Travel Writer of the Year

Good news: I've been named 2016 Travel Writer of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. Which is pretty cool. Actually, they call it Travel Journalist of the Year, but even though I sometimes do journalist-y things, I like to imagine I'm more writer than reporter. Humor me, okay?

The judges, professors from the esteemed Missouri School of Journalism, said this about my work: "His stories are expertly crafted to capture the tension and the scenes. His readers ride with him. His stories are narratives with character, tension and resolution."

Thanks guys. I work hard on my stories to do just that. And publishers take note — readers want stories with personality and verve. They want to hear the writer's voice. They want to be transported and be in the story as they read.

Big thanks to Sierra, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Adventure Cyclist, SUP, and The Clymb for giving me the platforms to tell the stories that won this award. A special shout-out to Sierra for their partnership the last few years and for the great editors I work with there, with a special nod to Reed McManus, who skillfully edited my stories on dancing with wolves in Glacier Park and climate change's affect on skiing shortly before passing away of a heart attack in early January. His untimely departure is a reminder for all of us to enjoy our lives while we're here. Let's get out there, have fun, help people whenever possible, and explore this amazing world while we're able.

Here are some of the stories that won me travel writing's highest honor.

"The Wildest Valley," Sierra magazine, Nov/Dec 2015

"Circling the Volcanoes, One Family Circumnavigates Nicaragua's Ometepe by Bike," Adventure Cyclist, May 2015

"North of the Border, A Family Explore Alberta by SUP," SUP the Mag, Summer 2015

"How to Become an Outdoor Writer and Photographer," The Clymb blog

"Worlds Most Unexpected Ski Areas," National Geographic Adventure

Lastly, you may have noticed, or maybe you didn't, ahem, that this blog has gone fallow. With the uninspiring Blogger design and fact that I'm busy with paying work, I wouldn't expect it to come alive with new posts anytime soon. If I do get inspired to write something without a paycheck (seriously, I spend enough time sweating blood at my desk as it is, and I'm also working on a book, which pays squat for the time being), it will probably be at Medium where I can make things more engaging and prettier. 

In the meantime, feel free to follow my professional page on Facebook and turn notifications on so you don't miss it when I post images like this, from my upcoming story on grizzly bears. And, yeah, my camera now has teeth marks on it.

The adventure begins: Laguna de Apoyo

“HOLY CRAP this place is crazy! Lots of guys have guns. Most houses are made of aluminum sheets. The nice houses have tall walls around them with barred windows, and razor wire, electric fence, spikes, or broken glass on top. Our hotel has an armed guard outside. Get me out of here!” 

This was my 14-year-old son Silas’ Facebook post the day we arrived in Nicaragua’s capital city of Managua. We’d been picked up at the airport by a wild-eyed scientist and proceeded to careen through chaotic city streets packed with panhandling children, oxen carts, and bicycles piled high with people (three per bike seems to be the required minimum). 

Swell on Wheels: Riding Utah's San Rafael Swell

I was pedaling alone through a deserted corner of Utah, the first stars punching through the dome of the evening sky, when I saw the lion. Or what looked like a lion. It was too shadowy and quick to say for sure, but I feathered my brake levers, which were secured to my handlebars with zip ties and duct tape, and futilely squinted into the dusk. Riding on, faster now, rock walls launched into the sky at my side, their crenelated faces blushing in the day’s last light. I wanted to look up the names of the more dramatic peaks, but I had no map. No matter, it was all achingly beautiful and my smile led the way as I continued on, pedaling hard, further and further into nowhere. 

To understand why I’m streaking down a remote dirt road through failing light into one of the more isolated deserts in America — out of water, without a map, lights, or overnight gear of any kind — you have to know the convoluted history of this star-crossed bike journey into Utah’s San Rafael Swell. 

The Lucky Ones

I was lucky enough to spend a week in the glorious boonies recently after nearly a month of nose-to-grindstone writing. First I took my wife and two boys into our family cabin for a couple days of off-the-grid skiing, animal tracking, and snow-fort making. 

Finding Kishenehn

November’s wan light drained from the sky as I walked alone into a forgotten corner of Glacier National Park. As night grew from the shadows, noises in the forest grew louder. My head jerked at the sound of a branch brushing my pants. A foot of fresh snow obscured the tracks of an oversized carnivore on the trail that led me into dark timber. Everywhere was blackness, the world reduced to my headlamp’s bobbing orb of light. It seemed inevitable it would suddenly be filled by some variety of toothy creature.

I checked the pepper spray canister in my pack’s side pocket. Then I remembered the propellant in pepper spray doesn't work in temperatures below freezing. It was 20 degrees.

"Well, this is exciting," I thought to myself.

Standup Paddleboarding the Great Bear Rainforest

"Whoah! What was that?" Derek Nixon yells, as the telltale pfffft of air blasting from nostrils sounds from somewhere disconcertingly close to us. The rest of our group has stroked ahead to the sheltered waters of a nearby cove, leaving Nixon and me behind on our standup paddleboards, alone on open ocean. We turn toward the noise and see a large brown whiskered head sticking up from the water's surface, maybe 50 feet away. Another pops up beside it.

Steller sea lions. Big ones.

The pair size us up through inscrutable black eyes for a moment before sinking back into the sea.

We pull our paddles from the water and wait for the heads to reappear. Our 14-foot-long boards suddenly seem very small—the only thing between us and the 1,000-foot-deep ocean and the creatures that live in it. The surface is still. The windless air smells of wrack and saltwater. In the distance, a raven cackles; it could be laughing at us, or maybe just warning us to stay away from sea mammals with large brown whiskered heads.

It's the second day of our paddleboard journey into the Great Bear Rainforest, a place that lends itself to magical thinking, and already I'm starting to get the sense that the animals are trying to tell us things.

One family goes big

High in a remote corner of the Swan Valley we roll around a bend in the trail — 11-year-old Silas, 7-year-old Jonah, and me on one colossal mountain bike we call the Teasdale Train — when suddenly it’s there, not more than 30 feet away: a grizzly bear on its hind legs. I grab the brake levers of our rolling 200-pound behemoth and, in a motion practiced countless times, whip bear spray out of my pack’s side pocket the instant my feet hit the ground. As the boys would later revel in telling friends and family members, “Then dad said the ‘S’ word!”

The bear, it turns out, is tiny — which is even scarier than being huge. As the kids stare wide-eyed at the bruin, I twist my neck from side to side and scan the greenery for sound or movement. There is only one electric thought in my mind: Where’s mom?

What the Mountains Give

We didn't know we'd encounter two bears in a matter of hours, but Greg Fortin and I knew we were in for an adventure when we started pedaling away from Glacier Park's Avalanche Campground parking lot at 8:20 last Friday night. It was an absurdly late time to head into Glacier's bear-riddled backcountry, but, as a smiling old man once said to me when he saw me bicycle touring in a rainstorm, "You go when you can."

We only had 48 hours before backcountry permit officials, concerned we'd interfere with road crews plowing record snow off Going To The Sun Road, insisted we be back. The road crews might have been miserable, but we weren't going to let that magnificent, once in a lifetime June snowpack go to waste. We were going to ski. With tent, sleeping bags, skis, and food for two days in our bike trailers, we set off for the mountains.

Five minutes later an enormous, glistening scat pile appeared in the road. Seconds later came the bear. Neither of us noticed it until the moment we passed it, standing on its hind legs and staring at us intensely not 20 feet to my right.

Winter descends on Kishenehn, Glacier Park's lost corner

Deep in the far northwest corner of Glacier National Park, wedged between the Canadian border and the North Fork of the Flathead River, sits a pocket of rarely visited wild country known as Kishenehn. If you look at a park map you will see no official trails here, though old maps will reveal a forgotten ranger station a few miles from the Canadian border. There used to be an old Kootenai Indian trail along Kishenehn Creek, and in later years a narrow dirt road followed the river, but they, like everything else in this wilderness, were eventually abandoned and lost to the forest.

The old ranger station is still used by the occasional researcher or ranger who come here to examine the wildlife and ancient forests. My friend Ben goes there too. Every fall he's stationed at the cabin for several weeks to keep an eye out for poachers (hunting isn't allowed in the park). So Ben gets to hike around and watch for anyone with a rifle who might ford the river. He hasn't seen any hunters yet, but he's seen wolves run by the cabin and grizzly bears standing atop freshly killed elk. It's wild in there.

Naturally, I join him whenever I can.

How We Did It

Since we've been back from our big ride, tons of people (okay, a couple people) have asked how we managed to mountain bike through the wilderness with our kids and camping gear for five weeks. After all, we're not exactly Herculean athletes. I'll be writing stories about this, but for now I put together a quick overview for anyone thinking about doing anything similar. This was originally written for The Adventure Life, but since I haven't had a chance to update my own blog for a bit, I thought I'd post it here as well...

Tips for dragging your children, literally, on extended bike adventures in the boonies

Alive!

Well, that was something.

We made it back from the big trip. A monumental undertaking, I dragged my two boys for six weeks through some of most glorious wilderness still left in this world. We had a few challenges, but everyone is alive and has all of their important limbs still attached.

Five weeks in the boonies!

I'll be out of radio contact for the next five weeks or so as I ride this behemoth of a bicycle with my two sons (we call it the Teasdale Train) from Glacier Park in Montana to Banff National Park in Alberta. We'll be accompanied by my lovely wife Jacqueline, who is also being kind enough to tow a BOB trailer packed with camping provisions.