Feature w/Jeffcoat and Ankeny
Issue 4.2, Unresort Guide
10 pages, 3,010 Words
My first feature for Frequency, our yurt trip into the Sawtooths delivered the uncertainty and unpredictability that always make for a good story. But constructing a parallel narrative tied to Ernest Hemmingway's history in the Sun Valley area, and the influential role he played in adventure writing, is what really made this story a compelling read.
Link to Full Story
Snowboard writers stand guilty of the same string of white lies. Perfect azure skies, deep snow on demand, bottomless budgets, and always a raging party (and always with a DJ). These idyllic page-turners serve their purpose, surging us with adrenaline during the off season, lifting our gaze to marquee destinations, or simply inspiring us to ride at a new level. These scenarios fit the frame of perfection, but it’s a tough standard to meet. The untold tale is that with travel comes travail, and paradoxically, therein lies the real reason to take a turn in the unfamiliar.
As with all good trips, ours was sparked by a tantalizing account: a firsthand report of craggy peaks, a friend’s friend who rented out plush backcountry yurts, and a previously untapped destination that triangulated our four western state locations. Eager to cultivate our own adventure, six of us signed on for a mid winter Idaho tour. We found a week in February before the annual spring pilgrimage to Alaska that was free of industry trade shows and resort-town work commitments, and firmly locked in the dates for a trip to the jagged spires of southern Idaho’s Sawtooth Range.
The Sun Valley region was a onetime haunt of Ernest Hemingway, whose words spawned an entire genre of literature that championed rugged individualism. Lured at first by Sun Valley’s forward thinking marketing department, Hemingway soon adopted the area as his Western home. He completed the novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in his complimentary suite at the Sun Valley Lodge, hunted and fished in the surrounding patches of wilderness and returned for good after revolution forced him to leave Cuba.
Hemingway’s tales are legendary and his legend is mythical. He traveled to dangerous destinations — sub-Saharan Africa, war-torn Spain, the untamed wilderness — drank like a fish and had a talent for attracting, and then repelling women. His legacy counted four wives, a Nobel Prize and a worldwide string of adventures that formed a
dramatic backdrop for his sparse writing style.
His books and stories celebrated the unknown, the active, and the rough edges of the individual, often ending with a tragic outcome. He gained fame, fortune, and respect with his exciting tales of the unfamiliar. More than any other, he permanently colored our enduring stereotype of the American author. His influence still remains great primarily because his voice induced generations of us to explore.
Before I could open my eyes, the hiss of the portable espresso maker jarred me awake. It was still dark outside, but the smell of gourmet French roast provided enough motivation to climb out of my fluffy down bag and start gearing up to explore the heart of the Sawtooth. We planned for a long day and prepared accordingly, but, of course, hit the first incline with no clear objective.
A midwinter thaw had turned the weather climactic warm and our climb toward the top of Thompson Peak quickly turned into a scorcher. One intermediate hike up, a quick couple of turns down, and a big cirque traverse brought us to the base of the biggest mountain in the immediate range. Faced with real slope exposure, we unbuckled and bootpacked up to the next ridge, single file and spaced apart style. We broke for lunch and tried to settle on a plan of attack.
The snow at the higher elevation was poor and rotted in places, and the pack was marginal. Turns way up here held little excitement, but we were engulfed by epic scenery. Summit fever soon took hold and the group was charging up a sketchy and frozen scree field to the top of Thompson’s 10,832-foot peak.
In a cruel twist of fate compounded by spiraling depression, Hemingway’s story ended in his Sun Valley home. The icon of American authorship felt his talent for the word had disappeared, and fearing this the most, he tragically unloaded his favorite shotgun on himself. He is buried in the Ketchum Cemetery and etched on his understated memorial is a eulogy he once composed that celebrated passion for the wilderness and honors his still powerful legacy to adventure. Foreshadowing his own end, it resonates with the words, “He has come back to the hills that he loved and now he will be a part of them forever.”
There was, fortunately, no suicide spiral to end our adventure although our re-adjustment to the mundane repetition of reality proved a shock to the system. A dark, icy drive on winding mountain roads, days stuck dealing with auto mechanics in Boise, and a return to overflowing workloads left long untended. Our tour-a-day pace rapidly accelerated back to normal life speed and the vistas of the Sawtooth Range began to slowly fade into memory. Like all authentic explorations, the trip was a mixed bag of stoke and struggle, but promised to sustain us until restless souls, empty two lane, and big mountains call us out once again.
