It’s that time of year again, the Christmas and Holiday season is already upon us, 2024 went flying by! If you’re like me, you might be looking for something new, something different for the outdoor adventure lover in your life, better to order early than wait till it’s too late.
This story starts with a 43-year-old man, one could call him an experienced Adventurer and someone who was well-traveled and used to remote wild places. He was on an epic travel adventure by all accounts, had just visited the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota, hit the Badlands, and was in the process of exploring the Grand Teton National Park … nothing too crazy for this adventurer who had spent time in Russia and even attended school in Germany.
Who would have guessed it? I mean, in today’s world, is it all that surprising? Not really. Yellowstone blew up. Of course it did. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, a rock … hmmm … it’s making the rounds of the interwebs that on July 23, 2024, a significant hydrothermal explosion occurred at Black Diamond Pool in Biscuit Basin, Yellowstone National Park.
The things that can happen to outdoor adventures never cease to amaze me. Years go by, books get written, stories get made into movies, and we all know better … yet it happens again and again, like clockwork.
I was recently in the far quiet north contemplating life on the shore of Lake Superior, of course, I had a book in my hands while I listened to the crashing of the waves. A wilderness survival book nonetheless. In fact this book was about some real-life survival stories, one of which happened a mear ~50 miles or so from where I was comfortably reclining on a sofa with a hot cup of tea and my book watching the sun go down over that Big Lake.
And then, much to my surprise, as I scrolled through my phone … I saw a story pop up of basically that exact same thing happening to someone many thousands of miles away in Colorado. It was just too good to be true. Two stories, thousands of miles apart, a decade has passed … yet the same thing was still happening.
In case you haven’t been following the outdoor news, all you bush crafters, survivalists, and outdoor adventure enthusiasts have just been schooled by a 34-year-old hiker who became lost in the mountains of northern California … for 10 days … without food or water when he disappeared!
I keep wondering if we will see an Arc floating by. It seems we are always fighting one thing or another. One year it’s dry and forest fires blow smoke to our southern neighbors, or like this year it’s biblical floods.
In another unsurprising move for the state of Iowa in regards to our limited and already shakey natural resources, yet another pride and joy has slipped into a putrid state of disrepair and neglect. As if the degradation of our soil and water to a ridiculous state isn’t enough, we have to add this to the list as well.
I’m not sure if you keep up on the happenings in the outdoor world, but we, Average Flatlanders do, and one of the strange pieces of news recently is the apparent dying on the vine of probably one of the most popular and best outdoor stores REI.
To knock the rocks or to NOT knock the rocks, is that now the question of our age for us backpacking and wilderness travelers? Apparently so.
Unless you are living under a rock, which is very probable considering you’re reading this blog, don’t we all wish, you’ve probably been hearing about the hullabaloo on the left and right about the NPS (National Park Service) ordering the takedown of the American Flag from contractors vehicles in Denali National Park.