore to greet. The days are full beyond measure of beautiful fall weather and dusty perfect single track. There are expanses through the tall grass , aspen and deep and dark fir forests up in the high country . The wrecks usually show up when I get there. Inevitably, by default, I remove and share with the earth a part of my skin to pay homage to the earth, or maybe it is to appease the trail gods. ‘All mountains doing their thing no help from me,’ I suppose. The trail managed to get lost a bit here and there somewhere out there, but my brother de guide of de-breakfast, managed to pull us through yet another harrowing escapade in the wilds of the world of Crested Butte biking. Some rides will be etched in immortality by the trails, like this one, the Immortal beloved 401. Riding and playing carry us along, but mostly it is laughter that turns the wheels. Of course the evening’s rituals of sitting, eating and telling stories at night in the dark seem to keep the stars spinning as well. We stay up late laughing and avoiding the last phrase of the day shouted out in the dark, ‘I can’t sleep–the clowns will eat me!’ which turns into the bedtime mantra of the end of another day of adventure in the wilds of the Rockies.
Another day…
It had to be nine zillion degrees; the food, water and some good tempers were mostly gone. We were sharing the camelbacks, spreading what was left around the small group. I was regretting my words of the previous night, ‘Yeah, I’ve done the Gold Bar Rim. I can show you the way.’ Now it was ‘HEE HEE …OOOPS! Ya know for the last couple of hours here the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island” has been playing in my head,’ I told them. In chorus the reply was, ‘Oh great! Now I’m going to be hearing it too!’ They seemed to miss the message, so I sang on, ‘…now sit right down and I’ll tell a tale a tale of a late boat trip…’ Then a bump and a pause.
‘I like it when we get a little lost. It makes it more of an adventure,’ she said in a much softer voice. This did not keep the rest of the group from contemplating the couple of hours we had “misspent” while wandering in desert heat in a semi-helpless fashion seeking the fugitive cairns marking the real route of the trail. I imagined that the crew was looking around for a tree to hang me from. It’s a darn good thing the largest thing growing in close proximity was a prickly pear, a yucca, and a lizard who had come out to see the show. Not a juniper or Pinon in the seeable distant vista up there on the Gold Bar Rim near Moab. It was a matter of getting off the rim by dark or we would have to ride the dangerous cut-off off, risking injuries or descending in the dark, and everyone knows I’m a-skeered of the dark on a bike. Only three out of nine of us were laughing like… well …like lunatics. It worked out that the trail gave up and surrendered in the game of hide and seek, and we, after a short detour (just call me Gilligan, who went out that day for a three hour cruise A THREE HOUR CRUISE. If not for the courage of the fearless crew the Minnow would be lost…) the mean and nasty notoriously dangerous killer of a short cut (more properly known as the portal trail) put my friend, the crazy one, in a very bad spot for awhile and yet he did it. He really is a heroic kinda guy. I asked him, ‘did it help to have me right in front of you talking to you?’
‘What talking? All I heard was very loud ringing in my ears!’ (Oh my god, did I ever laugh at that!) The whole crew, even the ones who wanted to kill me, got down just as the sun decided it had enough fun scorching the desert earth for the day. There we were safe and sound and more goofy laughing going on…. after the food, water and beer, and maybe some finger pointing.
Isn’t that what it is all about–sitting round the campfire and laughing, ending the day with the traditional mantra, ‘Can’t sleep–the clowns will eat me!’ Just after recounting the day’s misadventures and moments of near panic or even, on occasion, doing the “stationary modified panic” in which author Patrick McManus describes standing, screaming, crying, jumping up and down in one place until exhausted; then eat all the food, drink all the water, rip off all the clothes…repeat until all the panic goes away. Only then can you think of a way out of the situation at hand. We rely upon those instincts that evolved from thousands of years of misadventures and doing goofy stuff in the name of survival. Now we do it in the name of fun.
There needs to be some misadventure in life to show us the way. If we’re lucky we have good friends to share both the misadventures and the glory of remembering the names and places, or even the actors in obscure roles in obscure stories. It is greatness and wonderment to seek adventure and then remember the moments and laugh about them later. Mr. Buffets’ words seem to apply very frequently in my life; ‘If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.’ In the heat of desert’s wonderment or the thin air of the high Rockies or in our own trails close to home it’s the misadventure–the wrecks or near wrecks, the lost trails or mishaps that we remember later. It’s the food of laughter that feeds our sense of adventure and always makes us remember our love for trying something new or attempting something beyond our reliable skills. Sometimes we travel long distances and roam the earth and sometimes it’s right near home, along with the friends that love to share in it… The Luna Tick Fringe.
