Embrace Type II Fun: My Experience Going North
The trail curved out of the woods and revealed a flat field of wild grasses bordered by a steep hillside. Covered in loose scree and the occasional boulder, the hill combined with the woods to surround the field. As a group of young hikers stumbled into the clearing, a quick gasp cut through the surreal stillness of a brisk Alaskan morning.
The three grizzly bears, a mother and her two cubs, registered the group with a look of casual indifference. A hundred yards or more separated the two groups of forest wanderers, meaning there was no immediate emergency at hand: but more of a slow-motion standoff between the shocked hikers and the amused bruins.
I was fifteen years old and scared shitless. Thousands of miles from family or friends, I stood three days into a week-long camping trip through the wilds of Denali National Park. A few days prior, I had enjoyed my first shower in weeks at a coin-operated, two minutes per 25 cents, gas station shower. Literally and physically, I was well outside of my comfort zone.
For the first time in my suburban life, I was staring at a wild animal with the ability to rip me apart in a matter of seconds. From that moment on, I was hooked.
During my sophomore year of high school, I was cut from the baseball team. In the handful of years leading up to that point, the sport had become a core part of my identity. Many of my lifelong best friends played on my middle school teams and I stayed active by playing in the spring, summer, and fall. While I found success on an assortment of “B” teams, I never had the makings of a varsity athlete. When the sophomore season rolled around and the two freshman teams shrunk to one, it was lights out for my time on the diamond.
At the time, it was truly devastating. I remember coming home, crying in the shower, and throwing out all my baseball gear in a pathetic tantrum. For the rest of the school year, I struggled to find my place. While most of my friends went straight from school to practice, I headed home and sat in my room. The routines of baseball, whether it was going to the gym, indoor hitting practice in the winter, or playing actual games, fell out of my life.
My parents, looking at my empty summer schedule and picking up on the negative impact all this was having on my mental state, decided to take drastic action. They signed me up for a three-week backpacking trip that would crisscross the Yukon/Alaskan border and take me deep into the wilderness with a group of kids I had never met.
When this information was eventually passed down to me, I was pissed. At 15 years old, summer meant free time with my friends to get into trouble. Missing three weeks of that (with no phone!) to tromp around in the woods with a bunch of randoms felt like a cruel and unusual punishment for not making the baseball team. I remember being particularly devastated to miss the Major League Baseball home run derby, as it has always been one of my favorite events and marked a symbolic peak of summer vacation.
Ignoring my small-minded complaints, my parents let me know that there was going to be no debate; I was going on the trip.
After the initial shock of seeing the grizzlies wore off, our leaders took control of the situation by telling us to get big and make as much noise as possible. We raised our arms over our heads, banged pots together, and yelled at the family of bears.
What happened next is forever seared in my mind. At the direction of Mama Bear, the group took off towards the hillside. Instead of slowing down to find a path up the steep incline, the bears didn’t even break stride as they bounded up the hill in a matter of seconds and disappeared over the ridge line. It may have taken me up to ten minutes to summit that same hill. Immediate mental note: do not fuck with grizzly bears.
The deeper meaning that has stuck with me all these years is a little different. When you see a beautiful animal with the ability to kill you with ease, your perspective becomes incredibly tight in the blink of an eye.
Those bears taught me that my life at home and everything I was so wrapped up in on a day-to-day basis wasn’t all that significant. No matter what was going on, whether I was cut from the baseball team or later, struggling with anxiety over my career path, those grizzlies were somewhere up north wandering the wilderness. And they don’t care about a single thing other than finding their next meal and protecting their offspring. That thought has given me comfort on many restless nights.
The rest of the trip was filled with magical moments, from a weeklong canoe trip rife with moose sightings to my first time seeing a wolf (albeit in a fenced-in area). The beauty of the far north opened my mind to a world so far removed from the one I had grown so accustomed to. I hiked through miles of the wilderness a day with everything I needed on my back. I learned how to set up and tear down a campsite in record time. I cooked my meals (poorly) and made friends from across the country.
Hiking gave me a sense of the world’s scale one cannot fathom in the modern setting of bikes, cars, and planes. Every mile gained was an achievement and a reminder of just how far from civilization I was.
Have you ever been surrounded by nothing but wilderness, knowing exactly how long it took you to get there and hence how long it would take to get out? Rolling your ankle is a much more daunting prospect in an environment like that.
I felt more alive than I ever had, more in tune with my body bouldering rocks on the way down from a mountain than I ever could on a casual bike ride to the lake. I learned the incredible value of disconnecting from my phone and how quickly you forget to miss it.
All wasn’t wonderful though, the three weeks were grueling and by the end, all I wanted was a warm shower and a good night’s sleep in a real bed. I was sick of eating peanut butter and trail mix wrapped in a tortilla and just wanted to go home.
One morning, in particular, I was struggling. The wakeup bell had been rung and I was still lying in bed trying to convince myself this had all been a dream and I didn’t have 15 miles of hiking ahead of me.
Once I had been dragged out of bed and pushed onto the trail, my trip guide pulled me aside.
“Have you ever heard of the different types of fun?”, he asked me. Not knowing where this was going, I shook my head and stayed quiet.
“Type I fun is the kind you are used to, hanging out with friends, going to a movie, or getting ice cream”, he carefully explained. “It’s fun at the moment but quickly forgotten in the jumble of memories and moments that is life. Type II fun comes with pain and can be downright miserable while you’re going through it. But it’s the unforgettable kind that lingers in your mind long after you have returned home. That’s what we’re doing right now, so keep going.”
I probably rolled my eyes and kept walking, but his words have stuck in my mind ever since. They certainly rang true when I returned home and struggled to explain the power of the experience to my friends and family.
Since then, I’ve yearned for the Type II highs I experienced on that trip. In college, I returned to Alaska for a camping trip that helped me achieve the internal serenity I needed to pick a major and pursue my passions. On campus, I found a slice of woods tucked away in suburban Newton, MA where I achieved peace when overwhelmed.
In the final years of college, I was lucky enough to find an incredible group of guys with similar passions. Since graduation we have been crossing National Park off the bucket list, traveling to Banff, the Grand Tetons, Zion, and Yosemite, with many more trips to come. The journeys haven’t always been easy, summiting Eagle Peak in Yosemite has to have taken a few years off my life, but I wouldn’t trade that Type II fun for the world.
In my day-to-day life, I chase the highs of true wilderness the best a Midwesterner can, walking/biking forest preserves and prairies whenever possible.
As I become an adult and life only seems to get more complicated, I find my mind drifting more often to those three bears in Denali National Park. I hope they and their descendants are doing well up there in their pocket of rugged heaven, preserved from the relentless pace of human innovation and troubles.
So thanks Mom and Dad, for forcing me out of my comfort zone and sparking a lifelong philosophy that keeps me calm when times get tough.
