WET, COLD, EXHAUSTED, AND MILDLY TERRIFIED FOR 8 DAYS.
GETTING LOST AND LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
Fall 2021. A few months before my 59th birthday, basically a blink away from the unimaginable age of 60. Another typically uneventful evening. I had no idea it would turn wildly intriguing.
That night I read Ed Caesar’s brilliant story on his Get Lost adventure in The New Yorker magazine. Two paragraphs in, I launched out of bed as if the mattress had been struck by lightning. Designed by the luxury travel group Black Tomato (BT) out of the UK, Ed was dropped into Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, a completely new and foreign environment he’d never explored, equipped with not much more than a compass and the challenge to navigate his way to an end point in two days.
The mystery of an unfamiliar adventure, holy shit! To not know where I’m going or what I’d be doing, but knowing I’d be supported enough that I wouldn’t kill myself. How cool would it be to do something like that? What a fantastic thing to do next year before I turn 60!
Hold on a sec. Did I really have the appetite for something like this? Was there really a desire for a transformational experience laying dormant within me, or was this just a dream of being on the reality TV show Alone without having to eat a decomposing porcupine just to live another day? Is challenging adventure really part of my DNA? What kind of “extreme” am I really capable of dealing with?
Comfort. The older we get, it seems the more humans seek it. It’s natural.
As I sat ensconced in my huge couch the next morning, I reflected on the idea of being too comfortable. When was the last time I put myself in a really uncomfortable place? When was the last time I really challenged myself? Doing harder and longer climbs on my super-light, fast Pinarello pulled my insides out and I loved it. Some of the hikes I’ve done since moving to Boulder pushed me into some fantastic forests and connected me to nature.
But nope, neither transported me out of a zone of comfort. Ok, Mr. Strategist, try ascending to a higher perspective. Let’s look beyond just the things that make you sweat.
While there are many aspects of my life that could be better, I’m pretty comfortable. Financially, I can pay the bills for a while, and other than a mortgage, I don’t owe anyone anything material. Physically, at 59.5 years old, I’m pretty fit. Emotionally and spiritually, I’ve achieved newfound clarity (more on this in future posts re: psychedelics). Socially, I have close friends and my family is healthy and doing well, thankfully. Professionally, I’ve got many options to earn a buck that nurture my need for finding purpose and giving back.
Two days after reading Ed’s article, I concluded that I am at this moment in my life almost too comfortable. Underneath all this comfort, an itch I didn’t even know was inside me had been revealed and screamed to be scratched. I pulled up BT’s website and perused through the myriad of trips, tours, and adventures they offer. It took me a while to find the Get Lost experience page; when I did, the vision starting coming together as a “min-epiphany” that, if designed in the right way, would salve the itch.
I/we pay trainers to drill us with exercise routines we would never do on our own; I/we pay therapists to get us to reveal truths we’d never illuminated; I/am a paid consultant, designing elevated business strategies most corporate leaders don’t see because they’re stuck in the weeds; I/we pay personal coaches to help us reinvent ourselves. Why not pay experienced experts to take me somewhere I’d never go on my own and do things I’d never do on my own. Design my own bespoke experience no one else has ever done. Adrenalin rush — this was what I needed, I just knew it, even if I had no real idea yet what I wanted it to be like. Get lost. GET LOST!
I hit send on the email to BT to start the process.
WHAT DOES GETTING LOST ACTUALLY MEAN?
Sure, I’d been a Bear Grylls fan and loved alpine expedition documentaries. As a teenager, I backpacked the entire state of Vermont and have since loved hiking and being in the woods. But let’s be clear, I’m no seasoned outdoorsman. Nor have I ever been interested in surviving a blizzard sleeping in a moose carcass.
Most of us think “getting lost” is not knowing where you are in the sense of physical location. In our digitized, sentient world, we really have to try to not know where we are. And so I became intrigued by the prospect of navigating a unique adventure without digital crutches. But I wasn’t quite sure “lost” had to be defined by physical location. As I thought about it over the next few days, the notion of “getting lost” excited me less from the technical perspective of learning how to use traditional map and compass to orient from point A to B. Lost, I came to embrace, is more a state of mind than place. We can be and feel lost anywhere, alone or with millions. Just ask any New Yorker. Of which I am, so I know personally.
So, I challenged myself to redefine the experience as more than simply navigating to a location, as Ed was challenged to do in his trip, even if I wasn’t quite sure what that would be. I needed to learn how BT defines getting lost — or how they interpret it for potential customers like me.
Later that week, Rob Murray John, BTs Head of Special Operations, pinged me back to set up a time to video conference. With nearly two decades of experience designing and participating in all sorts of outdoor expeditions, Rob guided me through what I thought I might want and helped me understand the kinds of experiences they could create beyond what I envisioned. Rob pushed me to get specific:
- What do I want to get out of the experience — what are my goals?
- How long would I want this experience to be?
- Would I want to be alone the entire time?
- Would I care if I saw other people along the way?
- How challenging — physically and mentally — would I want it to be?
- Do I prefer jungle, ocean, desert, mountains?
- Are there places I’m dying to explore or others I absolutely would not want to?
Good questions all. Loving the opportunity to design a bespoke experience, Rob and I went back and forth over the next 30 days live and via email. Here’s where I started in terms of defining what a Get Lost experience would be for me:
- Throw me off balance.
- Take me out of my comfort zone. Way out — but NOT life-or-death.
- Physically challenging.
- A guide makes sense but I’d like to be alone if I choose.
- At least 5 days of alpine mountaineering in remoteness, woods, pine forests, wilderness (defining this would come shortly, see below) — not desert, jungle, or ocean.
- Include an experience with wolves if possible (to inspire a book I am finishing).
Rob understood. But we still had a chasm between my thinking and the vast expanse of possible experiences BT could create, since there are so many amazing things one can do alpine mountaineering or hiking. Pull a sled on skis across a frozen tundra; scale mountain passes and peaks; add river rafting to any trek; ice-climb in between alpine treks.
To narrow the gap, Rob set up a call with Harald Kippenes, basically the Bear Grylls of Norway. Rob and Harald had collaboratively designed unique expeditions for people like me in the past — as they consulted on what they thought I was looking for, Norway emerged as a fantastic location to create an adventure that could meet my criteria really well.
Three of us video conferenced in January. Harald is the real thing, a serious but thoroughly engaging guy with a keen, empathetic sense of how people experience all sorts of nature. After this one call I felt that Harald understood where I’m at in my life and the “why” inspiring me to consider stretching myself in new ways. I felt like he got it. That he got me. Harald represented the kind of adventure-designer I didn’t even know I needed, someone who understood how to connect a human to nature beyond the expected or typical or mundane. Whether in Norway or some other Scandinavian outback, Harald would become the architect of a bespoke Get Lost experience I could never have created. Let’s go — by February, here’s what we landed on and I committed to:
- Mid-to-late September.
- I would be flown from Oslo airport to the north of Norway for the beginning of the trip.
- A sea plane would then take me somewhere north.
- The core experience is a 3–5 day wilderness immersion, maybe more, mainly backpacking / mountaineering, potentially some rafting and/or other activities.
- The end of the experience would include climbing a mountain and abseiling down
- Food and all other supplies would be carried by me, no resupplies needed.
- I would have a guide available if I wanted, or could choose to trek alone and navigate, survive, etc. myself.
- GPS unit will enable the guide, Rob, and Harald to monitor my location 24/7 such that if anything happened they could send support quickly.
This is all I would know for the next 8 months. I sent a big f-ing deposit.
Holy shit. It’s happening!
THE NEXT 8 MONTHS.
A week later I received an email announcing a unique road cycling trip from the tour group LeBlanq in … of all places … Norway! Taking place literally a week before the Get Lost trip has me at the Oslo airport. Sign me up! (I’m working on a new post on this fantastic trip to be posted shortly).
So, for the next 8 months I rode between 150 and 250 miles a week and took long hikes in between. Enlisted my sparkly, hilarious friend and phenomenal personal trainer Megan Hebbe to strengthen my core and lower body and shock my metabolic recovery system. Her workouts were killer.
I have horrible balance, made worse by a lack of balancing confidence — until this year, I could barely stand on one foot for more than a few seconds. Better balance became another focus area to improve for backpacking and mountaineering. With Megan’s help, I committed to exercises that would center my body and, therefore, my hiking confidence.
IMMERSION
It’s now late September. I’ve done the amazing cycling trip, spent a week hiking outside of Stockholm and back in Oslo, where I met Harald the day before starting the trip. He revealed what I was to expect over the next 24 hours — a flight to Evenes airport, near the northern city of Narvik, where I would be met by my guide for the trip, Stian Johansen and, later, his on-the-ground cohort Tore Bergbjørn who, together, designed the excursion. Harald also evaluated my pack and clothing setup. Turns out, I needed some new gear and to replace certain clothes I already had because he knew they weren’t going to work in what I began to learn would be much wetter than I had been told or anticipated (e.g., wool vs. fleece shirts, socks, gloves). We then went to an outdoor retailer he knew in Oslo and I geared up, again.
He also determined I just had too much stuff. I gladly eliminated about half of the clothing I’d brought with me, reducing weight by half. But — this didn’t include food and other gear I’d need to add when I reached Stian and we’d load up the next day.
As we talked more about what the next few days would entail, I became more and more excited. I asked Harald if it would be possible to add a few days to the experience. He synched with Rob at BT and Stian that afternoon. Soon after, Harald confirmed the trip could be extended to 7 days trekking, 8 including the “climb up a mountain”. Psyched, I spent the remainder of that day in nervous energy anticipating the unknown of the next day. I also ate a huge, stupidly expensive dinner. Figured it would be the last good one for a while.
The next morning, Harald picked me up early and hustled me to the airport. We’d become fast friends. As I walked to security, he shook my hand and smiled with that look — you know the one, where a friend knows something fantastic is about to happen and you really don’t have a clue.
It was pissing rain and cooler in Evenes. Stian was easy to find at the terminal. Over the next week he and I became good buds. In his early-thirties, he’s a soon-to-be-IFMGA-certified mountain guide. His affinity for everything outdoors began as a kid, just like Harald and so many other Norwegians (although I learned that Harald was actually born in Bhutan). There isn’t anything outdoors he can’t do well and doesn’t love doing — rock climbing, ski touring, sailing, trekking, survival training, woodsman-ship, you name it. As I’d soon find out, there is basically no environment or condition he’s not comfortable in or experienced surviving in, from arctic blizzards to rolling seas. And, he makes a mean steak. Easy to chat with, interesting and interested, just a really great guy.
We loaded his pickup and started the 2 hour drive to Tore’s to do final prep and packing. Stian and Tore had been activated by Harald to pick the exact location and route map, the on-the-ground team. As we drove, we discussed how much of the trip I’d want to be alone, what kinds of experiences I would want vs. not want (e.g., would I really want to river raft). We’d play each day by ear. But he now had a clearer idea of what I was looking for and orienting to it.
As we drove northeast, the landscape began to become more remote and, even in the gray overcast rain, immense and spectacular. Massive granite mountains interspersed by glacial rivers.
We reached Tore’s place mid afternoon. Similarly skilled and experienced as Stian, Tore lives with his wife (a prominent geologist) and 18 husky-mix sled dogs that she trains and races with.
A really cool life they lead, at least it seemed so to me, ensconced in spectacular landscapes at, almost, the edge of the civilized world.
Reviewing my gear in more detail than I had done with Harald, I needed yet more new stuff — namely, a warm jacket not made with down. Why? If the down gets wet, it’s useless. Same with my down sleeping bag. Tore and I drove 45 minutes back into Narvik where I bought a polypropylene Arcteryx jacket and a wet bag for the sleeping bag, and the best long-handled rubberized spoon you can imagine. Hadn’t even thought about utensils, and this sucker wound up coming in quite handy three times a day.
Back at Tore’s place by late afternoon, Stian loaded me up with 8 days of freeze dried breakfast, lunch, and dinner packets, all of which turned out to be really good, especially the muesli and pasta bolognese. Who knew — just add boiling water!
I still lost 10–15 pounds over the 7 days of trekking, will get to that shortly. All loaded up, the pack now weighed approx. 65 pounds, give or take how much water I’d carry at any one time. Let’s be clear — even in as a teenager trekking the entire state of Vermont’s fantastic Long Trail, my pack was not this heavy. Would the next week be physically challenging? Check that box.
We ate our last indoor dinner, a classic Norwegian stew. After, in pissing rain, Tore drove us to a nearby trailhead near a beautiful river, into which we walked at around 11pm. Stian led us to a flat spot adjacent to the rushing, beautiful-sounding river (too dark to see it, I could only really hear it). We set up camp in the rain and spent night one listening to drizzle spray the tent. The river was even louder and alot more calming. We woke the next morning to a nearly clear sky, just beautiful at the river.
Tore arrived around 9am with fresh coffee. Stian and I soon packed up camp and set off in the pickup for the 40 minute drive north into higher mountains to a crystal clear lake, where Stian and I would be picked up by a sea plane and flown into northern Sweden to start the expedition — which I hadn’t really known until the night before, starting a series of what became pretty much entirely new experiences. I’d never backpacked with this much weight before — just hiking into camp the night before and then now, walking just a couple hundred yards down from the road to the lake on pretty uneven terrain, previewed that the next week would be no cakewalk. Nor had I ever flown in a sea plane.
After about an hour, across the last clear blue sky we would see for the next 5 days, the plane circled and skimmed to a landing. Our hilarious pilot Denis helped us load the packs and we soon lifted off en route to Sweden.
The sea plane provided the most direct way to transport us from Norway into Sweden just northeast of Tornetrask Lake, a vast, remote part of Sweden Stian and Tore chose to start the expedition. Denis flew under 5,000 feet or so because, as he told us with some hilarious anecdotes, we would not want the Swedes to know we were entering their airspace. Little did I know that the Norwegians and Swedes are not nearly as friendly as we here in the US might have thought. No need to alert the Swedish air traffic controllers if we didn’t have to, so we flew, ostensibly, under the radar through spectacular mountains, valleys, and glacier fields, truly other-worldly landscapes.
After about 40 minutes the terrain below us changed from arctic, snow-capped mountains to vast, serenely sloping hills interspersed with lakes and covered in a variety of thick forest.
We soon saw the lake we would land on, and after one pass over for Denis to check its depth near the shore he dropped us down onto the pristine water.
Denis turned around and slowly pulled us up to a shoreline spot that looked good to disembark and unload. Denis wished us luck and took off, getting out of town before the cops could arrive. Total blast getting here.
Stian and I sat for a bit in the increasingly warm midday sun to get our bearings on the route map. He began teaching me how to orient by compass and map, synching coordinates with GPS units to validate where we were and where the day would see us go. Stian ate a full meal for lunch. I had some nuts. Turned out to be a rare case of overconfidence, as I’d soon learn I needed all the energy I could absorb.
After about a half hour we started walking up and out from the lake through what became increasingly a thick and uneven terrain of twines, moss covered rocks, and shin-high willow and dwarf birch that made up this open alpine tundra. Stian had oriented us directionally and we just walked in that direction, pushing through and over whatever we needed to. There was not yet a trail to follow, but I figured we’d hit one sooner or later. It wasn’t steep like where I live near the Rockies, but it was not easy walking for me — a really heavy pack and completely uneven, thick footing. Stian just plowed ahead and I followed. By the time we stopped a second time to drink and rest a bit, I had already sweat completely through everything, including the straps on the pack, which now showed salt stains. Normally, I love sweating like this, and really didn’t worry about it. Just made sure I took in a lot of water. Which we both did.
As we rested and reviewed the next section on the map, I asked Stian “So, when do you think we’ll hit the trail?” Stian just deadpanned “There is no trail.”
Hundreds of miles north of the arctic circle in Sweden is, as I now began to understand, remote. In the winter, this terrain is only passable by the most experienced ski touring outdoorsmen and adventurists. As I came to grips with the reality of Stian’s matter-of-fact statement, all I could muster was a smile and “Really. Ok, here we go!” He then tested me to find where we were on the map and helped me align to the direction we needed to go.
As we set back out, my brain shifted from “Ok, let’s do this hard work” to “Holy shit, no trail?” I had never NOT hiked on a trail. I can walk outside of my house and literally hike on hundreds of trails in the Rocky Mountains for hundreds of miles. Welp, welcome to getting lost. Ok, now I know real alpinists do. All I knew was that I had never even thought of it.
Over the next few hours, the work became increasingly harder for me. The ground underfoot got thicker and and more uneven — moss covered boulders and thickets of who knows what, mazes of unevenness that threw every step off balance. I literally had to use all of my energy just to stay upright. And all of my mental focus to keep the fear of falling — turning an ankle, pulling a ligament, breaking a bone — at bay. For Stian — not a foot wrong.
Oh, and in between the non-trail trail we forged, we encountered boulder fields, where thousands upon thousands of granite and sandstone rock had been deposited by glaciers eons ago. Slip off one of these rocks and it’s a gnarly crash. Some abutted streams, over time becoming covered in moss and other plant growth — striding from the top of one to another to avoid knee-deep swamp muck made it even more fun to traverse. NOT.
Bog swamps crisscrossed within and around every boulder field, making what from a distance looks like relatively mostly gently rolling terrain a minefield of missteps and off-balanced plodding for me. Northern Sweden is a blast! (Here’s how Wikipedia describes it — “A peculiarity is large rocks placed at unlikely locations. These were carried by the ice-age glaciers, and deposited randomly at the end of the ice age. Tornetrask defined — Träsk is the local word for lake; in Standard Swedish it means “swamp”).
As late afternoon set in, I began to run out of energy. Near-bonk is a state I’m all-too-familiar with as a road cyclist who likes to climb. Mentally, I felt beaten up. But not beaten. Stian’s determined, calm, steadfast way really helped. I followed his every step. Literally. By the time we reached a place to camp, I was completely drenched in sweat from the top down, including sweating through the pack, and bottom-up, as I’d slipped or fallen into knee-deep muck at least five times.
Part miserable, part exhausted, part in shock, I was spent, completely. Stian helped me put my tent together and I ate as soon and as much as I could. We then reviewed the next day’s route, but I had no energy left to even consider what it looked like. “Look, Stian, I’m not complaining — I’m just not sure I can do this for 7 days!” He got it, and let me crash for the night. I knew my legs would cramp up in the confined space inside the tent taking off my wet pants and socks, and, later, just trying to sleep. After a half hour of squirming out of wet clothes into dry wool, I managed to stave off cramping for a while, and settled into my sleeping bag, warm and dry, with a full stomach. I closed my eyes and started processing this insane day.
At first, fear-loops swirled in my mind— would I cramp up in the middle of the night; shatter a knee falling in another boulder field; keep my feet dry at all; pull a back muscle; or just not be able to keep up. Then, a reality-loop — nothing bad had happened. Sure, I was destroyed physically. But I knew I’d recover. And, now I knew more of what to expect, how to manage the energy needs in this shockingly new terrain. Making camp was cool. Orienteering was cool. As it started to drizzle, which inside a tent sounded like a downpour, a last thought — had I really begun to like this?
Fitful, leg-muscle-cramping, body-shock-recovery sleeplessness is how I described my night to Stian the next morning. But my spirits were good. He was up, coffee in hand, campfire already started, even in the increasing wind. Ok, I’ll get there, I said to myself.
Two muesli packets and 6x electrolyte tabs for breakfast. Drank more than a liter of water. It drizzled and pissed all night. Stian figured we’d likely have a few days of this. He was right. It was probably also about 35 degrees.
Stian helped me locate landmarks on the map that we would look out for to confirm we were moving in the right direction — a small lake to the north we’d expect to pass in an hour, a steeper sloping hillside on the left just after that, a large bog swamp and, likely, more boulder fields there’d be no way around.
As we set out, Stian asked me about spending time alone to, potentially, have that kind of “get lost” experience if I wanted — the way it would work would be for him to leave me in an afternoon and I would make camp wherever I felt, after which he would trek a few kilometers somewhere else and set up his own camp; the next day, I would navigate to GPS coordinates he would send to me. I really appreciated that he wanted to make sure I had as many cool experiences as possible and had thought about it during the entire first day — would I have wanted to be alone? Was I ready to navigate on my own?
Not yet. I just wasn’t ready to handle navigating through this on my own. “Hey, brother,” [insert heavy exertion breathing here] “Let me get through another day. Yes, I’m thinking about it and it sounds cool, but just no way I’m ready to do that yet. If we were on trails, and it was a matter of finding the right trail and maybe some off-piste traversing, I’d probably say yes. But no way right now.” He totally understood. We plodded on into the low mist.
As the day unfolded, mist turned to on and off rain. In the few moments where I didn’t have to reorient my body from falling step by step, I saw beauty in the remoteness of where I was. Maybe I had mentioned this to Rob or Harald when putting the program together, or maybe not, but getting to touch the land, to live in it, to feel it, I felt a deepening need to get close to nature and earth. Riding the foothills and mountain passes in Colorado brings me to nature all the time; hiking there does as well. This landscape and experience needed to be different, and it was.
When I used the word “wilderness” in describing the location of the experience I thought I wanted, what I was not aware of is how alpinists define it — a radius of 20 miles from where you are in which there is no real, tangible human impact. That is wilderness. Other than a few signs of Sami civilization (e.g., an old Sami hut; worn reindeer fencing), it was pretty clear to me that I had become immersed in real wilderness. Perhaps for the first time in my life.
Day 2 unfolded much like Day 1. But different. Colder. Wetter (I didn’t even use the camera). Harder (for me but not for Stian from what I could tell — as I followed him, I started calling him “the terminator” in my mind, he’s just super strong, able to just plow through and over everything). Longer (we settled into the rhythm of 50 minutes hiking, 10 minutes rest, half hour or so for lunch). Today was about 8 hours total, including some traversing without packs to locate a good camping spot near the lake we ended the day at.
“The warmest thing you have is your pack.” Stian Johansen. Goddamn right.
The maelstrom of staying upright, warm, and fueled became my operating system. Stian’s advice was to pack wool socks, base layer top/bottom, and gloves in a dry bag. Note to self — don’t try to out-think the pro. So, I did as he said and made sure I always had dry wool to get into at the end of the day. I also followed his lead and packed the Arcteryx jacket within easy reach — as soon as we’d stop for the 10 minute break or lunch, cold and wet became really cold and wet. Putting on that jacket really helped.
As I slid yet again off yet another mushroom-shaped moss mass into the cold muck, I cursed myself for falling again…but actually smiled through it, figuring I was starting to finding the way forward. Of course I hated falling (especially when Stian rarely put a foot wrong), but I was figuring out a way to find comfort in the discomfort of being cold and wet — get to the next warm pasta bolognese meal-in-a-bag, get one step closer to drying out and warming. Get one step closer to the accomplishments.
Regardless of my proximity to Stian, I felt alone in my own world. With every step, a song looped in my head, creating a distraction that both calmed and focused me as I trudged ever-forward. This day it was the perfectly suited overlay to the very last episode of the very last season of Peaky Blinders, the dark, intense, transcendental “Pana-Vision” from The Smile. Later that day, Goose’s “Wysteria Lane”.
Over the course of the week, Stian and I had funny, interesting conversations, even when things got tricky, like crossing a freezing cold river. We exchanged what songs we had in our heads and had some great conversations about music during a week of 6–8 hour treks. He told me about the first concert he’d ever gone to, a Metallica show in Oslo, when he was a teenager and sat really close to the stage. It blew his mind. I’m not a big fan but I told him I totally got it — imagine being a super-smart kid in Norway and Metallica comes to your country for maybe the only time ever…whoa.
The first half of Day 3 was a carbon copy of Day 2 — ground-level fog, spitting rain, cold, wet, and similarly challenging terrain. We found a few ATV trails forged by Sami reindeer herdsmen that, for clips of a few hundred feet or even a kilometer, made for easier terrain for me to traverse and helped us progress at a quicker, steadier pace. By the time we stopped for lunch midday, the rain had eased but the wind picked up, so we took the packs off we suited up to stay warm. My Morning Jacket’s “Feel You” became the song of the day looping in my skull.
The terrain also became increasingly rolling; in the early afternoon, we had what up to that point was the longest climb of the trip, which I really enjoyed — any altitude meant we would be above bog swamps and more likely able to avoid boulder fields. It didn’t feel like a 1,000 foot climb but that’s likely how the ascent unfolded. At the crest, we paused for a bit and oriented to what became a distinctly new horizon — out into the distance was a vastly higher range of much higher hills and, in the distance, actual mountains and huge, gray boulder fields pockmarking wide valleys. Stian then turned to me and said —
“Can you feel it? Can you feel it?”
“Feel what?” I replied not having a clue what he was talking about.
“We’re in Norway! It feels so much better here!” Ha! I didn’t disagree. We could actually see kilometers into the distance, down into a valley surrounded by steeper hillocks and mountains. More up and down, I’d be good with that.
We had crossed the invisible border into Norway. Or so we thought. Stian pulled out the map and compass to confirm his assumption that by cresting this hill/mountain we were indeed back in his homeland. We studied it for a minute and realized that nope, we were not actually there yet — basically 200 meters away. Hilarious. Sting’s Jeremiah Blues Part 1. Don’t know why, it just came into my head.
The afternoon’s descent had stretches of easier terrain than the previous two days but was interspersed with even more difficult boulder fields and bogs. Around 4pm, intermittent rain.
As we approached the lake we had planned on camping near, we agreed Stian would continue on by himself — I would set up my own camp and, the next morning, trek on my own to his location. Stian found a place on the map just past a second small lake approximately one to two hours away. He punched the coordinates into my GPS unit so I’d be able to orient directly if I needed to. We then surveyed the landscape and matched it to contour outlines of nearby hills and lakes to plot the route by sight. It didn’t look difficult — just stay to the right of the down-sloping hill about a kilometer away, then I’d see the small lake on the right where Stian would be camped. We planned on meeting there at 10am. No problem. Stian went on his way and I set about putting the tent up, cooking a meal, getting warm, and resting.
GETTING IT. BEING LOST.
Of the many oddities about this unique and utterly unfamiliar place one stood out. Other than grouse, which we saw every day, and reindeer, which we only saw on two occasions, there was a stunning lack of animal life. Stian surmised that foxes, wolverines, moose, and rabbits were likely inhabitants of northern Sweden and Norway, but there was basically no trace or sightings as yet. Lying in the tent, listening to the rain and wind, warm and fed, it was a pleasure to not have to worry about bears, wolves, snakes, or an inundation of insects. I just didn’t even have to think about it.
As evening set, truly alone for the first time, tired but no longer completely exhausted, the past three days settled into a blur. Then, a conversation with myself.
Since the moment we started walking I’d been mediating between the part of me that found comfort in the familiar and the part of me living in the reality of where I was and what I was doing — “I would never have come here, this is just not what I expected.”
And that’s when it came to me. This is exactly the mysterious, intriguing adventure I asked for — be transported somewhere I’d never thought to explore, experience true wilderness, and challenge myself physically.
“When will we hit a trail? Can we find ways around boulder fields? Stay out of bogs! Don’t crack your skull!” The fears and discomforts I’d been wrestling with internally for three days now made sense. I had to let it all go. This experience was stretching and pulling me to redefine comfort and safety; the only way to do that was to stop fighting and surrender to it. And that by doing so I would become — actually had already become — lost. (So, of course, U2’s “Surrender” became the new song loop the next day).
This place, this experience, put me exactly where I wanted to be; I just had preconceived notions of how I’d get here that were completely wrong, hence the internal voice screaming “Why did you guys pick this place?!”
I got it now — Harald and Stian and Rob got me lost. I didn’t have to be alone or unsure of where I was to be lost; I’d been getting lost for three days and now just…was. For me, getting lost meant I had been immersed in the unfamiliar, new, difficult. That’s where I found myself.
I slept really well, emerging from the tent the next morning to pissing rain and thick, low-lying fog. I could barely see the sloping hill I’d have to use to orient to Stian’s camp. I ate, packed up camp, and set out cold and wet, but confident finding Stian would not be that difficult. All I’d have to do is follow the sloping hill, see the lake to the right, walk to the lake, and he’d be near the northern shore.
45 minutes later, I’d already passed the area to my right where I’d thought the lake would be easy to spot to my right. But it was impossible to see farther than 50 feet in the pea-soup fog. So, I made a right turn toward where I thought the lake would be, downward from the sloping hill.
I soon found myself trudging through the same kinds of knee-high brush, moss mounds, boulders, and thickets of muck that seemed to surround every lake, bog, and boulder field. Directionally, the lake just had to be on the other side of this bog! I made intermittent progress, leaping from one cluster of moss covered boulders to another, missing basically every third one and dumping one foot or another into the knee-high muck. I stopped on a huge, thick mushroom-shaped moss clump to check the GPS — yep, I was about ¾ of a kilometer away from Stian, and was walking in the right direction. Or so I thought. So, though I wanted to keep going in that direction, I realized that doing so would only bring me deeper into the boulder-swamp.
Looking to my left I saw clumps of higher brush and figured getting there would enable me to skirt around the bog. I clumsily made my way through, slipping into the muck a few times, and found an old Sami reindeer fence coming into view. We’d seen several of these along the way; this one looked really old, with broken stumps and bent metal wiring that made it possible to just walk across to get from one side to another.
Now farther “left” than I thought I should be, in yet another boulder/bog swamp, on the other side of the fence, I checked the GPS again. It indicated I was no closer to Stian, and had moved in the wrong direction. He was still basically ¾ of a kilometer away, but I had taken the last 30 minutes to go in the wrong direction. What I started to realize was that the point of the GPS arrow on the unit’s screen that indicates my position does not indicate the direction I need to follow — unlike all of us have become used to with iPhone or Google maps, where the direction of the arrow on the screen tells you what direction you need to proceed.
Raining steadily now, I stood on a yet another moss-covered rock in the middle of a bog and boulder swamp; couldn’t see the lake I needed to get to to orient my way to Stian’s camp, and could not take off my pack to check the map and use the compass because it was basically a swamp around me.
Yep. I’m lost.
Frustrated at my own lack of ability to have figured out what should have been an easy trek, I now tried to backtrack out of the boulder swamp to some sort of solid ground and reorient. That choice took me back over the reindeer fence. After about another 20 minutes or so, I thought I’d be a little closer to Stian. I checked the GPS — I was a bit closer, but now in an entirely different direction.
I’m fucking going around in circles! How can this be?! Why can’t I figure out what direction to go?
I wouldn’t say I panicked. But that surge of near-panic anxiety ran through me right quick. I knew I wouldn’t be out here with no one able to find me, but I just couldn’t figure out a way out of this ridiculous terrain. I still couldn’t take my pack off as there was just so much water underfoot.
After two other attempts to follow the direction of the GPS unit, my frustration boiled over. I’d basically been circling Stian, still about .5K away, for nearly two hours. Cold, wet, frustrated, angry, I decided to go in the opposite direction to what the GPS indicated.
After about 20 minutes, finally on some solid ground, I plowed through yet another patch of dwarf birch and thick moss and saw Stian standing on a rock scouting for any sign of me. Phew. As I described the circutuous route and wrong turns to Stian, I remained convinced that had I found a place to take the pack off and use the map and compass, I’m pretty sure I would have done a much better job of navigating. Stian agreed. We laughed. I ate and drank and rested a bit, relieved to have made it through an actual “lost” experience. But I was bummed by not having figured out the navigation, and those extra wet kilometers took a lot of energy.
It rained on and off and the wind picked up for spells over the next 6 hours. We covered beautiful rolling terrain, likely really stunning in better weather. As the afternoon went on, I again began to feel the effort, but was in a much better mindset to accept it all. We crossed into a thick birch forest within which was an actual trail.
Soon after, we came to a cabin used by Norwegian forestry teams. Stian had planned for us to arrive here as a harbor in the tempest — being the first real civilization we’d come across, he asked me if I wanted to do the usual and set up camp in tents elsewhere or stay inside, out of the rain, in the cabin. I decided on the cabin, mainly because with its wood stove, we could dry wet clothes.
Over dinner, we discussed the next few days, which Stian had only previewed once before. The next day we would enter the Øvre Dividal National Park, a pristine, mostly untouched forest preserve of nearly 300 square miles. One of the things I had mentioned to Rob and Harald when I set up the trip was that I really love pine forests — Stian had been to Dividal many times on both summer and winter excursions, and knew this would be a fantastic place to spend the remaining days of the journey. I was really looking forward to it. As trying as it’s been so far, I passed out for the night thinking this has been both exceptionally challenging and fucking blast.
The next day found us traversing hilly terrain, ups and downs around boulder fields and their friends the bogs. Stian tested my navigating skills a few times and I was able to more easily identify where we were on the map and what lay ahead directionally. It had stopped raining but was windy when, in the mid afternoon, we came upon a river we had both seen clearly on the map. At the confluence of two other streams, Stian had figured because it looked on the map like a larger river there would be a wooden bridge or some other man-made contraption that would enable us to cross easily. When we got there, it became pretty clear there was no bridge and no easy way to cross other than on boulders and rocks intermittently placed and awaiting my unsteady self.
“There’s always a way.”
I’d heard this from him a few times and completely believed him, I just wasn’t sure what that would be. After about 45 minutes trying to find a better path of rocks to ford the river than the one we were looking at, Stian came up with the brilliant idea to use birch poles to help me get across. As you can see here, I nervously took my time, not at all interested in dunking into the freezing water which in places was hip-deep.
The last two days on this epic adventure found us descending into the heart of the Dividal pine forest which was as brilliant as Stian had promised. The weather cleared to spots of sun peering through high clouds as the fall forest lit up in burnt oranges not unlike how northeastern US foliage explodes in an array of color. We were on actual hiking trails. I found myself in familiar territory for the first time in a week.
This pine forest presented me with everything Stian had promised — an epic way to end an epic journey — nearly 65 miles over 7 days.
If you asked Stian how difficult this experience was for him he’d likely say “Not at all; nothing about this trip was out of my comfort zone.” For me, even with all the training I’d done, it was resolutely challenging.
Harald arrived to pick us up at this remote trailhead that opens into the Dividal we’d just traversed at around 3 in the afternoon. He asked me about the experience, how was it?
I hadn’t really had the time to process it all yet, and, there was something yet to come that would reframe the entire experience. But I told him and Stian what I had realized at the end of Day 3. The experience turned out to be exactly what I wanted, exactly what I asked for. For me, getting lost was less about actually not knowing where I am physically and challenged to find my way to a specific location — getting lost turned out to be one part pulling me out of my comfort zone completely, another part challenging me physically, another part immersing me in wilderness I’d never known before, and another part something I would have never done without experienced, thoughtful guides. It didn’t matter that I didn’t spend alot of time by myself; nor did it matter that I didn’t do much actual navigating.
ONE MORE THING…
Rob, Harald, and Stian had “mentioned” that the last part of the experience would be “climbing a mountain and abseiling (e.g., rappelling) down.” That’s really all I knew and I hadn’t really asked to know more until now. I did know, however, that BT ends every Get Lost trip with a “luxurious” immersion back to life.
As we started the 3.5 hour drive southwest out of the Dividal, Harald explained we would be staying at a beautiful house on a lake in Efjord on an island called Hallvardoya, near where Stian would lead a climb up a mountain not far away.
That night, Harald had a professional chef, another friend, cook for us. We celebrated a fantastic experience. By 10pm, abuzz in champagne and wine, laughing our asses off, we paused to take a look outside at the cloudless sky to check for signs of the mystical green. Yes, we would have a northern lights show, and what a show it was. 45 minutes of a phenomenal Aurora Borealis. Just a spectacular, otherworldly thing. I had seen glimmers the night before when I woke in the middle of the night to take a piss, and snapped a couple of poor images. Stian and I had also seen faint traces two nights earlier. This was altogether different, as you can see here.
STETIND
Over dinner, Stian had explained to me what the “climb” would be. We would scale a 4,500ft peak called Stentind, the national mountain of Norway. We couldn’t actually see it from this lakeside house, but Stian described it to me as being similar to some of the insane granite peaks that surrounded us.
He explained that it would take approximately 3–4 hours to hike up to the “false summit”; the steep trail would have some bouldering and scrambling, but overall he was really confident I’d not have a problem. At the false summit, we would strap into harnesses and ropes and he would guide me over the spiny ridge to the actual summit. He then described in some detail what that pitch would be like — there were a couple of pretty exposed places that would be challenging but not too difficult, followed by a very exposed, 3-meter section that required me to traverse under an overhanging boulder — I’d have a great handhold, but would need to shimmy across without a real foothold.
See picture here of the first people to actually do this.
Stian knew me pretty well by now, and had guided many people past this tricky crux point. Honestly, I just trusted his judgment. I’d be roped in, Stian would have me, secured, no way I’d fall. Here we go!
We arrived at the trailhead at 7 the next morning. As I looked literally straight up at the sheer wall of granite, I really couldn’t believe I was going to get to the top of it. Awesome! The weather was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, cool but not cold.
The hike up was exactly as Stian described — a good challenge of 3+ hours, some moderately difficult parts, but overall not past my abilities to scramble and boulder. I also carried a 10 pound daypack, not 70 pounds, which made the going a wee bit easier.
As we climbed, the views became increasingly spectacular.
Stian had told me that when we reach the false summit it would be simply amazing. He is a man of his word. You come up from behind the false summit and when you reach the top the view explodes. I’d never climbed anything like this before, never been at the summit of a peak like this before, a near-vertical drop of basically 3k feet on either side. Breathtaking.
We ate a small meal and put on our harnesses. Stian roped me in and explained how he’d guide ahead of me by affixing ropes and cambers (cams) to traverse down and then up the spiny ridge to the summit. At this point, I was not really scared. I’m not a fan of heights typically, but nor does it freak me out to be high up. Still, I wasn’t eager to peer over the edges straight down either!
I stood on a pointed granite monolith with near-vertical falloff of more than 2,500 feet awaiting instructions from Stian, calmly soaking in the amazement of the moment. No song in my head.
Stian then moved forward and down around a series of jutting rock escarpments down about 75 feet to affix the pitons and cams. I watched him glide through this awkward section and across the literal spine of the traverse the ease of a cat traipsing along tree branches, like he’d done it a thousand times (which he likely had, or at least a few dozen) and not on the razor’s edge of smooth, 85 degree sheets, of granite. I remember saying to myself that it doesn’t really look that hard, but I’m sure it is. Sure as shit scary as all get out for novice rock climbers with horrible balance.
After affixing piton and cams, Stian called for me to begin the first parts of the traverse down across the spine — in the videos below — slowly, awkwardly, but confidently, I made my way around and down the first two exposed rock faces (holding onto one of them, as I described in a text to my brother, “like the rock was Raquel Welch!”).
The last bit of this section required some bona fide rock climbing skills that Stian talked me through inch by inch. I had to squat on my butt, extend one leg and foot forward to brace my weight against a wall, then kind of shimmy down using hand holds until my other left leg reached a narrow plateau that enabled me to stand comfortably.
THEN, I HAD A MOMENT…
Stian guided me down to the 2 foot ledge that was easy to stand and rest on while he started the climb up to the tough part, the crux point of the traverse under a large overhanging boulder.
After about 5 minutes of standing on what was a pretty narrow ledge, making sure to not look straight down, Stian called out, “Okay, ready, you can go now!” The first 4 or 5 steps up alongside the wall to the 10-foot traverse were ok. But, while the sun had been out all morning, the rock was cold, and I could barely feel my numbing fingers. As I reached the overhanging boulder, under which I would traverse, Stian called out detailed instructions.
“Ok, you see the handhold, the gap line in the rock above you?”
“Yep. Got it.”
I placed both hands firmly into the gap that eons of time had created; basically, an inch or two for fingers to easily fit into. You could hang off it and do pull-ups. If you didn’t care about slipping and falling straight down a few thousand feet. At the same time, however, I would have to shimmy to the left and slightly up this mini-rock-crevasse. There would be no way to do that if my legs just dangled (as in a pull-up), so the way to do it would be to scrunch my feet up into a squatting position with my feet mid-torso. See the picture again.
Stian had affixed a thin rope loop that could function as a single foothold if I needed it. Which quickly became the case. I made two attempts to bring my feet up mid torso, like the guy in the picture above, but I just couldn’t get the footing right. Now dangling, way too much weight on my numb fingers, I wasn’t sure what to do, finding no way to continue moving to my left and up.
“Use the foothold,” Stian implored.
I lifted my left leg up to try to slip my foot into the foothold and finally stepped into it and found some purchase to hold myself up versus just relying on my fingers and forearms, which were burning mad. I was about halfway across the traverse. Directly under the overhanging boulder. I could see the end point where the rock wall had a small foothold from which I would be able to climb out of the traverse and onto the narrow plateau where Stian was perched, 90 degrees off the side of the wall, firmly holding the taut rope that held me alive.
The key to successfully making the traverse was speed. It had to be done quickly or I’d run out of strength to hold myself up by my fingers and forearms. I had already taken a lot of time and sapped a lot of energy. Struggling with two shaking hands and one foothold, I took in a breath that spiked my heart rate. I’m not exactly sure what happened. But my heart rate went bonkers, likely triggered by the flashing thought of “Holy shit, I’m stuck.”
I didn’t freak out. I just couldn’t control my breathing anymore, and was unsure of what to do next. My heart rate just got faster in about 20 seconds, so much so that I started to hyperventilate. Stian held me steady and I could see him just 10 or so feet away. He told me to rest a bit, “I have you, don’t worry.” But, biophysically, once hyperventilation begins, there’s no stopping it. “I think I’m going to pass out. Or throw up. Give me a minute.” I was literally hanging on for what felt like dear life, even though I knew Stian held me up via the harness and rope.
I’d experienced hyperventilation years before during a small medical procedure, and knew it would pass if I could just lie down for a minute or two. But that was impossible. There was simply no way to get my head below my heart. “Just give me a minute, just give me a minute.” “I’ve got you. This is the hardest part. You’re nearly there.”
Timing is everything, right? As I was trying not to pass out, a thunderous roar began to echo from the rock. In between labored breaths, I said to Stian “What the fuck is that?” He responded “I have no idea!” And as he said that, a Norwegian Air Force C-130 buzzed across the sky around the peak of Stetind, like 100 yards from the rock, right past where I was precariously perched trying not to pass out.
Stian exclaimed, “It’s the air force flying by the national mountain of Norway! They probably do this all the time!”
“Holy shit, that was insane!” I replied.
That moment was just enough for me to recover enough of my breath and the nausea to recede. I looked up at where I needed to go, asked Stian to give me a pull, and surged up and to the left to find a foothold, then climb up and lean into the rock and rest. Truth be told, I think Stian pulled me up more than I climbed.
It took me a few minutes to gather myself completely and I soon felt fine. Actually, I felt bad for Stian for having to deal with my freak-out moment. I asked him later that day if he’d had similar or worse experiences with others he’s guided across the traverse. “Oh yes. You didn’t freak out. I’ve seen some people really lose it, screaming in fear. Don’t worry, you did not do badly.” Hearing this from him made me feel better about the whole thing.
Stian had said the climb to the actual summit wasn’t too difficult, but I’d had enough of a challenge. The false peak was basically the same height, and I’d now done the hard part. Was it a life-or-death moment? Without Stian’s help, it would have been bad. Real bad.
Stian led us back down the spine between the two summits and up to the false summit on the opposite side from which we came, including some additionally sketchy and tricky spots that turned out to be no problem. Looking back over the ridge to the summit where I had just come I felt an adrenalin rush of accomplishment unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I’m not a rock climber or alpine mountaineer. But for a moment, Stian helped me feel like one.
Descending from the false summit was no easy task for me. Super-steep, slippery, rock-strewn scree made the going tough and I stumbled often, more out of over-cautiousness at not wanting to get hurt on the last day of this amazing adventure than anything else. As I should have known, being over-cautious is NOT the way — like prevent-defenses in NFL football (that all-too-often do the exact opposite of the intended goal of stopping the opponent from scoring). So, of course I took a tumble crossing the second of three boulder fields, when I slipped off a pointed boulder and smacked down onto a bunch of others. It could have gone pretty badly had I landed differently, as in face-first or on my head. Fortunately, only my lower back was bruised and I carried on.
Three hours later, arriving at the parking lot where it all started half a day earlier, I looked back at the glorious wall of granite in awe. At it. At the fact that I had reached (nearly) the summit. Had to pinch myself, almost too much to believe.
CHOICE
Looking back at the whole of this Get Lost experience, it would not have mattered had I not been able to do some of the things it asked of me, like carrying a really heavy pack for 60+ miles; traversing trail-less, rough terrain; dealing with constant cold and wetness; orienting via compass and map; or climbing a 4,500 foot granite peak. Yes, I would have been disappointed if I got hurt or just wasn’t strong enough or physically able to do one or more of these things. That I did all of it resonates deeply within me as a source of accomplishment so strongly that I truly believe the experience changed me. Like a healthy kind of lava, a new, calm energy flows within me. I feel it in my gut and in my step. Passions that had laid dormant, such as living with and connected to the earth, have renewed meaning.
That I actually “did” these things — the doing of them — is dwarfed in by the even more powerful and satisfying buoyancy I now feel at having “chosen” to do them. Stian reminded me many times that there is no shortage of 60 year olds in Norway who regularly scale massive peaks or ski tour massifs in the Fjords. Well, I don’t know too many people here my age who do or can. Moreover, I don’t know anyone my age or near it who would choose to even try a Get Lost experience of any kind. I truly believe most people are incapable of or unwilling to stretch themselves. Which is too bad. It’s in the stretching that we grow. Scary, painful, or surprising, it’s in the unfamiliar that we see who we really are.
I wanted a physical challenge, and I got it. I wanted to be immersed in real, unfamiliar wilderness, and I was. I wanted to be pulled out of my comfort zone, completely, and I was. I wanted to experience nature, feel and touch the land, which would help me re-appreciate the earth AND help me enhance the novel I’ve been working on, and that happened.
That’s the thing. In the hope that part of me could be renewed or, potentially, born anew, I chose to put myself into these strange, challenging, uncomfortable, yet thrilling environments and activities. I chose to stretch myself. Doing new, hard things is one thing; choosing to do new, hard things when you don’t have to is another. Let alone learning to surrender yourself to that choice.
That’s what Get Lost became for me.
The cliche goes something like this, “Sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself.” I did both.
Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Harald. Thank you, Stian. Thank you, Tore. You changed me for the better. Friends for life.
