This time of year there is typically no place I would rather be than Telluride, Colorado. The MountainFilm festival now in progress will go on with me for the first time in 5 years. As much as I would love to be there to connect with old friends and watch some incredible movies I’m less than two weeks away from going on location to produce a book and film project of my own! I suppose it’s good to step back and reflect on what I hope to bring to MountainFilm next year. Fortunately I had the opportunity to create this short interview with executive director David Holbrooke for National Geographic Adventure. This conversation is a great preview for what lies ahead over the weekend. I hope everyone has a terrific time! ~ JEM

Celebrating 35 years of inspiration, the 2013 Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, Colorado, will run another exciting program of movies and speakers over Memorial Day weekend. The impressive lineup includes leading adventure athletes, environmental activists, and documentary filmmakers. Beginning with the Moving Mountains Symposium on Friday, the festival revolves around the theme of climate solutions. Here festival director David Holbrooke explains how the team is taking one of the world’s most critical issues head on for what promises to be the most innovative Mountainfilm yet.

James Mills: Why did you pick this year’s theme?

David Holbrooke: I wanted to do something on climate change. We haven’t really looked at it at the festival since I’ve been the director. We have certainly messed around it with energy and food and population themes in the past. But I thought we really needed to look how climate change has been handled. And we wanted to put our own twist on it—climate solutions seemed to be a way to do that.

J.M.: What can you tell us about the special guests who will be speaking on this topic during the Moving Mountains Symposium on Friday?

D.H.: We’ve got some knockout guests this year. We’re really trying to make this a symposium unlike any other. So we have a scientist like Daniel Nocera, who’s doing all this work on artificial photosynthesis. And then someone like Tim DeChristopher, fresh out of his federal prison sentence. We’ll look at geo-engineering. We’ll look at the roles art and music play in climate solutions. We’ve found a really wide variety of speakers, from philosophers to, for example, Aspen Ski Company’s Auden Schendler, who is a really thoughtful guy on what they’re doing in their world. We’re going to look at it both from a global perspective, but also a little of what’s going on southwest Colorado. It’s really something that impacts all of us, and if we do this right, and we’re bloody-well determined to, it will have a real resonance for people that will go way beyond Mountainfilm and out into the world in a way that is very real and palpable.

J.M.: One of things that you’re going to highlight is the 50th anniversary of the first American summit on Everest, with some of the 1963 American Everest Team present. How do you think recent events on the mountain might affect the conversation?

D.H.: Having Jim Whitaker back at the festival and Tom Hornbein at the festival for the first time is just wonderful. Our roots are so immersed in alpinism. These guys, their achievements are so remarkable.

But Everest is problematic these days. The 2012 season was a bit of circus, and the 2013 season is certainly starting out that way with the massive fight and all this controversy. There was a picture in Outside Magazine that just stuck with me. There was just a line of hundreds of people with all their gear, their packs, and everything just lined up to get on up that mountain. I thought to myself, I wouldn’t want to do that in New York City. Why would you want to do it there?

There’s been this boiling over of tensions and issues on Everest. So this year isn’t surprising. I read a lot of the comments about the fight on Adventure Journal and a lot of people are saying, “Enough with Everest. This is nuts.” What happened sounds so ugly, all around on every level from the Europeans to the Sherpas. It just sounded really horrible, and I’ll be really curious what Hornbein and Whittaker will have to say. And we’ll also have Conrad Anker here at the festival. There will be a lot of people here who have climbed Everest. There’s clearly something wrong going on at the top of the world.

J.M.: What about the program itself? Are there any particular highlights you want us to know about?

D.H.: There are a lot of terrific films—this year seems to be a particularly banner year for documentaries. A lot of films that would have normally made it into the festival didn’t make it this year just because the quality of the submissions was so good. I’m really excited about the Crash Reel. I think it’s a really important film that will save lives. And we’re particularly pleased that we helped support it with a MountainFilm Commitment Grant. Lucy Walker, who directed it, is just a remarkable filmmaker and Kevin Pearce will be here.

We’re also playing the American Everest film High & Hallowed by Jake Norton. We’ll have the world premiere of that and that will be exciting. And then there’s just a ton of other stuff. The list just goes on. There are a lot of films that are not necessarily traditional Mountainfilm films. Life According to Sam, about a young teenage boy with progeria, which is an aging disease, is just beautiful. God Loves Uganda, by Roger Ross Williams, who won an Oscar for Music by Prudence, is about gays in Uganda, being persecuted by in a lot of cases American Christians. That’s just a really important film. And Lunarcy, which we love, is about people obsessed with the moon and that played at South By Southwest.

We’re doing three different films this year that are about war. Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? is about Tim Hetherington, the war corespondent who was killed in Libya in 2011. Manhunt is about the hunt for Bin Laden. And Dirty War is about secret U.S. forces and drones in Yemen and other countries that we’re not technically at war with. Those films I think are saying a lot about what America’s role is in the world right now which is so complicated.

And then, of course , we have films about climate solutions. We’re showing Pandora’s Promise. I think a lot of people will be talking about that and nuclear power. We have a film called the Last Ocean, about the raw sea, which is quite beautiful. Black Fish which is about a killer orca at Sea World.

And then Gasland 2. I think it’s a really important film. It’s the sequel to Gasland, which just premiered at Tribeca. Josh Fox will be here. We’re at a pivotal time in this country, and this film is about how we get our energy. I think looking from a climate-solutions perspective, it’s really important that we consider everything, but it’s also important that we don’t do everything. A lot of these film are trying to say, there’s a way to do this right and there’s a way to it wrong. Tearing up a whole lot of our landscape to pull fossil fuels out of the ground in some really rough ways may not be the best way to go about this. And I think a film like Gasland 2 really looks at some of the real both environmental and human costs of this.

There are films that, again, I think people won’t necessarily think of right off the bat as “Mountainfilms.” There’s a film called Tiny about people who live in really small houses. We’re playing a film that’s really neat called X-Mas Without China. It’s a young Chinese American who starts asking his neighbors if they would try and have Christmas without buying anything Chinese. Yeah, it doesn’t leave you with a lot of options.

I think all these things are tied together. Whether it’s extraction or consumerism, these are all different kinds of adventures, and I think we’re really open to that at Mountainfilm. We look at each film and say: “Are these people striving to do something that’s different and unlike anybody else?” Just turn your head any-which-way at Mountainfilm and you’re going to find people who are.

J.M.: How has MountainFilm changed in the last 35 years to become what it is today?

D.H.: In a lot of ways I think it’s changed dramatically and in a lot ways I think it hasn’t changed at all. Where we started with alpinists and climbers, people who like to get away, they went to farthest reaches of this planet over the 35 years of our existence. If you asked people like David Breashears and Conrad Anker they would say those Himalayas that they’ve been going to for a long are looking different and that’s because of climate change. And what I like about those guys and lot of our people is they’re well aware. Yes, climbing is important to them, but they’re well aware of the real crises that we’re facing, whether it’s population or climate or water or food. They’re bringing an extra level of expertise and so I think it goes hand in hand with what the original vision was for MountainFilm that we’ve expanded.

I think there’s sometimes when we’ll see a film that’s a stretch and we have to say no because it’s too much of a stretch. But there are a lot of times when we say our audience is used to being stretched at this point and they’re psyched to see a film like Life According to Sam, which is just so beautiful. And in the end a kid like Sam embodies what our tag is about which is celebrating the indomitable spirit and I look at that as a real measure for whether or not a film should be in. It’s celebrates this and that’s important.

This interview originally appeared in the National Geographic Adventure blog Beyond the Edge on May 21, 2013
The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

I’ve been told it shouldn’t matter. But as one in a handful of black professionals in the outdoor recreation industry I can’t help being wildly excited. In June the first team of African-American climbers will attempt to reach the summit of Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the tallest peak in North America. Also known as Denali at 20,328 feet this mountain is literally the highest physical point anyone can achieve in the United States. And as metaphors go it is the ultimate realization of the dream Martin Luther King Jr. outlined in the 1963 speech that followed his historic march on Washington.

“I have a dream today,” he said “that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight.”

Called Expedition Denali this climb marks for the first time a team made up of black men and women who aspire to stand at the very top of America. And though many African-American alpinists have reached the summit over the years since it was first climbed in 1913 Expedition Denali is a bold statement meant to inspire a new generation of all races and ethnicities, particularly minority youth, to travel out into the natural world in search of adventure and join in the movement to help protect it. Organized by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) this project aims to encourage under represented members of the population to seek recreation experiences outdoors as well as career opportunities in service of the environment.

But in our “post-racial” society there are those, a few in the climbing community, who believe that initiatives like Expedition Denali are unnecessary and not even noteworthy. After having come so far as a nation to rise above our tragic past of racial discrimination and prejudice, many wonder how a climb distinguished by race can be a significant accomplishment in modern mountaineering. In an effort to help me discover the history of black climbers who had made it to the summit a friend posted a query on two climbing web site forums: “Does anyone out there know who the first African-American to summit Denali was?”

The first response set the tone for a heated exchange online that lasted for several days.

“I doubt they’d advertise it,” wrote Donwanadi, a respondent on RockClimbing.com “Pretty lame to claim First Afro-American Ascent. IMO (in my opinion) you’re either first or you’re not.”
“Why does it matter?” wrote Traches immediately after. “Is it harder for a black guy to climb a mountain than a white guy?”

“Why does it matter who the first black climber of Denali (or the highpoint of florida for that matter) is? Why do you climb? For the record books or for yourself?” wrote Keenan Waeschle on MountainProject.com. “Race and sex really should not matter. If an individual comes from particularly humble beginnings then sure I’ll support them because they are an inspiration. If they’re a different race from me (caucasian) good for them, but not because of their race.”

The discussion was filled with similar comments from climbers who share a common belief: When it comes to mountaineering race doesn’t matter. And some even question the logic of inspiring young people by providing them with role models who share their ethnic heritage.

“You assume that minority children can’t look at ANY human climber and get motivated,” wrote hobgoblin11 on Rockclimbing.com. “He has to be a climber of THIER skin color according to you .. so are you implying that children are inherently racist?”

The exchange went on and on like that. Several respondents asserted that an effort like Expedition Denali was itself racially divisive. But there were at least a few who seem to recognize the central point of the issue.

“In a perfect world it doesn’t matter,” wrote marc801 on RockClimbing.com. “but we are involved in a sport/endeavor that has a severe lack of Afro-ethnicity participants. Look at all those triumphant summit photos over the years of the big peaks with the proud ascentionists and I fear you’ll probably have enough fingers to count the number of Afro-origin climbers in those photos.”

That lack of participation is the problem. It’s not a question of whether or not African-Americans can climb high mountains. What matters is as group we tend not to. And for a variety of different social and cultural reasons the world of mountaineering has been relegated almost exclusively to white men. Without any deliberate effort to prevent blacks and other minorities from becoming involved in the sport, the number of non-white participants is conspicuously low. The organizers of Expedition Denali merely hope to change that by introducing a new narrative into the mix and perhaps redefine what it means to be a climber.

“When you think about the story that mountaineering has been it’s been predominantly white male,” said Expedition Denali team member Erica Wynn. “If a little black girl were to look into mountaineering and hear that single story she would probably say I don’t have much of a place there, or the odds are against me. I hope that Expedition Denali and being a part of this helps to change that story.”

Expedition Denali isn’t meant to right past wrongs of bigotry in mountaineering. Rather this initiative aims to demonstrate that despite so few current participants people of color do indeed have a place in this world of adventure. Upon their successful return from Denali each of the team members will go back to their respective communities across the country and share that message of inclusion. Connecting directly with young people of color in particular the Expedition Denali team will serve as role models who share many of the same life experiences and aspirations for the future. This national outreach initiative will include the distribution of feature-length documentary film and a non-fiction account of the climb to be published by the Mountaineers Books.

In answer to my query online I discovered that the first African-American to climb Denali was a Boeing engineer from Seattle named Charles M. Crenchaw. Part of the 1964 McKinley Expedition Crenchaw made it to the top of America the same year the Civil Rights Amendment was signed into law. At a time in this country when millions of African-Americans were denied the right to vote as well as many other liberties we take for granted one man took it upon himself to fulfill his own dream in the world of climbing.

Crenchaw would go on to climb Denali again the following year and through his career he also summited Mount Rainer, Aconcagua and several other notable peaks . He was a member of the Seattle Mountaineers as well as the American Alpine Club having served on the board of each for many years. Crenchaw died in 1998, well regarded by his friends and fellow climbers in Seattle. But with no children of his own he passed away quietly with no one to share his legacy so that future generations might be inspired by not only his courage as a climber but the contributions he made to the mountaineering community as a whole.

The obligation and privilege to share Crenchaw’s story now falls to me. As a journalist and supporter of diversity in outdoor recreation I have the rare opportunity to impart upon aspiring adventurers young and old the knowledge that they are part of a great tradition of mountaineering that continues through this day. Expedition Denali is the next chapter in an ongoing story that truly matters.

A version of this story originally appeared in the National Geographic Adventure Magazine blog Beyond the Edge on May 9, 2013

Thanks to the more than 700 backers on Kickstarter whose financial contributions helped us to conclude a successful campaign to raise the funds necessary to produce a feature-length documentary film on Expedition Denali.
The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

Charles Crenchaw (the Mountaineers Books)

One year after Jim Whittaker and his team became the first Americans to summit Mount Everest another historic climb was achieved in Alaska. In 1964 along with 14 other climbers Charles Crenchaw became the first African-American to reach the top of Mount McKinley, also known as Denali. Achieving a height of 20,328 feet above sea level Crenchaw had climbed higher than any black man in American history. And though we celebrate Whittaker today for his great accomplishment 50 years ago Crenchaw remains all but forgotten.

Despite this powerful role model in the mountaineering community it would be another 43 years before an African-American climber stood on the summit of Everest. And when Sophia Danenberg ascended to the top of the world in 2006 that event too went mostly unreported. With no one to celebrate and tell the story of these firsts in African-American climbing how will future generations become inspired and aim to follow their shining examples?

In 2013 the first team of African-American climbers will attempt to reach the summit of Denali. Following the example of Crenchaw almost 50 years later these black men and women aspire not only to reach the highest peak in North America but to demonstrate for minority youth the adventure and opportunities available to them in mountaineering and outdoor recreation at large.

Expedition Denali is meant to raise awareness for the importance of all people to become involved in an active lifestyle that includes spending time in nature. And with the creation of a documentary film and a non-fiction book to tell the story the organizers of this historic event hope that it too will not fade into obscurity and go forgotten for another 50 years.
You can help. Support Expedition Denali on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/676871108/expedition-denali-documentary-film

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

The 2013 6th annual 5Point Film Festival concluded with top honors going to Fitz Cahall‘s moving film Road to Karakol featuring adventurer Kyle Dempster. Local filmmaker Anson Fogel also took prizes in cinematography for Cascada and creative excellence for Death of Bar T. Dominic Gill‘s story about disabled cyclist Aaron Baker All I Am won the prize for most inspiring film.

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The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

The 5Point Film Festival featured a full day of programs on Saturday with a special block of films for children including a puppet show. Day 3 festivities lasted well into the evening with a dance party hosted by local filmmaker Anson Fogel at the Carbondale offices of Camp 4 Collective and Forge Motion Pictures

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The second day of the 5Point Film Festival was highlighted with a breakfast discussion on the future of adventure filmmaking, a panel discussion on the role of social media in the creation and distribution of new projects, a dinner reception for the filmmakers and special guests and an amazing jam session at Steve’s Guitars in Carbondale. There’s so much more than just movies going on!

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The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

After a crazy good time in Carbondale at the 5Point Film Festival over the weekend I’m taking the slow way home. I’m putting in some time to summarize this wonderful experience in few upcoming posts. But in the meantime I hope you’ll enjoy browsing through a few photographs shot as the event unfolded.

~JEM

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The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

You never know who you’re going to meet on the Joy Trip of life. With some time to kill on my way to the 5Point Film Festival in Carbondale, Colorado I stopped to visit an old friend in the town of Golden. Mark Cohen is a sales representative for the Skylark Group, an agency that manages products and services for The North Face in the Rocky Mountains. Over an amazing lunch at Bob’s Atomic Burger Mark told me about one of his co-workers who hopes to make a pretty amazing trip of her own. Lacey Lynn McQuinn, a specialty sales analyst for the firm, wants to take a ride into space.

“It’s been a life-long dream ever since I was little. I think I have an infatuation with a place that no one else really goes. Like the unattainable dream,” she said in an interview. “Ever since middle school I’ve been in love with space and this could be the only way for me to get there. I’m not going to be an astronaut in real life so why not try to find another way.”

The way McQuinn plans to get into space is by winning a national contest. Originally announced in a commercial for Axe Apollo body spray during the 2013 Super Bowl this once in a lifetime opportunity was opened to the general public to enter a drawing for a chance to win a ride on a sub-orbital shuttlecraft operated by the Space Expedition Corporation. In this text stage in the emerging business of space tourism, passengers get to experience the thrill of traveling faster than the speed of sound, a 103KM view of the Earth below, zero gravity weightlessness and an ultra high G-force reentry into the atmosphere. Definitely one wild ride!

Competing against thousands of contestants nation-wide McQuinn, known now by her followers as Lunar Lacey, made it onto the leader board of the top ten contenders and is currently ranked number six. As the only women in field exclusively of men she hopes to secure the votes of a few more thousand fans to push her at least into second place. The first two finishers will be selected to go to Space Camp for training and from there the top graduate goes to the launching pad.

“I have a lot of passion and motivation. I think above everyone else in this contest I think I’ve been the one who’s gone above and beyond to get these votes,” McQuinn said. “I’ve decked out my car, I’ve made a YouTube Video. I’ve gone out to the bars downtown in my spacesuit. It would be devastating, devastating if I didn’t get to go.”

Like most reality inspired entertainment today it all boils down to a popularity contest. McQuinn could be selected for Space Camp by popular vote of the people. With her can-do attitude and dedication to the selection process she worth considering for the chance to win. She’s got my vote!

For details on the contest and how to cast your ballot visit https://www2.axeapollo.com/en_US/35389/lacey-mcquinn?image=0

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

5Point Film Festival executive director Sarah Wood (left) and the team prepare for the April 2013 event; Photograph by Corie Spruill

The 5Point Film Festival running April 25 to 28 in Carbondale, Colorado, kicks off the adventure film festival season and sets the stage for the rest of the year. By presenting a wide range of movies that push the definition of adventure, the film festival aims to inspire the community—young and old, and of all ability levels—to define what their own next adventure might be. Unlike other film festivals, 5Point has one venue and one evening program, so movie goers have a shared experience. Then during the day, the festival attendees explore the adventure playground of Carbondale, Colorado.

Previously with the American Alpine Club, new executive director Sarah Wood brings much experience and energy of her own to the festival now in its 6th year. Here she tells us why 5Point is unique, what shapes her vision, and about a few exciting new films.

James Mills: How does film help to tell the stories of the adventure community? What role do you think 5Point plays in sharing those stories?

Sarah Wood: I think 5Point is less about focusing on what kind of story it is, but that it’s a great story. I think you’ll recognize that not every story is about kayaking or climbing or mountaineering or adventure in the typical definition. We’re about telling inspirational stories, and lot of times that does happen in the outdoors and beautiful remote places. But sometimes it can happen in your backyard. Sometimes it can happen in unexpected places. We like to find and show those stories as well at the festival.

Film has a unique way of drawing a person into a story in such a different way than a written piece or a spoken piece can do. They can be equally as powerful, but I think that with film you’re able to put yourself into someone else’s shoes in a different way. And we hope to allow people to do that … and maybe recognize that piece of themselves in these stories. Film is such a powerful tool in that way.

JM: There are a lot of adventure film festivals out there. How is 5Point different in your opinion?

SW: 5Point is different in a couple of ways. We have just one venue and program, and you’re either in it or you’re not. It’s everyone coming together in one shared experience, and I think that’s something that we really value. I don’t think it is, I know it is! That experience together creates a much more powerful energy than we feel it does when you separate people. So we take that philosophy to how we allow our audience and our filmmakers and the athletes and the community to really come together and share in that experience. There are very few boundaries between the special guests and the audience. And we really encourage that. We feel the best experience at 5Point is when you leave having met new people and hearing these amazing stories you find that it’s not just happening on the screen. It’s happening in conversation over dinner or at the coffee shop in the morning. And also just giving people the opportunity to enjoy the place.

Carbondale is a really special little paradise, and we want people to get out and enjoy it while they’re here, whether it’s just walking down Main Street or hiking up Red Hill or going for a backcountry ski in the morning, if there’s still some snow around after all this warm weather. But that’s part of the experience as well.

JM: Tell us about the program for 2013. What we can we expect that might be new or dramatically different from last year.

SW: I think we continue to explore our definition of adventure. And I think that’s something that we really want our audience to do for themselves. What we’re very, very excited about are a couple of pieces that we have helped produce. One of those things is by Duct Tape and Then Beer, Fitz Cahall’s production company. He did a piece on Kyle Dempster and his story of his biking adventure and climbing adventure. That’s going to be a world premiere at 5Point, and Kyle is going to be here to talk about his philosophy on life and the story behind the film—we’re really excited about that piece.

Another piece that we’re putting together is with 5Point favorite Jeremy Collins and a local bike racer and coffee shop owner here in Carbondale. We’ve put them together for a unique piece called Participate. In some ways that’s going to be a surprise to us as well because we’ve given them some direction, and they’ve had some great ideas—they’re running with it right now. But it’s not finished so we’re excited to premiere it at 5Point.

I would say that there are a couple of other pieces that are surprises to us. There’s a break-dancing piece that is totally off what people might expect. But the story is very much 5Point, very much about humility and respect. It’s called With a Piece of Chalk.

We’ve got some local films, too. We had a local photographer named Summers Moore who came to the festival last year. As a mother she brought her kids and was just fully inspired to help other kids around the valley create films that are 5Point films. She works with a Monastery school in a couple of classrooms with kids between 4th to 8th grades. They made some short films and they’re finishing the edit right now. We’re really excited to showcase those in our kids program, and hope to have people in the audience who are in the films. I know these kids are going to be totally psyched about that.

JM: So what are your goals for the future of 5Point? 

SW: 5Point is very much about the community we’re in, and we feel that if we are to do something outside of this community we need to be doing that within and a part of that community. And so when we think about our growth we’re challenged here in terms of the event itself, but we’re not necessarily challenged in the other things that we can do around the valley. We do have our Dream Project scholarship. That program has really grown as well, whether we add another scholarship to the group here or if we reach into other communities around the state. Right now the Dream Project scholarship is open to the entire valley, and we go to each school and present to them the project and let them decide how they want to apply and what projects they want to do over the summer. We have five great projects this year but we do see that as an area for growth.

But in terms of the experience and the organization of events, we’re not sure what direction that’s going to take. But we do feel we’d like to see it take a direction that’s not a typical tour as we’ve experience with some of the other players in the space. We like the idea of taking our programming and working with a community and building a one-night kind of “Taste of 5Point” somewhere and seeing how that community can grow that event. So we think our growth is going be slow, pretty steady and very meticulous in the communities we choose to work with.

Check out the complete 5Point Film Festival schedule of events onlinehttp://5pointfilm.org/festival/festival-schedule

This story originally ran in the National Geographic blog Beyond The Edge on  April 10, 2013

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

At the age of 26 best-selling author Cheryl Strayed strapped on a backpack and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. Over the course of 94 days she traveled from Mojave California to the Bridge of the Gods in Cascade Locks Oregon, just outside of Portland where she lives today. Four years after loosing her mother who died of cancer Strayed ventured  into the wilds of nature in order to find a part of herself she felt was missing. With absolutely now experience in backpacking she made the impulsive decision to deal with her unimaginable grief with an impossible adventure.

Strayed:
I was in such a place of desperation at that moment in my life that I needed something big. I needed a journey. I needed to go, to get myself to a different place. As I say in my book to gather myself, back to myself. And I knew that that wasn’t going to be a bunch of day hikes as I traveled and car camped. It needed to be a journey into the wild.

JTP:
While hiking the PCT Strayed encountered much of what you might expect on a long backpacking trip. But she’d find there was more in store for her than bug bits, blisters and sunburn. Along the miles of her journey she discovered the strength to endure the pain and suffering of loss while coming to the understanding that like the trail before her life goes on.
I’m James Mills and you’re listening to the Joy Trip Project.

Music by the Shanghai Restoration Project

JTP:
Cheryl Strayed was the key note speaker at the biannual breakfast meeting of the Conservation Alliance during the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had the opportunity to talk to her about her book Wild and the circumstances that started her long journey after the sudden death of her mother.

Strayed:
I was really in a place of total despair. It’s sort of strange for me to really remember it now, because I’m 44. I’m happy. I have this really rich happy life. But at that time I really felt like I didn’t feel that I could go on. I had worked myself into such a place of sorrow over the grief of my mother. But then the things I did in that grief brought me further down. I made bad decisions. I was sexually promiscuous. I cheated on my husband who I loved. And that was really against my values. It was against the person I am. I’m not against promiscuity. I think it can have its moment in a life, but it was not the good thing for me to be doing it in that context. I was deceiving someone I loved. I was deceiving, really sort of violating a promise I made to someone I cared about. And then I got involved with drugs. Anyone who’s ever been under the influence knows, those things we reach for them because we think they’ll make us feel better and they always make us feel worse. When you reach for them in desperation they make you feel worse. And so those things were all effecting my state of mind too. And I got to the point where I thought, well you know why should I? Why should I go on living? Who would care if I disappeared? And I was feeling so much pain that it was the first time that I understood how it is that people would choose to end their lives. I wasn’t…I wouldn’t say I was honestly considering suicide. But I felt that kind of pain. Why  I go on?

JTP:
Is it fair to suggest that you might have gone into the wild in act of not necessarily of self destruction but in that moment in time to perhaps become reborn in a way?

Strayed:
Yes. I think what I’d been doing is throwing myself up against risk. I was doing dangerous things. I mean I was shooting heroine. I was having sex with people I hardly knew and not always protected. I felt like I could take risks because I felt like nobody cares about me so I don’t have to care about myself, you know? I was also coming to terms with, you know, back there, there was also my father who was an abusive father, not person in my life. I think that when my mom died the, the stuff with my father that I thought I had sort of resolved, which really I solved by burying, really emerged. And I felt  that kind of sorrow. I think when I made the decision to go into the wild it was like I needed to test my strength, myself against something. It was like a positive risk. It was like I’m going to be daring in a way that actually builds my soul rather than depletes it.

JTP:
Now I get the impression from your book that you did heroine for the first time on impulse. I would describe it as a very impulsive act. And you also just a moment ago described heroine as the opposite of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Is it fair to suggest that hiking the PCT was also a compulsive act?

Strayed:
I think the decision seems compulsive. You know I’m standing in line and I grab this book off the shelf and I think I’m going to do that. On the other hand some of my best decisions have come at like that. I think it wasn’t…it didn’t rise out of nothing.  Just like the decision to use heroine, the woman who was offered heroine and said yes was a woman who was suffering, who was alone, who was in a state of despair and willing to basically try anything. So that rose out of that moment. The woman who decided to hike the PCT was someone who was realizing that she had gone way too far down and alley she had never intended to go and I didn’t know how to find my way back. But when I read about the PCT I thought,  it’s going to get me somewhere. Walking that trail will lead me somewhere and it will probably be some where good.

JTP:
So having made the hike, is there any point in particular that you felt, well in reading this there are plenty of time you wish that you had quit. You might have decided to turn around but at what point where you especially glad to be on the PCT.

Strayed:
The wasn’t…there might have been a couple of days in those 94 days where I you know at the end of the day didn’t feel glad.  Most days I would sit, I would make my camp, I would eat my dinner and I was often in a place of complete, I was absolutely shattered, physically shattered, I mean brought to end. Having hiked five miles beyond what I thought I could hike that day. And I would just sit there and eat my little pot of food and watch the sunset, or sometimes the sun had set already and I’d watch the stars and listen to the coyotes or whatever it was and just feel immense beauty and that was so profound. I always felt glad to be there, even though I spent most of the day complaining to myself in my head about how my feet hurt or something.

JTP:
So was there a particular moment that was especially bad?
Strayed:
There were many particular moments that were especially bad. You know one day that always that stands out to me was a day pretty early in my hike when I decided I was going to quit and it was…I had this terribly, ridiculously heavy pack.

JTP:
Monster
Strayed:
Exactly monster, but even a big, big strong man would have very, a lot of trouble carrying this pack. And I’m hiking and it’s hot. It’s hundred and something…whatever it is it’s hotter than anything. And there’s no shade. And I realize I have made a terrible mistake and I quit. I just wanted out. As I right in Wild I’m going  to get off this trail and get on a bus and I don’t care where it’s going. I’m getting away from here. And it was really, you know, total despair.

JTP:
At the end of the day when you talk about the experience you had in   backpacking trip…I want to make sure that I formulate this question properly. It’s been a long time. Why now? What’s changed that makes it important for you to tell this story today that, you know happened a very long time ago.

Strayed:
It’s been like 17 years. ’95 this summer it will be 18 years. And I wrote it 13 or 14 years after the hike and think that so much of that, you know I always say I didn’t write Wild because I took a hike. I wrote Wild because I’m a writer. What I had to say in Wild, was of course about a hike, it was of course about a backpacking journey, but more importantly it was about what that hike meant to me. I couldn’t figure out what it meant to me in deep way until I first because the writer I am today and that takes time. But also the person I am today, to understand what is the perspective that the 40-year-old me could bare on the 26 year old me. And that’s the deeper story of like what is it that we as humans seek when we set out on a journey. What happens when we suffer and we feel we can’t go on? How do we go on anyway? These were the bigger questions I was asking through the really smaller  prism of my own experience.

JTP:
You’re clearly a different person today. If you were to go back in time as the person you are today and talk to Cheryl at 26 what would tell her?
Strayed:
What’s interesting is that I think that I’m, I know that I’m essentially the same person. You know I really am the same person. It’s just that I couldn’t see then that you know time heals all wounds. And that I felt stuck. And when you do experience big grief there’s a reason. It’s a big loss and I was stuck in it. And I couldn’t imagine that I would ever feel any other way. And what I’ve learned, the older me wants to go back to the younger me and say it’s OK . You can survive this and you will. But it’s going to take some effort on your part. And most of that effort is going to have to do with simply accepting, accepting that life is hard and that we all have losses and we can move through them. When I was writing Wild I would sometimes go back and shake my head at the younger version of myself and frankly more often than not I felt a lot of love for the younger version of myself and I felt protective of her.

JTP:
And what would say to that person who might be going out on the PCT for the first time now?

Strayed:
Go do it! Go do it indeed. There’s no question that it it will lead to something beautiful. And that it’s going to be hard and the best medicine for difficult times I think is laughter. Because I think it is pretty funny some of the stuff that happens out there. It is pretty funny in the end. That horribly heavy pack, that monster I couldn’t bare now is only like the punchline of a very long joke in memory. So I think that sometimes really to keep going you have to sometimes bring in some humor.

The book Wild is published by Knopf and is available wherever fine books are sold. You can learn more about the author and her other works in literature online at CherylStrayed.com.

Music This week by The Shanghai Restoration Project.

The Joy Trip Project is made possible with the support of sponsors Patagonia, Rayovac and the New Belgium Brewing Company

Special thanks the Conservation Alliance for arranging this interview.