I planned a mini adventure wherein I rose at dawn, pulled on my board shorts and shirt and put the kayak in the water, heading upstream to Oxbow preserve. Along the way I sited a big lumbering cinnamon bear on a sandbar, seven geese swimming, ten ducklings and a momma duck out for a morning gander. Returning home, I called my 90-year-old dad. He informed me that my brother -at that very moment – was winging his way to the Artic Circle – presumably to explore and observe and capture photos. Now that is an enviable adventure! 

My roommate – the wilderness ranger, rose before dawn the next day, left the house in her Forest Service uniform, drove the agency truck to Silverton where she loaded 900 pounds of hay onto the vintage narrow gauge train that’s been chuffing through the wilderness for more than a hundred years; added panniers of tools and a 70 pound backpack, rode shotgun (without the shotgun) back to the Chicago Basin flag stop where she met two team members to unload the hay needed to feed the mules -beasts of burden who schlepped in the explosives. For the next three days they (the humans not the mules) slept in scout tents, planted explosives; communicated by satellite with emergency rescue helicopters, guarded unsuspecting hikers from entering the danger zone and pushed plungers on explosives gained through specially arranged permits to clear out the rock fall and avalanche log jams; cross-cut and cleared the resulting fallout; tidied up the whole process like they had never been there and caught the train back out to civilization. All so that the Continental and Colorado hikers can stay the trail and leave the wilderness untrammeled. That too is adventure. Choose your own. Adventure. Make it a good one.