The Overingtons

December 21, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 2 Comments

Part. 1: Building the Seasonal Family Dynamic

The family and their new boats in New Zealand

For professional nomads, the seasonal lifestyle is not about stringing jobs together, it’s about weaving employment into a lifestyle guided by passion. For some, the idea of raising a child in that lifestyle sounds irresponsible if not impossible—but it doesn’t have to. There is no reason the driving, architectural force of one’s young adulthood should be stymied by parenthood. By adopting that commonality as the cornerstone for their seasonal family’s foundation, couples that meet while working seasonally can remain in the lifestyle that attracted them together and still raise a child responsibly. The unknown path, though intimidating, is not unnavigable. For the Overingtons of Healy, Alaska and Salt Lake City, Utah, it’s been a series of calculated risks.

Bill “Buckwheat” Overington and Louise Lovrich have raised their 12-year old son, Louis, entirely in the seasonal lifestyle. They own a rafting business in Denali National Park that operates in the summer, and the rest of the year find themselves in Salt Lake City where Louise works in pharmacy and Buckwheat drives for the transportation concessionaire at Snowbird ski resort.

Louis on the top of the podium at the IFSA National Freeride Championship

Louis on top of the podium at the IFSA National Freeride Championship

That recipe has produced interesting results. If the fear of raising a kid seasonally is that transferring between schools twice a year will stunt him socially, fill him with loneliness, instill a penchant for over-compensation, and—yaddah yaddah—ultimately leave him homeless and in a ditch, we can probably shelve that one. In reality, what’s emerged from the oven is a well-adjusted kid who looks up to his dad, kayaks with his parents regularly, out-paddles boaters twice his age, and last year became the national freeride ski champion in his age group. He’s confident, smart, and supportive of his peers. Although there’s still time for him to end up homeless in a ditch, the evidence suggests he’ll be fine.

Beyond passion for the outdoors, as business owners the Overingtons’ livelihood depended on blending parenthood into the seasonal lifestyle successfully. “The thing is, most people have never done it themselves and they don’t know anyone else who’s really done it that way either, so in their mind you can’t do it—until someone does it and it seems to work. Then they’re pretty supportive,” Buckwheat explains. Trailblazing requires fortitude, but the Overingtons’ sagaciousness enabled another Salt Lake City family to set up a seasonal lifestyle in Panama. Most of the anticipated roadblocks, both families discovered, were nothing more than untested parenting taboos.

“It’s all about risk, all of these things,” Buckwheat says. “It doesn’t always work out, and it doesn’t always work out the way you expect it to, but if you have the fortitude and the gumption to accept the consequences as they be, whatever it is, you know, you learn from it, you grow from it.”

Navigating the school system presented the first hurdles, and tested the family dynamic they’d constructed. Until this year, Louis began each school year in Healy, Alaska before transferring to Salt Lake City in the fall. “[People] ask us, ‘Does the Utah school allow that?’ It’s like, ‘how can they not?’” Buckwheat laughs.

Louise recalls being warned by the school that Louis would lose enrollment if he accompanied her to New Zealand for six weeks in kindergarden. Louise asked, “Can I just re-enroll him when we show up?” Well, yes, she could. By testing the perimeter, they’ve teased out opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise existed, and for the first time they’re carving out a more significant slice of their year to devote to New Zealand.

In an effort to integrate Louise’s home landscape deeper into their lives, this year the family has made an opportunity to visit Louise’s parents and explore New Zealand kayaking and mountain biking. After beginning the school year in Healy the “Wheats,” as friends often refer to them, are trying out homeschooling.

The family taking a break from skiing

So what’s the recipe behind the recipe? What aspects of their seasonal lives became the pillars of their seasonal family? Where were forks in the road where they could have folded? By evaluating the risks they took as individuals, and then as a couple, we can understand how the Overingtons beat odds to become the seasonal family they are today.

Louise

Louise with a 3-month old Louis

Louise grew up in New Zealand, the daughter of Croatian immigrants. Her parents, WWII survivors, had made aversion to danger the guiding force in their life and that was reflected in their daughter’s upbringing. Louise felt sheltered from many benign experiences. Family beach outings provided an egress but a desire for something more burned inside of her. Although New Zealand would become the adventure sport capital of the world, that exploded after Louise’s time, and like many Kiwis she looked out from her country in search of more world than could fit onto her tiny island. Thus, as a young adult Louise left the country in search of adventure.

After pharmacy school, a ski week in Austria inspired Louise to make plans with a friend to move to Colorado and become ski bums for one winter. At the last minute, however, her friend bailed to get married. This was an important moment for Louise. Her friend married and never again had the chance for that one winter at a ski resort, and it would have been easy for Louise to bow out and follow suit. Louise was intimidated but the departure date was approaching fast so she stuck to the plan, found a restaurant job near Aspen, and fell skis first into a twenty-five year passion for powder. A series of events led to her renewing her visa, living in Durango, and meeting Buckwheat. What was intended as one winter abroad quickly evolved into a lifestyle of adventure.

Buckwheat

Punching Two Rocks rapid on the Nenana (Buckwheat guiding far left)

By age ten Buckwheat was already riding his motorcycle solo through the woods. Although he claims his mom was “a bit of a scaredy cat,” she was apparently out riding motorcycles at times, as well. Regardless, Buckwheat’s childhood provided more room for scrapes and bruises than Louise’s, and he mitigated the doldrums of suburban Florida by channeling his energy into motocross and football. At twelve, his parents divorced and he and his mom moved to Colorado where winters suddenly impeded on the Floridian’s hobbies. An extracurricular ski class at fifteen, however, gave winter purpose. “Winter was just a pain in the ass up to that point. Skiing opened up a whole new side of life,” he reflects.

Under the guidance of his best friend, Rick, Buckwheat evolved into an aggressive skier. The pair often skipped school for powder days and were gifted enough students that it bore little affect on their academics. Adventures amplified their lives until one fateful night when Rick was killed in a car accident. Rick’s ashes were scattered on Telluride and since then skiing has become more spiritual for Buckwheat, who still thinks of his friend often while on the mountain.

In college, Buckwheat couldn’t afford motorized bikes anymore so he ditched the motor and joined the pioneer mountain biking scene in Durango. An outdoors class at Fort Lewis introduced him to kayaking and soon this trifecta—skiing, mountain biking, and kayaking—vied for his attention and became the guiding framework of his young adult life. Eventually, photography and driving work for a Grand Canyon raft company led Buckwheat to raft guiding on the Animas in Durango. That segue planted a major life seed that years later blossomed into the founding of Denali Outdoor Center, but it’s significance lay dormant at first.

Initially, sports were about adrenaline—even skiing to an extent. Buckwheat’s first overnight river trip on the San Juan, however, developed his spiritual connection to the outdoors. “Finding solitude in the canyons of southern Utah, reading Desert Solitaire, and discovering the tranquility of isolation, truly turned me on to river life,” he explains. “[Adventure sports] became a catalyst for spiritual and physical happiness; connecting me with the power and humility of the experience, and maintaining my physical well-being as they continued to satisfy my desire for the next adrenaline rush.” What began as hobbies escalated into indispensable intimacy. Since then, these pursuits have infiltrated every aspect of his life.

Providence

Louise hit the jackpot. Her first ever river trip comprised three weeks on the most coveted section of high volume whitewater in the country and even introduced her to her future husband. They didn’t date immediately, however. Buckwheat would drive Louise twice that year, first as her shuttle driver for the Grand Canyon and then again for public transit in Durango that winter. After the second meeting, Buckwheat invited Louise out for a drink but in an effort to stick to a new personal restriction about not agreeing to every date proposal, she turned down the man she would eventually marry. Providence provided a second chance meeting at the laundromat that evening, however, and afterward they found themselves getting that drink after all.

Many adventures later, Buckwheat would get hired at a rafting company in Denali, but bailed on the idea after doing some research at the library. “We’re looking at the rainfall amounts and stuff and we’re like ‘we don’t want to go there, drive all the way up there and have it be cold and rainy all the time,'” Buckwheat says.

“I just remember that picture of everyone [rafting] in Helly Hansen,” Louise laments. “I was like, uh, looks like it rains a lot there.”

It does, which they discovered firsthand that year when low water on the Animas expanded their migration to Alaska despite themselves. Denali revealed something more desirable than rain, however. The Nenana proved to be a high volume, low traffic, non-permitted river through incendiary landscape. Over the next few years, they built a home, built a business, and made that glacial-fed river their backyard, rain and all.

Trailblazing

Home sweet home: sunset over Otto Lake at Denali Outdoor Center

The Denali business originated as an idea for an inflatable kayak school with little hope of getting off the ground. Banks continually refused Buckwheat’s proposal until finally he met with a loan officer who happened to recognize him as the now grown son of her husband’s good friend. She took a chance on his risky idea and, thus, the Denali Park Paddling Center was formed in 1993. Eventually, that evolved into the Denali Outdoor Center (DOC), one of the most respected rafting companies in Alaska today.

Until then, Louise was building a pharmacy career but she quit her full-time gig to start DOC. They had hoped DOC would make enough money for Louise to quit pharmacy all together, but it didn’t work out that way. Although the business is successful, it’s difficult to make enough money in four months to fund their preferred lifestyle. “There’s a certain level of income that’s required to meet those needs to raise a family, it’s one of the reasons why we only have one child. We can afford the tickets to New Zealand, we can afford the toys for everybody, and still live the lifestyle. At 2 or 3 kids we might have to reassess and have a different lifestyle.” Buckwheat analyzes. Therefore, both parents maintain employment in the off-season. Louise became a relief pharmacist which allowed her to work when and where she wanted. It also took her over Colorado mountain passes and away from home for several days at a time—an arrangement unsustainable into parenthood.

They searched Alaska and the West for a place that allowed all facets of their lives to synchronize. Louise offered Walmart winter pharmacy work strictly in Salt Lake City and they accepted. “Back then it was easy since they were so short of pharmacists and they took what you could offer. Hence, I created a seasonal job due to the need for pharmacists. I don’t think I could get away with it now.” In Salt Lake City, they could afford a 4-bedroom, 2-and-a-half bath, decent house in a nice neighborhood, ten minutes from the world class skiing of Snowbird-Alta, for $170,000. “To be able to afford a home that we were only going to live in half the year and that we didn’t want to rent out the other half of the year—you can’t do that anywhere else that I’ve found. You couldn’t pull those pieces together, the work, the other shoulder season activities, great mountain biking in spring and fall there, close to the desert, you know, all the elements. International airport, direct flights to Anchorage.”

Louise adds, “Everything gets negated because of the smog.”

Undoubtedly, her comment represents the underlying truth: there isn’t one landscape that currently meets the family’s needs and desires. Thus, the migration persists, something everyone processes differently. Buckwheat accepts it as a necessary discomfort because neither landscape is attractive to him in the opposite season, whereas Louise is reminded that she would prefer to integrate into one, year-round community. For Louis, the seasonal cadence has permeated his entire life so he has no basis for comparison. Despite the obvious inconvenience, the fall drive south—peppered with kayaking and mountain biking adventures—has developed into a beloved, annual, two-week family vacation capable of dissolving the rest of the bullshit. Indeed, the parents especially know how rare it is to share adventure with the whole family.

Built-in adventure buddies

First day of skiing 2012

If the couple that plays together stays together, then the family who extends that gift to their children fortifies their bond that much more. For those who disbelieve that a person can chase their passion and raise a happy family, the Wheats shatter that illusion. Parenthood mellows the terrain temporarily and adventures metabolize at a different pace for a few years, but seeing passion mirrored in the incredulous eyes of one’s own child deepens that activity’s value forever. In the long run, it can even keep adults engaged in the outdoors at a greater intensity for more years than they naturally would otherwise. It certainly has for Buckwheat and Louise.

Louise admits she satiated her addiction to powder and no longer needs to alter her life for it, however engaging in her passion for the outdoors with her family remains paramount. Buckwheat recognizes that parenthood now has him playing on his skis and kayak with the intensity of his young adult years. As a family of three, the Overingtons travel as a self-contained unit—built-in adventure buddies looking out for each other’s safety and sharing the stoke. For professional nomads, that qualifies as living the dream.

To succeed as a parent in the seasonal lifestyle only the rules need change. As with everything, there’s a way to do it responsibly and a way to do it irresponsibly, and this one starts with a change in the narrative. It’s not a rootless existence but migration between seasonal habitats. Pick your playgrounds, create a niche, and the resultant passion will foster a dynamic learning environment for a child. Adventurous couples have the opportunity to break the paradigm and see their passions take on new life in the next generation. If life is a series of calculated risks, then parenthood is the last place to start taking the easy way out.

Ready for adventure in New Zealand

Continue to Part 2: Raising the Nomadic Kid

Trent Griffin

September 27, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / Leave a comment

Trent and the Beaver in the Don Sheldon Amphitheater, Denali National Park, Alaska

Glacier pilot in Alaska
Skydive pilot in Hawaii
Surfer

Dreams require tinkering. It’s the impetus of invention, even in one’s self—it’s the audacity to try and fail yet persevere through. “I’m afflicted with the obsession of just tinkering with stuff. I get it from my dad.” Similarly to his Dad, tinkering instilled Trent with the follow-through to succeed, no matter what the challenge.

Technically, Trent’s story begins in Australia, but while he and his brother were still babies his parents transplanted the family to Talkeetna, Alaska. The house was in shambles so his dad fixed it up while the rest of the family stayed in Anchorage. “It was pretty trashed. I believe there was a motorcycle inside the living room taken apart, and the outside steps for the porch were, like, out in the middle of the yard somewhere. To boot, it was 35 below zero for like a month that winter.” Trent’s dad persevered and renovated the home in which the boys would grow up. That ability to hunker down, see a project through, and enjoy the how-to process is something his dad passed onto him. “My dad’s always been my hero, and I take after him in most things. He’s an amazing builder and mechanic, and he just loves to tinker.”

Talkeetna, Alaska is the aviation hub of the Alaska Range, and the pre-base-camp hangout for most Denali climbers. Therefore, many aviation legends and climbing tales are spun in this little community of about 1300 people. Trent grew up less than a quarter mile from the town’s 3500ft airstrip, but consciously speaking, that proximity played little part in his career choice. Before college, he was just a regular kid playing hockey and working on cars. “I actually didn’t fly an airplane, I mean actually sit at the controls of the airplane until I was in college. I just didn’t have somebody to go flying with the whole time. If I did, I’m sure I would have gotten into it a lot earlier.” Therefore, when he did pursue his pilot’s license it was a very cognizant choice.

After graduating high school with approximately eighteen other students, Trent’s parents encouraged him to pursue professional aeronautics at University of Alaska Anchorage, during which time he earned his private pilot’s license and instrument rating. By then, Trent had 95 hours—he also had an epiphany. He thought, “Why do I need to pay all this money to be part of a university setting when I could just be part of a flying club?” This was a defining choice in two ways. First off, he paid far less per flight hour than he did renting a plane—not to mention he saved on tuition fees. Perhaps more importantly, though, joining a flight club exposed him to tailwheels and ski planes—the latter particularly is a specialized type of flying that few people have access to, let alone consistently, but which nourished Trent’s adventurous side. “Flying on skis was awesome. It made flying this total open abyss where you could go, especially in Alaska. You’ve got lakes everywhere, flat surfaces, and tons of snow. As long as you’re being careful you can get there on skis.”

Trent and I met in Alaska at our first aviation jobs, albeit in much different capacities. Trent was essentially a co-pilot and I was the office manager/flight coordinator for the same company. I was starry-eyed about the unique brand of flying it showcased. In high school, I attended a career day pilot’s talk, but my dreams of adventure were dashed when the speaker painted a limited reality of airlines, military, or both. But Alaska offered something different: the opportunity to fly in in unique places and tinker one’s career around a nomadic lifestyle. At the time of employment, Fly Denali and Talkeetna Aero operated jointly—Fly Denali landed climbers and tourists on Mt. McKinley’s (Denali’s) glaciers in ski planes, while Talkeetna Aero employed twin engines equipped with supplemental oxygen to fly over the mountain’s summit at 20,306 feet. Eventually, Trent would fly both types of aircraft as pilot in command, but back then he was second in command in the twins. Trent’s aviation career was just taking off.

Office with a view

After the summer at Fly Denali/Talkeetna Aero, with about 575 flight hours logged, Trent went to Bethel, Alaska and became a bush pilot for Grant Aviation. At this point, it’s useful to define what a bush pilot is precisely, since the term bush pilot is often sloppily used to encompass all Alaskan aviation.

Trent with a 98 yr old woman in Western Alaska, who made him a fur hat from beaver and seal.

Trent with a 98 yr old woman in Western Alaska, who made him a hat from seal and beaver fur.

The majority of Alaska is cut off from the road system that connects the state to Canada and then feeds back into the contiguous United States—a fact which pleases most Alaskans. Case in point, when the only road into the fishing community of Valdez was annihilated by an avalanche last winter the town shrugged it off and used boats to fill the void. Boats, sled dogs, snow machines, and bush planes are the unifiers between communities off the road system. “You can fly five minutes out of Anchorage and you’re out in the wilderness, but you’re not a bush pilot, you’re taking off out of Anchorage,” Trent explains. Most pilots agree that a pilot’s point of origin and intended destination must be off the road system to qualify as bush flying.

Winter flying in Western Alaska is not only off the road system, but it’s often brutal, and Trent’s experience was no exception. “That was pretty real. It was super windy, it was super slick, the runways were just solid ice.” Most Januaries produce more snowfall, but it was a warm winter. “Everything was, like, water over ice with little bits of peat gravel showing through.”

He recalls his first day waiting for the company instructor in the Cessna 207, which was tied down but not yet started. “It was blowing something like 25 gusting to 30-something. That’s pretty fast, especially when you’re just sitting there and the plane’s rocking all over the place and you hear these wind whistle sounds going by. But as soon as I got in the air I was like ‘okay, this isn’t so bad.’ A plane in the air can handle quite a bit—more than you think they can.” Trent adopted the challenges as learning opportunities. “The thing that it taught me is to make the right decision and listen to that little voice inside your head because you’re probably right. If you start pushing that limit too many times then you’ll probably have an accident. You have to realize: who are you proving it to?”

Concerning safety, some companies have a reputation for shopping unfavorable bush flights around the pilot lounge until someone finally accepts. Thankfully, Grant wasn’t one of them. Ultimately, it’s the pilot’s decision to refuse a flight but Trent encountered several self-righteous pilots on his three “tours of duty” in Western Alaska. “They were seeing how far they could take it. I’ve seen a few where the guy took off, it’s dark, it’s only seven-fifteen in the morning and they’re not supposed to be off until eight, and ten minutes of flying and their airplane was covered in ice. It’s scary looking—the spinner had spikes coming off of it. You see what their motivation is and it’s not worth it. It’s really not.”

Photo by Michael DeYoung

A few years of experience later, Trent returned to his roots as the chief pilot at Fly Denali. In an effort to boost his company’s reputation, Trent accepted an invitation to be filmed for National Geographic’s Alaska Wingmen, which meant flying the turbine beaver with a camera crew in tow. Reality television has synonymized Alaska with danger, but the term “reality” is a complete fallacy. Ask an Alaskan fisherman about Deadliest Catch, a pilot about any of the aviation shows, or any Alaskan in general about Sarah Palin and they’ll roll their eyes. “It’s crap. Everything is made up. ‘Don’t worry, we’re National Geographic,’ they said, and I was, like, ‘well I just don’t want everything to be staged, I want it to be real. You need to realize aviation isn’t this terrifying, death-defying event. It’s supposed to be safe. There’s so many things that you have to do to make it safe, and I don’t want you guys to film and ask me to tell you that ‘oh man at any point here if we lose an engine we’re all going to die.’ They really embellish the danger factor all the time, because otherwise they’d have nothing to film. ‘Well, another uneventful day of flying.’” The truth may not be as flashy, but reality is compelling in its own nature. Among its honors is the esteem of being honest and allowing audiences to draw their own conjectures.

Another fallacy permeating this lifestyle is tourism. Over time, many tourist towns construct a marketable facade of the town’s soul for tourists to consume. Growing up witnessing tourists trample your homeland is enough to embitter locals, however, Trent is more accepting. “Here’s the thing. I wasn’t the last one in, and I’m not the kind of guy who is ever going to tell people how it is up here. There’s certainly a pace of life everywhere you go, and everybody that’s visiting those places should respect that and not just expect it to be the way it was where they came from. No one can say this is my land, because they’re really just a blip in this timeline of this world. So when I think about it that way I don’t get annoyed.”

Trent immersed himself in tourism as an outsider when he landed a job flying in Hawaii. After a chance meeting in Alaska with the owner of Skydive Kauai, Trent accepted an invitation to check out the operation in the winter. “I kinda went on a whim, brought my girlfriend with me and said ‘I’ll figure it out.’” Before long, Trent became their full-time pilot flying skydivers and hour-long air tours.

Most single-engine pilots eventually chase money into larger aircraft, a tendency Trent calls, “The big shiny jet syndrome.” Although most of Trent’s flight hours have been single-engine, time in the Navajos and a recently earned Airline Transport Pilot license diversifies his marketability should he decide to pursue something larger, which seems unlikely. He illustrated the dilemma musing over the ski planes he’s flown professionally. “Flying bigger airplanes doesn’t really appeal to me. Even going from the Beaver to the Otter, all of a sudden it’s a slower-turning airplane, I mean it’s awesome, but it’s not a 185. The 185 is like a little hot rod and then compare that to the Otter, it’s like driving a dump truck.” The idea of the airlines conjures adventure for some, but sounds mundane to Trent. A more appealing step to him would be fire-bombing for wildfire control or flying with the Department of Natural Resources.

Looking toward Anderson Pass in Denali

Although repetitious flying invites monotony, Trent recognizes his good fortune. “Every day is different. Even though it’s the same mountains and the same terrain, the scenery is always changing. The clouds, the weather, the winds; the picture is painted differently every day, but with the same background.” Trent has witnessed spectacular sights from the cockpit, from humpback whales breaching in Hawaii to northern lights in Western Alaska. “I saw 7 bears on a beached whale one time. One of them I distinctly remember was laying on its back and its belly was, like, over its rib cage, and he’s almost just scratching itself looking up at me, not a care in the world sitting next to this huge stinking gray whale. Those bears were in heaven. I feel pretty lucky to be seeing those kinds of things.”

Aviation is just one of Trent’s many interests, but it certainly adds a dynamic when indulging his other hobbies. Now that he owns a Tripacer he expects he’ll still be flying on weekends. “But it will be a means to an end. I’ll go straight to where I’m going, land, and have an adventure. That’s what it’s all about: getting to those way cool out of the way spots that are otherwise unobtainable. I like to see stuff from the air, but I don’t really have an ambition, like, ‘I want to go fly the Grand Canyon.’ I have much more ambition to raft the canyon, or fly somewhere and get out there and hike. That’s what an airplane allows up here is there’s so much freedom where you can go. You can fly out there and then enjoy this total, untouched wilderness.”

Although Trent opted not to return to Skydive Kauai this winter he is planning a long surf vacation in the off-season. “If I had a warm ocean and waves [in Talkeetna], I would never leave. That’s what my other passion is. Really being next to the ocean, being in the ocean—I love surfing.” Ultimately, there may be a way to combine his passions. “I’d love to fly for, like, a surf adventure company and go to these exotic spots with a float plane or a Twin Otter, and just drop people down out there for, like, a week at a time and have boats to get them out to surf spots. It would be amazing.” The gift of this lifestyle is that such dreams are viable. If he tinkers long enough, Trent might just figure out how to transform this idea into reality.

Continue to: What You Need to Know About Becoming a Commercial Pilot.

Kauai sunrise at 10,000 ft.

Prosaic in Nature: rejuvenation in transition

September 15, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 4 Comments

The following is adapted from a speech the author gave in Denali National Park, Alaska at a My Seasonal Life showcase—a project by LivingSeasonal.com

Exploring the Columbia Gorge in Oregon.

This is how it happens. At breakfast, a coworker sits down across from me in the employee dining hall, exhales heavily and says, “Do you want to climb Kilimanjaro with me?” I pause as I swallow my bite of Raisin Bran and—perhaps fueled by my healthy breakfast choice, or delusional from seven hours between work shifts—I respond, “I think so. Give me a week to see if I’m lying.” I resume conversation with my other breakfast buddy and the topic drifts to the possibility of sailing the Virgin Islands with a boat captain friend.

Later that day, I’m in my room with my current and former roommates divulging my new intentions. “I think I might go to Africa this fall,” I clear my throat to consider how ridiculous the next phrase will sound, “and climb Kilimanjaro. Is that weird?” Immediately, one friend responds, “I’m thinking about going to Africa this fall to do some rock climbing!” The other chimes in, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to France and probably touring a great deal of Europe.” So on and so forth as I share my half-baked travel plan over the next few days my friends in this nomadic community share theirs.

Sure enough, no one ever responds, “That’s weird.” No one says, That’s crazy,” because it isn’t. Certainly, no one ever chides, “That’s irresponsible,” although financially they’d be somewhat right. But, fuck it. Africa, ya know?

The author uncertain about a volcano mud bath in Colombia.

In this community this is normal, even expected, and definitely celebrated. It’s almost easy to lose sight of how adventurous our friends are, because everyone is out there pursuing something badass in the off-season—the time when we’re not working and life really begins. In actuality, there’s nothing really “off” about it.

A good friend once told me, “our friends are better than Travelocity.” He couldn’t be more right. Last year, my friends trekked the Himalayas in Nepal, celebrated Oktoberfest in Germany, explored Colombia, fished from a sea kayak in Hawaii, spent the winter in India, borrowed boats and sailed in the Virgin Islands, taught diving in Indonesia, and mushed the Iditarod and Yukon Quest. The list goes on. All of those adventures—all of that personal expansion and testing of oneself in the unknown—was enabled by embracing seasonal living. Our people place more emphasis on what you do with your time than how you make money.

Keeping things orderly in the Lost City, Colombia

As easy as it is to lose sight of how badass our friends are, all we have to do is look to our childhood friends back home for reassurance. They’re getting married and popping out fleets of children. They’re fretting over floral arrangements and the color of bridesmaid’s dresses. Alternatively, our friends living seasonally have the decency to elope, get those pesky vows out of the way, and then save the good part—the reception—for us so we can celebrate their marriage with good food and copious amounts of alcohol. We just value things differently in this lifestyle. Money buys our fun and adventure. It provides for us, too, but our needs span a much different scale than what we once valued, pre-seasonal adventures.

Taking a break on the Matanuska glacier in Alaska

But here’s the downside. The good ones leave. They burn out, move on to new adventures, answer that call to settle down, or become fed up with steadfast corporate idiocy (a funny thing that rears its head even in this lifestyle). Worse yet, some forget how awesome we have it compared to the 9-5ers because the excitement dwindles as adventure becomes prosaic in our world. The reality is that almost everyone bows out eventually. The place, though home for so many of us, is still just a stop along the greater migrational path.

The decision to climb Kilimanjaro really was made that simply. All the subsequent research I did was essentially fodder to support that decision. When else would I plan such a thing for myself? Right now I’m in decent shape with a wide open fall season to decorate any way I choose. Why not select Africa?

Contemplative along the Oregon coastline

The possibilities in this lifestyle are limited only by one’s imagination. The seasonal community is expansive yet tightly knit, so we make new friends but the good ones never leave us entirely. We’ll cross paths on another adventure and crash on each other’s couches down the line. Our friends really are better than Travelocity. Not only can they provide travel advice to everywhere, but they understand why we must continue searching for new horizons.

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Solo Searching

September 7, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 10 Comments

Five Things I Learned on a Three-Night, Solo Birthday Trip in Denali’s Backcountry

I’m not sure what happened. The last thing I remember was goofing off in my twenties and giggling at people who feared their thirties. I was minding my own business when thirty-two began cruelly mocking me and my lack of direction. I wondered, what am I doing with my life? I had a midlife crisis at 27, so I wasn’t inclined to repeat that struggle, but I needed an adventure that would straighten out my thoughts.

The author on top of Anderson Pass

Anderson Pass in Denali National Park has beckoned me for years. This pass is nestled in one of the most dramatic sections of the Alaska Range and is one of few nontechnical passes concealed in these mountains. On my first attempt backpacking in that area I hiked into a ping pong ball of fog and the second time I was stymied by snowfall. For my birthday, I would be happy just to see what that backcountry unit looked like, let alone summit the pass. Halfway through the rainiest summer on record, though, it seemed unlikely I would catch a weather break to attempt the trip. Furthermore, on my departure day a 16 year-old tried to thwart my plans by hitting my car at the DMV (he didn’t pass his driving test that day), but miraculously I caught my bus, the skies parted, and the wilderness invited me to explore. This is what I learned.

1. Maps seem quite straightforward, but real life isn’t so obvious. In reality, maps are merely guidelines and as such they may lie to you once in a while, or at least trick you into misinterpretation. If you allow yourself forgiveness for straying from the map, meaningful adventures can follow. During a moment of uncertainty, I hiked up a drainage to assess my situation and soon realized my error. By then I was too mesmerized to quit, and consequently on my birthday I scrutinized the subtleties of a soaring golden eagle, listened to marmots whistle (an animal I think I love because they’re basically wild, overgrown hamsters—the only pet I was allowed to have as a kid) and stood on a glacier. How cool is that?

Headwaters of the Chulitna; south side of Anderson Pass

2. Although the backcountry isn’t exactly trail-less, it does offer the chance to select your own adventure. There is no signage declaring your destination, illuminating your path, or forbidding you from walking on sketchy glacial moraine and ice. If there was a sign, it would simply read, “Caution: Real life ahead.” In this country, no one wants to be safely escorted to a summit. The reward lies in enduring the hardships and misadventures it takes to navigate by your own volition. Whichever route you forge, the backcountry implores authority over each choice. Few decisions in life are more empowering.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

3. If you neglect to interact with nature you don’t simply begin to take it for granted, you build antibodies that reject its luster. Upon first sight, it’s impossible to be insensitive to Denali National Park’s beauty. If nothing else, Mt. McKinley—a massive piece of granite standing amidst six million acres of wilderness—sucker punches even the biggest hard-asses into appreciation. Additionally, giant animals roam freely and because most of them can beat the shit out of you, you observe them with awe. Yet every year local employees forget how beautiful their home is because they don’t engage the landscape. Some will experience less wilderness in four months than tourists who in one day merely observe it through bus windows and video monitors. Indifference is corrosive. If you work in a national park you must get out there, scab your knees, get your feet wet, and poop in the woods. Anything less and you may as well save the hassle and work a year-round, sedentary desk job. Our national parks belong to us as a nation; we deserve people in charge who care enough to experience the hell out of them.

Denali viewed from the Muldrow glacier.

4. It’s easy to overlook how delicate the ground you stand on is until you face a giant crevasse. Conversely, nature’s fortitude is dismissible until you witness flowers growing amidst a desolate scree slope.

5. When you don’t have an adventure buddy available you must still embark. The nuances of a landscape come alive to the solo traveler. Few people spend enough time looking inward anyway, and on a solo trip, you can face your demons and make peace with them. Every action has purpose—from filtering water to setting up shelter—and therefore the simplest things take on more meaning and renews the soul’s sense of effectualness. Ultimately, though, birthdays are still best shared when possible.

Denali Migration

June 29, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 5 Comments

I guess he got a girlfriend. Until today, every morning around seven he started tapping on the window frame outside my bed, claiming my territory as his. I suppose it was romantic. My little romeo approached my window powerfully and with purpose, his chest puffed out with self-importance—tricks that have been wooing women to sleep with men they shouldn’t for centuries. Maybe he thought my territory was his—after all, I’m nomadic and he lives in this spruce forest year-round. Regardless, we’re incompatible, and furthermore he’s not the pecker I want to be awakened by anyway. But this morning he didn’t come, and I can only assume that the northern three-toed woodpecker found a mate. It’s that time of year.

My Romeo

Spring in Denali National Park is an orgy. A few mammals (e.g. moose, lynx, wolves, and snowshoe hare) and a couple dozen birds have been here all winter, but spring beckons the arrival of migratory species. Dall sheep descend from the hills, herds of caribou cows migrate in to deliver their calves while the bulls fatten up for the next rut, and the silent, crisp winter air is broken by the crescendo of 150 or so bird species who literally septuple the local bird population. Just about every single animal rolling into the party is hungry and horny.

Dall sheep rams on Marmot Rock

Another species, the transient, crashes the party, as well. Their rut begins almost immediately. This species parties intensely from day one to display to potential mates early in the season and often performs its mating call at local watering holes well into the night as adamantly as a Swainson’s thrush. Transients are known for maintaining a rigorous partying schedule all summer, suggesting that beer is the sustenance needed to carry them to their winter resting grounds. Much like the Bohemian waxwing, the transient has been known to over-indulge on fermented berries and get a little too tipsy—but this is just the transient’s mating ritual. For those who remain in this revolving migration, the lure is more enticing than frivolous sex. After all, a person can get laid anywhere, but there is something unique to this landscape and community that invites transients to stay and evolve.

Community

This landscape brings people together, and without it this community wouldn’t exist. We are all drawn here looking for that thing that we need to nourish and sustain us the other seven months of the year. Birds come for berries, insects, extended daylight, and sex. Transients are not that much different.

For half the year we live alternate identities as global trekkers, dog mushers, snowboard instructors, and dive masters, and around early May this big granite magnet called Denali swoops us back into its orbit. We migrate north (a handful migrate south), dust off cobwebs regarding work and friendships, squeeze our personas back into the mixing pot, and try to pick up where we left off while still remaining true to whatever growth we’ve experienced over the last seven months. Year after year, Denali is the migration station that brings us all together.

On paper, though, how does society classify a man who has lived in Alaska 35 summers and yet has no physical address? Though he works relentlessly all summer, every September his temporary community packs up faster than a circus act and he, too, must answer the call of migration. If a man travels the globe more than half the year but returns perennially to the same landscape, can you call those nesting grounds his home? In the words of Tolkien, “Not all who wander are lost.” Perhaps then, it is our definition of home that needs to shift to include something more than what is indicated on a driver’s license. After all, it’s about community.

All of us come here running from or toward something—e.g. family, work, or adventure. By throwing caution to the wind we find ourselves immersed in a support system of people who applaud us for doing so. Whatever hackneyed idea you conceive—diving in Bali, trekking in Nepal, trimming weed in Oregon—people applaud you and, moreover, you likely have met someone eager to offer advice about their own experience doing that very thing. The Denali community fosters the adventurous spirit.

The Denali migration is complex. There must be the newbies with cookie-cutter naivety about Alaska as well as the displaced elders with some vague ties to the Lower 48. That is how the populace grows. It culls the ones who cannot or would rather not thrive in this environment and helps those who wish to stay to develop into the most badass version of their selves.

And that’s what we find up here, those of us that stay. We find our people.

Nourished by landscape

The question is, how does the transient fit into the picture with the rest of the species, both local and migratory? Extended daylight and nutritionally rich landscape attract a myriad of species to this breeding ground, but for a relatively short season. The transient is no exception to that, but in retrospect, it’s almost silly that anyone makes the effort to be here at all.

“The most amazing thing about the birds in Denali, as Carol McIntyre points out, is how far they come for such a short summer. Defying all odds and logic, birds fly here from six continents, including Africa. Altogether there are about 150 species that regularly come to Denali. Some just stop and rest, but many stay and raise their young. What is even more amazing, are those birds that stay all year, making it through an unbelievably cold and harsh Denali winter.”

The ratio of people who stay in the Denali area year-round versus those who migrate on is likely similar to the birds. We gather from around the globe to nourish ourselves in this habitat even though spring sometimes doesn’t emerge until late May, it often rains for a portion of every day in July, and by mid-August it’s already full-blown autumn. Therefore, true summer might comprise about a month. Though it is difficult to integrate into this habitat, it is here we find sustenance.

Denali landscape

Backpackers roam mostly trail-less wilderness and let the challenges of river crossings, scree slopes, and curiosity dictate each footfall. The park beckons exploration with enticing beauty, yet the boreal forest is essentially a big swamp, and the tundra a spongy moon-scape. Both bog down the pace of eager hikers who must learn to reduce the scale of their imagination to fit the reality of this place.

Yet none of us would want it any other way. To make it easier—to put in more trails and campgrounds—would cheapen the purity of that experience. To struggle up a riverbank and then watch a grizzly bear bound effortlessly up a steeper embankment is to be humbled by evolutionary adaptation. A grizzly bear has pigeon-toed paws with massive claws, a powerful shoulder hump for digging up roots, and the ability to run 35 mph across the aforementioned landscape. The opposable thumb has nothing on that. It is not until one reels in expectation, learns to move at the pace of the glaciers, and adapt to the conditions of the day that a human lives in concert with this habitat.

Sow and cubs

Over time, the initial infatuation matures. Slowly the flighty transient develops an integrated yet nomadic relationship with the landscape. Awestruck feelings about grizzly bear sightings are augmented by knowledge of how Athabascans spear-hunted them, the rituals involved in orchestrating the hunt, and what an honor it meant in that culture. The amazement of seeing spring cubs transforms into excitement that the sow took on enough fat to allow the blastocyst (the thing that is conceived during the spring orgy and ultimately becomes the embryo) to gestate in the fall (delayed implantation). If a sow isn’t fat and healthy enough, the blastocyst doesn’t attach itself to the uterine wall and is instead absorbed back into her body. The nomad is dependent on the land for sustenance even if just in the metaphysical sense.

Returning workers develop geeky interests in less glamorous life forms, as well.I swore I’d never say this, but nine summers later, I’m starting to give a shit about birds. They are the migrators who truly work for their summer in Denali. By examining their compulsory journey we find insight into our own seemingly inexplicable migration. A great one to study is the arctic tern.

During winter, the arctic tern migrates south from Alaska and Greenland to the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. This is effectively the longest migrational path of any species, matched by only a few humans. Since the tern can live for over 30 years, The Arctic Tern Migration Project, sums up a lifetime of this audacious trip as, “…equivalent to around 3 return journeys to the Moon! Not bad for a bird with a mass of a little over 100 grams,” (for ultimate geekiness, check out the project’s Google Earth model of the arctic tern’s migration route to and from a larger breeding ground in Greenland).

Since these little dudes are flying almost incessantly, their young must join in the migration at 20-26 days old, ready to adapt to every conceivable weather condition and biome of the globe. This raises important questions such as “what flight characteristics make this bird aerodynamically efficient from such a young age,” “how can it sustain itself metabolically,” and seriously, “why the fuck?” That’s a lot of pressure for a such a little guy, who otherwise can easily be dismissed as just another white bird. Voracious drive toward sunlight, nourishment, and proliferation—it’s crazy what hormones incite.

As transients develop dependence on this landscape, each tidbit we absorb nourishes our insatiable hunger of understanding. We must continue to nourish ourselves anyway, or like the grizzly blastocycst we will not survive in this lifestyle. The more we learn, the more we appreciate the vast intricacies of this habitat, and thereby concede that we can never know it all. Like the arctic tern, we defy logic and keep returning anyway.

Just don’t tell anyone I’m starting to appreciate birds.

Nesting great horned owls