Ammi Midstokke: Magellan and other seekers of the scenic route

The back way, as we grew up calling these things, was the unknown route, the exploratory bushwhack, the I-might-not-be-home-for-dinner way to get from point A to point B. If my father ever said, “Let’s take the back way!” I knew to check my rations.

We would find these ways – like our Viking forefathers – with a sense of conquering our fears. We went, we saw porcupines, we made it back alive with the treasure of new knowledge.

I thought I loathed scenic bypasses via mountain ridges and creek draws, or finding the end of fire roads. I thought I would grow up and run my life and directions via GPS. I thought I would show up on time for dinner.

My Nordic explorer genes have different plans.

I can tell hundreds of these stories, but this particular one happened on Saturday. The sun made a brief North Idaho appearance and, not wanting to miss spring, I decided I would ride my bike to the bike shop birthday party down at Greasy Fingers – the fingers I prefer to have fondle my bike. Also, they give me free stickers.

I live on the southern tip of the Selkirk range. Having just moved here, I have not had ample opportunity to poke around my back yard and turn it into familiar ground. I have found miles of running trail, fire road, the springs that lead to the creeks, the way to the ridge. What I haven’t yet found is the back way.

It calls to me daily. Back ways are ways that get one from somewhere to another somewhere with a sort of arrogance. They connect seemingly disconnected things and surprise the audience.

“You got to North America via the Indies?”

I geared up for a simple ride. I’d run enough out there and found where the end of one road met another. I get caught up in the possibility of the connections, the logic of where things come from and to where they go.

“I’m going to find the back way,” I told the Captain. When he thought I wasn’t not looking, he checked his watch. I had barbeque duty at the party and needed to be there to fire up the grill in a few hours.

The Captain, bless his heart, didn’t really grow up in snow and so he is very naive about all things snow and a generally cautious man. He tried to offer some backcountry guidance.

“Do you think the snow is already clear?” he asked.

I did some guffawing. You’re so cute, Kentucky. May is in two days and May is close to June and June is summer. So it’s basically summer right now. There’s no snow on the roads. I ran up to the ridge saddle days ago and it was clear.

“Even on the North Side? Kinda shady back there.”

He tried.

Two hours later, I was buried up to my knees in snow, bike on my shoulder, stomping my way in cleats through it all. I was doing okay, taking off my shoes and socks for river crossings and gritting my teeth through the bone-crunching waters. But then the snow gave way at one point and dropped me into a spring lake of thigh-deep melt. Soaked and cold, I applied sailor language to the situation.

A good place to test your outdoor stupidity is miles from civilization without a cell phone signal, underdressed for conditions, and flirting with hypothermia. If one wants to set the bar a little higher, do not bring a head lamp or food.

The first miles of snow-bike-shoeing and slush-wading went okay. I made it, eventually, to a familiar connecting road. The explorer in me celebrated the find. The back way is not just a myth! The world is not flat! My spirits were high again. The road would begin descending. Surely the snow would be gone.

Any minute now.

Any mile now.

I hoped the Captain had started the barbeque for me.

Then, my dear people, I got passed by a &$#! snowmobile. I don’t know if he was more confused about finding a mountain bike in two feet of snow or if I was more confused about the backcountry setup he had mounted to his machine. He flew past me and in slow motion silence we made eye contact, acknowledging the desperate lengths to which we go to do the things we love. We bonded in a split second without words and then he was gone.

By the time I actually made it to town, I had trudged several miles of snow and spent at least two hours wondering why I hadn’t brought the fat bike. Fat bikes are for snow. There won’t be any snow.

“I found the back way!” I exclaimed upon my arrival. Like all explorers, the travesties, the violence, the mutinies are overshadowed by the great success. Magellan sailed around the world. No matter that he didn’t personally finish or that only a fraction of his crew survived. I said around the WORLD.

If someone is right in the middle of the forest but no one is there to hear it, are they still right? The Captain handed me a hot dog. This new generation of explorers at least makes it before the food is gone.