Yonder Journal

“Mike's saying this valley dates back to the 1800s for mining and ranching. He says Etna is over to the right, which is east or south or southeast, whatever. Apparently Etna was a big gold mining center. We’re passing our first cattle sign of the ride; apparently we need to be on the look out for steer and cows and cattle shaped stuff for the the next 20 miles."

—Transcribed from a recorded audio note dictated by Kyle Von Hoetzendorff at 8:14 AM on 16 July 2013 during the start of Brovet #4 Mythical State of Jefferson Permanent.

In fact, the Scott Valley¹ , as well as the federally designated Wild & Scenic Scott River, was named for John W. Scott, a prospector who in 1850 was the first to discover gold in the area. Unlike many other regions mined during the California Gold Rush, the Scott River continued to be prospected well into the 1900s via river dredging, with operations continuing in some areas until legal changes forced their closure in 1955.² However, it's economic importance had been established years earlier, with trapping operations so successful in the area (now home to the towns of Fort Jones, Etna and Greenview) that the valley's original western name was Beaver Valley. Stephen Meek, who hunted and trapped all over the West for the Hudson Bay Company, thought Scott Valley was the best trapping area he ever visited/worked.

1. Which is notably different than Scott's Valley, a city in Santa Cruz County. [↩]
2. A detailed description of a 19th-century dredging operation in Callahan is available here under "Extensive Mining." [↩]

We were free until we stopped fighting, now no one has freedom.

—Chief Tawonka

Happy Camp, California (population 1,190) followed a typical Siskiyou County Township timeline: (1) Big Bang, (2) Ice Age, (3) Big Foot, (4) Native Americans¹, (5) Mountain Men, Fur Trappers, and Frontiersmen, (6) Gold Rush, (7) Timber-based economy, (8) self-identifying with the Mythical State of Jefferson, and (9) a m-a-j-o-r population decrease in the early 1990's coinciding, incidentally, with increased Timber Regulations. Aside from it's outstanding Recreative Reputation (R&R), Happy Camp is notable for producing a Canadian Football League All-Star Quarterback, selling a recent $5,000,000.00 Scratcher Lotto Ticket² and for housing the main offices of the Klamath National Forest's Happy Camp/Oak Knoll Ranger Districts.

In spite of the fiberglass statue guarding the Forest Lodge parking lot located at 63712 California 96, Chief Tawonka never existed. Which means "We were free until we stopped fighting, now no one has freedom" was either plagiarized and thereby stolen from a different-but-presumably-real-this-time-indian or written by short sweaty southern white man in an office without windows in the basement of the Cheaper Cigarettes Headquarters somewhere in the deep south. The now defunct Cheaper Cigarettes made 82 (or 72, depending on your source) identical statues.

1. E.g. the Karuk who, as it turns out, continue to use Happy Camp as their Tribal Headquarters. [↩]
2. the ticket was purchased at Parry's Market, an apparently-anonymous Facebook account for the town broke the story [↩]

“My name is Keven Krueger, I live in Callahan, CA. I’m a stonemason by trade but a few years back I started putting bikes together. I had no bicycle knowledge outside of knowing how to turn a nut, but I wanted to make bikes that could mob down hills without falling apart or breaking down.

–Keven Krueger, Callahan, CA¹, on the origin of Skid Town Bicycles

Brovet: The Mythical State of Jefferson is forthcoming.

1. Photo thanks to Mike Cherney. [↩]

Words by Kyle von Hoetzendorff. Photographs by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

Some cups hold the body of Christ and some cups merely celebrate victory, but most pass through our lives necessarily forgettable, the combined result of their ubiquity and efficacy. They serve a purpose; we find refreshment and move on. If we are to believe Steven Spielberg’s famous Dr. Jones, and I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t, then there are rare times when even the most simple of cups can be invested with unbelievable power. The coveted grail, sought after by the unanimously reviled Nazi’s for its ability to grant eternal life was at one point pursued in real time in real life by medieval crusaders who truly believed that a cup from some blue-eyed bearded dude could grant eternal life. That eternal life was something to be desired, especially in that era, a time that many scientists now believe was a miniature ice age illustrates man’s utter incomprehension of time and death. Eternal life in a world of constant rain, unending cold, inconsolable ignorance and rampant gonorrhea? Forever? The premise of the promise is not enticing.

Still the idea that a cup, or any inanimate object, could stand for something larger than itself, bigger than its function, is not foreign or foolish. We are our memories and in our memories objects carry weight and incite action. Talismans and lucky t-shirts, favorite pens, and rabbit’s feet affect the way we respond to the world. These objects gain their emotional dominion uniquely, through no prescribed course. Luck, accretion, surprise, and timing can all inaugurate a new totem into our lives.

Jon’s Comfort Inn cup, a last minute filch from our motel's continental breakfast bar, was our totem. That it survived the trip was remarkable in its own right. The wax paper had been crumpled and folded so many times that by the end the trip the cup was stained and sagging but it remained capable of holding our hopes. Jon had faired even better and managed to avoid any and all mishaps for the duration of our adventure. During our most dire moment, when the group was run out on a scree field on the side of a mountain, he alone seemed unfazed. With no apparent route Jon decided to navigate down the mountain by tossing his bike over a sea of 10-foot high buck brush.

We stood there watching, witnessing our monument topple, our flag burn, and it appeared as if the power of his cup had reached a point of failure. He appeared to be struggling. Up to this point we wagered our morale on Jon’s indomitable character. Our faith in the titanium fantasy-cum-reality camp mugs, featherweight sleeping bags and collapsible futurist domiciles disintegrated before us. Jon had been powered by something else, something that we didn’t have, a cavalier flippancy that the experienced exude and the novice covet.

As he fought the mountain the rest of us went into free fall, dreading every imaginable fucking outcome, slipping into the desperate self-loathing that comes at a time when all seems lost, when it seemed our only option would be to retrace the last three days journey, with negligible rations and zero morale on our now completely blown out and blistered feet. While this thought washed over the group like a black tide Jon and his cup exploded from the green abyss of primitive fauna, took a moment to reconnoiter with Chris “Rally” McNally, and through a form of divination not accessible by the rest of us found a way through savage sharp brush back to open trail.

The cup had become a metonym for resilience. It managed to avoid any number of potential annihilation catastrophes that would have lead to its demise. It was protected, sheltered from our pyre and our angst. Jon, with his worn at the edges gear and unfazed exuberance instilled in the rest of us a blind miscalculated confidence that was necessary for the completion of our expedition. The cup carried the fuel that kept Jon spotless, free from misstep or fault. It was their covenant, the cup and Jon’s, and no one dared to break it. We had our own titanium, tin, and plastic mugs that we were happy to sip from, to drink from their meaningless vacuum our hot chocolate and coffee. Jon had his cup, he deserved its power, and as our trip grew longer, harder, and more doubtful, the rest of us found we needed something to believe in.

Jon Bailey's Comfort Inn Cup is the first Talisman available from Yonder Journal.

Words and photographs by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

What follows is an exit interview with Ty Hathaway three days after he completed the 2013 Tour Divide. Side note: This interview was conducted over the phone and ONLY three days after Ty completed a 25-day race, during which 25 day race he rode an average of 150 miles a day on the dirt in the mountains. Though it should go without saying it warrants mention, Ty was effectively Rocky Mountain High during this interview. Like blissed-out on endorphins and exposure. Also, he is a very dry, humble and very straight-forward talker on the best of days. Also there is some rumor going around that he used to race motorcycles like professionally or some such shit, like we’re talking Rally Raid-type races, e.g. the Dakar Rally. Also, he’s really into pack-rafting right now so he’s pretty much like, bona fide.
… More in this Brief

Words by Greg Rutter. ¹ Photograph by Emiliano Granado.

I’m not saying you should dislocate your shoulder. I’m definitely not saying that. What I am saying is that if you have to have a traumatic injury you should dislocate your shoulder. I’m not sure what kind of situation you’d be in where you could decide this sort of injury over that kind of injury. No one wants to have a traumatic injury, of course, but if there’s a situation where someone has a gun to your head or something and says, “Which traumatic injury do you want to have?” you should definitely tell them you want to dislocate your shoulder. … More in this Brief

1. Greg Rutter is an Emmy Award winning writer who works at the advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy. He is a former contributor to The Onion and the IFC show The Onion News Network. In 2009 he was the keynote speaker at ROFLCon, speaking about mainstreaming the web after his website YouShouldHaveSeenThis.com went viral. Sorry ladies, but he lives with his wife Aubrey in New York City and they have lots of friends and go to lots of parties. Also, you can tell he works out. He has no tattoos. [↩]

In preparation of the forthcoming as in imminent Cumberland Passage Permanent we'd like to thank Raleigh Bicycles. Not only for their continued financial support of Yonder's Brovet Guidebook Series but also for the six Raleigh Internationals they accidentally gave us for two years.

… More in this Brief

Words by Richard Ellis. Photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

"It’s here then that we move beyond the treacherous waterways and onto that lucrative ironclad corridor between Cumberland and Pittsburgh, later to become known as the Allegheny Passage. Today its 150 miles represent a shining patchwork of rails-to-trails. A veritable tunnel through time and space, encompassing the Eastern Continental Divide and the Mason—Dixon Line.¹ And in a conservational pincer movement between the Pennsylvania Commonwealth and the National Parks Service, the General’s vision² of a tether between the midwest and DC is now a free for all, a 334 mile shingle umbilicus holding the past and future together." — Borrowed from the Forward section of the forthcoming BROVET: CUMBERLAND PASSAGE PERMANENT

1. Despite the common misunderstanding, slavery was practiced both south and north—in Delaware and New Jersey until 1865 and 1846, respectively—of the Mason–Dixon Line. In fact, the line was the compromise which ended a border dispute between the Maryland and Pennsylvania British Colonies. [↩]
2. Having returned to his Mt Vernon estate after the war, Washington had ordered his slaves to hack away boughs and chisel the bluff to free up the view upon his beloved Potomac. In 1785, after an exploratory trip with his companion Dr James Craik up the Potomac over the Allegheny mountains and down the Ohio River, he established the Potomack Canal Company and began work on creating a network of canals to connect Georgetown with Cumberland, Maryland some 150 miles away. [↩]

Words and photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

While the Monongahela, a clan of Mound Builders,¹ were the first known group of people to inhabit the Ohiopyle area​, the name Ohiopyle is actually derived from the Lenape​ (Delaware Indian) phrase ahi opihəle ​which​ translates to ‘it turns very white​.' This is thought to refer to the foaming waters at the base of the falls and not to what appears to be stacked or piled stones that are the cause of all the boiling whiteness. It should be made clear that these cataracts are on the Youghiogheny River, known locally as the Yawk, and not the Ohio River. This potentially confusing naming convention dictates that we ask you to consult your map or mapping service for precise location information before beginning a journey to take in the view of these falls.

1. These small stone mounds were used as burial sites by the Monongahela. [↩]

Words by Kyle von Hoetzendorff. Photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

Lean-tos are creatively named small shelters built by leaning smaller sticks in an organized fashion against a larger more stable stick, such as a tree, or against one another in either the teepee or log cabin build format. They can be built in a variety of locations with the availability of construction resources the only limiting factor. Lean-tos have been found deep in the woods far off trail and so close to civilization that you can easily make out Robin Thicke in the air. Not strictly limited to a woodsman’s shelter these sometime small and uncomfortable structures can beguile the uninitiated. What is the motivation behind their construction? Escape from the elements, a place to rest, a meditative sanctuary, or maybe the architect-builder had nothing better to do while in the woods with their pre-adolescent children than to express an atavistic urge for shelter?

Recently while on a bike ride in the woods I passed one of these transient domiciles and I had a thought that held my attention: "Why couldn’t this stack of sticks be something other than a shabby place to hide from the night?

… More in this Brief