Recently, I had the pleasure of joining Angel Collinson, Re Wikstrom, Grant Gunderson and some homies from the Backcountry.com media team on a road trip through the Southern Utah desert.  We rallied the TatsVan, packed full of gear from the Backcountry.com warehouse, and after a few pit stops for photos and pie, we set up camp outside Boulder, UT.  The next few days included hikes to waterfalls and slot canyons, where we posed like really good-looking monkeys for the multitude of camera lenses all vying for the shot.  Our nights consisted on pass-the-whiskey-handle and jokes around the campfire; one night was a little rainy, so the TatsVan hosted one its most epic parties as the desert monsoon drizzled out the campsite.  All in all, it was a solid trip, and I have to thank Angel, Re, Grant, Sam, Josh, and Brenda for such a memorable experience.

The whole trip was filmed, so there will be a series of road-trip, back-to-school videos posted in the Backcountry.com email letters over the next month.  Click the picture below to visit the website and add your name to the email newsletter.  Cheers!

Waking up in the dark this morning, I found myself fumbling around various parts of my girlfriend’s apartment looking for the last items for my trip to Tahoe. DROID phone? Check. Toothbrush? Check. PB&Honey sandwiches? Check. And, as is always the case with road trips of any sort, I forgot some things and brought way too much of others. It’s ok, a cheap pair of sunglasses at the next gas station will do just fine, but two paddleboards in the desert? Not much of an opportunity to use those!

Really though, I hopped into Jacqui Edgerly’s Subaru with Ashley Magnuson to make the 950 mile trip to Lake Tahoe so we can attend the memorial service for our good friend and skier, Arne Backstrom. Just following the posts on Twitter and Facebook, it seems as though a mass pilgrimage is in effect as people from every corner of the ski world are Tahoe bound to pay their respects to a fallen friend. I’m not quite sure what to expect, as memorial services tend to conjure up all sorts of heavy imagery. But, Arne’s life wasn’t ordinary, and it would be foolish to expect any different from a gathering of his family, closest friends, ski buddies, and travel partners. Squaw Valley, Arne’s most recent hometown, has seen its share of tragedy recently, and one can only think that these sorts of gatherings are becoming all too frequent.

But, I am not heading out there to mourn the loss of a friend’s life. Nay, this trip is of a different sort; the three of us are trekking across the desert West to join alongside a group of like-minded, outdoor oriented individuals to celebrate the passing of one of our own. We all know the risks of living the lifestyles we so unabashedly invest ourselves in; climbing mountains, scoping exotic surf breaks, thrashing bikes down singletrack trails, these are the moments which we have allowed to define our reality. To mourn the death of someone pursuing this unfettered reality is to exact an injustice to the raw, pure energy they poured into their craft. Celebration, then becomes the vessel through which that energy can be passed on to the next adventurer. It is then our charge to go and live life to its fullest potential.

So, what do I hope to take away from this trip, this voyage across barren oceans of sand to the alpine paradise which constitutes the Tahoe area? Well, I hope to hear all of those stories shared by people who spent time with this person of influence. Arne had an effect on everyone he came into contact with, and the collective story of his life told over the next few days will find root in inspiring us all to go out and seek our own next challenge, only to look it square in the eye and give it that wry smile Arne made so famous.