2020-11-01 Outside

outside a d 2 0 20 JOURNEY
ventur

photograph BY TO THE

E o i n Carey

center

of the F o r n e a r ly h a l f a c e n t u r y, l e g e n d s o f a g i a n t
cave in the Andes—holding artifacts that could
rewrite human history—have beckoned adventurers
a n d tan ta l i z e d fa n s o f th e o c c u lt. N o w t h e d a u g h te r
of a legendary explorer is on a new kind of quest:
to tell the truth about the cave in order to save it.

BY D A V I D

KUSHNER

EARTH

Descending
into Ecuador’s
Cueva de los
Tayos, or Cave
of the Oilbirds

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 4 9

THE

WORLD’S

MOST

c a v em y s t e r i o u s

R E A C H .T Oi s d i f f i c u l t

To get to Cueva de los Tayos—Cave of the because of their fatty chicks, which the crumbled to dust when touched,” Hall writes
Oilbirds—drive east out of Ecuador’s capital
city of Quito for eight hours along narrow, Shuar capture and reduce to oil. The cave in Tayos Gold, his book about the expedi-
potholed roads that twist through cloud-
forest above the Amazon Basin. Pull over is also rumored to contain artifacts of a tion. Though the team didn’t find the metal
outside the small town of Mendez, and walk
a path to the bank of the muddy Santiago lost civilization. A 1972 bestselling book by library, Armstrong put the adventure “up
River, where you’ll see locals hauling 150-
pound bushels of bananas on their shoul- Swiss author Erich von Däniken, called The there with the moon landing.”
ders. Lower yourself into a long wooden
canoe and glide past cascading waterfalls to Gold of the Gods, claimed that Tayos held Beyond that, only a small number of in-
the start of a dirt trail. Hike five hours in the
humidity, over Puntilla de Coangos moun- carved passageways and a “metal library” trepid hikers, wide-eyed UFO believers, and
tain, then up to the summit of Bocana de
Coangos. The trail ends at a clearing with of tablets written in an unknown language. even a team of researchers from Brigham
three thatch huts, home to a dozen Shuar,
the ancient tribe that guards the cave. Von Däniken has long believed that aliens Young University—who believed that the

The Shuar are the Indigenous people of once inhabited the earth, and the tablets metal tablets might be linked to the Mor-
the region, legendary warriors known for
shamanism and for shrinking the heads of fit his theory that extraterrestrials helped mon faith—have made it inside. The cave
their enemies. Tayos beckons from deep in-
side territory that is managed and protected ancient people evolve. has also attracted inter-
by the tribe, and visitors must take great care
when navigating the local politics and cus- The notion has been criti- est from geologists and
toms. Theo Toulkaridis, a geology profes-
sor and researcher at the University of the cized as pseudoscientific Stan Hall archaeologists, who have
Armed Forces in Ecuador, who is a leading
expert on Tayos, learned this the hard way in and racist, attributing assembled a team mapped portions using
2014. After a few days exploring the cave, he the achievements of now 3D technology to bet-
climbed out to find 20 angry Shuar waiting
for him. Toulkaridis had hired local guides, marginalized earthlings of scientists, ter understand its scope.
but other Shuar were upset that they had
not been hired as well. “My guide hugged to interlopers from space. cavers, military (Roughly four miles of the
me close and whispered, ‘Don’t resist,’ ” Yet it spawned a cottage personnel, and, cave have been mapped so
Toulkaridis recalls. Then a Shuar woman industry of books, con- far, but an estimated three
whipped him with a belt.
ventions, and TV shows, r e m a r k a b ly, miles remain.) Toulkaridis
Tayos is named for the brown-feathered,
hook-billed nocturnal birds that dwell in- including the History astronaut Neil calls it “a natural labora-
side the cave alongside thousands of bats. Channel’s Ancient Aliens, tory which is fundamen-
The birds act a lot like bats, spending their
days in darkness and heading out at night which premiered in 2010 Armstrong, and led tally untouched.”
to forage for fruit. They’re called oilbirds
and is one of the network’s them into Tayos. To enter Tayos,you need
most popular programs. more than the permission

A couple of years after of the Shuar. You also need

The Gold of the Gods was a blessing from the cave

published,the late Scottish explorer Stan Hall itself. I learn this late one starry night in

assembled a team of 100 scientists, cavers, August of 2019, in Kuankus, the tiny Shuar

British and Ecuadorean military personnel, settlement, which is located about one mile

and, remarkably, astronaut Neil Armstrong, uphill from Tayos. Getting here has been a

who served as a figurehead, and led them brutal ten-hour slog in sweltering heat. The

into Tayos to unravel the mystery. What they trek included crossing a rickety rope bridge

found astonished them. Deep inside, in spots high above the rapids and trudging in mud

where it would have been impossible to lug through thick jungle loaded with giant black

machinery, there were stone passageways bullet ants, so named because being bit by

that appeared to have been cut at right an- one feels like being shot. The plan is to stay

gles and then polished. They also discovered in Kuankus for the night, then enter the cave

a burial site dating back to 1500 B.C. with our Shuar guides the next morning.

“The cadaver, as if surprised by the sud- I’m here with a small team led by Eileen

den intrusion after so many lonely centuries, Hall, Stan Hall’s 34-year-old half-Scottish,

5 0 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

Clockwise: The 1976
expedition; Stan Hall,
1975; the Coangas
River; Shuar guide
Jaime Tiwiram giving
a blessing before
leading a group into
the cave

C LO C KW I S E F RO M L E F T: TAYO S A R C H I V ES ( 2 ) ; E O I N CA R E Y/ TAYO S A RT ( 2 ) . O P E N I N G PAG E S : TAYO S A RT. half-Ecuadoran daughter, who continued force in the Shuar religion, to enter Tayos. and travel. “He got interested in explorers,”
her father’s quest to understand the true After a few moments of silence, the shaman Eileen says. “People like Lawrence of Arabia
history and power of the cave after he died tells us that the spirit has allowed us inside who would go off into the unknown.” Read-
of prostate cancer in 2008. Eileen, who lives what she calls “the womb of the earth.” ing about Tayos in The Gold of the Gods cap-
in London, is artistic and spiritual, a former tured his imagination like nothing before.
architect who now conducts what she calls “MORDER LA CABEZA”—bite off the head— Von Däniken claimed that an Argentine-
energy-healing work with private clients. the street vendor says as he hands me a Hungarian explorer, Juan Moricz, had taken
Along with another architect, Tamsin Cun- chontacuro, a plump white grubworm fresh him to the cave, where they found the tablets
ningham, she is also a cofounder of Tayos, a from a sizzling grill. As I struggle to distin- that, he wrote, “might contain a synopsis of
company that explores the cave through writ- guish the head from the body, Eileen says, the history of humanity,as well as an account
ing, music, and meditation. Today, with her in her Scottish brogue, “It’s that little black of the origin of mankind on earth and infor-
long brown hair in a ponytail, she’s dressed thing right there.” mation of a vanished civilization.”
in a black Ecuadorean shirt, long gray hiking
pants, and blue rubber boots caked in mud. It’s a few days before our descent into The fantastical account gripped Hall, who
This is her fourth expedition to the cave. Tayos,and we’ve stopped for a break in Mera, on a whim decided to write to Neil Arm-
When I ask her what I should expect, she tells a small gateway town to the Andes. A band strong and invite him to take a trip to the cave
me that Tayos is “a psychedelic experience.” plays drums and trumpets just off the town in 1976. Armstrong, recently world-famous
square where local merchants sell crafts and from his moon walk, could draw enormous
After sipping from a wooden bowl of chi- food. Eileen sways to the festive music and attention to the venture, and as Hall had
cha, a chalky, alcoholic drink made from compliments a local craftswoman on her learned, the astronaut had Scottish roots,
fermented yuca (prepared by women who butterfly earrings. Though Eileen has been so he just might consider the idea. To Hall’s
chew it and then spit into the bowl), we living in the UK since she was a young girl, shock, Armstrong wrote back saying he was
gather with the Shuar around a campfire. A she was born in Ecuador and feels deeply interested. With that letter in hand, Hall ap-
shaman—a stout, middle-aged woman with connected to the country. If it wasn’t for proached both the British and Ecuadorean
long, dark hair—leads us through the per- Tayos, which drew her father here decades governments, which agreed to provide fund-
mission ceremony. We hold hands while in before, she wouldn’t even exist. ing and helicopter transportation to the site.
Spanish she thanks the stars, the moon, the Within a year, Hall had organized one of the
earth. She removes a smoldering log from Eileen’s father never dreamed of becoming largest cave expeditions of his time.
the fire, waving its smoke behind each of us a famous explorer. As a young married man
in a blessing. Finally, we take turns asking for in Dunbar, a seaside town near Edinburgh, Hall’s journey made him famous, in-
permission from Arutam, the all-powerful he was a mild-mannered civil engineer spiring him to quit his day job and move to
with a bookish interest in science, history, Ecuador to keep exploring the cave. But it

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 5 1

also ended his first marriage, which couldn’t was excited, but the realities of the Eileen Hall
endure the strain. In Quito, he met and mar- journey felt treacherous. It was the in her
ried an Ecuadoran woman, Janeth Muñoz, rainy season, which meant flooding London flat
who shared his passion for Ecuador’s his- streams and water coursing down

tory, and in 1986 she gave birth to their muddy slopes along the approach

daughter. For Eileen, growing up as the child hike. Entering Tayos begins with a

of a celebrated explorer felt like a fairy tale. rappel along a series of ropes, and

But Muñoz, who still lives near Edinburgh, on the descent Eileen was fright-

says that Hall struggled to get support for ened by the screaming oilbirds

his research. He was consumed by his search lurking in the blackness. Once on

for the legendary library, and the only money the ground, she found the cave so

they had came from his occasional consult- overwhelmingly dusty and dark

ing jobs. When he wasn’t strategizing with that she jumped at the first chance

treasure hunters over beers, he was off with to leave before nightfall. “It was all

the Shuar, who made him a blood brother of too much,” she says.

the tribe. “Dad became obsessed, he called Two years later, in 2017, she was

it the fever,” Eileen recalls. With Hall so invited to return for an episode

caught up in his work while Ecuador was on of Expedition Unknown, a Travel

the verge of a deep financial crisis, they were Channel program. Though she had

often unable to pay their rent. grown up with what she calls “the

Hall and Muñoz had a second daughter, treasure story” of Tayos, she was

and in the mid-1990s Muñoz insisted on no longer convinced that a metal li-

moving the family to Scotland to have a safer brary existed, and even if it did, she

and more stable existence. For ten-year-old didn’t think it would be the work

Eileen, the relocation—in the middle of the of little green men. Now she felt

Scottish winter—was devastating. She was like a prop in an overwrought real-

the only brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking ity show. She couldn’t stomach the

child in her class. Bullied by other students, host’s perfunctory treatment of the

she became depressed and at times suicidal. Shuar and his blustery mugging for

As she matured into adulthood, Eileen the camera: as he entered one shad-

took steps to find meaning in her life. She owy chamber, he proclaimed, “This

traveled around Europe and earned a de- just got real!”

gree in architecture. Meanwhile, her father Eileen felt a growing sense of

continued to return to Ecuador, where his alienation in a male-dominated adventure cave walls sculpted the sound.“It was a gen-

fruitless searches for the metal library grew narrative. Explorer stories—from Colum- tler way of exploring, instead of this gung-

increasingly frustrating. He was also, Eileen bus to Shackleton to Neil Armstrong—are ho way,” she says.

learned, dying of cancer. predominantly about white men seeking the She emerged four days later with a new

Late one night in 2008, while holding vigil edges of the known world. Where did she fit sense of the place, and of herself. “In sha-

at his bedside in Scotland, she was struck in? “Men went off and discovered new lands, manic work, you go into the darkness and

with a new sense of purpose: and that’s why our his- the shadow, but the moment you run away

she would keep his work tory is that women have from it is when you get into trouble,” she

alive. For her, Tayos was After a few to stay at home,” she told says. “For me the cave is this idea of facing
about more than the myster- moments of me. “For me this journey the unknown and befriending it to receive a
ies of the Shuar—it was also has been about finding more complete wisdom about life.”

a connection to her origins. silence, the my voice as a woman.”

She would go back to Ecua- shaman tells us In August 2018, she FOR OUR TRIP, Eileen had a vision, a proj-
dor, she promised him, and led her first expedition to ect that would bring together creativity and

continue the journey he had that the spirit has Tayos, a trip with both activism. The plan is to record musical per-

begun. “I’m going to follow allowed us inside artistic and scientific formances inside the cave for a multime-
your spirit,” she said just be- what she calls goals. She didn’t want to dia installation in London. Publicity from
fore he died. just investigate the cave; that will generate support for Unesco World

Eileen’s decision left her “the womb of the she wanted to find new Heritage Site designation, protecting the

mother with mixed emo- earth.” ways of experiencing it. area around Tayos from mining and other
tions. “I feel proud of her,” To do this, she brought threats. The musicians are an Ecuadoran

Muñoz says, “but I suppose along a small group of multi-instrumentalist named David Villa-

she is going to encounter artists, including Jon gomez and British producer Henry “Hoffy”

the same kind of problems that he did,” with Hopkins, an electronic musician from Eng- Hoffman. We’ll set up camp an hour’s hike

trying to protect the cave. land, and neuroscientist Mendel Kaelen, into the cave and spend two days and nights

who would measure how listening to music there, recording and exploring under the

AFTER 2010, the Shuar began guiding small in the cave impacted the brain. guidance of the Shuar.

groups of tourists into Tayos. Then, in 2015, Once inside, Eileen and the artists made Eileen admits that skeptics would prob-

Eileen made her first trip into the cave with their way into the shadows, meditating, ably label her New Agey, but Toulkaridis told

an Ecuadoran documentary filmmaker. She playing music, and listening to ways that the me that, after initially being resistant to her

5 2 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20 PHOTOGRAPH BY Juliette Cassidy

C LO C KW I S E F RO M TO P : EO I N CA R E Y/ TAYO S A RT; TAYO S A R C H I V ES ( 2 ) Clockwise: darts to destroy their foes. They were so country and will occupy some 22,000 acres
Eileen Hall’s feared that in 1995 the Ecuadorean army of forest. Since construction began, the
2018 expedition; developed elite units of Shuar soldiers for Shuar have staged numerous protests. There
an oilbird; Neil territorial battles with Peru. have been violent confrontations with police
Armstrong inside and military forces, and at least two anti-
Tayos in 1976 Since the 1960s, the Shuar have main- mining activists have been murdered.
tained jurisdiction over portions of their
idea of playing music in the cave, he has no land, and they’ve become a powerful force in Eileen told me that her father earned the
objections to the esoteric nature of the en- protecting the country’s natural resources.In respect of the Shuar and that the tribe was
terprise. To him, anything that helps spread 2008, they helped persuade the Ecuadorean instrumental in helping him gain access to
the word about the fragility of the region’s legislature to pass the world’s first law grant- the cave. “They were very welcoming,” she
landscape and the Shuar people is worth- ing the kinds of legal rights to forests and riv- says. After three past trips to Tayos, she’s
while. “Scientists have no outreach to the ers that are ordinarily reserved for people. developed her own familial connection with
mass media,” he says. “You need someone Kuankus villagers, who dress in modern
who can help get the message heard.” Still, the Shuar are vulnerable to develop- clothing but still mostly live off the land.
ment. In 2012, the government entered into When we first arrived, a middle-aged Shuar
A seminomadic, polygynous tribe spread a contract with Ecuacorriente S.A. in which woman named Susana Wamputsar and her
across the forests of Ecuador and Peru, the the Chinese-owned mining company would husband, Don Bosco Tiwiram, presented
Shuar have been fighting against coloniza- invest $1.4 billion to build a copper and gold Eileen with handmade jewelry.
tion and missionization since the Spaniards mine in the heart of Shuar territory. The
invaded their territory in the 16th century. move defied Ecuadorean law and interna- After the ceremony giving us permission
To the Europeans, they were subjects of tional agreements on the rights of Indige- to enter the cave, we sit with the couple—
fascination: a warrior culture known for nous people, according to the International along with one of their sons, Jaime, who will
shrinking the heads of their victims as a way Federation of Human Rights and the United be our primary guide and translator—on a
of capturing souls. In battle they believed Nations. Called the Mirador Mine, it’s the small wooden bench outside a thatch hut. As
that their shaman could conjure invisible first large-scale mining operation in the Susana speaks, Jaime translates her words
into Spanish, then Eileen translates them
into English so I can follow along. Susana,
who was around 12 when Hall’s expedi-
tion came through the area, recalls the dra-
matic sight of the helicopters landing. She
says the elders in her community wouldn’t
dare go near the cave while the foreigners
were there. According to folklore, the men
left with “a thigh bone,” she says, as well
as boxes of ceramics. She recounts another
well-known story, about a time decades
earlier when an Italian monk named Father
Carlos Crespi left the cave with “tablets
wrapped in newspaper.”

Ecuador banned expeditions to Tayos soon
after Hall’s expedition, so that the Shuar
could “come back to their place and just be
with the cave,” Susana explains. It remained
closed to foreigners until the Shuar began
offering tours a decade ago. When I ask her
what the Shuar believe is inside Tayos, she
tells me that there is a tall stone that con-
tains salt, as well as a “double spirit.” One
is Nunkui, a female entity who protects and
cultivates the plants of the area. The other
is Weh, who makes healing salts. For centu-
ries, the Shuar would descend into Tayos to
retrieve Weh’s magic salts. But since others
began traipsing through the cave, says Jaime,
Weh has receded into the shadows. Now he
believes Weh is ready to return. Earlier in the
year, Jaime was in the cave with a group of
tourists when he heard a loud noise coming
from a high cranny of a cavern. “It sounded
like footsteps,” he says.

Jaime, who is intense and wiry, with
thick black hair and bangs, flipped on his
headlamp and, along with another guide,
shimmied over fallen rocks toward the

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 5 3

sound. At a narrow passageway, the foot- birds. And by screams I mean screams: like The author
in the Altar of
steps grew louder and louder, spooking the Linda-Blair-with-her-head-backwards- Light chamber;
below, the 2018
other guide so much that he retreated, but in-The-Exorcist screams. Capable of hitting
expedition
Jaime crawled inside. He was alone when 100 decibels—greater than a snowmobile
stroll between stones. I catch the glimmer of
everything suddenly went silent. Then he engine—they are among the loudest birds the silvery back of a three-inch beetle be-
fore it scurries into the shadows. On a small
looked down and saw a giant footprint. on the planet. When they’re not scream- boulder, we spy what looks like a steampunk
insect, part flesh, part machine. It’s an Am-
“A footprint?” I ask, skeptical. ing, they’re clicking, using echolocation blypygi, or whip spider, and as we get closer,
we see that it has a beetle in its mandibles.
“I have a picture,” he replies, matter-of- to navigate the darkness. They spend their
After pitching our tents and filling up on
factly. He swipes at his phone, then hands it days perched on rock shelves throughout the lentils and rice, we fall asleep to the cries of
the oilbirds, which gradually fade to silence.
to me. The photo indeed shows a fat, wide cave, heading out at night to forage. THE ONLY WAY to tell that it’s morning in
Tayos is by the Altar of Light. Located at
footprint in brown mud that, by my count, Once inside Tayos, it’s difficult to get a the far end of our encampment, the tower-
ing chamber is the one spot other than the
has seven toes. true sense of scale. For the most part, this entrance where sunlight makes it inside.
The light streams in through two openings
His account would feel like a hoax if Jaime isn’t a claustrophobic maze of narrow pas- some 200 feet above, along with a shower of
rain. Shoots of tall green grass rise from the
wasn’t so stoic and his words weren’t so sageways; it’s a series of massive chambers, mound of rich black soil below.

heartfelt. The Shuar consider dreams to be some hundreds of feet tall. It’s a remarkable setting, and Eileen and
the musicians decide to do some recording.
visions, and for weeks, Jaime says, he has With our headlamps illuminating the Hoffy sets up his equipment, while Villago-
mez perches on a rock with his flute. But
been seeing Weh in his sleep. The spirit, darkness, we clamber away from the en- then something overcomes Villagomez, who
bursts into tears. Until now he’s been a jovial,
appearing in the form of a Shuar man, told trance over several dozen yards of massive

Jaime that he wants to return. fallen boulders, then rappel down a 15-foot

Jaime says he also had been having dreams precipice. This takes us to a famous land-

of Eileen coming back to Tayos, bringing mark, the Juan Moricz arch, named after the

others with her. Together with Jaime, they explorer who purportedly led Von Däniken

would sit deep inside the cave in total silence, into the cave. Separating two chambers,

and if they waited long enough, Weh would it appears to have been precisely cut and

emerge. Turning to Eileen, Jaime tells her smoothed. In The Gold of the Gods, Von

that, physically, she may live in London, but Däniken writes: “I’d like to see the archae-

her true spirit is in Tayos. “I feel that you live ologist with the nerve to tell me that this

in the cave,” he says. work was done with hand-axes!”

Oh, and the group from He should talk to Flor-

his dreams who would encio Delgado, an archae-

conjure Weh with her? “ F o r m e t h e c av e i s ologist at San Francisco

That would be us. this idea of facing de Quito University who
This just got real! the unknown,” has studied the cave dur-
ing multiple visits. “It’s a

THE MOUTH of Tayos Eileen Hall says, made-up story,” he says.

opens at the end of a steep “and befriending it Toulkaridis, the geolo-
path in the rainforest. As gist, agrees. “I call myself

we walk toward it on the t o r e c e i v e a m o r e the assassin of ignorance,”

morning of our descent, complete wisdom he tells me with a laugh.
butterflies flutter between about life.” The cave is something like
the leaves. A four-inch 25,000 to 30,000 years

caterpillar, with black and old, he says, and is com-

yellow stripes and spiky posed of sandstone and

green hairs, navigates a sodden log. There carbonate.The polished walls were created by F R O M TO P : C O U RT E SY O F DAV I D KU S H N E R ; EO I N CA R E Y/ TAYO S A RT

are also things that look like aliens. Near geodynamic pressure grinding the rock into

the entrance of the cave, we see a triangu- layers, which were then carved by the water

lar gray rock that resembles the head of an that flowed around them.

ET, with impressions for eyes. Then there’s The deeper we go into Tayos, the more

the entrance itself, which looks a lot like the spectacular it becomes. We step into a giant

outline of an extraterrestrial’s face. Perhaps cavern, which I nickname King Kong’s Pal-

the psychedelic experience Eileen spoke of ace. Boulders cover the ground like fallen

begins here. ruins, and the cave’s ceiling looms at least

One by one, we take turns stepping down a couple hundred feet overhead. In the dis-

toward the mouth and slipping into our har- tance, there’s another passageway with

nesses, while Jaime and a half-dozen other perfectly smooth walls that rise and meet at

Shuar connect rappelling devices to ropes close to a right angle.

secured to the side of the entrance. The Around the corner, we come to the gar-

200-foot descent along jagged wet shale gantuan Main Chamber. It could hold a 20-

lasts about five minutes but feels like an story building lying on its side, and it’s just

eternity, and I sense that I’m entering an- as tall. The light from our headlamps fades

other world. About midway down, with the before it reaches the far side. The ground is

sunlight receding, I hear, for the first time, rocky, lunar, and black, but unlike the moon

the distant screams of the cave’s namesake it’s teeming with life. Giant brown tarantulas

5 4 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

Hall’s Tayos Jaime and the other Shuar disappear inex-
team inside the
main chamber; plicably into the shadows before suddenly
Ecuadoran
musician David emerging to help us make our exit.
Villagomez
One by one, we pull ourselves up against
good-humored part of the troupe, but he’s
sobbing heavily. When he recovers some 15 the current and over a small wall, but the
minutes later, after being comforted by the
group, I ask him what happened. He cites the downpour into the mouth of the cave is so
overwhelming energy in the Altar of Light
chamber and says, “I felt something inside intense that ascending the ropes is impossi-
me die.” That sounds far-out, but in this
spot it’s understandable, and it’s hard not to ble.If it doesn’t let up,we’ll have to camp an-
be moved when Villagomez begins to play.
other night, then try again tomorrow. After
After the session, we take turns standing
in the rays of sunlight slashing down to the a couple of hours, though, the rain settles
chamber floor. As the sun arcs higher, they
slowly merge into a single beam, shooting and we begin our climb. The Shuar outside
down between two towering pillars of rock.
If this was an Indiana Jones movie, the light the cave yank us up in fits and starts, which
would be pointing to some secret burial
site—which, actually, it might have been. sends me hurtling into the wall. Emerging

As Stan Hall claims in Tayos Gold: “20th from the mouth into the misty daylight has
July 1976, 11:25 A.M., seven years to the day
since Neil Armstrong’s left foot made that me thinking that Eileen was right after all:
‘first small step for man’ on the Moon,” a sci-
entist on Hall’s team “was kneeling on a pile spending three days inside this mystical un-
of guano molesting a scuttling beetle with a
twig when he scraped across a shard of pot- before the Shuar wouldn’t care about flat derworld was a total trip.
tery.” The shard led to others, and eventually surfaces but about how the sun shines in-
a cadaver. The location: the spot where the side that area.” As a new generation seeks out Tayos, the
light points when it splits the rocks.
That afternoon, Jaime guides us deeper elder Western mythmakers of the cave are
“I’m 100 percent sure that if rituals into the cave. The terrain transforms from
have been done, they’ve been done there,” large caverns to smaller passageways, and we losing their hold on the legend. Last spring
Toulkaridis tells me. “The Indigenous people shimmy and bend around sharp stalactites.
Eventually, we come to an area where the I drove past the golf courses and palm trees
ceiling is only about five feet off the ground,
a spot that Jaime says is dark and still enough of Indian Wells, California, to watch Erich
for Weh. We shut off our headlamps and wait
in silence. The only sound I hear is a bat’s von Däniken, now gray haired and hard of
flapping wings, which sends an occasional
breeze at my face. After 20 minutes or so, hearing, address his minions at Contact in
Jaime announces that he feels the presence
of a being. Hoffman tentatively asks,“Which the Desert, one of the largest UFO conven-
being is it? Is it, um, the one with salt?”
tions in the world. Hundreds of fans in alien
In fact, Jaime says it’s another one, a
guardian who’s watching out for the cave, T-shirts and glow-stick hats packed the hall
and for us. According to Jaime, the spirit is
saying, “This is a very sacred place, very few to hear his revisionist history of how, among
people have been through here.” The spirit
says we shouldn’t have used the complicated other things, the biblical Abraham “was on a
route through the stalactites, and that we
should go around them on the way out. The spaceship in orbit.”
spirit of Stan Hall is with us, too. “I can feel
it,” Jaime says. When I speak with him afterward, Von

The group is quiet for a beat. The others Däniken is greatly interested to hear that
say they don’t sense anything.I say I felt only
a cold breeze that blew for a few seconds. A Stan Hall’s daughter is continuing to explore
change in temperature, Jaime notes, is what
happens when a spirit comes and goes. Tayos. But he admits that he’s no longer cer-

OUR JOURNEY INSIDE Tayos culminates at tain aliens visited the cave. Now he has a new
a crystal-clear waterfall pouring over a 15-
foot rock wall into a shallow pool. After our theory: “I think a metallic library does exist,”
trek through the jungle and two days in the
cave, it’s a welcome shower that we savor he says, “but it belongs to the Mormons.”
before heading back to our camp.
Back in Ecuador, Eileen reflects on our
That wouldn’t be our last opportunity to
get wet. When we wake up the next morn- journey over a lunch of chicken and rice. The
ing, rain is pouring into the Altar of Light. By
the time we pack our gear and make it past trip has deepened her resolve to tell a new
the Juan Moricz arch, the water is pouring
over the walls and rising at our feet, drown- chapter of Tayos to the world, she says. She’s
ing out our voices and forcing us to shout.
It’s a harrowing moment, especially when eager to craft the multimedia installation in

London and online. (The installation would

be delayed indefinitely by the coronavirus

pandemic, but the digital version, called the

Liminal Compass, was set to launch this fall

at Tayos.org, where she was accepting do-

nations for the project.) When international

travel is viable again, she hopes to partner

with big-mountain skier turned mindset

coach Kristen Ulmer to lead a workshop in

which participants will “face their fears”

inside the cave. And she and Toulkaridis

are planning another expedition to conduct

E O I N CA R E Y/ TAYO S A RT ( 2 ) further research as part of their campaign to

convince Unesco to protect the site.

“Every time I come back,”she says,“there’s

a deeper connection with the Shuar, with the

space, and with the story.” O

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR DAVID KUSHNER
WROTE ABOUT A REHAB CENTER FOR
GAMERS IN NOVEMBER 2019.

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 5 5

exposure

Max Djenohan

Climbing Washington’s Luna Peak had been on Djenohan’s bucket list ever since
2017, when he heard about the secluded mountain, located in the Picket Range of
the North Cascades. Djenohan was drawn to the pristine landscape and excited
by the challenge of reaching one of the most inaccessible peaks in the lower 48. So
in August 2019, the Seattle snowboarder and adventure photographer grabbed a
friend and took a boat to the isolated trailhead before setting off for the summit.
“It’s so rugged and remote, it feels like you’re in Alaska,” he says. “When we were
up there, we didn’t see a single person for three days.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY MAC HOLT

5 6 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

outside a d 2 0 20
ventur

TAYLOR REES

In 2015, photojournalist and film-
maker Rees moved to Summit
Park, Utah, to live with her partner,
Renan Ozturk, and found a moun-
tain bike waiting for her. She’d
never ridden one before—and the
learning process involved “a lot of
falling”—but she soon came to
love the sport. At the same time,
she was pursuing increasingly
ambitious work as a documentary
filmmaker, directing more of her
own projects.“It was an exciting
transition time,” she remembers.“I
was learning and failing at figuring
out my role in the creative process
in the same way I was learning and
failing and falling on my mountain
bike.” Ozturk snapped this photo
on the Stansbury Island Trail at the
edge of the Great Salt Lake.

PHOTOGRAPH BY RENAN OZTURK

outside a d 2 0 20
ventur

EMERGENCY

RESPONSE Wilderness pros are by e m i l y
trained to deal with
for physical injuries, sohn
but what about the
the psychological trauma D
t h at c an r e s ult w hi le
on an expedition, KEYSTONE/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES
from fear and stress,
or from watching
someone die in a
fall, an avalanche,
or whitewater?
Australian
psychologist and
mountaineer Kate
Baecher created a
training program
to equip guides
and athletes
with a tool kit to
handle the worst
mental distress we
encounter when we’re
fa r f r o m h e l p.

MIN

5 8 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20



K AT E

AND her B A E C H E R

m o u n ta i n e e r i n g

were being guided over a dangerous traverse group
in Europe a few years ago when a climber in
the party ahead of them fell hundreds of feet or a panic attack can put lives at risk. On WILDERNESS FIRST aid and first-responder
to her death. Baecher, a Sydney-based psy-
chologist, military veteran, and avid moun- an expedition, an adventurer in the grips of courses have no industry-wide guide-
taineer with a background helping people
perform in high-stress situations, kept her mental distress may be unable to operate at lines when it comes to mental health, and
cool while the body was recovered.But Chris,
a climber in her group, began showing signs full capacity, may lose focus, and could make the American Red Cross, which teaches
of distress. (The climber’s name and some
of the details of this incident have been dangerous decisions without someone along psychological first aid for disaster workers
changed to protect his privacy.)
who’s been trained to help. and community-based crisis responders,
Stunned by what he’d witnessed, Chris
stopped speaking and moving, and he ap- The very nature of some outdoor expedi- doesn’t have a course dedicated to mental
peared disassociated, Baecher recalls. She
and a guide had to physically pull him to his tions—living in tight quarters for extended health in a wilderness context. But some
feet to get him to continue to camp, which
was located at 12,000 feet. When they finally periods of time under high-stress condi- organizations have started to address the
reached it, Chris began crying and couldn’t
stop. Panic, fear, anxiety, shock, distress: he tions, often while sleep deprived—can lead topic. In the United States, that includes
exhibited it all.“He completely broke down,”
says 37-year-old Baecher. to mental strain. Then there are the har- the National Outdoor Leadership School,

The guides weren’t sure what to do. But rowing encounters with the American Mountain
once everyone was safe, Baecher attempted
to coax Chris out of his embattled state. Sit- extreme weather, natural Guides Association, and
ting by his side, she encouraged him to take
slow, deep breaths until he stopped hiccup- disasters, venomous ani- Whether you’re Outward Bound. NOLS’s
ing for air. She suggested discussing what mals, or, worse, the death an amateur or Wilderness Advanced First
was on the agenda for tomorrow, which of an expedition member, Aid and Wilderness First
gave Chris something concrete to focus on.
Baecher stayed with him until he had made which can be difficult to a professional Responder courses dis-
a decision: he would descend in the morning
and not continue to the summit. manage emotionally, es- athlete, mental cuss anxiety, depression,
pecially with a long way suicidal ideation, and
Baecher came off the mountain a few days
later, after she was turned around by white- still to go on a grueling distress in the PTSD, says Tod Schimel-
out conditions. She reached out to Chris,
who was still struggling. trip. Baecher points out wilderness is a pfenig, curriculum direc-
that the mishandling common experience. tor at NOLS Wilderness
Baecher’s experience was one in a string of extreme wilderness Medicine in Wyoming,
of events that led to a realization: outdoor
guides and athletes often don’t know what experiences can affect “Everywhere I go, because these are subjects
to do when mental health becomes an issue
in the field. Drawing on her love of adventure long-term psychological I see people who that come up often. “You
and her psychology background, she saw an well-being, motivation see the guides and outdoor
opportunity to fill a void.
to return to the outdoors, are having trouble leaders expressing a need
While a psychological emergency in
the outdoors may seem less urgent than a and the ability to work and coping,” Baecher for more training in this
physical one, the consequences can be just to maintain healthy rela- says. “That includes area because they’re in-
as devastating, Baecher says. When you’re tionships at home. creasingly having to man-
staring down a big wave, a Class V rapid, or
an exposed climb, overwhelming anxiety Whether you’re an am- tough climbers on age these issues,” he says.

ateur or a professional ath- big mountains.” Baecher, who at five foot
lete, mental distress in the five is a compact, fit ath-

wilderness is a common lete, with summits of the

experience. “Everywhere Eiger and the Matterhorn,

I go, I see people who are having trouble among other peaks, agrees. “There are sim-

coping,” Baecher says. “That includes tough ple things that would be useful in remote en-

climbers on big mountains.” vironments if you don’t have a psychologist

Yet while guides and outdoor athletes there,” she says. “A lot of the psych courses

usually learn how to treat physical injuries, out there are very urban based.”

they’re far less likely to be taught what to do To help, she created techniques and

when psychological injuries occur in places protocols to teach psychological first aid to

where hospitals and mental health profes- people who work and play in the outdoors.

sionals aren’t just a 911 call away. She’s uniquely suited to the role. Baecher

6 0 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

SAM I AM MANAGEMENT spent a decade in the Australian Army as “A lot of the psych medical or first aid situation has an element
a captain and psychology officer. In 2016, courses out there are of mental health attached to it.”
while still on active duty, she earned a doc- very urban based,”
torate in psychology, exploring the impact says Baecher, pictured Baecher first met Burns in 2013 while
of physical injuries on mental health. Since here in Australia. volunteering for an organization called
then she has consulted for elite athletes, Backpacker Medics, which Burns founded
corporate leaders, and the Australian special orange (keep safe and calm, consider evacu- to send paramedics, hospital workers, and
forces, with stints as a military psychologist ation) to red (evacuate). Called the ACCE other experts on humanitarian missions
in Afghanistan and East Timor,while spend- model—for assess, communicate, calm, around the world. She was enjoying the
ing her spare time climbing and hiking. evaluate to evacuate—the approach in- Survive course and was eager to participate
cludes calming techniques, some of which in the psych component. It was more than
Baecher says that there are some simi- she used on Chris after he witnessed the other outdoor companies in Australia were
larities between wilderness expeditions and climber’s fall, such as deep breathing and doing on mental health, Baecher says. But
military operations, like the need to com- making concrete plans. the psych content was based on a curricu-
partmentalize emotionally when exposed to lum designed to train paramedics working
challenging circumstances. Outdoor guides Baecher started working out the specif- on ambulance crews in urban areas, and in
and athletes are also vulnerable to depres- ics for an outdoors-focused mental health Baecher’s assessment that made it less ap-
sion and PTSD, either immediately after a training course in April 2018, after taking a plicable to wilderness professionals, who
harrowing experience or down the road if wilderness first aid class from a company usually can’t talk to a supervisor or call for
they don’t process those emotions. “Either called Survive First Aid in Sydney. Survive’s help. Baecher, who laughs easily and says
they break or they put Band-Aid upon Band- training manager at the time, Nathan Burns, exactly what she thinks, thought there was
Aid upon Band-Aid, which can lead to long- is a longtime guide and outdoor educator, a room for improvement.“I was like,‘Nathan,
term psychological issues and affect work, paramedic, and an old friend of Baecher’s. can you please let me write this?’ The more
relationships, and daily life,” Baecher says. He’d added a section on psychology to the research I did, I couldn’t find anything that
course two years earlier, after hearing from was relevant for the outdoors.”
For mountaineers, spending time at alti- clients about how common mental health
tude can also strain psychological health. issues were in the field and how unprepared To correct this, Baecher looked into pub-
Multiple studies have found that the de- they felt to deal with them. In classes, Burns lished research on a variety of related topics,
crease in oxygen levels at altitude can in- says, he asks who has ever dealt with a frac- including mental health first aid, trauma,
crease the risk of depression, anxiety, and tured femur. “You get one in a hundred who
confusion. One study, done by researchers put their hand up,” he says. Next he asks who
in the UK, reported hallucinations by 32 has experienced some kind of mental health
percent of climbers above 24,600 feet. And event. “Almost every single person puts
in a Swiss study, seven of eight world-class their hand up,” he says. “The fact is, every
mountaineers who’d climbed above 27,900
feet without supplemental oxygen reported
hallucinatory experiences.

Malcolm Bass had hallucinations while
establishing a difficult new route on Alaska’s
14,573-foot Mount Hunter in 2001. Bass, an
alpinist and clinical psychologist from the
UK, saw the rocks change shape. He and
his climbing partner, Paul Figg, hadn’t slept
in 30 hours. Bass remembers looking up at
a ridge and seeing talons reaching toward
him, as if Mount Hunter were a bird of prey
and wanted to consume them.He tried to ex-
plain what he was seeing to Figg, who he had
begun calling Julian, a partner from a previ-
ous climb. Because Bass was aware that hal-
lucinations occur when stressed, exhausted,
and isolated in extreme environments, he
managed to shake off the confusion and find
a safe place to rest, but poor choices at that
time could have been life-threatening. “In
that kind of terrain, you’re as likely to drag
each other off as to save one another,” Bass
says. “There are no anchors.”

Grounded in the neuroscience of fear
and her own expertise in the psychology of
extreme environments, Baecher’s method
features a color-coded tool for assessing
a distressed individual in the wilderness,
a four-category scale from green (OK to
stay put) to yellow (stay put, keep calm) to

PHOTOGRAPH BY Bec Lorrimer 11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 6 1

and risk assessment in the outdoors. She NOLS students
incorporated techniques she’d learned in receiving wilderness
the military, wilderness first aid protocols,
and the mental health continuum, a model first aid training;
for thinking about psychological states as a below, Baecher at a
spectrum,from healthy and coping to injured
or ill. Burns collaborated with her, helping Survive course
develop the color scale, an action plan, and
a training module for instruction, along with
a memorable acronym. “We brought it all
together and mashed it up and drank some
wine and finally finished it,” she says. In
August 2018, Survive First Aid began incor-
porating the new approach into its three-
and five-day wilderness first aid courses.

ON A SUNNY but cool afternoon last July, diately, looks you in the eye, and says plead- technique was so effective that months later FROM TOP: COURTESY OF JUSTIN ALEXANDRE/NOLS; COURTESY OF SURVIVE FIRST AID
I attend one of Baecher’s training sessions, ingly, ‘Help me. Help me.’” I continue to use it to help me and my kids
along with a group of Australian guides and deal with pandemic-related stress, school
wilderness educators, in a conference cen- Standing in front of a whiteboard,Baecher closings, and other life challenges.)
ter an hour south of Sydney. It’s the third launches into an explanation of what hap-
day of a weeklong Survive wilderness first pens in the human brain when panic and Baecher’s procedures are simple enough
aid course, and the group has already prac- anxiety strike. “I’m going to go psych nerd to fit into a pocket-size handbook, with
ticed splinting shoulders, bandaging snake for a moment,” she says. instructions to aid in the assessment of a
bites, and bracing broken legs. Now it’s time struggling individual or group. Her hope is
for the psych unit, which includes a video When someone senses danger, Baecher that they’ll help guides and adventurers get
recorded by a climber in April 2015 during a says, the sympathetic nervous system kicks past any discomfort in dealing with psy-
devastating earthquake-triggered avalanche in, causing accelerated breathing, higher chological distress in the outdoors. “A lot
on Mount Everest that left at least 19 people blood pressure, narrowed vision, and a cas- of people worry that they’ll do something
dead, around 70 injured, and many climbers cade of other physical reactions collectively wrong and make it worse. As a result, they
stranded at higher camps. known as the fight-or-flight response. It’s kind of shut down and don’t have a lot of in-
an evolutionary survival mechanism con- sight into why we have emotions and what
The video begins with the sound of a Ger- trolled by the limbic system, often referred goes wrong,”Baecher tells the class.“There’s
man climber saying “The ground is shaking” to as the “lizard brain” because it overrides also not been the right level of training in and
as he looks around Base Camp. Someone in higher-order thinking and invokes primal around what to do.”
the background chuckles nervously. Sud- emotions that are beyond reason.
denly, people are running away from the Next, she stands by as groups of four stu-
mountain, and then he sees why: a mas- “Your brain starts racing and saying, dents decide together that Hans is in the
sive avalanche is barreling toward him. He ‘Something’s wrong, something’s wrong.’ orange zone—in need of support but not
dives behind his tent with another climber And then you get more panicked. You start immediate evacuation. Finally, Baecher of-
as a tidal wave of snow engulfs them. “Fuck, breathing faster.And this whole cycle contin- fers additional strategies for distraction,
fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says, again and again, ues,” Baecher says. There are a few dramatic grounding, and calming techniques that
until moments later the worst of it has ways of short-circuiting this negative feed- might help Hans and others in a situation like
passed. He stands up, not physically hurt. back loop, she says. These include slapping his. “You can breathe with them,” she says,
But he doesn’t seem OK. His breathing is the panicked person,holding them tight,and squatting on the gray-carpeted floor and
rapid. His panic is palpable. putting a hand over their mouth to slow their
breathing and halt the panic-perpetuating
After the video ends, a role-playing ex- cycle of oxygen deprivation that can occur
ercise begins in which the students imagine while hyperventilating. None of these tech-
that they’re a day’s walk from Base Camp niques are appropriate for a guide dealing
when the avalanche hits, and they decide to with a client.
go help. Baecher observes from a corner of
the classroom as a course instructor named Instead, Baecher’s color-coded ACCE
Joe Knight reads the fictional script for the model offers alternatives for grounding
exercise. “When you arrive, you see three someone in the moment and restoring calm,
people who are physically fine but very including one that puts everyone in the Syd-
distressed,” says Knight, a 38-year-old ney classroom into a mindfulness trance:
Australian remote-area medic, freediving asking a partner to name four things they can
instructor, and former ocean-survival see, hear, and feel, then three more of each,
trainer. The German climber, referred to as then two, then one. (When I did this exercise
Hans in the exercise, is holding one of his with the class, I was jet-lagged and anxious
shoes in his hand and sobbing uncontrol- about driving on the left side of the road, in
lably. “His mates are sitting next to him, the dark, back to my rental apartment. The
distressed, but not as distressed as Hans,”
Knight continues.“Hans notices you imme-

6 2 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

side door handle is busted; when you want acting like one. The risk of that going wrong

to get out, you have to roll down the window is really quite significant,” Baecher says,

and open it from the outside. She laughs noting again that poor decision-making can

every time. “I seem professional until you lead to injury, life-altering trauma, or death.

get to know me,” she jokes. “The ACCE model gives people parameters

The park encompasses a dramatic gorge and structure. The aim is first aid. We’re

that drops 1,200 feet. Getting down requires going to patch you up and keep you safe. It’s

descending a metal staircase that hugs the comfort as much as anything else, and mak-

rock face before meeting up with a trail. It’s ing sure they do it right.”

a cool, blue-sky day, and at the start of the Baecher isn’t the only one making inroads

15-mile hike, Baecher talks about grow- into this new field. In British Columbia,

ing up a sporty kid in Sydney and then runs clinical counselor and wilderness guide Do-

through her eclectic résumé. With Burns’s netta Faye Cooper, who goes by Daye, had an

disaster-response organization Backpacker aha moment similar to Baecher’s during a

Medics, she volunteered in Nepal after wilderness first aid refresher course in 2016.

earthquakes and in Bangladesh after an in- She noticed an almost total absence of men-

flux of Rohingya refugees, following mass tal health topics during discussion and in

killings in Myanmar. In addition to her work the course manual. “It basically said that if

on the ACCE model, she runs a coaching someone makes a suicide attempt on a trip,

business with her brother, Chris, a former you should evacuate them urgently,” says

air-traffic controller. Cooper, the 34-year-old former executive

Baecher has also worked as a staff psy- director of the Sea Kayak Guides Alliance.

chologist on reality-TV shows, including “And it’s like, great, that’s a good start. But

Survive Shark Tank and a British program called I’m how much more could we talk about?’”
instructor
Nathan Burns; a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here, in which When guiding, Cooper says, she deals on
above, Baecher
descending the famous people are taken into the jungle to a weekly basis with someone experiencing
Eiger in 2018
compete Survivor-style. On I’m a Celeb- anxiety or going through trauma in their
looking around the room. “In, two, three,
four. Out, two, three, four.” She also sug- rity, one of her tasks was home life that surfaces on
gests maintaining eye contact, keeping your
voice calm and your words clear, and giving to debrief participants a trip. To illustrate this, she
frequent, easy-to-follow updates about
what’s happening. and crew members after Outdoor guides told me a story inspired
long, unpredictable days by a real event, changing
By the end of the session, Knight informs
the group that Hans is doing much better. in hostile terrain. On one and athletes some of the details to pre-
The grounding exercises were effective.
Now, according to the group’s assessments, occasion, she helped an are vulnerable serve confidentiality. On
he’s between the green and yellow zones. He
is no longer in a state of emergency, and they arachnophobic contestant to depression a wilderness outing, she
can help him to leave the mountain. after a terrifying encoun- found a client sitting on a

Without mental health intervention, ter with spiders. and PTSD, either log, her head down, barely
Hans’s outcome could have looked very
different: He might have suffered frostbite By the time she’d en- i m m e d i at e ly a f t e r responding to questions
from having removed his shoe and not been rolled in Burns’s wilder- and, Cooper soon learned,
able to hike out. He might have been too
panicked to make quick, smart decisions ness first aid course at a harrowing thinking about suicide.
about the rapidly changing environment.
Or he might have been at a higher risk for Survive, Baecher had experience or down The group was supposed
long-term trauma.
spent years working in the road if they to be getting into canoes
THE DAY AFTER the psych session, Baecher remote, extreme environ- for a long day of paddling,
picks me up outside my rental in Wombarra,
a coastal town near the conference cen- ments, where she accu- don’t process but the situation required
ter. She shows up in her silver 2003 Mazda
for the two-hour drive northwest to Blue mulated experience those emotions. a different plan. Cooper,
Mountains National Park. Baecher, who helping people struggling who had completed sui-
makes eye contact when she talks and listens
intently, has a brain that churns, and she to function far outside cide-intervention train-
tends to prioritize new ideas over practical
FROM TOP: KATE BAECHER; COURTESY OF CARRIE BURNS tasks, like repairing her car. The passenger- their comfort zone. ing for volunteer work on

Many guides get by on intuition and so- a crisis hotline, altered the itinerary to allow

cial skills to calm clients in tough situations, time for thorough conversation and assess-

Baecher tells me as we hike out of the gorge. ment. With the client’s consent, she and

Often they get it right. But it’s easy to miss a coleader used a satellite phone to contact

signs of distress or even to make matters the person’s psychiatrist, who offered in-

worse, dredging up trauma while lacking the sight and a medication adjustment. Based

tools to help clients process it. Unlike a bro- on the collaborative assessment, Cooper

ken bone, which is treated pretty much the arranged an evacuation the next day so the

same way every time, psychological injuries client could be better supported. A friend

are more nuanced, she says, and intuition of Cooper’s had died by suicide earlier that

can lead well-intentioned guides astray. year, which had raised complex emotions for

“If you’re unraveling people and can’t put her; she was grateful that she knew what to

them back together, and you’re like, ‘Shit, do. “I was thinking, What if I hadn’t done

now what?’—that’s what really worries me. that suicide-intervention training?” she

We don’t want someone who isn’t a psychol- says. “It would have been so much more

ogist to go down that pathway where they’re challenging for me.’”

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 6 3

In response to those complexities, Cooper

developed Mental Health Wilderness First

Aid, a workshop she first offered in British

Columbia in 2018. Since then she has taught

at least 15 courses incorporating emotional-

regulation techniques and her own deci-

sion-making scale. (The workshops are now

available via Zoom.) Her initial focus was on

anxiety but soon expanded to include de-

pression, trauma, and mood disorders. She’s

also working on a book about mental health

first aid in the wilderness.

“There’s a real hunger,” Cooper says, re-

ferring to interest in the kind of work and she

and Baecher are doing. She often hears from

students who say they wish they’d had this

kind of training earlier. “There’s a sense of, I

can’t believe this hasn’t been a thing before.” Daye Cooper
leading her Mental
Feedback has been equally overwhelming Health Wilderness
First Aid workshop
for Baecher’s psychology session in the Sur- in British Columbia

vive courses. “Students come up to us after

and say,‘Thank you so much for doing this,’”

Nathan Burns says. “‘Thank you for giving

us a tool to use.’”

a veteran climber who has lost multiple of the textbook Wilderness EMS, says that

THE EMBRACE of mental health in the out- friends in the mountains, welcomes the the field of wilderness emergency medicine

doors is also trickling down to guide cul- transformation. Close climbing companions is experiencing a mental health revolution.

ture, says Brenton Reagan, lead guide and have always been willing to talk to each other, He put me in touch with Laura McGladrey, a

marketing manager at Exum Guides in Wyo- he says, but sharing happens more than it family and psychiatric nurse practitioner at

ming. Many years ago, he says, some certifi- used to, maybe because of social media, or the University of Colorado’s Stress Trauma

cation courses were no- because more people Adversity Research and Treatment Clinic,

toriously tough. An in- are climbing. “Thirty and a NOLS Wilderness Medicine Institute

structor might unlock The embrace of mental years ago it was, yeah, instructor. She helped create an organiza-
a carabiner just to see climbers were tough,”
tion called the Responder Alliance, which

if the student noticed. he alth in t h e o utd o or s he says. “You just went provides resources, training, and educa-

“They were trying to set is trickling down to up there.” tion to mountaineers, wilderness organiza-
you up so you had a re- g u id e c ult ur e, says After experiencing
ally hard time,” he says. tions, wildland firefighters, and other groups
a series of tragedies in
about the long-term health risks of exposure

While Reagan re- Brenton Reagan, lead the wilderness, climber to high-stress situations. Her work calendar

cently took a wilderness guide and marketing Madaleine Sorkin part- is full of lectures and seminars. “This is a
first-responder recer- nered with the Ameri-
radical rethinking of how we approach peo-

tification course that manager at Exum can Alpine Club to ple in difficult situations in the wilderness,”

didn’t mention men- Guides. “The openness launch the Climbing Hawkins says. “I’m pretty certain it will
tal health, he says that to talk about things— Grief Fund, an online
Exum uses a program mental health resource be one of the next big things, and completely

commonplace in ten years, but right now

called Brain Gyms to emotions, fear, for mountaineers and it’s on the cutting edge.”

teach guides breathing troubles—in large other athletes affected For her part, Baecher is developing a
and movement tech- by loss related to al-
full-day course addressing a wider assort-

niques for calming anx- groups has grown pinism. Mental health ment of issues, including self-harm, sui-

iety. He notes that he g r e at ly, ” h e s ay s . awareness is infusing cidal thoughts, and self-care techniques in
deals with anxious cli- adventure at the col-
wilderness settings. She’s also working on a

ents nearly every time lege level, too. At Dart- strategy for others to teach the course. She’s

he’s in the field. “The mouth, for instance, well along the path to her larger goal: to help

openness to talk about things—emotions, student trip leaders on wilderness outings guides and educators make the right deci-

fear, troubles—in large groups has grown get training in mental health topics before sions when psychological distress arises in

greatly,” says Reagan, who has been guiding group overnight hikes. And for solo ad- the outdoors. Given the growth in aware-

for 20 years. venturers, a new app called Drift, designed ness, she’s confident that once she builds

Also, prominent adventurers are airing by UK scientists, helps users manage their it, the outdoor community will embrace it.

their struggles in public, including moun- psychological well-being while off the grid. “The time is right,” she says. O JAY RA I C H U RA

taineer Cory Richards, who has been open North Carolina–based Seth Collings

about the PTSD and alcoholism he endured Hawkins,an emergency physician,executive EMILY SOHN ( @TIDEPOOLSINC) WROTE
ABOUT CABIN FEVER FOR OUTSIDE ONLINE
after surviving an avalanche on the descent editor of the Wilderness Medical Society’s IN APRIL.

from Gasherbrum II in 2011. Conrad Anker, Wilderness Medicine magazine, and editor

6 4 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20





exposureoutside a d 2 0 20
ventur
Dan Winters

Winters has flown all over the world for his work, photographing everyone from Tom Hanks to the
Dalai Lama. In this 2019 photo, taken by his wife, Kathryn, he’s submerged in the icy waters of Lake
Lucerne in Switzerland, where he travels every other year for a photography festival. But while the
pandemic has put major travel plans on hold, Winters has relished smaller outings near his home in
Austin, Texas, like mountain biking and harvesting honey from his bees.“A lot of the time, the sense
of adventure comes from within,” he says. “A short hike outside the city can yield just as much sat-
isfaction as the saddle of the Matterhorn.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY KATHRYN WINTERS

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 6 5

the best a d v e n t u r e s
of a very we ird yea r

When the pandemic hit and the world came to
a halt, races were canceled and expeditions
postponed. But people didn’t give up—

they got cr eativ e . By gordy megroz

Three Times Up Everest on July 23, Lenny Maughan raised the bar. though we weren’t physically together,” he
After carefully plotting his route, Maughan, said. His prize? A gilded roll of quarantine’s
(Minus the Mountain) who refers to himself as a human Etch A most precious commodity: toilet paper.
Sketch, spent 101 hours covering 119 miles
Everesting—or going up and down the around San Francisco to form an enormous Skiing COVID Couloir
same hill until you accumulate 29,029 feet spider in its web.
of climbing—has been popular among Ski areas across North America shut down
endurance athletes since 2014, when Aus- The Home Run in mid-March, well before the traditional
tralian cyclist Andy van Bergen dreamed end-of-season parties. But skiers were still
up the challenge. Attempts surged during Shelter-in-place orders didn’t stop run- jonesing. According to the NPD Group, a
the lockdown. According to van Bergen, ners from getting in their mileage. In China, market-research firm, March online sales of
some 6,000 people around the world have Pan Shancu logged 31 miles around his touring skins were up 134 percent year over
accomplished the feat since March 2020. apartment, and in France, Elisha Nocho- year. On July 11, Canadians Sean Murray and
That includes the first Everesting triath- movitz jogged six marathons on his 23-foot Pierre Grabinski made the first known de-
lon, which was completed in 55 hours 32 balcony. In April, South African ultrarunner scent of a route on the east face of Mount
minutes in April by Mayank Vaid. The Hong Ryan Sandes completed the same 120- Fay, a 10,610-foot peak in the Canadian
Kong lawyer went for an Everest-high 5.5- yard loop through and around his house in Rockies.“This line was one of the most
mile swim in Clear Water Bay, then rode 165 Cape Town 1,463 times, for a total of 100 technical things I have ever skied,”Murray, a
miles and ran up 1,129-foot High Junk Peak miles. He called his challenge the Home 32-year-old environmental scientist, wrote
26 times, clocking 29,029 feet of elevation Run, and it took him more than 26 hours on Instagram. They dubbed the route COVID
gain with both. to complete. (The stairs alone added Couloir because, naturally,“it was sick.”
almost 15,000 feet of vert.)“So, a hundred
No Race, No Problem miles at home,” Sandes says in a phone A Different Kind
video recorded shortly after he finished.“I of Commute
The website Fastest Known Time saw probably won’t try that again.”
a 400 percent increase in submissions Cabin fever was very real during lockdown.
through the first half of 2020, compared Jogging Around Sixteen-year-old Zev Heuer came up with a
with the same period in 2019. Records fell the Block consummately Canadian cure: once he fin-
on the Tahoe Rim Trail in California and ished his school year, he and his dog Blaze
Nevada, Colorado’s Nolan’s 14, Vermont’s Gary Cantrell started Big’s Backyard Ultra canoed from his home in Canmore, Alberta,
Long Trail, and the 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail in 2012. Under normal circumstances, the to his job at—appropriately enough—a
in Wisconsin. Perhaps the most notable format requires participants to run a 4.17- canoe outfitter in Missinipe, Saskatchewan.
FKT was recorded by Britain’s Beth Pascall. mile lap every 60 minutes on his property The duo left on May 1 and covered more
In late July, she set a new women’s mark on in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and the last than 750 river miles in time to make it to
the Bob Graham Round, a 66-mile course person standing wins. In the spring, when work on June 28.
in England with 27,000 feet of elevation venturing much farther than a few miles
gain. Her time of 14 hours 34 minutes 26 from your house seemed like a dicey prop- The Hottest Crossing
seconds was only about an hour and a half osition, Canadian ultrarunner Dave Proctor
slower than ultrarunning god Kilian Jornet’s decided to hold a virtual version via Zoom. Perhaps nobody took social distancing
in 2018.“When all the races were canceled The Quarantine Backyard Ultra was born. more seriously than Roland Banas. In
back in March, I was like, right, I’m going More than 2,400 runners in 65 countries August, the 46-year-old Frenchman
to do it,” Pascall told Outside this summer. competed on treadmills or by running loops trekked through Death Valley—alone—in
“It didn’t cross my mind to do anything in their own neighborhoods. Among them 115-degree heat. It was the first recorded
else, to be honest.” were a slew of decorated runners, including unsupported solo summer crossing of the
2018 Western States 100 winner Courtney desert. To survive the 180-mile route from
Street Art Dauwalter. In the end, after 63 hours and the Last Chance Range to Salt Spring
262 miles on the streets in front of his Hills, which took him five days and seven
Athletes have used Strava’s mapping soft- Arlington, Virginia, home, ultrarunner Mike hours, Banas pulled a homemade cart
ware to draw all sorts of things with their Wardian was the only one left.“It’s pretty carrying 340 pounds of supplies, includ-
running and cycling routes: Santa Claus, awesome that with technology and a little ing 29 gallons of water. He finished just in
two politicians kissing, even the Millennium creativity and desire, 2,500 people got time—a week later, Death Valley’s Furnace
Falcon. While the images are impressive, together and were still a community even Creek hit 130 degrees, possibly the hottest
most aren’t very detailed, depicting only temperature ever recorded on earth.
rough outlines of shapes and figures. But

6 6 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

Clockwise CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KARSTEN HEUER; CAM MCLEOD; STEPHEN GOSLING; DEAN LESLIE/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
from top left:
Zev Heuer; a d -o u t s i d e
Courtney venture
Dauwalter;
Mike Wardian; 2 0 20
Ryan Sandes

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 6 7

How young

is too young
for risky
adventure?
D u r i n g a fa m i ly
whitewater trip
that included
her seven-year-
old daughter,

TRACY
ROSS

faced this
question in the
most harrowing
way imaginable.

TOO

6 8 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

photographs by

tracy

ross

The author’s
daughter, Hollis,
on the Middle Fork
of the Salmon
River, July 2019

F O R D E C A D E S,

people have taken s e v e n - y e a r - o l d s

o n idaho’s m i d d l e f o r k

of the salm o n r i v e r .

But after the fact, when I asked my most ex- surging out of me: “Fuck! Hollis! No!” when I’m not, say, duckying big sections of
perienced rafting friends if they would have
done it, they scratched their heads and said, Followed by: “Shawn! Hold on to her! whatever river we’re on. In other words we
“It depends.”
Please!” weren’t beginners, or even intermediates.
The Middle Fork runs roughly 100 miles
through the Frank Church–River of No Shawn tried to catch an eddy. Thinking it But any river expedition is a major under-
Return Wilderness. It’s wild, remote, and
riddled with hazards. Along those miles of was shallow, he leapt out of the boat. But the taking, no matter the depth or breadth of
whitewater are about eight Class IV rapids
and dozens of Class IIIs, depending on water water was too swift and the raft too big, and your experience.
levels. If something goes wrong, you’re on
your own. he could neither drag it to shore nor heave Now we’d won the lottery to run the

I knew this from previous trips and from himself back in. Middle Fork, a breathtaking river that joins
stories told by people who’d suffered various
catastrophes there. One man was thrown Hollis was on the raft alone, and at the the Main Salmon after an average five- or
from his boat and died of a heart attack in
the frigid waters; his group had to haul his time, I thought Velvet Falls was just around six-day journey. You don’t know how truly
corpse down the river until they reached a
spot where the body could be evacuated. A the corner. fortunate this was unless you know rafting.
friend broke her leg on day one and spent
the next five days howling every time the Every year, thousands of boaters put in for
bone was jostled. During a guided trip, an
outfitter I know heard the cry of a boy who’d I NO LONGER ask what others would have permits, and only about 350 noncommercial
been bitten by a rattlesnake. He saw the fang
marks in the boy’s foot, which bled terribly. done, because it’s enough to know what I groups get them during the season, which
Because outfitters carry satellite phones, he
was able to summon a helicopter, but many did. I know the choices I made and the out- runs May 28 through September 3.
noncommercial river runners lack satel-
lite communication, so if someone gets bit, comes they resulted in. I know their ripple You wait with angst to find out, fearing
there’s a reasonable chance they’ll either
lose a limb or die. effects, too. you won’t win, and when you do, you imme-

What I remember from the first day of I also know that my desire to put Hollis diately round up the flotilla of river runners
my most recent Middle Fork trip, in July
2019, is my family floating down the river on the Middle Fork came from a good place. you feel most comfortable with,because that
and my husband, Shawn Edmondson, try-
ing to catch an eddy above a blind corner. I I love her, she loves adventure, and prior to way you know everyone’s approach to doing
remember jumping from our raft and at-
tempting to pull the boat to shore. I slipped the 2019 Middle Fork run, things. You know who
on the rocks and lost my hold just as the river
ripped the boat back into the current. Shawn we’d taken her on six multi- has what gear, rescue
is a very experienced rafter, but thanks to
this chain of events, he and my seven-year- day raft trips. Out there on THE MIDDLE FORK, experience, and medical
old daughter, Hollis, were suddenly headed the river, her needs are pared training, and you know
toward a Class IV rapid called Velvet Falls,
an infamous bottomless hydraulic that eats down to essentials: water, AND THE 2.3 MILLION who’ll remember to
swimmers.
sunscreen, food, and warm, ACRES OF WILDERNESS bring a margarita mixer.
Lumbering onto the bank, I watched waterproof clothes for in- SURROUNDING IT, You know that person
the river pull the boat toward Velvet with clement weather. We keep X has kayaked regu-
Shawn and Hollis aboard. We’d had a plan:
two adults on the raft at all times, in case it her safe by buckling her into IS LIKE HEAVEN, IF larly for 20 years and
flipped and one had to wrangle it while the
other grabbed Hollis. That plan had just ex- one of the best children’s HEAVEN IS A PLACE managed to get out of
ploded, and now I heard an anguished cry floatation devices you can some sticky situations,

buy, an Astral Otter. And WHERE WOLVES, BLACK while Y once guided

we try to protect her from BEARS, MOUNTAIN the Grand Canyon and
dangers that include scorpi- LIONS, MOOSE, AND makes killer Dutch oven
ons, snakes, sunburn, dehy- pizza. You know that Z

dration, hypothermia, food ELK ROAM. always brings sand toys,

poisoning, falling out of the even though her kids are

raft, and slipping off a bank grown, and that she can

into the river. As a result, she read water better than

has drifted through wildernesses that the anyone you’ve ever met.

vast majority of people will never see, and But the summer of 2019 was unusual:

is attuned to the earth’s processes in a way none of our go-to boating friends could do

that’s becoming more and more foreign to the trip. So we invited a new group, forming

an increasing number of kids. a party that totaled 16 in all. We knew most

Shawn and I have decades of boating of them, but we’d boated with only one.

experience between us. He started guid- Among those we hadn’t rafted with before

ing in Alaska in the 1990s, then guided in were a family with an eight-year-old girl,

Colorado, and has since run many rivers Hollis’s friend Brynn. Her mom and I went

in the West: Oregon’s Rogue, Idaho’s Main back and forth about the wisdom of bring-

Salmon, Alaska’s Talkeetna, and—on the ing our daughters. Hollis could have stayed

easier side—the Upper Colorado, Utah’s with relatives, but I struggled with the idea

San Juan, and Montana’s Smith. When we of leaving her behind, possibly missing the

go, he does most of the rowing, but I assist one chance she’d have to feel the magic of

7 0 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

Clockwise from
top left: The author
with Hollis; Tracy
Foster and her
son, Drew; Hollis
and her friend
Brynn; Hatcher
Edmondson; taking
a break on day five;
Shawn Edmondson

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 7 1

the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The distress from the river. By the end of the day, BY JUNE 4, Hatcher and I had finished our
Middle Fork, and the 2.3 million acres of
wilderness surrounding it, is like heaven, if Hatcher seemed comfortable in a range of course and were headed to Montana. We’d
heaven is a place where wolves, black bears,
mountain lions, moose, and elk roam, and rescue situations, and I felt better prepared. been invited on another permit-required
where river otters play in water somehow
both crystal clear and emerald green. You Day two was mental training, and that trip, on the Smith River. The Smith is
can soak in a hot spring at a camp that the
Sheepeater (Tuka Dika) Indians used, back made a strong impression on us. In a chilly straightforward—mellow, meandering, and
when Sacagawea guided Lewis and Clark
through the region. storage room at the outfitter running the always within striking distance of safety.

All this made me want to bring Hollis, course, Canyons River Company, we lis- We’d also boated it before, so I felt good
but another factor sealed it. If she didn’t go,
Brynn wouldn’t either. And if Brynn didn’t tened to Nate Ostis, founder of Wilderness about bringing Hollis. Our neighbors would
go, her family wouldn’t. We needed her fam-
ily because we liked them, because they had Rescue International, introduce the idea of drive her and our raft up from Colorado, and
years of experience, and because without
them, we lacked enough boats to carry the heuristics. Put simply, heuristic techniques Hatcher would do most of the rowing. Dur-
group’s gear.
are the mental shortcuts we use when mak- ing the trip, we would discuss what we were
Brynn’s mom was named Tracy Foster,
and she and I both knew that with some ing decisions. They’re useful for everyday, learning and drill into our heads the safety
extra effort, we could pull the boats into ed-
dies above the biggest rapids, haul the girls low-risk scenarios, but can easily become and rescue measures Ostis had taught us.
out and hike them around, and then put
them back in below the rapid and carry on. traps that put us or others in danger. Before that, though, Hatcher and I spoke

After we decided, we still felt nervous. But For example, the trap of familiarity with an acquaintance who’d boated the
we were going.
occurs when someone skis a backcountry Middle Fork a lot. He’d learned that we were
ON MEMORIAL DAY, a month before the
Salmon River trip, my 16-year-old son, slope after a big storm without checking the planning to take Hollis on our trip, and he
Hatcher, and I were standing in southwest-
ern Idaho’s Payette River, a few feet from a snowpack, based on previous experiences on issued a dire warning. He called the Mid-
snowbank. We were both shivering, despite
having on multiple layers of long underwear that slope. Acceptance involves giving in to dle Fork a “real river” and said young kids
and expensive drysuits. A clutch of boaters
surrounded us. We were taking a swiftwater peer pressure—like when you go out during should never go on it.
rescue course I’d signed us up for, because
Hatcher wants to be a river guide someday a time of considerable ava- I countered that we
and because we’d soon be heading to the
Middle Fork. The plan was for Shawn to do lanche danger because your planned to walk Hollis
most of the rowing, for me to entertain Hol-
lis on the boat (and hold her tight through friends are doing it and you AN ACQUAINTANCE around all the potentially
the big rapids), and for Hatcher to kayak. don’t want them to think LEARNED THAT WE dangerous rapids.
you’re uncool. Scarcity is
Today was experiential-education day He said we could try
for Hatcher and me. Despite the late-spring
snow melting into runoff, we were taking when you bypass logic al- WERE PLANNING TO that but we’d likely run
turns diving into the Payette. You start by
standing a few feet offshore, in water up to together to pursue a limited TAKE HOLLIS ON OUR into trouble, starting
your knees. Then you jump in, skimming the supply of fun. As in: “The with the first Class IV
surface with your belly, and swim like hell.
The goal is to move upstream into the cur- storm dangerously loaded T R I P, A N D H E I S S U E D rapid, Velvet Falls.
rent at an angle that efficiently ferries your
body across the water. The best swimmers the slopes. But there’s pow- A DIRE WARNING. HE I listened, comparing
would be able to catch an eddy behind a rock der out there—let’s get it!” CALLED THE MIDDLE these warnings with my
located about two-thirds of the way across, own knowledge.
scramble on top, and then flop back in to The trap that interested
swim to the opposite shore.
me most was called the ex- FORK A “REAL RIVER” I knew Velvet was a big
It was anxiety producing but fun, and
the exercise taught us that we could hold pert halo. Ostis explained AND SAID YOUNG deal—I’d read the Middle
our own in frigid water. We also practiced it like this: “I wouldn’t Fork guidebook and had
throwing a rescue bag to capsized boaters,
swimming in whitewater while maneuvering normally run Middle Fork KIDS SHOULD NEVER been on two previous
to negotiate hazards, and pulling a person in
Salmon at seven feet—a GO ON IT. trips there. I also knew
crazy-high level—but since that Velvet could be very

X person is on the trip, dangerous at six or seven

I’m in. X always talks me feet, but my group had

through the lines. She’s always there when already decided not to go if the river was

I flip. She’s always stoking me, coaching above three. Yet for some reason—perhaps

me, correcting me, catching me. I can oper- a general inability to trust myself—fear

ate in terrain beyond my typical comfort knotted in my chest.

zone when I’m within X’s aura.” Now I was in a conundrum, because we’d

That sounds a lot like positive thinking, already decided to bring Hollis. Yet in an in-

but there’s a downside. “I cease to make stant, I could feel my friend’s warning begin

complete decisions for myself when in the to erode my confidence. By the time we were

protective presence of X,” Ostis said. “I de- done discussing Velvet Falls, his expertise

fault to her judgment instead of relying on had become a worm burrowing into my brain.

my own.” But instead of taking it for what it was—an

At the time, I had no idea I would suc- informed opinion—I’d end up processing it

cumb to this trap, and to others, too. In fact, in a way that would create more danger.

I’d already walked into the scarcity trap by

choosing to bring Hollis, which I’d done THREE WEEKS LATER, four-fifths of our

partly because of the rare opportunity to run family crammed into a borrowed Chevy

the Middle Fork. But it was something like long bed and sped toward the Salmon, with

the expert halo that would have the greater the smell of sagebrush wafting through

impact on me, and I should have seen it open windows. (Our oldest son, Scout, was

coming. I’ve always been highly susceptible working on a commercial salmon-fishing

to giving my power, knowledge, and instinct boat in Alaska.) Blue nets secured our gear,

away to others. Soon that tendency would accumulated during decades of boating.

have serious consequences for our trip. Hatcher sat in the passenger seat Snapchat-

7 2 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

Hollis playing in
a hot spring;
left, Gary Eldridge

ting friends; Shawn and Hollis read books, your raft at the put-in, you place it on a ramp result, it can feel like you’ve covered more
played tic-tac-toe, and munched Pringles. I that slants down at a 30-degree pitch, then ground than you have.
drove 80, amped on Pearl Jam and the joyful the whole group holds on to the frame as it
excitement of heading toward a river. slowly drops 150 feet. Some of us were getting stuck on rocks
and others had to stop and help. Time
A day and a half later, we arrived in Stan- The river is calm at this spot. When we slowed; speed and distance warped. Before
ley, a tiny town at the base of the Sawtooth launched, Hatcher was in a ducky, Shawn long we came to a rapid. A knowledgeable
Mountains and the gateway to the Middle was rowing the raft, and I was in charge of member of our group identified it inaccu-
Fork. There we met Tracy, her husband, and Hollis. I held her tight, breathed the river in, rately, causing the rest of us to believe we
their two kids. Under a hot sun, we stocked and enjoyed the moment. We were, after all, were closer to Velvet than we were.
up on last-minute supplies and washed our a highly skilled group. In addition to Tracy’s
hair with a hose behind the store. The Saw- family, we had two experienced rowers pi- Tracy and I started to stress. We insisted
tooths glinted above us, the pale ales were loting catarafts (boats with inflatable tubes that Shawn and Tracy’s husband pull our
cold and hoppy, and the river had dropped connected by a metal frame), two expert boats into eddies ahead of every blind turn.
to three feet. adult kayakers seasoned in river rescue, and And each time they did this and Velvet didn’t
three teens in kayaks and duckies. appear, the rapid seemed to loom with added
Oblivious to anything but the fact that menace in our minds.
they were together, Hollis and her friend All this allowed me to relax, and when I
Brynn saw each other, screamed, and raced did, I marveled at the mountains rising on Finally, I made Shawn pull over long
around on the grass, happy as puppies. Like either side of us, the clear green water, and enough for Tracy and me to get out and scout
Hollis, Brynn had been on several raft trips, Hollis’s face—eyes closed, chin tilted toward around another corner.The girls came along,
and she was just as comfortable sleeping on the sun, smiling. all of us crossing an island covered in fire-
a sandy beach as in her bed at home. Her blackened logs. This foray resulted in lost
parents had a combined 40 years of experi- SOON WE ENTERED a section of river where footing, scraped legs, and kid complaints, so
ence. They knew the rewards and risks. the water was lower and more rocks were ex- Tracy took the girls back to the boats while I
posed.It would be easy for a boat to get stuck. hiked up the mountainside for a better look.
I fed off the girls’ excitement, and Tracy’s, No dice. I clambered back into the boat. My
too. We were thrilled to be far from home, in Our group maneuvered as best we could, family floated until we went around another
such a beautiful place, with six days of fun but inevitably, a few of us got hung up. When bend and saw Tracy and her crew idling in
ahead. Still, we worried about my friend’s a boat strands on a rock, it can take a while yet another eddy.
warning, which I had mentioned to her. to shimmy off. Do this repeatedly and the
hours can pass without you noticing; as a “I was so sick of stopping. I was at the
“What do you think?” she said, huffing, point where I was no longer going to do it,”
during an after-dinner run we took to calm
our nerves.

“I mean, I think it’s OK,” I said, also winded.
“You think they’ll be all right?” She
coughed.
“Yeah, but we have to hike them around
Velvet,” I said.
“Yes. No matter what.”
And that was that, because we’d done our
research, the water had dropped, and we’d
made our call.
When morning came my anxiety was
heightened, because everything about the
Middle Fork is sensory overload. The wil-
derness itself feels primordial. The river
throbs below the campground. To lower

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 7 3

Shawn later recalled. But as I verged closer to nounced that this was it for her and me; we We surged into Pistol, spun around,
panic, thinking we were just above Velvet, he
tried rowing us out of the current. Our raft is were close enough to the put-in that I’d hike bounced against a rock, and stalled on a hy-
a 16-footer, and when it’s loaded down with
the three of us plus gear, it maneuvers like her out. I didn’t care about anything else. draulic. Shawn rowed, a friend and I grabbed
a tank. Shawn is strong and athletic—part
backcountry ski guide, part housebuilder— Shawn said that this plan didn’t make oars,and we all paddled like hell.It was touch
but with all that weight on board, it was al-
most impossible to bring the boat to shore. sense. Gary agreed, addressing both Tracy and go for maybe 15 seconds, but we ran it

Thinking I’d help, I leapt out and lurched and me. “Tracy and Tracy! You have to stop! without flipping. My heart was pounding,
toward the bank. Bowline in hand, I tried to
pull us in. This scouting around every corner is causing but without Hollis on board I was able to

The current, the boat’s heft, and my in- our problems. We have people who are more embrace the thrill.
adequate strength caused me to trip and fall,
and I was dragged across the rocks near the than qualified to row Velvet. But you have to At Pistol Creek Camp, where we later re-
shore. That’s when I let go of the rope and
watched as Shawn and Hollis drifted into the let them do it.” grouped, I examined Hollis for any signs of
river’s green tongue.
I guess that’s what trauma. She seemed fine:
Then I basically lost my mind.
Thinking we were just above the killer liberated me from the She’d found a helmet and a
rapid, I screamed. In an instant, I visualized
Shawn rowing the boat, Hollis failing to hold spell of expert opin- pair of sunglasses, and had
on, the boat flipping, and Hollis flying out.
I saw my seven-year-old flailing for help ion. Once I’d almost I VISUALIZED MY lured Brynn into a ducky.
while the recirculating rapid held her under.
I saw her lungs fill with water. killed Hollis, I realized SEVEN-YEAR- Tied to a rock and floating
“Oh,my God! Shawn!”I screamed.“Make that my fear of harm- OLD FLAILING FOR in an eddy, they played for
her hold on!” ing her could have an hour. I noticed that Hol-
The fear in my voice caused him to try and
bring the boat to shore. He jumped out, tried been lethal. And to top HELP WHILE THE lis had put herself in charge,
to pull it in, failed, and was unable to heave
himself aboard. it off, Velvet wasn’t RECIRCULATING RAPID and that her rules were
Now I watched Hollis, alone on our raft, right around the cor- pretty strict. She shouted,
head for what I thought was the last turn
before Velvet. ner at all; it was two HELD HER UNDER. I “There’s a rapid, Brynn!

ACCOUNTS OF WHAT happened next vary miles downriver. SAW HER LUNGS FILL Paddle! Paddle!”
based on the observer. One of our kayakers, When we finally WITH WATER. “OH, The rest of the evening
Gary Eldridge, says he saw Hollis from his
own perch in an eddy a few yards down the came to it, we pushed brought a slow loosening of
river. She was “alone but unaware of what
was happening,” he says. Shawn, who was through without inci- MY GOD! SHAWN!” I tension, coupled with im-
in the river clutching the frame, remembers
her “just sitting there, looking stunned.” dent. It’s true what the SCREAMED. “MAKE mersion in the magic of the
Hollis describes it like so: “I was so scared, guidebook says, that river. We were at 44.7 degrees
because I thought I would never see Scout
again. I thought I’d never see Boone.” Boone at five feet or higher HER HOLD ON!” north, and twilight lingered
is our dog. In other words, she thought she
was going to die. it becomes a “boat for hours. In the purple glow,

Gary saved us. He saw the commotion and flipping hole that we found and relocated a
was able to paddle over, stuff his kayak nose
beneath our raft, stand on the hull, and jump is difficult to miss,” baby rattlesnake. The teens
in. Then he secured our boat’s oars, reached
over the side, grabbed Shawn by his PFD, but at three feet it was a straight shot, off kicked a Hacky Sack as the adults cooked
and hauled him aboard. The two men lost
their balance and crashed into Hollis; only an exciting drop, into pushy water that dinner. Later we spread our sleeping bags
then did she start to wail.
helped us grab a nearby eddy. on a tarp as the sand beneath it began to cool.
Gary rowed to my side of the river. I
couldn’t gauge how far downstream they’d Under a cloudless sky, we watched stars
gone because I was filled with terror. Adren-
aline surging, I staggered over the rocks until THAT NIGHT we camped on a wildflower- appear, first one, then thousands. All was
I reached Hollis, who was shaking as she
sobbed. I held her as tight as I could and an- sprayed bench above the river, and the next quiet except for the sound of the river lap-

morning we were up and paddling early. ping the beach and water coursing between

Small whitecaps formed on the rapids, the inky rocks in Pistol.

which glinted in the sun like tinfoil. Ospreys

perched in the branches of lodgepoles, and NOW PAST OUR biggest hurdles, we settled

Dolly Varden trout darted in the clear emer- in for the next three nights and four days.

ald water. On the river, I simultaneously loved the ride

Later, a boat pinned in a logjam redi- and steeled myself when we hit a big rapid.

rected our attention. We worked for hours I’d snake-grip Hollis, squint my eyes, and

to free it but couldn’t. After serious delib- hold my breath until we pushed through.

eration, we loaded its occupants onto other Once safely below it, I’d feel a rush of joy.

craft, and they caught a flight from an air- Hollis would splay her little body out on the

strip the following morning. (The boat was cooler, singing a song she’d made up about

later recovered.) otters. She’d cheer on Hatcher and his pals

Overall, with Velvet behind us, my anxi- as they tested their growing kayak skills.

ety eased considerably. But soon we would Day three was mellow paddling, cast-

face our second big rapid, a Class IV doozy ing for trout, and scanning for wildlife. We

called Pistol. paddled 21 miles through multiple big rap-

Because the raft was heavily loaded, we ids and had nothing but fun. That night we

were at heightened risk of flipping. Shawn stayed at Whitey Cox Camp, named for a

has safely rowed countless Class IVs, but World War II infantryman who’d come to

you can never count on past successes. This the Salmon seeking gold and had died when

time, Hollis was in Tracy’s more maneuver- his placer mine collapsed on top of him. You

able raft, floating with Brynn, screaming can still visit his tombstone on a bench above

and laughing. That arrangement allowed the campsite, and the women in our group

me to breathe easier and take in the experi- scurried up there for a little freedom. We

ence free of fear. did some burpees and sit-ups, and sipped a

7 4 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

“Everyone
agreed

that it was
a trip we

would never
forget.”

couple of beers in honor of old Whitie (the “tub” in the middle of nowhere. On the deck outside the store, there’s a
correct spelling of the poor man’s name). Never mind that Hollis barely dipped her bulletin board where you can leave mes-
sages for other boaters you know are com-
The river lulled us to sleep again, and in toe in the water. Someday she’ll realize how ing through. To my high school friend Matt,
the morning we were up early. Today we were special it was to visit a creek only a fraction Hollis wrote, “Hi Matt. How are you? Have
going to Big Loon Camp, one of my favorite of the world ever sees. For now, Pringles and you met me?” I grinned watching Hollis
spots. The Sheepeater Indians inhabited Oreos called her back to the boat. We got have yet another only-on-the-Salmon ex-
this place until they were forced onto res- going again and ran Tappan Falls, Tappan perience before we headed to our fifth and
ervations more than a hundred years ago. I III, and Earthquake Rock (all challenging final camp of the trip. In a whipping wind,
had also solidified several friendships here rapids) before camping at Sheep Creek. The we ate a classic Independence Day din-
in 2014 while rafting with a group of under- next day, we celebrated our first Fourth of ner (burgers, with a bit more dirt in them
forties who’d survived cancer. July on a river. than usual), waved glow sticks at bats dive-
bombing mosquitoes, and thanked the stars
Loon has some of the best hot springs WE MARKED the occasion with a stop at for aligning to give us this trip.
on the Middle Fork. Getting there requires the Flying B Ranch, a fly-, float-, or horse-
a dusty, mile-long walk up Loon Creek, back-in kind of place that sells beer, candy, The next morning, we headed toward
but I was excited for Hatcher and Hollis to T-shirts, and ice cream. Tracy had packed our last stretch of river before the take-out,
see them. My kids have done a lot of cool patriotic temporary tattoos for the girls. As one of the most beautiful sections of the
things—skied in the Tetons, spent a summer Hollis licked an ice cream bar, the Statue of Middle Fork. The accordion of mountains
in Alaska, flown to glaciers in tiny planes— Liberty danced on her cheek. loosens, and the coin-slot canyons open up.
but they’ve never soaked in a tarp-lined log

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 7 5

The river becomes wider and more gentle, side, water piling up behind it. ers, and a trucker hat with the word MCFAB-
enormous boulders dwarf humans, and your My first reaction was to scream. If we ULOUS across the front, which belonged to
surroundings feel prehistoric. our friend Greg McFadden. He owns Can-
didn’t right the boat we’d flip, and that yons River Company, which runs trips on
In one tricky rapid, Hatcher flipped, at- meant plunging into a churning hydraulic. the Salmon all summer.
tempted repeated rolls, and finally had to I knew from experience on the Middle Fork
wet-exit his kayak. We collected his boat how one of these can hold you under. And I In the photo, Hollis is holding her arms in
and pulled him into the raft, and I snapped a knew there was only a tiny chance that, if we a flexed position that says I did this.
picture that conveys exactly how he says he did go in, I’d be able to hold on to Hollis.
felt: “Pissed that everyone was so focused LATER I ASKED Greg if we’d screwed up by
on the little kids that they barely noticed But I had learned an important lesson.
when I had a few scary flips.” After our Velvet debacle, I realized that in bringing Hollis on the Middle Fork. He said
giving my power away, I’d become useless—
I guess I figured that since he was older even a danger. Once I’d regained trust in my no, we didn’t, that we had enough experi-
and quickly becoming a solid boater, he own ability to assess risk, the entire trip had
didn’t need my worry. Plus, the adult kay- gone much better. Now we were in a truly ence. We knew the risks and dangers, and
akers in our group were keeping close watch hazardous spot.But instead of losing my shit,
over the teens—giving them hundreds of I took a quick, deep breath. we’d mitigated them. And we encountered
dollars’ worth of instruction for free.
Then I surveyed the scene and saw that our fair share of heuristic traps, which,
Then one of the coolest moments of our one of the rocks pinning us was big enough
journey happened. At our final lunch stop, for us to cling to. It wasn’t perfect; its shape Ostis later told me, you shouldn’t be afraid
Hollis asked Shawn to play with her in the was like an inverted tooth, and to stay on we
river. At the edge of an eddy with a gently would have to straddle it. But we’d be safer to confront.
moving current, she had him stand by her there, so I stepped from the lurching boat
ducky and hold it steady. In her shiny black onto the boulder, pulling Hollis onto it with “I’m not sure we should be trying to avoid
wetsuit top and her purple PFD, she said, me. We were only about four feet from the
“Wait right there, Dada.” Then she waded shoreline, but the water in that gap was a them,” he said. “The ones we talk about—
several yards upstream. dangerous torrent.
familiarity, consistency, acceptance, the
What she did next was even better. Belly We were both terrified; I tried to calm
down on the river’s surface, she let the cur- Hollis as she shook and cried. Meanwhile, expert halo,social facilitation,and scarcity—
rent take her. Showing no fear at all, she the kayakers had pulled off the river and
floated to the boat, pulled herself over the were working out the best way to rescue are quite inherent and therefore no surprise.
side, and beamed with pride. Hollis and me from the gut of a raging rapid.
In a matter of minutes, Gary was in position Usually, three or four of them are present in a
Things seemed perfect. But one more on a rocky bank several feet from us, stretch-
challenge awaited. ing his arms toward Hollis. With the pinned given incident. I feel good heading out when
boat heaving, Shawn stepped onto our rock
THE FINAL SECTION of the Middle Fork is and grabbed her. I told her she’d be all right everyone in the group can recite and speak
difficult: in just seven miles, there are two and started to lift her off my body. My girl
Class III–IVs, three Class IIIs, and four Class is sturdy, so as Shawn hoisted her across, I to these, so they can better recognize when
IIs. The bigger rapids are both stay-alert, shouted to Gary, “Get ready! She’s heavier
watch-yourself runs. than she looks! She’s heavy!” they’re in play in the field.”

Reveling in the excitement, we all took to Hearing me, our group supported Gary as At the take-out, Hollis and Brynn high-
saying,“This is a true adventure.A true epic.” he lifted her over the water. Then he helped
Everyone agreed that it was a trip we would me leap across. I knew that if either of us fived before practicing floating under my
never forget. had slipped, we could have drowned. But we
didn’t. Shawn was able to bounce the raft supervision. Later, Tracy and I talked while
We cruised through Class III–IV Hancock through the rocks, and we all reconvened in
Rapid like old hands. We barely noticed the an eddy below the rapid. ferrying gear to our trucks.
Class IIs. But then came House of Rocks, a
technical Class III–IV with heavy hydraulics. During this ordeal, Hollis had dug her fin- We both agreed that we’d do the Middle
Before we even entered, things went south. gernails into my arms. But after it was over,
we gently urged her back into the boat. She Fork again, now wiser. We’d understand
House of Rocks has two lines, one that was alright as long as she sat in my lap. The
goes to the right of a set of boulders, and last two rapids nearly put me over the edge, more of the dangers and appreciate more of
one that goes to the left. The left channel and when we reached the confluence with
is the move—the way you’re supposed to the Main Salmon, I asked Shawn if Hollis the beauty.
enter. “We had been so glued to the guide- and I could get out and walk the final Class
book. I was glad to read and run,” Shawn said III–IV. We did, and after Shawn ran it, we But one of the reasons you run rivers in
later. “But of course you can’t do that on the jumped back in.
Middle Fork.” the first place is that you can’t plan every
Hollis floated the final quarter-mile to
We weren’t paying enough attention, and the take-out, gripping me tightly but with a moment. A river is by nature wild and un-
suddenly we found ourselves on top of the grin on her sun-pinked face. When we slid
rapid. In a turbulent rock garden, Shawn the boat out of the water, she broke into a predictable. That can make it dangerous,
tried lining us up but couldn’t. The river smile. I leapt out to take her picture. She’s
pulled us into the right channel, and as it wearing a shortie wetsuit, her PFD, sneak- too, and yes, taking a child along is a risk.
took control, it turned us and wedged us
between two rocks. The boat began to high- I’m happy to report that a year after our

trip, Hollis still shows no sign of scarring.

She’s not quite ready to return to the Middle

Fork. But she can’t stop talking about the

river trips she’ll get to do once we can travel

the world freely again. O

TRACY ROSS, A FREQUENT CONTRIBU-
TOR TO OUTSIDE, IS THE AUTHOR OF THE
SOURCE OF ALL THINGS, A 2011 MEMOIR
ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE AND SURVIVAL.

Volume XLV, Number 6. OUTSIDE (ISSN 0278-1433) is
published monthly except for combined issues Jan/Feb,
Mar/Apr, Jul/Aug, and Sep/Oct for a total of 8 times per
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7 6 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 11.20

exposureoutside a d2 0 20
ventur
Nate Bressler

Photographer and former archaeologist Nate Bressler estimates that he’s had
more than 100 odd jobs in his life, from ranching in Mexico to working on a survival-
ist TV show in Idaho. Among them is an annual gig leading group horseback rides
on 10,000 acres of land near Caputa, South Dakota. It’s not your typical dude-
ranch experience, he says—there’s no A/C or internet, and no one to saddle your
horse for you in the morning. Instead, it’s a chance for city dwellers to get a real
taste of cowboy life. “A lot of them have never used the bathroom or showered
outdoors,” says Bressler, 43. “But after four or five days they’ve totally changed.
They’re yeehawing and having a good old time.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALBA BELLER

11.20 OUTSIDE MAGAZINE 7 7

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