An Epic Start to an Epic Trip: Debunking "Epic" From Day One

You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!

My dog-approved tent….and what I learned on my Big First Day Back

Galice, Oregon, the put-in for the mighty Rogue River.

I’d been up since about 3 am, typical of my schedule. By two pm, with my pupper secured in a happy place for boarding for five days, I had driven the two-and-a-half hours to the Almeda County Campground on the Rogue River.

It was June 13th, 2024.

My big exciting return to adventure was about to begin.

It had been a minute. Boy was I ready, too. I was ready for EPIC.

First things first, get that new tent set up. I was tired, but confident, right?

I’d already set up the new Near Zero tent , part of a complete kit, in my basement.

Once.

On a day when I had plenty of time, wasn’t tired, and could walk myself through the process properly.

This was not that day.

I was spending the night with the crew, which was at that time prepping our paddle and equipment boats just down the hill from our camp site.

I wanted to look like the adventure professional I was with my tent and gear all set up. Impress the crew, right? Of course I would.

Let’s talk for a sec.

If you’ve ever done a trip like this, and I have done more than I can recall, the outfitter sends you a recommended list for what to take. Over years of doing this kind of adventure, I learned how to whittle that down.

That was before lots of surgeries and long months getting back on my feet, literally.

Still, I know how to do this, right?

Okay well, until this trip. I took the recommendations to heart, packed one of every single thing on the list, and ended up with a backbreaking Sea to Summit go bag so full I needed a crew of porters.

I got that bad boy on my back and looked like one of those sherpas taking packs of water bottles and cases of Coke up the Everest Base Camp hike.

Like I said, it’s been a minute. We forget.

So I hauled out the duffle, unloaded my tent and started the setup.

The first thing I do is pound the tent footprint into the hard, sandy ground.

The footprint was upside down. I also managed to pound the stake right through the material that was supposed to hold the stake, so now it’s compromised.

Normally the tent footprint wouldn’t matter, but because of how this tent is designed, the clips only work if it’s right side up, or else you have to twist them. I decided to twist them when I realized my error.

Then I took out the shock-cords, clipped them together and managed to set them up the wrong way, with pieces of cord on the upside, clearly indicating that they were facing in the wrong direction.

I got this, right? Of course I do.

Meanwhile I’m looking around to make sure the guides haven’t spotted this ripe idiot. Then I unroll the tent and the fly, and lay the fly on top of the footprint.

First, the fly is inside out, the seam-taping clearly evident. Then, as I walked around the footprint, it became ridiculously clear why I couldn’t find the little clips which attach to the shock poles.

You don’t put the fly up first, Freddy.

You start with the tent.

I got this, right?

I remove the fly, set it on the picnic table, lay the actual tent down and begin the setup all over again, tent footprint upside down and all.

This tent is idiot-proof. My puppy could set this up.

By now I’m laughing and thinking, okay, what else can I do wrong?

Don’t ask. You’ll find out.

Long after I should have had the tent up and ready for my mountain of mostly wholly-unnecessary gear, I surveyed my handiwork.

Finally, all set up

Fine for the night. The fly was completely unnecessary except for privacy, given the area and the forecast (it got set aside later but that’s another story).

To be truthful, I was less pleased that I had finally gotten the damned thing set up than I was about not having been observed being an idiot trying to look like an expert.

Bag by bag I hauled my packed cubes and dry bags and set them up inside the tent. I’ve got my systems. The tent has a bunch of nifty storage pockets that my previous tent didn’t.

I love this tent for all the thoughtful details, most of which I kept missing until I was inside and took the time to really notice.

Geez, Louise. Then I sat at the picnic table and waited as the afternoon wore on and the light began to fade. Not the EPIC beginning to my EPIC return to adventure travel I had planned.

Some time later when the Oregon River Experience crew, Rylin, Reid and Elsa finally showed up from all their preparation, I was ready to brag about my tent.

They were also tired, and tasked with setting up their own. It was late, they’d had to drive down from Portland, another two hours on I-5, and had been doing backbreaking work on the river boats all day.

Understandably they were pleasant, polite, but focused. The day was ending and tomorrow we would put in. So they put up with me kindly and put up their tents, largely leaving me to wander the site on my own.

As I watched them spread out, I noticed that they avoided the tree where I had set my tent up. In fact, anywhere but.

So I checked out my location once again.

Well, crap.

I’d managed to located the butt-end of my tent right in the middle of an active ant hill. As a result, the ants had found a way into my tent, seeking revenge or at least food, and they were EVERYWHERE.

That’s what happens when you don’t check the site thoroughly and you leave the entrance unzipped.

Not only did I now have to move the tent, but I had to shake out the ants which were busily inspecting every nook and cranny. And would that night, as I found out the hard way.

So my epic beginning to my epic adventure ended with my having to unload my tent onto the picnic table which quickly swarmed with angry ants, remove the fly, pull up tent stakes, shake the ants out of the tent, then move the tent to another less-antsy location.

Then I picked the ants off me, which took a lot longer.

Then while the crew headed to tiny Galice to find dinner, I had to open every single bag, shake out all the mostly-unnecessary clothing and gear I’d brought, and remove the ants from every single piece.

Once I settled down for the night, the lovely evening was punctuated by my curses as yet another ant identified itself with its jaws.

Oh, it was epic all right.

Photo by Roman Kirienko on Unsplash

So began my EPIC return to EPIC adventure life.

Let’s talk about EPIC, shall we?

This poor word is so overused.

We so often think that only “epic” people can do such “epic” things like, perhaps, rafting the Rogue. Let’s debunk that right up front.

If you make a tenth of the mistakes I do, you’d still look heroic and have a great time. The point is to just go do something different for you.

The other notion to debunk is that an epic life is defined by an incessant highlight reel. As I have written previously, that’s impossible, exhausting and complete bullswocky.

People far older than I and with far more limitations have done some pretty amazing trips. But those amazing trips have comparatively limited moments of pure awe for all the work we put in.

Such as: standing on top of Kilimanjaro or Mt. Kenya after a long, long slog up, and another long slog ahead of you heading down. After all that effort, you’re only there for moments. Why? Because a whole lotta folks are waiting for you to get the hell off the summit so that they can have their EPIC.

There’s a down side to being more interested in the high points than the entire adventure, too. To that:

Depending on how much oxygen and physical reserves you have left, you might have fifteen minutes max on top of Everest. If folks are stupid (and lots are) they have spent all their air, energy and reserves for that summit and have zero for the slog down. That’s one way they die. That’s epically tragic.

I had maybe fifteen minutes on top of each mountain I summitted. That’s a short “epic” for hella lotta work.

I also had a two-minute dead run on a fast Arabian horse after hours of riding, tacking up, tacking down and getting the horse ready for its corral afterwards.

I could go on but you get it.

Most truly epic moments are all too brief. As a result, instead of basking in them too many of us often rush off for the next, trying so damned hard for the never-ending highlight reel to prove what an extraordinary life we’re living.

Much of any adventure is preparation, recovery, packing, unpacking, waiting, and the like. Highlight reels don’t reveal that a rafting trip or heading to the drop zone to skydive is full of plenty of boring moments and lots of labor.

Skydiving is a whole lot of driving, packing, dirt diving, hard work, practice, long flights to altitude, for a few extraordinary seconds. Then it’s back to packing, waiting, rinse and repeat.

Out of a full day of skydiving, depending on the airplane, weather and other conditions, you might get six to eight jumps (unless you’re a pro or competing). If each jump lasts about a minute, that’s six to eight minutes of AMAZING, followed by perhaps two minutes under canopy each jump.

In total, less than half an hour of exhilaration, at best, for all that investment. Not including all the safety training involved.

Some of us find all that worth it. Most don’t.

Adventure sports are full of ridiculously funny and hilarious moments and days just like the above tent setup story. There are far more of those stories and experiences than there are those brief, brilliant, transcendental moments which can change a life forever.

I’ll be sharing more about this trip, because there were a few transcendental moments as well as plenty of lessons and insights. Each of us defines “epic” differently. I don’t use it often anymore, but save it for those moments which deserve the adjective.

You and I can do great things. We don’t have to be great to do them, just willing. Just be willing to do something a little different, and likely screw up royally along the way. That is part of the adventure.

Otherwise, much of adventure, like life, is just life, with luck lived well, with great gratitude, occasional brilliant flashes of unbelievable beauty, and plenty of humor for the ridiculous things we inevitably do.

Like put your tent together backwards and in an ant hill.

Let’s play.

The inside of my tent. The ants are hiding….but came out to visit.

Thanks for joining me for this first day of my trip. More fun stuff is coming and I hope you join me. If this was a fun read please consider

If you know of anyone who might value an invitation to come out and play at any age, please also consider

Above all please consider putting down the remote and going remote…whatever that means for you. Let’s please play.