What have you learned about your tripping self?

[Holmes375]

Very cool, Glenn. I've been doing the Shoshone lake and Yellowstone lake backcountry for over 30 years now and I've certainly never seen an outrigger canoe anywhere there. Kudos to ya.

That formation you're passing is what I call "Lunch Rock". Day trippers often paddle around Lewis lake and then up the channel to that point and have a snack. The rock formation has a high metal content and attracts lightning like a rod. One can see the evidence of numerous strikes all over the topside where the marmots like to sun themselves.

I was introduced to the Yellowstone backcountry in the mid 60's when my scout troop went up to help build the first designated camp sites over at Heart lake. Hoisting timbers for the bear poles and diggin' holes for the pit toilets. Good times had by all.

Your 2004 trip sounds like the adventure of a lifetime.

 

[Philtrum]

Glenn's 4-point missive prompted some somewhat omphaloskeptic thoughts. Prime among them is that I've learned to simply be present wherever I am. If I'm paddling, I paddle mindfully. If I'm in camp, I do camp things mindfully. It doesn't matter much where I am; I pretty much take the trip as it comes. And when I miss a stroke, slip on a wet rock, or imagine someone there with me, I realize mindfulness is a hit-or-miss proposition. The best part, though, is that I don't sweat it when I drift off into the mental ozone any more ... except at landings and on portage trails. The "me" this picture paints is very different from the agitated, can't-sit-still, gotta-keep-moving-or-I'll-go-crazy person of a dozen years ago. Get a partial lobotomy and you, too, can be mellow.

 

[ppine]

Thanks to Glenn for some great thoughts. I am ready for a solo paddle on a large lake in the off-season. For running rivers, the team concept makes much more sense because of the safety and rescue implications.
Edit:
I guess I don't get the idea of independent solo trippers together acting independently. It has all the organizational challenges of a group trip with none of the benefits.

 

[Guest]

When I lead a trip I am too concerned about everybody else and ignore my needs and get a little crazy(er). This is why I like solo tripping.
Turtle

 

[Guest]

I've learned to simply be present wherever I am. If I'm paddling, I paddle mindfully. If I'm in camp, I do camp things mindfully.

That “mindfulness” is in many ways the best part of tripping for me, providing the places in time where I am most attuned to myself and my surrounding. Most comfortable in many ways.

But in very different ways while paddling vs while in camp.I love the physical act of paddling (riding current…sailing…eve just sitting in an eddy), all the sensations of being in a small boat. I’m freaking floating on the water, a special act in itself.

The contrast is, while in the boat I am attuned to paddling. Not so much actively think about it, but the song of my senses is more about the immediacy of being in the boat and moving, the rhythm of strokes, the feel of the boat, wind, wave, current all working with different influences, looking ahead at the route, ripples and riffles, the subconscious mental map of how it is now and how it comes next.

In camp I am more attuned to the fullness of the place and being there just then, capturing a moment in time that allows the lingering comprehension of slow change.

Few things are better than to be lost in a mind wandering 360 degree contemplation of birdsong, breeze in the boughs, clouds in the sky and rustle in the leaves, alone in the quiet of camp.

Well, maybe add sitting in a comfortable chair in watching the angle of the sun change as the tide goes out and a front moves in.

I’m no fan of unsettled or violent weather while not-yet-there and still in the boat, but I do kinda sorta like watching it from a well-secured and battened down camp, being out right next to it, protected and able to appreciate the immutable violence of weather. That’s cool and memorable stuff.

 

[riverstrider]

I see a lot of myself in many of the responses here. Except maybe for Glenn's predilection for solo tripping: I am a gregarious tripper by nature, although my trips have almost exclusively been of the group-of-solo-self-contained-boaters-paddling-the-same-route-and-sharing-campsites type.

Probably the main thing I have learned about myself is that I have to have A Plan. And in that respect, I find that the trip is far more enjoyable for both me and my companions if "The Plan" is to relax, be flexible, and live in the moment. So long as I make that part of my plan, everything is good. I have gotten much better at that, and the result has been a better ability to go with the flow when something unexpected happens. If I start getting stressed because things aren't going as I thought they ought to, I can now recognize that, step back, and modify The Plan accordingly.

And like a few others here, although I am not entirely relaxed until my camp chores are done and everything is as it should be, I find that the set up goes far better and I am in a more healthy state of mind if I just first unload the boat, unfold my chair, and sit back with a beer to contemplate the known and unknowable first. To many of my companions, I think (at least I like to think) I appear pretty calm and laid back, almost to the point of unconcern with details. What they probably don't realize is that my state of mind has been included in my elaborate planning, and my attention to the details allows me to relax and be less concerned with how things are going.

I also relish the variety of getting out of the boat and exploring the land around my campsites, so early afternoons into camp work best for me. If my pre-set-up beer has to be rushed, my fun-o-meter is not as optimized.

-rs

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Thanks to Glenn for some great thoughts. I am ready for a solo paddle on a large lake in the off-season. For running rivers, the team concept makes much more sense because of the safety and rescue implications.

Yes, I agree fully. I started my serious adult canoeing as a whitewater paddler in 1980 and became quite proficient. I always paddled with a club and became an active group trip leader and instructor for almost 20 years. Most of those trips, of course, were day trips with base camping.

My solo thoughts and predilections relate to lake and smooth water river tripping. I really haven't run real whitewater rivers in more than 10 years, and I would think very carefully about running even easy rapids now if alone with gear in a canoe.

On edit: I should add that when I was a whitewater trip leader, I only led regarding river selection, trip attendance and on-the-river decisions. Even then I couldn't stand the organized camping part, and always had someone else who organized the cooking and camp chore twaddle. While I and my fellow anti-socialists happily sat under a tree and ate cold baked beans out of a tin can.

 

[Odyssey]

On the slightly off topic, but interesting side subject of "perfecting the art of doing nothing", here's an article I found written by Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian news (UK).

Five Reasons We Should All Learn How To Do Nothing

"The idea that “doing nothing” is a skill to be learned might seem bewildering at first. Surely it’s just a question of stopping doing anything else? Yet that’s far easier said than done. It’s long been recognised – by everyone from the Buddha to John Keats – that “doing” can be a kind of compulsion, an addiction we only fail to acknowledge as such because society praises us for it. Indeed, learning how to do nothing might be the most vital skill for thriving in our frenetic, overwhelmed, always-connected culture.Here are five key reasons why:
1. “Doing nothing” isn’t really doing nothing
Assuming you’re not dead, you’re always doing something – even if you’re just savouring the pleasures of idleness. (To psychologists, such savouring is far from passive: it’s a learnable set of skills for relishing the moment, for example, by focusing on each of your senses in turn.) But what’s usually meant by “doing nothing” is doing nothing useful. The problem is that “useful” gets defined in ways that don’t always serve our interests. Working harder to earn more to buy more stuff is useful for the people selling the stuff – but not necessarily for you. And usefulness is intrinsically future-oriented: it yanks you from the present, making savouring impossible. So perhaps “doing nothing” is synonymous with feeling alive.
2. Aimlessness, rest and even boredom can boost creativity
There’s good reason why so many celebrated authors and artists incorporate long walks in their daily routines. One is the well-studied “incubation effect”: ceasing to focus on a project seems to give your unconscious permission to get to work. (In one study, people who knew they’d be returning to a creative-thinking task after a break did much better at it when they resumed, unlike those who weren’t expecting to return to the task – suggesting that it was unconscious processing, not simply taking a rest, that made the difference.)
Other studies looking at boredom (in one, participants were made to copy numbers from a phone book) suggest it motivates people to find interesting ways to alleviate it – thereby triggering creative ideas. Meanwhile, aimless thinking combats the tunnel vision that can result from fixating on goals. When you’ve no end in mind, you’re less likely to exclude new ideas as irrelevant.
3. Too much busyness is counterproductive
We chronically confuse effort with effectiveness: a day spent on trifling tasks feels exhausting and virtuous, so we assume – often wrongly – it must have been useful. Worse, writes the Dutch work expert Manfred Kets de Vries, busyness “can be a very effective defence mechanism for warding off disturbing thoughts and feelings”. It’s when doing nothing that we finally confront what matters.
4. The brain depends on downtime
Ever since the industrial revolution, we’ve treated humans like machines, assuming that the way to get more done is to push ourselves, or others, to keep going for longer. But neuroscientists are increasingly finding that our brains depend on downtime – not just for recharging batteries, but to process that data we’re deluged with, to consolidate memory and reinforce learning, by strengthening the neural pathways that make such feats possible. In one 2009 study, brain imaging suggested that people faced with a strange task – controlling a computer joystick that didn’t obey the usual rules – were actively coming to grips with learning this new skill during seemingly passive rest periods.
5. You’ll regain control of your attention
Don’t expect doing nothing to feel easy at first: resisting the urge to do things takes willpower. In Buddhism, according to the meditation instructor Susan Piver, “busyness is seen as a form of laziness” – it’s a failure to withhold your attention from whatever random email, task or webpage lays claim to it. The challenge has never been harder: the modern economy, especially online, is a battle for your attention. But the good news is that learning to do nothing will help you retake control of your attention at other times, too. One trick: schedule “do nothing” time, like you’d schedule tasks. Just don’t expect others to understand when you decline some social event on the grounds that you’re busy not being busy."

 

[Guest]

Wow.

I cut and paste printed that. Several copies; to give to my sons and post on my office wall-of-fame.

I truly believe that is doing nothing is important stuff. With the ever connectedness of electronica, multiple-screen-multitasking-tweeting-texting-insta-whatevering doing nothing is an endangered species. I fear for young folks who have grown up attached to the electronic umbilical 24/7.

When is there time to think? To contemplate, daydream, wander and wonder. I fear something important is being lost.

 

[Odyssey]

I'm undergoing a personal struggle of my doing nothingness. Let me explain. I've always been a daydreamer. It really should've been my avatar here. If anything, I'm much more a whimsy minded daydreamer than an adventurous Odysseus. My mother that I was picking on in an earlier post accepted this, but not without regular lectures about idleness and laziness. I've always worked like I'm possessed, but then spend periods of...doing nothing.
I remember after my father had passed away I was in Mom's kitchen talking about stuff. She went off on a rant about retirement.
"It's just an excuse to be lazy, do nothing. I hated when your Dad retired. He played golf, and sure, he still did chores and everything, but he was never in a hurry! He even retired early! He couldn't wait to retire! He was born ready to retire! I think he spent his whole %*^#@ life waiting to retire. Waiting to do nothing!"
I immediately came to my Dad's defence.
"Mom. He, like you, worked his whole life. Rarely out of work. Never with nothing to do. He earned his retirement. You have too. It's time to put your feet up. But there's nothing saying you can't put your feet up before you retire."
I was preaching to the wrong choir, wrong church, wrong day of the week.
But I also immediately thought of myself in her targeted tirade. I love having "nothing to do." But when I do nothing, or almost nothing, I feel guilty...lazy. I hear my Mom ridiculing my not having kept busy, found things to do, chores to complete. "Don't put off tomorrow..." You know the rest.
I'm likely more lazy than merely being "relaxed, calm, contemplative..." but my spurts between doing nothing, and getting things done is covering my arse in a knee jerk kinda way. In paddling analogy, I sit still, very still, and soak up the small wonders of the world around me, and then I feel guilty for having been idle, and paddle furiously off to achieve something, zig zagging my way through life.
Or maybe I was born ready to retire, be lazy, and do nothing. I'm gonna plan some time tonight to think about this.
But first I've got things to do...

ps That's enough personal trunk junk from me. But I see things from a personal perspective, and see the world through every day anecdotal moments. Probably comes from all my day dream'n.

 

[Alan Gage]

Odyssey - I think you might be my real dad, it would explain a lot.

Alan

 

[memaquay]

Odyssey - I think you might be my real dad, it would explain a lot.

Ha ha ha, that was gold!

 

[Odyssey]

Odyssey - I think you might be my real dad, it would explain a lot.

Alan

Don't be offended, and don't be so sure...
I'm short, pale and ugly...and when I read stuff like your post, I laugh so hard I spill my coffee!

 

[Mama]

I'm still learning. One biggie is making memories is more important than making miles. I am the type that once I get me eye on the target I push until I get to where I want to go. With my daughter, I had to learn the patience to take lots of breaks from pushing forward to let her check out critters, vistas, swimming holes, interesting fungi, etc. Change is hard, but honestly I think I have more fun this way now that I've learned to relax and "smell the roses".

 

[ppine]

Being retired is not for everyone. It takes skill to be content without accomplishing a lot. Today is a good example. I went to a Sertoma Service Club meeting at 0700 and then left for Lake Tahoe to look for eagles as a part of the winter survey. It was most enjoyable, and I pointed out a few tree species to my friend an expert birder. It was exactly how I like to spend my time, in nature and helping others.

 

[Philtrum]

That “mindfulness” is in many ways the best part of tripping for me, providing the places in time where I am most attuned to myself and my surrounding. Most comfortable in many ways.

But in very different ways while paddling vs while in camp.I love the physical act of paddling (riding current…sailing…eve just sitting in an eddy), all the sensations of being in a small boat. I’m freaking floating on the water, a special act in itself.

The contrast is, while in the boat I am attuned to paddling. Not so much actively think about it, but the song of my senses is more about the immediacy of being in the boat and moving, the rhythm of strokes, the feel of the boat, wind, wave, current all working with different influences, looking ahead at the route, ripples and riffles, the subconscious mental map of how it is now and how it comes next.

In camp I am more attuned to the fullness of the place and being there just then, capturing a moment in time that allows the lingering comprehension of slow change.

Few things are better than to be lost in a mind wandering 360 degree contemplation of birdsong, breeze in the boughs, clouds in the sky and rustle in the leaves, alone in the quiet of camp.

Well, maybe add sitting in a comfortable chair in watching the angle of the sun change as the tide goes out and a front moves in.

I’m no fan of unsettled or violent weather while not-yet-there and still in the boat, but I do kinda sorta like watching it from a well-secured and battened down camp, being out right next to it, protected and able to appreciate the immutable violence of weather. That’s cool and memorable stuff.

You got it, Mike. Very well said.

 

[ppine]

Good words by Mike, but I love being on shore just as much as being on the water. In fact the contrast between being on the water and then the relative safety of land that is not moving is a big part of the experience and the rhythm of canoeing.

 

[Odyssey]

Let's go for an aimless walk in conversation. There's no guarantee I won't get lost.
I've discovered over the years that I'm needing to coax myself to relax more fully while in camp. Relaxing in the canoe is easy. After all, there are few chores to complete between the gunnels..."shut up and paddle and port... and explore." I love travel days. I'd prefer long days navigating streams and beaver dams, lakes and shorelines, and yes even portages, to long days spent in camp. I do relax puttering around our own little clearing, but I suppose puttering is really just finding something to do, keeping busy, and not really fully relaxing. My wife brings a book. I've only successfully read a book on one trip. But while on a trip, I want to be there on that trip, not escaping to somewhere else through literature. I get some enjoyment through my tasks, but enjoy more the sense of accomplishment of having completed them and well. Perhaps that's where I've chosen a different interest and path, regarding the ire I raised about knife usage. I read and embraced the notion that while survival skills and necessary tools are optimal for this thing we all do and enjoy-canoe tripping- I prefer to leave those tools and skills aside, only to be used when needed or practised, rather than be adopted as a hobby and focus for outdoor activities. I prefer to travel and live in the outdoors easily, simply and with comfort, rather than seeking adversity and challenges through bare bones survival scenarios. Yes I have batonned before. That's why I carry an axe, and am exploring twig fires for future trips. The twig fire "tripping style" might lead me away from big blades in future, and wood processing chores. I'll see. I love sawing, splitting, and burning wood, but maybe that's just because it keeps me busy in camp. I'm slowly coming around to seeing that "different strokes for different folks" means that how I trip likely differs from some others. There isn't a right way or wrong way, at least until someone pokes their eye out, or worse. What's right and works for me, might be arse backwards and wrong for you. And vice versa. I used to occasionally paddle past campers sitting in lawn chairs with coolers, and thought "That's wrong." Nowadays I'm thinking "Well, it's their trip. Not mine. Just smile and wave, it's all good." I do relax in camp, but mostly in good weather. Bad weather is a little exciting and wonderful, but soon becomes boring and demoralizing. Good weather has so many more opportunities for...doing something. I relax mostly by keeping busy in slow motion. Swimming, wood scrounging, soloing, exploring, napping, cooking..."Doing nothing" may take some practise, just like survival skills. I should open my mind to other paths chosen, and perhaps I'll open my horizons to new ways of exploring the tripping world. With discovery comes knowledge, with knowledge comes wisdom, and with...well, I haven't gotten that far. I'm still in the discovery stage hoping to gather knowledge. "What do I want from my trips? What do I need?" What seemed like simple questions I thought I'd answered long ago, are sounding like "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". Everyone has their own key to this. I guess I might still be looking for mine.
Whew! That was a long walk. Hope I didn't bore you as much as I bored myself! Maybe I should've saved all this aimless pondering for our next canoe trip. Ha! It might've been relaxing!

 

[Guest]

Let's go for an aimless walk in conversation

Yes I have batonned before. That's why I carry an axe, and am exploring twig fires for future trips. The twig fire "tripping style" might lead me away from big blades in future, and wood processing chores. I'll see. I love sawing, splitting, and burning wood, but maybe that's just because it keeps me busy in camp.

Oddy, that was a fun not-quite aimless walk. I’ll take another with you.

About campfires. I still enjoy a campfire. More so on trips with other people. But I can’t say that I especially enjoy sawing wood, and I like chopping even less. In areas with available downed wood, where I am most likely to elect having a fire, I can dependably get a blaze going with some squaw wood scrounging and snaps underfoot, and keep it going with minimal saw work.

I have yet to have survival need to start an “emergency” fire, in fugly conditions or otherwise. But I’ve gotten a blaze going in considerable damp and wet using the various knives, fire starter helpers, lighters (and, yeah, ok, occasionally some dry journal pages) I typically carry.

I don’t often cook with wood, so a fire it isn’t a true necessity, and sometimes a fire is just more trouble than it is worth. Especially if I’m solo and heading to tent soon anyway. If I were a twig stove user looking to eat dinner that would be different.

In some off-season scenarios, especially if I am solo and not laboriously hauling gear too far, I would just as soon blaze up the fire-in-a-can candle thingee, especially for a brief warming fire or short night’s cheer. To that end, having found how easy it is to re-fill/keep blazing the FIAC by adding small feeder bricks, I’m going to construct a smaller, Personal-Sized-Ivory fire in a can version for solo use.

The round roasting pan FIAC I use is 10” diameter and stokes up a gather-round y’all group blaze with the flick of a Bic. Using wax feeder brick re-fills it doesn’t need to be that large for solo use, so I’d like to find something more like six inches around for a PSI version. (You may need to be of a certain television ad campaign age to understand PSI).

Maybe a small stainless pot with the handle removed.

I don’t paddle decked boats with hatches, but a diameter accommodating hatch stowage might be worth consideration as well. I have some leftover wax ready to melt and feel a shop project coming on.

 

[oldie moldy]

Well there sure are some interesting ideas here. Although I can relate to how some of them got started, I guess I see them from a different perspective.

That business about "Relax, I'm not perfect, don't beat yourself up over things that aren't exactly right"?
My take on that is: There are probably millions of ways to kinda, sorta, almost do something. Most of them wind up being costly in various ways. There are way fewer that produce the desired results with the minimum effort. Now I'm not striving to follow what somebody said is the "right way", mostly that is an ego trip running under the banner of advice. What I try to do is to side step all the opportunities to screw up. Much easier said than done. But sooner or later I'll stumble on something that works, I'll try to remember and do that again when the occasion arises. Over time I collect several of these ideas and then I knit them into a procedure that I use when I'm setting up camp, loading the canoe, figuring what I'm going to take and so on. I suppose you could call it the "Proven way" or "the right way" but notice: it's that only for me. Over time I've found I really don't like pain and extra work and I do think it's worth the effort to try to avoid it.

Now, how about doing nothing? As I see it we have so many expectations pulling on us from the outside, family, job, society that we're just about that guy in "Gulliver's Travels" when the little people tied him down with all those tiny ropes. One by one they weren't anything but taken all together he really couldn't move. A person doesn't need to do nothing, but rather do what YOU want to do. We spend so much of our lives "tied down" frequently we can't even imagine what the hell we do want to do. Since I retired I've got better at being free, for starters I'd suggest looking for those little ropes of "Guilt" and one by one start tearing them out!
Now I work at what I like to do, think as much as I'm able, read good books by interesting people and when I'm feeling like close to doing nothing I take a dandy nap with my dog.
Of course, I pester my friends here too!

Best Wishes, Rob