In June, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz wrote an to his employees, calling the ski world 鈥渙verwhelmingly white, with incredibly low representation from people of color,鈥� and pledging to change that. Currently, just 1.8 percent of American skier days are logged by Black people, according to the . That number hasn鈥檛 risen in a decade.

But it might be a lot closer to zero were it not for the National Brotherhood of Skiers. Launched in 1973 with the mission of creating a national Black ski summit and attracting more Black people to the sport, the Brotherhood鈥檚 has seen up to 6,000 attendees gather in a premier ski town鈥擵ail, Park City, even Innsbruck, Austria鈥攆or a week of revelry. There are giant outdoor feasts, rollicking on-snow dance parties, and all-night celebrations. Skiers in matching parkas perform choreographed mogul assaults. The organization also coordinates discounts on lessons and rentals for first-time skiers鈥攖he NBS calls them never evers鈥攚hile its cadre of experts, the Sno-Pros, provide mentoring and tips.

The NBS acts as an umbrella group that unites 55 regional Black ski clubs scattered nationwide. With an all-volunteer staff and a $250,000 annual budget coming from donations, fundraising, and sponsors like REI and New Belgium Brewing, the group has received considerable media coverage, and has introduced thousands of Black people (both children and adults) to snow sports. It鈥檚 also supporting Black skiers and snowboarders hoping to make the U.S. Olympic team.

As the NBS moves into its 47th year, it faces a new set of challenges. Its founders鈥擝en Finley and Arthur 鈥淎rt鈥� Clay, now 81 and 83, respectively鈥攈ave become legends, but the group鈥檚 membership has aged, without an influx of younger constituents. In March, the group made news after its summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, had a devastating encounter with the coronavirus鈥攕cores of members fell ill, . Now it鈥檚 wrestling with how to leverage the momentum of a national reckoning with racism.

Recounted in the voices of its own members, here is the story of how the NBS came to be, its accomplishments, and the direction it鈥檚 heading in the future.

The post An Oral History of the National Brotherhood of Skiers appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Free yourself from the shackles of reality for a moment and join me, please, in imagining a utopian ski area. Would there be 450 inches of fresh, fluffy powder each year? Absolutely! Would the lift tickets be free? Sure! And could we accord all lodge workers and hospitality staff commodious slopeside condos replete with tidy little woodstoves?

Certainly we could do that鈥攊n an imaginary world. In the real world, there鈥檚 freezing rain and boilerplate ice and, worse, the almost inexorable market forces that have caused too many ski areas to become elitist havens where Gucci and Prada stores crowd the base lodge and low-paid employees are obliged to schlep an hour out of town to find affordable housing. But what if somebody tried to create a ski utopia? And what if they waged their campaign in the hardscrabble hinterlands of western Maine?

, a Boston investment firm that specializes in shoring up struggling local economies, is doing just that. On January 31, Arctaris spent $6.5 million to purchase a beloved but troubled backwoods ski mountain鈥�, which has been shuttered for the past five seasons. Arctaris plans to radically renovate the base lodge this summer. It鈥檒l open the lifts in December and will eventually spend $38 million in hopes of turning Saddleback into a funky and humane nirvana, replete with affordable housing, fair compensation, day care, and bus transport for its workers鈥攁nd also, yes, crazy-steep trails and a laid-back lodge where the PBR will flow at an amiable people鈥檚 price.

Arctaris鈥檚 Saddleback bid typifies an investment model that鈥檚 mushroomed since the term 鈥渋mpact investing鈥� was coined in 2007听to describe funds seeking to effect social change as they make money. The Global Impact Investing Network estimates that the market size boasts in such managed听assets. As other funds fight climate change and advocate for clean water, Arctaris, founded in 2009, has instead helped create about 200 jobs on Washington鈥檚 Yakama Indian Reservation by expanding a fiberglass plant, and also reopened a defunct paper mill in Michigan. In Maine听it hopes to breathe new life into the charming but financially challenged outdoor sports mecca that sits at Saddleback鈥檚 base鈥擱angeley, population 1,100鈥攁nd indeed the whole of Franklin County,听a sprawling听expanse of piney forests, snowmobile trails, and killer fishing holes that sits two and a half听hours north of the nearest major city, Portland, and is home to 30,000 people, precious few wine bars or yoga studios, and many, many moose.听

Arctaris will start by shelling out听$7.3 million to improve uphill capacity at Saddleback, which has a vertical drop of 2,000 feet and a storied glade called Casablanca that鈥檚 central to the mountain鈥檚 reputation as an authentic and uncurated gem. A creaky 1963 top-to-bottom double chair will be replaced by a new high-speed quad. An old T-bar will likewise give way to a spiffy new one, allowing the mountain to stay open on winter鈥檚 windiest days.听

That鈥檚 just the beginning. The founder and managing partner of Arctaris, 47-year-old Jonathan Tower, who happens to be an avid skier, also aims to provide Saddleback鈥檚 projected 220 employees with a staffing program unique to the ski industry鈥攐ne that would link winter employees to warm-weather jobs (say, as fishing guides or dishwashers) and also provide full-timers with 401(k)听plans and health care benefits. The snowmaking pumps at Saddleback will, naturally, be powered by a soon-to-be-built solar-energy farm, per Arctaris鈥檚 plan.

If Arctaris operated within the confines of traditional ski-industry financing, its ambitious plan for Saddleback would be a pipe dream, especially when you consider the decrepitude of the ski area鈥檚 current lifts and the tangle of weeds growing on its 66 forlorn trails. Arctaris works outside the box, though. While it鈥檚 infusing Saddleback with $28 million of equity and debt, it鈥檚 also expecting $5 million from the feds through the , established by Congress in 2000听to incentivize investment in low-income communities. Finally, it hopes to raise a total of $5 million from donors. (So far听it鈥檚 brought in $3 million from 250 parties. The largest donations were in the neighborhood of $400,000, coming from people whose families had been in Maine for generations and contributed without an expectation of return.) Saddleback is one of the first American ski areas to be wholly owned by an impact fund.

鈥淎 traditional private-equity firm wouldn鈥檛 have been able to make Saddleback profitable,鈥� said听Tower. 鈥淎n impact fund was the right fit.鈥澨�

Tower concedes that profits will be a long time coming at Saddleback. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 expect to realize the profit on our investment until we sell the mountain,鈥� he said. 鈥淭his is a seven-to-ten-year project.鈥� Still, he鈥檚 hopeful. 鈥淲hen we got to Rangeley,鈥� he said, 鈥渢he prevailing winds were already blowing in the right direction. People really wanted the mountain to reopen.鈥澨�

Remote and wild Saddleback has always functioned as a blank slate onto which ski-world idealists have cast their grandest hopes. First conceived by a group of Rangeley businessmen, who leased forestland belonging to a paper company in the late 1950s, it was initially billed as the ,听promising long runs and deep snow. But its founders faltered: they opened a year late, in 1960, with but a single T-bar. A few lean snow years, followed by a Carter-era gas crunch, made Saddleback鈥檚 ride into the midseventies听somewhat uneven, financially speaking, and during one 18-year period, between 1969 and 1987, the mountain had six different owners.听

When Donald Breen, a pharmaceutical kingpin from Massachusetts, took Saddleback over in 1987, he recast the resort as a yee-haw听western-themed wonderland, giving trails names such as Bronco Buster and Cowpokes Cruise. But Breen spent fighting the National Park Service, which attempted to take over the top section of Saddleback Mountain by eminent domain. (The Appalachian Trail winds across the summit.) Ultimately, an听NPS spokesperson told 国产吃瓜黑料, 鈥渁 negotiated settlement was reached that met the needs of both parties.鈥澨�

In 2003, Breen sold the place to Bill and Irene Berry, who harbored a health care fortune, and while the Berrys spent $50 million installing two shorter chairlifts, building trails, and fortifying snowmaking, they weren鈥檛 nimble enough to meet growing demand: when visitorship swelled in the 2010s, they never replaced that 1963 double chair鈥攁nd lift lines grew to 40 minutes long. The Berrys, who are both over 80听and owned the mountain with their seven grown children, abruptly shut the ski area down in 2015, disinclined to sink millions into replacing the the old chair with its meager uphill capacity.

An apparent white knight emerged in 2017, in the form of Sebastian Monsour, head of the Australian development firm Majella, who promised to build an eight-mile tram from Rangeley to the base lodge and 鈥渢ransform Saddleback into the premier ski resort in North America.鈥澨�

Monsour cut the Berrys a $500,000 check鈥攅arnest money鈥攁nd actually choked up at one public conference, proclaiming that he was reviving Saddleback as an听homage to his late mother. But leaked to News Center Maine, an NBC affiliate,听revealed that at a Majella staff meeting Monsour said, 鈥淥pening the mountain is not a primary concern for us.鈥� His main aim, he confessed, was to take advantage of the federal government鈥檚 , through which foreigners can attain green cards if they invest in a job-creating U.S. business. (The minimum investment was $500,000 in 2017; it now stands at $900,000.) Majella never bought Saddleback. Monsour is now facing in Australia.听

Arctaris emerged in Maine headlines as a prospective buyer in 2018. In the months that followed, the citizens of Rangeley monitored听acquisition talks in the local papers as Saddleback loomed above them, east of town, its curving, tree-lined trails a drain on the Rangeley psyche.听

A logging town almost since its inception in the mid-19th听century, Rangeley has always been a tourist town, too. Hunters and fishers rode some of the earliest trains into Maine, and while Rangeley still has a strong logging industry, today most of its jobs come from tourism. Legions of snowmobilers visit every winter, and in the summer, Rangeley hosts big outdoor concerts (the Steve Miller Band played last year). Saddleback, meanwhile, is the cornerstone of the economy. In 2016, the year after the mountain closed, sales revenues in town dropped about 30 percent, according to some local business people, prompting a population exodus.听

In its injured state, Rangeley was a perfect candidate for Arctaris鈥檚 help. 鈥淓very town Arctaris takes on has lost its major employer,鈥� said听Tower. 鈥淲e wanted to be part of the solution of bringing Rangeley back.鈥澨�

Arctaris鈥檚 courtship of Saddleback was a cliffhanger, though. Closing was never a certainty, and Saddleback鈥檚 devotees had already waited and suffered for years.听

As the Arctaris deal neared closing, the denizens of the 听Facebook group grew anxious trying to read the tea leaves of the abstruse negotiations. 鈥淭his memo,鈥� one wrote, noodling over a letter Tower wrote to a Rangeley conservationist, 鈥渨ould seem to point to the Arctaris deal being off.鈥澨�

鈥淣o news is bad news!! Ugh,鈥� wrote another awaiting an Arctaris update.听

Arctaris did close on Saddleback, though, on Friday, January 31, and moments after, the faithful were drinking cold beer on the ski area鈥檚 deck鈥攏ever mind that it was 20 degrees out. The next day, I left my home in central New Hampshire and began driving toward Maine.

I entered Franklin County on Route 16, which is thickly appointed with flashing yellow road signs warning of moose collisions. Off to my right was the frozen expanse of Rangeley Lake, its nearest shores a green blanket of spruce and firs, and spreading beyond that,听the old stream-riven stomping grounds of Cornelia 鈥淔ly Rod鈥� Crosby, an intrepid 19th-century Maine woman who hunted caribou in the 1890s and then wrote a syndicated outdoors column that established Rangeley as a fly-fishing Valhalla鈥攁 destination that, even today, lures anglers to its half-dozen hotels in the high-season months听of May and June.听

In Rangeley, I landed at Sarge鈥檚 Pub and听Grub, a onetime dive, recently renovated but still ground zero for raw Saddleback joy. I was 24 hours late for the unfettered pandemonium, but already the delight over Arctaris鈥檚 closing was flowing into new creative channels. Fifty-one-year-old bar manager Crystal Sargent, the daughter-in-law of Sarge鈥檚 owner, told me that she was putting together an all-female rock band to play at Saddleback鈥檚 launch party in December. A tall, angular woman wearing a blue Sarge鈥檚 hat topped with a pom-pom, Sargent was particularly proud of the name she鈥檇 devised for the band: Cougar Skyway. 鈥淣one of us can play an instrument,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut we have a band, and we鈥檙e gonna start having band practice. I鈥檓 the lead singer, and Krista鈥檚 the lead guitarist,鈥� she said, naming other Rangeley locals, 鈥渁nd Tyler鈥檚 the drummer. Oh, and Peggy is the bass player. You can鈥檛 leave her out. She鈥檇 be insulted.鈥�

Somehow, Cougar Skyway struck me as significant. The project鈥檚 unrehearsed charm seemed to epitomize the down-home spirit Saddleback can bring to the ski world. Whether or not the idea for the band was a joke, in my heart, I was already holding a Bic lighter aloft for Cougar Skyway.听So I was happy when, the next day, I crossed paths with the band鈥檚 29-year-old guitarist, Krista Jamison.听

Jamison, who works as a realtor in Rangeley, told me, 鈥淣ow that Arctaris closed, everyone wants to look at houses here.鈥� Jamison added that, in recent years, her contemporaries have been fleeing Rangeley; the town has become grayer and stodgier. 鈥淏ut I think young people are going to come back,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey鈥檒l want to start families here. There鈥檒l be a new energy.鈥澨�

Karen Seaman, the manager of Forks in the Air, a Rangeley restaurant, also sees the town rising out of dire straits. 鈥淩ight now,鈥� she said, 鈥測ou just can鈥檛 hire people. Even in summer, restaurants here are closed two nights a week because they can鈥檛 find staff. If Arctaris offers employees year-round work and health insurance, that鈥檒l be a huge draw for people.鈥� Seaman told me, 鈥淚 like how Arctaris is thinking.鈥澨�

But to really register the new hope that鈥檚 blossomed in Rangeley, I needed to drive up the winding hill to Saddleback鈥檚 lodge and talk to Jimmy Quimby. Fifty-nine years old and weathered,听his chin specked with salt-and-pepper stubble, Quimby is the scion of a Saddleback pillar. His father, Doc, poured concrete to build the towers for one of Saddleback鈥檚听first lifts in 1963听and later built trails and made snow for the mountain. His mother, Judy, worked in the ski area鈥檚 cafeteria for about 15 years. 鈥淲e were so poor,鈥� Quimby told me, 鈥渢hat we didn鈥檛 have a pot to piss in, but I skied every weekend.鈥� Indeed, as a high schooler, Quimby took part in every form of alpine ski competition available鈥攐n a single pair of skis. His 163-centimeter Dynastar Easy Riders were both his ballet boards and his giant-slalom guns. They also transported him to mischief. In his teenage years, Quimby was part of a nefarious Saddleback gang, the Rat Pack. 鈥淲e terrorized the skiing public,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e built jumps. We skied fast. We made the T-bar swerve so people fell off.鈥澨�

Just days after his 18th birthday, Quimby left Maine to serve 20 years in the Air Force as an electrical-line repairman and managed, somehow, to spend a good chunk of time near Japan鈥檚 storied Hakkoda Ski Resort, where he routinely hucked himself off 35-foot cornices while schussing in blue jeans. When he returned to Maine in 1998, he commenced working at Saddleback and honed such a love for the mountain that, when it closed in 2015, his heart broke. He simply refused to ski after that. 鈥淚 decided,鈥� he said, 鈥渢hat I just wouldn鈥檛 ski anywhere else.鈥� Friends in the industry offered him free tickets at nearby mountains; Quimby demurred and hunkered down at Saddleback, where he remained mountain manager. The Berrys paid him听to watch over the nonfunctioning trails and lifts during the long closure. 鈥淚鈥檓 a prideful person,鈥� he explained. 鈥淥K, I did do a little skiing with my grandchildren, but they鈥檙e preschoolers. I haven鈥檛 made an adult turn since Saddleback closed.鈥澨�

Quimby is now working for Arctaris, which owns Saddleback Inc., but that鈥檚 a technicality. His mission is spiritual, and when I met him in his office, I found that I had stepped into a shrine, a jam-packed Saddleback museum. There were lapel pins, patches, bumper stickers, posters, and also a wooden ski signed in 1960 by about 35 of Saddleback鈥檚 progenitors. Quimby鈥檚 prize possession, though, is a brass belt buckle he bought in the Saddleback rental shop in the 1970s. 鈥淚 used to wear it every day,鈥� he told me, 鈥渂ut when Saddleback closed, I put it on a dresser and never wore it again.鈥�

Quimby stood up from the desk now, to reveal that he was wearing the buckle once more. In capitalized brass letters, it read 鈥淪KI.鈥澨鼿is eyes were glassy with emotion.听

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to do this,鈥� he said quietly, speaking of Saddleback鈥檚 resurrection. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to make this happen.鈥�

But is Arctaris鈥檚 vision for Saddleback pie in the sky?听

Certainly, the ski industry is facing myriad challenges鈥攃limate change arguably the biggest. A 2018听paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters noted that the snowy season in the lower 48 states has become, on average, 听compared to 1982. Saddleback, which averages about 148 inches of snow a year (compared to 141 and 128 inches at Sugarloaf Mountain and Sunday River Resort, respectively, its biggest Maine competitors), could conceivably enjoy a few above-average bounty winters over the next decade, but Sean Birkel, a climatologist at the University of Maine鈥檚 Climate Change Institute, said, 鈥淢aine鈥檚 warming climate is expected to bring shorter winters with less snow and more rain overall.鈥澨鼳rctaris plans to spend $2.3 million on new snowmaking, but it鈥檚 not clear if that will be enough.听

Still, today鈥檚 ski industry is arguably most threatened by its own profligate excesses. A one-day lift ticket at Vail, Colorado,听can cost $209. In skiing鈥檚 most exclusive and exalted redoubts鈥攍ike Aspen and Vail鈥攂illionaires are now displacing mere millionaires in the battle for slopeside real estate. Condo owners can rent their places for $600 or more a night on Airbnb. It鈥檚 become all but impossible to get by as a low-budget ski bum. Those eager kids who used to toil all winter for a free season pass? They鈥檝e almost disappeared. 鈥淭he need for labor in the nation鈥檚 37 ski states remains critical,鈥� said听Dave Byrd, director of Risk and Regulatory Affairs at the National Ski Areas Association. 鈥淲e鈥檙e closely monitoring Saddleback to see if they鈥檙e able to find and retain labor.鈥澨�

Can a scruffy Maine mountain do that鈥攁nd also become a gentle paradise? It鈥檚 too early to tell. Right now Arctaris鈥檚 first priority is the logistical challenge of making Saddleback skiable. Jimmy Quimby needs to hire at least 15 people over the next four months, and then those folks need to go into ballistic mode, disassembling听the T-bar and the 1963 chairlift to make way for lift-installation companies. They need to hack the weeds off the trails and chainsaw down the saplings that have sprouted over the听past five years.听

Arctaris hasn鈥檛 even developed a site plan for affordable housing yet. The employee busing and day care are still in the early planning stages, as is the solar farm, and while Arctaris鈥檚 Jonathan Tower is working with the State of Maine, hoping to get the staffing office launched by next winter, he might not meet his deadline.

Still, it would be wrong to write Arctaris off, considering the man that Tower has hired to serve as Saddleback鈥檚 general manager and听Quimby鈥檚 boss. Andy Shepard, 62, is a South Freeport, Maine, visionary who 20 years ago founded the Maine Winter Sports Center (now called the Outdoor Sports Institute), a nonprofit that bought and transformed two defunct Maine ski areas鈥擝igrock Mountain and Black Mountain Maine, the latter of which he purchased for one dollar.听

When Shepard first took over at Black Mountain, the base lodge was frequently flooded with sewage. He built a new lodge, tripled the mountain鈥檚 vertical drop by installing a new chairlift, and created a museum honoring the six Olympians that Black Mountain has produced. Both Bigrock and Black Mountain are still thriving family destinations, and in 2013, endeavoring to boost rural economies, the Outdoor Sport听Institute gave these two mountains away鈥攅ach to a local听nonprofit听that is听focused on fostering the regional economy as it promotes skiing.听

Shepard is a carefully spoken man and also a dreamer. When I met with him and his wife, Betsey, one quiet evening in Rangeley, in the posh and rustic pine-paneled environs of the dining room at Loon Lodge Inn, he wore horn-rimmed glasses and an ornate Tyrolean sweater as he spoke of western Maine in reverent tones.听

鈥淲e honeymooned right here at Saddleback Lake Lodge, in 1981,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he people of western Maine are no-nonsense. They don鈥檛 care what kinds of clothes you wear听or what kind of car you drive. If you love skiing, you鈥檙e in here. And the mountain itself鈥濃�攈e gestured toward Saddleback鈥斺�渋t鈥檚 been part of the lives of tens of thousands of families.鈥�

The same could be said of Black Mountain, of course, one of Shepard鈥檚 successful turnarounds. So a couple weeks later, when I was passing through western Maine, I dropped by there, hoping to get a taste of the casual magic that might pervade the new Saddleback.听

In the rental shop, I talked to clerk Peter Chase. 鈥淲e used to be a local ski area,鈥� said Chase, a town selectman in nearby Rumford. 鈥淣ow 70 percent of our skiers come from places like Augusta and Lewiston and Auburn.鈥� He spoke of these small Maine cities in awed tones of appreciation before adding, 鈥淏ut we鈥檙e still the kind of ski area where people are willing to get down on their hands and knees to help a little boy put on his ski boots.鈥�

国产吃瓜黑料, under azure skies, hundreds of skiers were braving the ten-degree chill, not all of them with alpinist grace. (Black is not a black-diamond mountain.) By midafternoon the packed base lodge was almost steamy with human heat. Upstairs, in the Last Run Pub, a veteran singer-songwriter鈥擩im Gallant, a native of Mexico, Maine鈥攑layed soulfully. I sat at the bar nursing an ale as I watched the crowds clomp in and out in their ski boots. I basked in the warmth and the happiness undergirding the applause that followed each song, and as I neared the bottom of my pint, I cast my mind nine months forward to Saddleback鈥檚 grand-opening party.

Cougar Skyway is going to rock that bash.

Editor鈥檚 Note: The story has been updated with the original name of the Outdoor Sports Institute.

The post The Ambitious Plan to Create a Ski Utopia in Maine appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

When the Environmental Defense Fund听(EDF) emailed me in December, hoping to daylight听a manufacturer filing an anonymous application to use a toxic chemical, the message carried the sort of dire rhetoric that the EDF has, in past campaigns, unleashed on Dow Chemical Company and DuPont. The phrases 鈥渓ung waterproofing鈥� and 鈥渃oncern for systemic and male reproductive toxicity鈥� glinted on my screen alongside a note from听the EDF鈥檚 lead senior scientist, Richard Denison.听Denison described a new product whose key chemical ingredient was rejected for commercial use by the Environmental Protection Agency听(EPA) late in 2018, and then oddly approved by the same agency last June, through a decision-making process that is largely hidden from the public.听

What was this noxious new stuff he听was decrying? Insecticide? A solvent to degrease construction machinery? No, Denison and the EDF were听focused on a lightning-fast ski wax.听

The chemically complex glide wax was developed by Swix Sport, a venerated 74-year-old Norwegian company that today commands a 60 percent market share in the $150 million global ski-wax industry. Swix鈥檚 new wax compound has application for skiers in all disciplines and also for snowboarders, but it鈥檚 aimed mainly at nordic ski racers, who can save minutes in a single 50-kilometer event if their skis glide well. The wax鈥檚 active ingredient is a chemical whose tight molecular bonds, yoking fluorine and carbon, are super stable and thus both impervious to ski-slowing moisture and very resistant to breaking down. This chemical belongs to a large and notorious family of听, which are collectively known as PFAS. Often called 鈥渇orever chemicals,鈥澨齈FAS are sold in vastly greater quantities in firefighting foams and as a waterproof coating for frying pans, raincoats, and pizza-delivery boxes.

Fluoro wax has been a staple of cross-country racing since the late 1980s. Still, Swix鈥檚 rollout of a new fluoro seems oddly timed. The EPA has found PFAS to cause liver and kidney damage听as well as cancer and tumors in lab animals. A just-released film, , stars Mark Ruffalo as an intrepid lawyer battling DuPont in the early 2000s after the chemical giant began making a PFAS-based product, Teflon, at its factory in听Parkersburg, West Virginia, where听chronic illness and untimely deaths spiked among nearby residents. Several states, New York and Ohio among them, have filed lawsuits that seek compensation for health problems caused by drinking water polluted by PFAS. DuPont and 3M are frequently defendants in听these suits.

The ski world is conducting its own clampdown on fluoro wax. The , the sport鈥檚 international governing body, which oversees nordic skiing鈥檚 World Cup, announced in November that it will begin enforcing a ban on fluoro in November 2020, citing its 鈥渘egative environmental and health impact.鈥� The FIS has yet to decide on penalties, but in many high school and collegiate nordic ski leagues in the U.S., along with youth and amateur leagues in Europe, fluoro is already banned. Scientists have found it lacing the snow on nordic trails in Norway, and while fluoro might have scant ill effects on casual ski racers who wax with it twice a year, a 2010听Scandinavian study showed that World Cup ski technicians had on average 45 times as much fluorocarbon in their blood as nonskiers.听

And yet, according to documents provided to 国产吃瓜黑料 by the EDF, Swix approached the EPA in November 2018 for approval of a new听fluorocarbon chemical.听(Later, a spokesperson for the company would inform 国产吃瓜黑料 that the听new compound was planned 鈥渇or use in a small number of high performance waxes while [Swix]听transitions to fully fluoro-free product lines.鈥�)听The company was able to seek what鈥檚 called a low volume exemption (LVE) and bypass the agency鈥檚 standard process for evaluating a new chemical, because it planned to produce less than the EPA鈥檚 threshold of 10,000 kilograms (approximately 22,000 pounds) of material a year. As such, the wax maker wasn鈥檛 required to make public its company name听or the chemical makeup of its new product.听

The EPA denied Swix鈥檚 request for approval, saying that the unnamed chemical听would have a 鈥渉igh environmental hazard.鈥� But Swix fought the EPA鈥檚 ruling, hiring a Washington law firm鈥擶iley Rein, which has also represented auto tire makers and the plastics industry鈥攖o write the agency and paint a dire picture of what would happen if approval weren鈥檛 granted. If the agency denied the exemption, Wiley Rein said, Swix might have 鈥渘o choice but to revert to more environmentally harmful鈥� wax-making processes听simply to 鈥渟tay in business.鈥� The EPA wrote back two months later, reporting that it had 鈥渞econsidered its assessment.鈥� It granted Swix a three-year exemption in a letter that equivocated over the wax鈥檚 likelihood to cause lung waterproofing, a condition in which the tiny air sacs in the lungs, the alveoli, become dysfunctional and unable to pump oxygen into the blood. The EPA said lung waterproofing was 鈥渘ot expected鈥� before noting that 鈥渦ncertainty鈥� surrounded the issue.听

In a written statement to 国产吃瓜黑料, a publicist contracted by Swix focused on the chemistry of its new compound, which is now听incorporated into current versions of Swix鈥檚 fluorinated race waxes, and听selling听in shops and . (Flourinated waxes make up about 30 percent of the products听Swix sells.) She noted that it鈥檚 made of 鈥淐6 fluorocarbons,鈥� which 鈥渁re better for both the environment and for human health than C8 fluorocarbons.鈥�

C6? C8? There are, in broad terms, two categories of ski wax containing PFAS. Historically more prevalent, C8 wax boasts eight fully fluorinated carbon molecules in its long backbone. C6 wax features only six such molecules听and breaks down more easily, though how much easier is still unclear to scientists. A 2015听Food and Drug Administration found that C6 lacked the 鈥渂iopersistence and potent systemic and reproductive toxicity that are characteristic of C8 fluorocarbons,鈥� but also acknowledged that few studies have been done on C6 toxicity and stressed that it鈥檚 not clear yet whether C6 is a 鈥渟afer alternative.鈥� The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), a policymaking branch of the European Union, has called C6 鈥渁 substance of very high concern due to its very persistent and very bioaccumulating properties.鈥� In July, the ECHA will begin enforcing its ban on the sale, manufacture, and import of all 鈥渘onessential鈥� C8 products in Europe. It is now contemplating a ban of C6.听

Swix is certainly attuned to the dangers of fluoro. The company has already spent ten years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to design a fast fluoro-free wax, and in September鈥攖hree months after Swix gained approval from the EPA for its C6 fluorocarbon鈥擲teve Poulin, CEO of the subsidiary Swix Sport USA, told ,听鈥淲hat I want to happen is a fluoro-free environment. I am pushing Norway for a fluoro-free environment and a fluoro-free company. We need to lead by example, because we are a market leader.鈥澨�

Swix did not break any laws by lobbying the EPA to let it introduce a new fluoro wax. But its听hiring of Wiley Rein to appeal听the EPA鈥檚 initial ruling听certainly seems at odds with its听eco-friendly rhetoric, as does the company鈥檚 continued use of fluoro at all. Both听make business sense, though: despite the fact that the new wax won鈥檛 be legal on the elite racing circuit next winter, amateur racers will still use it听in great quantities.听

In its statement to 国产吃瓜黑料, Swix depicted its new use of C6 chemistry as 鈥渁 short-term bridge to get the company to its ultimate goal of producing a high-performance fluoro-free wax by 2022. While the company is committed to the transition to fluoro-free, the new technology is not yet ready for commercial use.鈥澨�

Despite what we know about fluoro鈥檚 environmental and health risks, nordic skiing isn鈥檛 likely to be free of it any time soon. There is simply no existing ski wax that is as hydrophobic鈥攁nd hence as fast鈥攁s fluoro. Every serious skier out there has several bars of it in their听wax kit, even if they鈥檙e听fated to no glory greater than 11th place in their听age bracket at the local 10K. And it鈥檚 likely that not a single world-class nordic skier is fluoro-free. Stores听still sell the wax听that the FIS听is poised to ban, and the consumer who wants to avoid the most harmful stuff probably lacks the investigative impulses and chemistry knowledge to decipher wax makers鈥� careful fluoro messaging.听

In Norway, a tiny nation that boasts one of the world鈥檚 top cross-country ski teams, the media is trying to help. In a scathing, ongoing series of stories on fluoro, the Oslo-based newspaper 听has argued that, while the industry says it has largely switched to a 鈥渟o-called C6 technology,鈥� science proves otherwise. (Waxes aren鈥檛 labeled with details of their chemical contents, let alone whether they鈥檙e C8 or C6 fluorocarbons.) In reporting a story that , Dagbladet bought 11 fluorinated waxes from ski shops, then took them to a chemistry lab at the University of Stockholm for a test of whether their C8 content exceeded the limit set by the ECHA鈥�25 nanograms per gram. The lab found that the waxes鈥� C8 values were, on average, 134 times higher than the 2020 limit. Swix waxes were not the worst wax currently on the shelves, though鈥攖hat distinction went to a Swiss company called Toko, which produced a wax that is 1,215 times over the current limit. (Swix bought Toko in 2010. In response to Dagbladet听and 国产吃瓜黑料, the company said the wax was produced in 2009, is no longer sold, and should not have been on shelves when the publication did its test.)

The Dagbladet series 听鈥渟ky high鈥� levels of a PFAS compound were found in the blood of workers听at a now-defunct听Italian factory called Miteni, which manufactured C8 wax for Swix as well as products for other companies. Ultimately, these workers suffered cancer, diabetes and cirrhosis,听Dagbladet said, citing a 2019 study done by epidemiology researchers for听the local government in Italy鈥檚听Veneto region. Miteni poisoned the drinking water of over 120,000 people,听according to Dagbladet and a 2017 report by the .

In an email to 国产吃瓜黑料, Swix brand director Age Skinstad says that Swix鈥檚 current management knew nothing of the Miteni scandal until it was approached by Dagbladet in 2019.听鈥淢iteni didn鈥檛 inform Swix of the problems,鈥� Skinstad said. 鈥淭he way Miteni has acted is totally unacceptable and in breach of the contract Swix had with them.鈥� Skinstad went on to suggest that听even if Miteni caused environmental problems, it didn鈥檛 do so by making ski wax. Swix products constituted 鈥渁 max. of听0.5% of the total production of Miteni and was not connected to the PFOA production,鈥� he wrote to 国产吃瓜黑料, naming the particular PFAS chemical found in the workers鈥� blood.听

Miteni went out of business in 2018, but products incorporating C8 are still听. In the U.S., it鈥檚 still legal for any company, except those in the more heavily regulated carpet industry, to import it. C8 is still widely used by outdoor apparel makers. Only a few brands鈥擬ountain Hardwear, for instance, and Patagonia鈥攈ave transitioned to waterproofing with C6.

Most other makers of our foul-weather garments are unlikely to curtail their fluoro use anytime soon. Under President Donald Trump, the EPA has proven very friendly to the chemical industry. Last year听it unveiled a new PFAS Action Plan, but critics have argued that it lacks teeth. 鈥淸It鈥檚] all plan and no action,鈥� Scott Faber, a senior vice president for government affairs听at the听Environmental Working Group, in the newspaper The Hill. 鈥淚nstead, it promises merely to 鈥榚xamine鈥� information about PFAS discharges. 鈥� EPA must still 鈥榙etermine鈥� whether to force utilities to filter PFAS from our water.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e very concerned that the EPA is allowing new chemicals onto the market without scrutinizing them enough,鈥� says Richard Denison of the Environmental Defense Fund. What鈥檚 particularly troubling to Denison is the agency鈥檚 low-volume-exemption program, which has, since its inception in 1985, allowed听applicants to cloak their identity. Each company submitting an LVE bid can opt to say it contains Confidential Business Information (CBI) and thus should remain private. If the EPA allows the听CBI claim,听the bid (and thus the company) are known to the public solely by its case number. Swix鈥檚 bid was numbered LVE L-19-0033, and you鈥檙e reading about it now only because an anonymous听whistle-blower divulged the number to the EDF, which in turn filed a Freedom of Information Act request for files relating to that number, eventually sharing this information with journalists.听

Denison stresses that his group didn鈥檛 set out to shame the ski industry. Instead, the EDF hopes to highlight what it sees as the hypocrisy of a federal agency that now tolerates the corporate use of 86,000 chemicals and, in Denison鈥檚 view, routinely 鈥渃uts corners,鈥� green-lighting 89 percent of all the LVE applications it鈥檚 received since tweaking toxic-chemical rules in 2016.听

鈥淲e were interested,鈥� Denison says, 鈥渋n finding a case in which [the] EPA denied use of a chemical and then decided to approve it, despite its own staff鈥檚 recommendations.鈥澨�

If all this political strategizing sounds far removed from the sylvan splendors听of gliding through the woods, have faith, for there are options for nordic skiers who want to avoid fluoro waxes. Hydrocarbon-based ski wax, which is sold by Swix and several other brands, breaks down much听quicker than fluoro does, and it tends to be cheaper. Next fall, Swix also plans to听introduce a new, fluoro-free race wax called Pure Marathon, which it claims will be 鈥渢he most durable, eco-friendly wax available today.鈥� Its chemical makeup is a proprietary secret, but Swix says it will be faster (and more expensive) than hydrocarbon. Meanwhile, an array of super woke, eco-friendly glide waxes have recently emerged on the market. , for example, sells 鈥減lant-based鈥� waxes composed听鈥渆ntirely of renewable resources,鈥� according to company literature.听

For the foreseeable future, though, fluorinated wax will continue to听sing with a dark allure to the nordic ski world. It remains legal at many recreational races, among them , which draws more than 10,000 competitors to Wisconsin each February, and its exit from school and college leagues is far from complete. 鈥淔or anyone who wants to go fast, it remains a necessary evil,鈥� says University of Vermont nordic ski coach Patrick Weaver, who this winter will don chemically resistant gloves and a $1,200 ventilated face shield to fluoro-wax 250 pairs of skis for his athletes. 鈥淢ost of the ski world wants to get rid of it, but on wet days, if you don鈥檛 use fluoro, you鈥檒l be greatly disadvantaged,鈥� he adds. 鈥淯ntil it鈥檚 gone from the sport, fluoro wax is going to be tempting.鈥�

On the FIS鈥檚 World Cup circuit, where top skiers rake in millions of dollars a year, the temptation could lead to a different problem. With C8 now banned, and the ban of C6 likely imminent, will there be cheating?听

Illegal blood doping and have been nagging problems on cross-country鈥檚 World Cup circuit for decades鈥攁nd currently, the FIS has no streamlined system for testing whether a ski is fluorinated. In enforcing its ban, the governing body has engaged an Oslo lab, the 听(NILU), which has developed a method for detecting fluorine in skis by using an ungainly washing-machine-size听X-ray device. But the FIS still hasn鈥檛 鈥渧alidated鈥� this system, says Martin Schlabach, a senior chemist for the NILU. It also needs to spend about $200,000 to develop a mobile X-ray scanner capable of testing skis at a prerace starting line听rather than at a remote lab, which could only deliver results days later.听

As a stopgap, the NILU may open the 2020鈥�21 season using specially trained sniffer dogs to suss out whether skis are fluorinated. 鈥淭he dogs would give us a strong indication, but they would not be a final measure,鈥� Schlabach notes.

Schlabach will, of course, be fighting an age-old human impulse. When I recently phoned Vince Rosetta, who chronicles World Cup nordic racing on his popular YouTube channel, , his mind went at once to how, exactly, skiers will cheat the new rules.听

鈥淚 can assure you that right now, in a basement somewhere, there are people focused on nothing but beating the system,鈥� he said. 鈥淢aybe they鈥檙e looking for a masking agent鈥攕omething to hide the smell of fluoro on skis听so the dogs can鈥檛 detect it. Maybe they鈥檙e trying to think up a way to squirt some liquid fluoro onto skis, prerace, right after the test is done. We鈥檒l only know what they鈥檙e up to after the first person gets caught.鈥�

The post Nordic Skiing Has an Addiction to Toxic Wax appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The map of southwest Tasmania is an unbroken expanse of forest green. There are no towns and no roads on this remote section of Australia鈥檚 largest island. There鈥檚 nothing save for a few sharply creased mountains and an array of lakes and streams. In many pockets of the rainforest, an endemic tree, the slow-growing horizontal scrub, sprouts a noxious tangle of drooping branches that spawn vertical shoots and crosshatching suckers until the woods are all but impenetrable. In 1822, when the Brits ran penal colonies in Tasmania, a group of escaped convicts ate one another while attempting a getaway through this forest.听

Last year, though, a Swiss explorer, 47-year-old , set out on a three-month, south-to-north solo traverse of Tasmania that included a long push through this thick rainforest. Moving forward at roughly two miles a day, carrying a 75-pound pack in the constant rain, Marquis hacked through the vinelike woody snares with a machete. She clambered at times to the top of the thicket, where she was frequently forced to trample on tree limbs 15 feet听above the forest floor. She could have died stepping on a rotten branch.

But what got her was a steep ravine roughly 500 yards across at its top. On the second day of thrashing her way down through the first side of the ravine鈥檚 waterlogged, vine-snared V, the muddy soil gave way beneath her, and she was swept, along with a cascade of rocks and ferns and trees, into a cold river. She blacked out, and when she awoke, she was facedown in the water. Her left arm screamed in pain. Her sat听phone was useless at the shadowed base of the canyon. Was she just going to die down there?听

Marquis had certainly been in tight spots before. She鈥檚 a hiking specialist who spends months, sometimes even years, walking across scarcely traveled swaths of earth. From 2010 to 2013, she trekked 10,000 miles from Siberia to the Gobi Desert, then (after 13 days on a cargo ship) across Australia. In 2015, on another visit to Oz, she spent three months subsisting almost entirely on roots and grubs that she caught and fish that she snared. She has camped in minus-30-degree cold听and endured blizzards, sandstorms, mudslides, dengue fever, and an almost fatal tooth infection.听

Marquis is a modern-day explorer鈥攂ut though anguish and suffering are as part and parcel of听her expeditions as they were to early polar explorers like Robert Peary and Roald Amundsen, her goals are different. A hundred and ten years ago, the objectives of exploration were clear: you pointed yourself at some blank spot on the map and then muscled toward it and planted your flag. Today, however, nearly all terra incognita on the planet is gone. Conquering is a dead art.听

鈥淲e鈥檝e moved away from focusing on exploration for exploration鈥檚 sake,鈥� says Cheryl Zook, director of the Explorers Program at the National Geographic Society. The听program now funds filmmakers and oceanographers, anthropologists and crime investigators. It also funds Marquis, who鈥檚 been a National Geographic Explorer since 2015听and is the author of seven French-language books about her expeditions.听

OK, there are still听a few superstrivers who chase after clearly delineated iconic goals鈥擜merican Colin O鈥橞rady, for instance, who last year became the first person to cross all 932 miles of the Antarctic听landmass solo, unaided and unsupported, a feat he accomplished in 54 days while pulling a 300-pound sled. Arguably, though, the new soul of exploration lies in less harried and more imaginative quadrants, where a disparate constellation of world wanderers is dreaming up new ways to draw meaningful lines on our thoroughly traveled globe. Think here of Paul Salopek, a Pulitzer Prize鈥搘inning journalist now on a multiyear, 21,000-mile global walk that is retracing听the paths of the first human migrants to disperse from Africa in the Stone Age. Salopek鈥檚 cross-cultural journey is of a piece听with an earlier feat of new-school exploration, swimmer Lynne Cox鈥檚 of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia in 1987. In 44-degree waters, in the shadow of the Cold War, Cox was trying to forge d茅tente between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Modern exploration isn鈥檛 necessarily steeped in geopolitical themes. It鈥檚 about probing new depths on old turf with an inventive flourish and passion. Last June, on Strava, the recently retired Tour de France cyclist Ted King posted a 182-mile, nine-plus-hour Vermont-to-New Hampshire back-roads ramble, captioning it, 鈥淚 rode to see my dad to wish him a Happy Father鈥檚 Day.鈥�

Yes, I thought, pressing the听鈥渒udos鈥澨齜utton within the app. The man鈥檚 an explorer.

Sometimes听the new-school explorer travels inward, searching for forgotten zones of the human psyche. Marquis says she travels鈥攁nd crawls through deserts and rivers and mud鈥攖o 鈥渞ediscover the lost language between humans and the animal kingdom.鈥� She aims, always, for an unmitigated one-on-one communion with nature. She wants to prove that, even amid the abstracted digital fog of our 21st-century lives, a human being can still sit alone by a campfire and feel primitive, like an animal.听

Marquis鈥檚 goal is entirely her own invention鈥攕he is, if nothing else, a free woman鈥攁nd in chasing after that goal, she has been catcalled and harassed in most of the earth鈥檚 major languages. She has not flinched, perhaps because she鈥檚 been too focused on evading the other crazy perils that pervade all great adventure.

Down in the ravine, it turned out, Marquis had snapped the top of her humerus, the big, upper bone in her arm. She considered downing an emergency dose of Tramadol, a painkilling opiate. But she couldn鈥檛 afford to numb her senses. There were scores of black snakes in the underbrush, and her sat听phone wouldn鈥檛 work down there, amid the thick vegetation. She would need to hike out for three days to find听reception and a clearing big enough for a helicopter landing.听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听

So she did. Off-balance, thanks to her pack and her gimp arm, she fell, over and over. Each crash sent a crescendo of pain into her shoulder. She听met the copter, and then, two weeks later, against doctor鈥檚 orders, returned to her hiking route. She had to skip the last section of dense bush, but听she spent three weeks completing a modified, easier version of her intended hike, walking mostly on flat, treeless paths, wincing each time her pack jostled her shoulder.听

It鈥檚 January now, nearly a year after the completion of Marquis鈥檚听Tasmanian expedition, and I鈥檓 visiting her in Switzerland, in her tiny, 400-square-foot, seventies-era chalet,听which sits half a mile off the nearest all-season road in the Swiss Alps. It鈥檚 cold outside, and she鈥檚 wearing a black fleece, black sweatpants, and beige Uggs as she sits on a stool in her kitchen. Her long blond听hair is in disarray. We鈥檙e watching snow fall in the sparse forest outside, down onto the boughs of the evergreens. There are houses nearby, but they are snow-caked summer houses, and the world is so quiet that I think I hear the snow falling.

Marquis bought this house, the long-neglected summer abode of a distinguished Geneva family, in 2017. Trash cluttered the home鈥檚 warren of mini bedrooms at closing; there was a dessicated crow in the chimney. Still, Marquis envisioned the place a 鈥渜uiet writer鈥檚 cave.鈥� In an e-mail, she told me, 鈥淚鈥檝e been waiting all my life for such a place.鈥澨�

In the past, she鈥檚 tapped out her books in a mountain bungalow in Thailand, on a windblown crag in the Swiss Alps, and deep in the Spanish countryside. Now听she鈥檚 pinioned at home, nursing a broken rib, this injury sustained in a prosaic tumble down a snowy Swiss staircase. She鈥檚 writing a book about her Tasmanian travels, and taped to a picture window, on Post-it Notes, are hand-scrawled ideas for her first draft. I feel like I鈥檝e stepped into her mind, into her dream. I remember what she wrote to me earlier, discussing the cabin: 鈥淚 will spend the harsh winter of the Swiss Alps here, with no vehicle access. I鈥檒l move with a canoe in summer and on foot in winter.鈥�

I鈥檝e come here to imbibe Marquis鈥檚 idyllic cabin life听and also to meditate on a question that I often ask myself, being a journalist who鈥檚 reported stories on six continents: How does a restless person find a still spot in the world? How can a nomad make a home, that is at once sustaining and invigorating, not boring?听

I want Marquis to tell me that she鈥檚 going to learn the names of all the plants and birds outside her door. I want her to tell me that she鈥檒l live in this house until she dies, that she鈥檚 already 800 pages into writing a book about the place. But now, as she cooks us some organic vegan whole-wheat pasta, she鈥檚 backpedaling from her florid e-mail. 鈥淭his is just a base camp for me,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 all. It鈥檚 a place to store my fancy clothes. This is not my type of bush here. I belong to the Australian bush. I know every bird there, every tree, and I鈥檇 take a eucalyptus over a pine any day. And no鈥濃�攕he laughs, rolling her eyes before dissing me in her Australian-tinged English鈥斺�淚 don鈥檛 think of dying here. I don鈥檛 even have a bloody idea what I鈥檓 doing next week.鈥澨�

Jeezum, did I fly all the way across the Atlantic to get tacks thrown into my path like this? I can already sense a certain tension: I鈥檓 a man, here to write about a woman who鈥檚 prevailed in life because she鈥檚 kicked back against men who sought to write her script.听

On the steppes of Mongolia, drunken nomads on horseback galloped out to听Marquis鈥檚 tent night after night and surrounded her, taunting her, just for fun. Marquis, in turn, terrorized two such antagonists after they charged at her with their horses. 鈥淚 throw myself toward them all at once, arms in the air and screaming like a madwoman,鈥� she writes听in听, the only book of hers that has been translated into English. She鈥檚 intent on 鈥渟caring them and throwing them off balance,鈥� and she听succeeds. 鈥淭hey glare angrily, understanding that I鈥檓 not afraid,鈥� she writes. 鈥淭hey depart without another word.鈥�

During my four-day stay, Marquis will be nothing but gracious, buying me one Swiss chocolate bar after another. But throughout,听her message remains clear: men need to reframe how they think about women in exploration.听

Marquis and I travel听one afternoon听to the nearby village of Chandolin, to visit the onetime home of her childhood idol, legendary 20th-century Swiss explorer and writer Ella Maillart. Maillart competed in the 1924 Olympics听as a sailor听and then went on to lead an all-women鈥檚 sailing mission to Crete and travel across the Takla Makan Desert from Beijing to India听with journalist Peter Fleming. Marquis becomes incensed when we discover that the town鈥檚 only Maillart museum is a single, unattended room arrayed with a few dusty photographs. 鈥淭his is bullshit,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f Ella Maillart was a man, there鈥檇 be a brand-new museum here, with videos and sound effects.鈥�

In time听I鈥檒l learn of how Marquis slept in pink leggings every night in the Mongolian desert, just to feel feminine as she towed a bulky cart through the dirt. I鈥檒l discover her Martha Stewart side, when she gives me a copy of her coffee-table book听La Nature Dans Ma Vie (Nature in My Life), which gives readers tips on how they can be just like her, supported by听40 photos of the author鈥擬arquis sitting lotus style, her flowing tresses exquisitely coiffed, her makeup just so; Marquis communing winsomely with a wicker basket of garden-fresh carrots; and so on.听

Sarah Marquis is reframing what an explorer can do and be. So can鈥檛 I reframe my own understanding of how her life works?

Maybe I鈥檒l have to, for she has never fit neatly into anyone else鈥檚 story line.

Marquis grew up on a farm in Switzerland鈥檚 rainy north country, surrounded by ducks and chicken and sheep, in a village so remote that she didn鈥檛 see a movie in a theater until she was 15. She and her brother, Joel, who鈥檚 two years younger,听named each of the towering beech trees near their home. They climbed into the crowns of the trees, balancing on narrow branches 60 feet up as they swayed in the wind.听

Starting when Marquis was five, her mother took her into the forest to hunt for mushrooms and medicinal plants. 鈥淚 was learning everything about survival,鈥� says Marquis.听

As a teenager, she left home for a railway job that involved traveling all over Switzerland, managing the operations of trains. Her coworkers, older men mostly, harassed her. (According to a New York Times Magazine , on her first day, one colleague proclaimed that he could smell when she was on her period.) She took such taunts as a challenge. At age 17, alone, she rode a horse across Turkey. Then, in her twenties, she worked as a waitress at a ski resort and ventured, often, on brave expeditions that tested her still meager outdoor skills. She ventured into the听bush of New Zealand鈥檚 South Island, for example, endeavoring听to live for a month only on fish that she speared. She lost 15 pounds.听

Eventually, when she was 29, Marquis conceived her first grand expedition鈥攁n 8,700-mile loop around the interior of Australia. She was still a waitress; major sponsorship was a pipe dream. But Joel, by then an accomplished engineer and听windsurfer who traveled the world in search of waves, was in her corner鈥攁nd he was lucky. One day听Joel bought a two-dollar听lottery ticket and found, scratching it, three miniature TV icons in a row. He鈥檇 earned a听hard-to-come-by听invite onto a Swiss game show.听

Before a live audience, Joel won $25,000. He used the funds to launch his sister鈥檚 expedition. 鈥淣obody thought she could make it,鈥� he explained to me, 鈥渂ut I knew she could. When we climbed those trees, she was steady and strong.鈥� Joel flew to Australia听so he could serve as expedition coordinator, and the siblings collaborated with an ease and a fluidity that at times transcended language. 鈥淭here wasn鈥檛 any need to explain things,鈥� Marquis says. 鈥淲e were in a desert, without landmarks or trees, and he鈥檇 leave a food drop, and I鈥檇 know where it was.鈥澨�

Marquis鈥檚 first book,听L鈥檃venturi猫re Des Sables (The 国产吃瓜黑料r of the Sands), published in 2004, recounted that Australia trip. She self-published it, at the age of 32. Then she visited every bookstore in French-speaking Switzerland and genially, over coffee, cajoled dozens of store owners to buy the book on her own special terms鈥攎oney up front, no returns. She spoke at over a hundred schools, accompanied by her dog and her brother, who punctuated her stories by riffing on his didgeridoo. Video snippets of her Australian adventure began showing up on Swiss television.

In 2006, Marquis spent eight听months on a solo hike through the Andes, battling altitude sickness as she made her way to Machu Picchu. In 2010, she began her trek from Siberia to Australia. Gradually, and quite casually, Marquis became a household name in French-speaking Switzerland. A loyal contingent of fans bought every book that she wrote, and her fame seeped into France. The French edition of her 2014听book,听Wild by Nature,听sold 180,000 copies, and in 2018, the French sports magazine听尝鈥椭辩耻颈辫别听put her on the cover.听

Marquis is now sponsored by Icebreaker (an underwear brand), the North Face, Sportiva boots, Tissot watches, and Debiopharm, a Swiss pharmaceutical company. But she says she gets no salary. 鈥淭hey just fund an expedition if they like it,鈥� she says of her sponsors. 鈥淚 have to fight for the money every time. I still work my ass off.鈥澨�

Marquis鈥檚 publisher, Elsa Lafon, says that the explorer is popular because there鈥檚 really nothing transcendent or superhuman about her. 鈥淪arah听has no background as an Olympian, and she鈥檚 not an extreme skier or snowboarder,鈥� explains Lafon. 鈥淪he鈥檚 walking, and walking is something everyone can do. It鈥檚 also a spiritual activity. People want to live as she does, and when I was with her in Switzerland, everyone stopped her to take pictures.鈥�

Like so many celebrities, Marquis is torn about her status as a public figure. In a way, she loves it. When we鈥檙e at a restaurant one afternoon, she begins snapping photos of our food. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 even imagine how many young women follow me on ,鈥� she explains听happily. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a whole new wave of single women out there traveling alone now. They鈥檙e not waiting for the perfect partner to do the journey.鈥� Marquis knows she鈥檚 their role model. 鈥淚鈥檓 not attached to some magical guy who鈥檚 paying for everything,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd you鈥檒l never see me doing a photo shoot in a bikini. I could have played that game. I didn鈥檛.鈥澨�

But if Marquis loves inspiring young acolytes, she still likes her privacy. We鈥檙e sitting in a remote booth at the restaurant, to avoid gawkers, and now she tells me that her highest ideal is 鈥減ure exploration. I want to be in nature until I become nature,鈥� she explains, 鈥渦ntil it doesn鈥檛 matter whether I鈥檓 a man or a woman and I arrive at the core of things.鈥澨�

When Marquis bought the chalet,听it should have been razed. Starting afresh鈥攂uilding a brand-new cabin鈥攚ould have been easier than breathing new life into a ruin, but the local Swiss zoning regulations forbid teardowns.听

Marquis turned to her brother for assistance鈥攖hat was a given. No one in her life (save perhaps听her mother) has been more unwaveringly supportive. When Sarah and I meet Joel one afternoon听at a caf茅, I note that sister and brother share the same tilt to their heads, the same glinting smile. Joel is more settled now. He and his partner have two kids, and he has a lucrative gig as a Swiss Alps tour guide. He鈥檚 always up for a challenge, though, so he and Sarah spent a month filling two dumpsters with garbage as they meditated on an architectural challenge: How do you transform a moldy, claustrophobic bunkhouse into a stylish writer鈥檚 hermitage?听

Their scheme came together jaggedly, with nothing written on paper. 鈥淲e came up with a new plan every day,鈥� says Sarah, 鈥渁nd then we changed our minds.鈥�

The process, more intuitive than logical, is of a piece with the strategies Marquis deploys to survive in the wilds. She prepares meticulously, drying and vacuum-sealing all her own food, but out in the field she鈥檚 guided quite often by her gut. Once, when she was camping beneath a cliff in China, she had a premonition that there鈥檇 be an avalanche. She moved her tent. Ten minutes later, according to Sarah,听the rocks buried her earlier campsite. In Australia in 2015, she says, she evolved a Spidey sense as to which creeks contained crocodiles and which didn鈥檛. (鈥淚 became a crocodile,鈥� she says.) She claims to carry an internal compass, so that she can tell which way is north, without even consulting the stars.听

鈥淲omen have more of an animal sense,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e made to bear a child. We鈥檙e hormonal creatures, and we are able to feel our bodies and the earth. And surviving in the wild isn鈥檛 just about strength. You need to have an understanding of the landscape. Women have that, and they can use that to survive.鈥澨�

Even though she鈥檚 intent on liberating women everywhere, there鈥檚 still a bit of the old-world explorer about Sarah Marquis. In the tradition of travel writers such as Paul Theroux and V.S. Naipaul, she is unafraid to be dismissive of the people she meets in the field. Wild by Nature sees her lampooning some of the Mongolians she encounters as 鈥渇at鈥� and as 鈥渋diots鈥� as she gripes about how they 鈥減ee right next to me鈥� and frequent a bar that 鈥渟mells of musty oldness mixed with vomit.鈥� In fairness, she also reports on the generosity of local women who help her out. In reviewing the book, Publisher鈥檚 Weekly complained about her 鈥渓ong diatribes,鈥� saying they 鈥渟ometimes border on the culturally insensitive.鈥�

When I ask her about that review, she鈥檚 not pleased with me. 鈥淎mericans,鈥� she says, 鈥渉ave no idea of how the world works.听What is that reviewer saying? That it鈥檚 OK听for me for me to be attacked every night? So I鈥檓 culturally insensitive? I bloody don鈥檛 care. That鈥檚 your problem!鈥澨�

I鈥檓 not sure if she means me or the reviewer, and I鈥檓 a little afraid to ask. But I guess I鈥檓 not shocked that her rough travel experiences have leavened her romantic streak with a sliver of grim, Hobbesian skepticism about human nature. 鈥淟ook,鈥� she says, still dwelling on her Mongolian attackers, 鈥渋t鈥檚 complicated. On that trip, I learned empathy. I became a better person. But we are all animals at the base. Everyone鈥檚 got their own world, and sometimes you are not welcome in that world. I wasn鈥檛 welcome there.鈥澨�

So she keeps coming home, back to the mountains of Switzerland, where she has now finally built a house of her own, through arduous labor.

In the end, Marquis tore out most of the chalet鈥檚 walls and folded the kitchen around a new wood-burning stove听that feeds to the chimney. There are still distinct rooms, but there are no doors on the office or the dining nook, and light pours in through the glass entry door. The white pine decor, meanwhile, is buoyantly bright.

For me, though, what leaps out is that this chalet is shaped to house a single creative person鈥攁 second resident would be a stretch. In Wild by Nature, Marquis covers her romantic life glancingly, alluding to 鈥渉airy, bare chests where I rested my head for an instant,鈥� and in another book she mentions a breakup that 鈥渓eft me as scarred as if I鈥檇 fallen from a five-story building.鈥� At one point听she tells me, 鈥淚 love everything about men. There is nothing so exciting as a man who knows his strengths, his inner beauty.鈥澨�

But she still seems likely to keep inhabiting her tiny home by her lonesome. 鈥淚鈥檝e had long relationships,鈥� she tells me, 鈥渂ut always, after some time, the man wants more, and I鈥檓 like, More of what?听What they want more of is me, and I will not compromise who I am to be with a man.鈥澨�

Marquis gazes out the window, contemplating, then continues. 鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 know,鈥� she says. 鈥淟ove has everything to do with freedom鈥攚ith deep communication, with allowing your partner to do what they want. But I鈥檝e never met a man who鈥檚 understood me completely.鈥� She rises up from her chair now. 鈥淥h!鈥� she says, throwing her arms up in faux exasperation.听鈥淟et鈥檚 go for a walk.鈥澨�

We step out of the chalet, Marquis coughing a bit each time the frayed edge of her rib tickles her lungs, and we stroll along a cross-country ski trail, chatting about the guises she assumes out on expedition. 鈥淚 dress like a man,鈥� she says, 鈥渇or safety, and if I need to talk to somebody, I鈥檓 like this.鈥� She drops her shoulders听now, so her arms hang, apelike and foreboding, by her sides as she continues in a low, gravelly voice. 鈥溾�榃here鈥檚 water?鈥� If they say something,鈥� she continues, 鈥淚 jump right in. I don鈥檛 give them any time to think.鈥� Her voice goes gravelly again. 鈥溾�業s it a good stream? How far?鈥欌�澨�

We keep walking. She tells me about the training she does in the six-month lead-up to each expedition. On a typical day, she says, she might run for an hour, then do a three-hour hike to a peak carrying a 65-pound backpack before swimming two or three miles. 鈥淏y six at night,鈥� she says, 鈥淚 am dead.鈥�

We pass a lone skier poling along, and then Marquis shares a trick she learned years ago, studying karate. It involves watching one鈥檚 opponent closely, waiting for his focus to ebb, and then moving in for a flash strike. To my surprise, she demonstrates, suddenly jabbing her arm toward my chest, so I stagger backward听a step. 鈥淚t鈥檚 useful,鈥� she says of the move.

When we reach the village and come to the garage where she parks her car, she opens the back to load some stuff in, and then, wanting to be of help, I press down on the hatch, trying to close it. The thing does not budge, not at all, so then, instinctively, I just reef on that hatch. I push down on it, hard, until I hear Marquis beside me, shuddering in distress. 鈥淒on鈥檛,鈥� she says. 鈥淒on鈥檛! It鈥檚 hydraulic!鈥澨�

鈥淥h,鈥� I say. 鈥淪orry.鈥澨�

As we wind down out of the mountains, switchbacking, gazing at the roofs of the houses below, I apologize again. But then, when we鈥檙e in a parking lot with the hatch open, I forget. I find myself muscling down on the damned thing again.

鈥淏ill, Bill, Bill!鈥� Marquis says, copping a feigned scolding tone. She鈥檚 laughing, but still I have to wonder why I鈥檓 doing this. I鈥檓 a spacehead鈥攖hat鈥檚 part of it. But do I also feel the need to demonstrate my strength? I have to admit, I do. I feel intimidated by Marquis. She鈥檚 blended her feminine qualities and raw physical strength to become a force on her own terms, an athlete and explorer I鈥檒l never match.听

It鈥檚 easy for men to say they champion the end of sexism in the outdoors, but when women start thrashing us听or even marginalizing us? That takes a little recalibration. Speaking plainly, it鈥檚 hard on the fragile male ego. It stings sometimes. I鈥檓 not condoning the drunken Mongolian nomads or the Swiss dingleberries who threw Ella Maillart鈥檚 life history into a closet-size听dustbin, but I do understand their mindset鈥攁nd also how pathetic it is.听听

I鈥檓 staying in the village, in a sunlit hillside condo. I can鈥檛 tell you the name of the burg (I promised), but there are a few hundred people here听and a post office and a caf茅听in听which the village鈥檚 most distinguished female residents gather each morning at 8:30 to chat. The 蝉耻辫别谤尘补谤肠丑茅 carries only one small rack of books, all of them by Sarah Marquis, but when fans show up, seeking an audience with the author, the store鈥檚 clerks throw them off the scent.听

The realtor across the street from the store听is also protective of Sarah who, before buying the听chalet, lived in the village on and off for years听in a succession of rentals. Fran莽oise is seventy-something, and petit, and inclined to wear black leather trousers听脿听la Joan Jett. It is she who sold Sarah her house. 鈥淥ther people were interested,鈥� she tells me, 鈥渂ut I said, 鈥楴o, it is not for sale.鈥欌�澨�

Fran莽oise, I think, felt a kinship with Sarah. She鈥檚 done some exploring herself鈥攊n 1980, she flew around the world on the Concorde鈥攁nd the two women are friends. When I meet with them for coffee one morning, they sit side by side and regard one another with a glimmering affection, reveling, it seems, in the knowledge that they are both free spirits听and fierce.

Still, when I鈥檓 invited听one evening听to celebrate Fran莽oise鈥檚 birthday at the caf茅, Sarah isn鈥檛 there. The fondue party goes on without her. And Fran莽oise, speaking precisely, suggests that the absence carries a certain rightness.

鈥淪he is part of the village, and she is not,鈥� Fran莽oise says. 鈥淎s she wishes.鈥�

鈥淪o,鈥� I ask, 鈥渨here are you going for your next expedition?鈥� Marquis is taking me to the train station. 鈥淎ntarctica?鈥�

鈥淭hat鈥檚 for the boys. They love to gear up and go fast. They love that physical challenge.鈥� I scribe these words into my notebook听and, watching me as she swoops through the switchbacks, Marquis听becomes irked. 鈥淐ome on,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 know听you鈥檙e going to use that quote out of context.鈥澨�

I change the subject. 鈥淥K,鈥� I say. 鈥淏ut what鈥檚, like, your system for determining where you鈥檙e going to go?鈥�

Do I really expect there to be an intricate mathematical process? Or that she鈥檒l let me in on the secret? She tells me she looks for signs. Earlier听she showed me a picture of a dragon鈥檚听blood tree on Yemen鈥檚 arid Socotra Island. It was at once Seussian and soulful, a giant, mushroom-shaped thing with knotted brown branches and palmlike green needles. 鈥淥ne day,鈥� she says, 鈥淚鈥檇 like to go there.鈥� When Yemen鈥檚 civil war ends, she means.听听

We wind pass the church spire in a lower village. 鈥淏ut how long do you think you鈥檒l keep doing expeditions?鈥� I ask.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 know,鈥� Sarah says sharply. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think the way you do.鈥� A moment later, she softens. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be an awesome old woman,鈥� she says. 鈥淢y face will be a topo map of all the places I鈥檝e been. I鈥檒l be a little dry apple, but I will never get old.鈥�

When we reach the train station, I remember the hydraulic thing as I retrieve my suitcase from the back of the car. Sarah walks me out onto the platform. Per Swiss tradition, she kisses me three times on the cheeks鈥攔ight, then left, then right. And then she walks away, and I watch the woman who can go anywhere in the world climb into her car and start back up the switchbacks toward her chalet in the snow.

Editor's Note: The story has been updated to specify that Colin O'Brady crossed the Antarctic听landmass but not the continent's ice shelves.听

The post Sarah Marquis Is Breaking Up Exploration’s Boys Club appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

When he was 19 years old, Adam Gorlitsky never wore his seat belt because鈥攚ell, what could possibly happen? Life was good. He was a sophomore at the University of South Carolina and a fit guy. In high school, he鈥檇 run a 4:50听mile and played varsity basketball. Now he was a pickup-game star, a talented outside shooter, a business major, and an esteemed brother at Sigma Chi. On the day it happened鈥擠ecember 30, 2005鈥攈e鈥檇 just signed the lease on a sweet new apartment.

Gorlitsky moved furniture into the place that day, and then, just after nightfall, climbed into his dad鈥檚 Chevy Tahoe to make the two-hour journey home from Columbia to his parents鈥� house in Charleston. He was sober, but he was also weary, and he says that when he was careening along Highway 26 at 80 miles per听hour, he nodded off for a second. An instant later, his car was rolling down the grassy slope of the median. It听smacked sideways into some trees. The accident threw听Gorlitsky around the inside of the vehicle until he lay, finally, in the back seat, spitting up blood. He was unable to move. Soon afterward听he was airlifted to the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston, where X-rays revealed that he鈥檇 suffered a T9 spinal fracture. He was paralyzed from the belly button down.

By the time Gorlitsky got into rehab, he had lost 45 pounds from being on a ventilator and still had a tracheotomy tube in his throat. He was so weak that he needed to be lifted into his wheelchair. In a flash, his unformed young life had been inflected with a question he never anticipated: how could he become an adult听now that it seemed he would never walk again?

But beginning on March 22, he plans to walk 26.2 miles. At the Los Angeles Marathon, Gorlitsky, now 32, will attempt to become the first American paraplegic ever to walk a full marathon. Relying on an $80,000 robotic exoskeleton, he鈥檒l commence the race in the dark, after 10 P.M., more than 24 hours before any other competitors, and then hobble out of Dodger Stadium and along Sunset and then Hollywood Boulevards.

American marathons have been including wheelchair athletes for more than 40 years, but Gorlitsky鈥檚 26.2 debut comes as the races are growing more welcoming to athletes with disabilities, and also more lucrative. At next month鈥檚 Boston Marathon, wheelchair athletes will vie for $125,000 in prize money, up from听$84,500 in 2018. (The total purse of last year鈥檚 race was $830,500).听听

Racing the Los Angeles Marathon in an exoskeleton, Gorlitsky will only be chasing after glory. If he finishes in less than 36 hours and 37 minutes, he鈥檒l become the fastest paraplegic marathoner in the world.

So听is this another feel-good inspirational story about a disabled guy?

Yes. And also no. If only it were that simple.

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e permanently disabled,鈥� Gorlitsky says, 鈥測ou wake up every day battling against two things鈥攜our spinal-cord injury听and also society鈥檚 perception of who you are. You鈥檙e constantly playing from behind.鈥�

Gorlitsky had an uphill road after the accident. He finished nine weeks of rehab, then graduated from USC a year behind schedule. But when he tried to launch a career, it didn鈥檛 materialize. He was passed over for an internship with a TV production company because, he thinks, he couldn鈥檛 climb the stairs to the office. He produced some short films, including a moody and ambient music video for the Charleston roots-gospel rock ensemble . He set out to create a feature film, but the only money he made came from working听for his parents鈥� successful mail-order business, , which sells holistic products for dogs and cats. 鈥淲hen I posted pictures of myself on Tinder,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 cropped out my wheelchair. I didn鈥檛 want people to see it.鈥�

But then, in 2015, Gorlitsky says, came the moment that would lend him both agency and self-esteem. At a spinal-cord-injury clinic in Charleston, Gorlitsky tried out a space-age apparatus鈥攖he ReWalk exoskeleton, designed to let paraplegics walk again. For the first two weeks, all he could do in the ReWalk was stand there. The stabilizing muscles in his core, unused for a decade, were so taxed that they would ache deeply for days, steeping him in a pain he鈥檇 never known as a high school runner. Ten weeks passed before he could walk听a city block. Still, he鈥檇 regained a part of his old self. 鈥淪uddenly,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 went from a seated four foot nine听to a standing six foot one.鈥�

Released in 2011听after years of development by Israeli engineer Amit Goffer, the 听is an ungainly 60-pound assemblage that consists of two heavy, black leg braces, each containing a whirring motor. Each motor angles forward the hip that it鈥檚 attached to, bringing the leg along with it. You activate the motors by throwing your weight forward onto low crutches, thereby tripping a sensor in the ReWalk.

The ReWalk is slow鈥攔arely much faster than one mile an hour. But听soon after Gorlitsky took his first few steps, lurching like a landlubber on a heaving boat, he hatched a new career plan. 鈥淚nstead of trying to make a movie about someone鈥檚 else鈥檚 life,鈥� he decided, 鈥淚鈥檒l turn my own life into a movie.鈥�

L.A. will be Gorlitsky鈥檚 35th road race. Three years into his racing life, he鈥檚 already walked 10K portions of both the Marine Corps Marathon and the Walt Disney World Marathon, landing himself on the听CBS Evening News and ESPN SportsCenter. He鈥檚 well-known in his native Charleston, and once, when he found himself with a dying ReWalk battery at a 5K on the South Carolina shore, a half-dozen soldiers came to his rescue and carried him atop their shoulders a quarter mile to the finish.

The metaphors surrounding Gorlitsky鈥檚 journey are monumental, and he works it. In 2016, he abandoned film and launched a nonprofit, , with a proclaimed mission of 鈥渋mproving the lives of the disabled community.鈥� I Got Legs has always been a one-man enterprise, but it now has a board of five directors, drawn largely from the Charleston business community, and a budget plan that prays for $150,000 in 2019, as compared to the $52,832 it reported on its most recent tax forms, which document 2017 revenues.

But what thrills Gorlitsky is storytelling and human drama. The stylish website of I Got Legs, shaped by Gorlitsky himself, highlights an 听campaign set up to raise funds to help other people with disabilities purchase assistive technology. The photos show Gorlitsky sitting in a wheelchair, then rising, half-bent, and finally standing erect, towering and sturdy, vanquishing frailty in his exoskeleton鈥攁s if, thanks to robotics, humans could evolve to a new plane of existence.

The first time听I reached Gorlitsky, on a late-night phone call in听November, I found him simmering with disdain for the man he calls his arch nemesis: , the 34-year-old Brit who ReWalked the London Marathon in 36:37 last April.

Like Gorlitsky, Kindleysides is paralyzed from the belly button down (his paralysis was caused by a brain tumor). Gorlitsky鈥檚 beef with him is that, on Facebook, Kindleysides said he finished in 27:30, a time that excludes numerous stops for battery changes and mechanical fiddling. 鈥淲hen I read his post,鈥� Gorlitsky said, 鈥淚 thought, Oh my God, that鈥檚 so lame! I told him, 鈥業f we to go by your logic, anyone could take breaks whenever they wanted, and it wouldn鈥檛 count toward their overall time.鈥欌��

鈥淚 want to race this guy one-on-one,鈥� Gorlitsky said to me. 鈥淚鈥檓 thinking the New York Marathon next fall. I want it to be intense鈥攋ust like the World Wrestling Federation!鈥�

Gorlitsky and Kindleysides stand together atop a tiny worldwide community of six or so exoskeletal long-distance racers, competing in a sport so nascent that it lacks codified timing standards. Can鈥檛 Gorlitsky just try to get along? He is, statistically speaking, the slower athlete: in his only half marathon, in Portland, Oregon, last year, he finished in just under 20 hours. Beyond that, Kindleysides presents himself as a soft-spoken guy. He鈥檚 a rising pop singer who recently joined Geri Horner, once Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls, as a singing judge on a season of the BBC One show All Together Now. 鈥淚 tried to be nice and polite with him,鈥� Kindleysides told me in December. 鈥淏ut he kept writing me on Facebook, saying things like, 鈥業鈥檓 going to kick your ass.鈥欌��

Gorlitsky, it seems, is inclined toward the grand statement. On the phone听he told me, 鈥淚 Got Legs isn鈥檛 some pat-on-the-back nonprofit. I run it like a Fortune 500 company.鈥� He said that he sees himself as the social entrepreneur version of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He envisions building a Got听Legs! digital network built, as he puts it, 鈥渁round entertainment, retail, and fund-raising.鈥�

But as the public face of U.S. exoskeleton walking, Gorlitsky hasn鈥檛 convinced everyone who has a disability. Bill Fertig, a paraplegic who serves as director of the New York鈥揵ased Spinal Cord Resource Center, argues that for most paralyzed people, ambulation is not a paramount concern. 鈥淲alking is overrated,鈥� Fertig says. Indeed, when the North American Spinal Cord Injury Consortium reported early this year on a survey of 1,800 constituents, it found that their principal hope was not to walk, but to restore bowel, bladder, and sexual function. The majority of paraplegics rely on catheters.

Fertig blames the glorification of walking on well-meaning but clueless able-bodied types who use terms like 鈥渨heelchair bound.鈥� A former police officer who was injured in an off-duty motorcycle accident in 1999, he devotes his time to other pursuits: he swims and also water skis, using a padded extrawide ski topped by a metal cage for stabilization. Winters, he takes to the slopes on a sit-ski. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have time to worry about walking,鈥� he says.

Fertig concedes that walking is good for the human body, pointing out that it鈥檚 crucial for bone density and bowel function. 鈥淲e鈥檙e meant to be upright,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut exoskeletons are so expensive that I just can鈥檛 see them getting much play.鈥� Only about 500 ReWalks are in use worldwide. Other manufacturers also make exoskeletons, but they鈥檙e not as robust and race ready. ReWalk dominates a small market, and while the company does have plans to release faster units, few ReWalk buyers are eligible to be reimbursed by their insurance.

Fertig just doesn鈥檛 see the ReWalk changing the game for paraplegics. 鈥淭his thing,鈥� he says, 鈥渋s for the skydivers and the spelunkers of the disabled world.鈥�

I arrive in Charleston in mid-December, on the eve of I Got Legs鈥� second annual gala, a road race. But this isn鈥檛 just another boring 5K鈥�it鈥檚 a beer mile, a four-lap chugalug sprint of the city block surrounding .

Gorlitsky鈥檚 alluring race poster (an exoskeleton sporting Nikes) announces that it鈥檚 the Betty Carlton Beer Mile, a nod to his late grandmother, who was a chain-smoking roller-derby queen. There is even a Betty Carlton Beer Mile Queen, real estate agent and former TV reporter Sydney Ryan, who delivers just the right amount of ironic ohmygod squealing when a faux-solemn Gorlitsky crowns her with a tiara. Just under a hundred competitors, most of them around Gorlitsky鈥檚 age, and at least as many spectators have gathered not out of a piteous sense of obligation听but rather because, well, where else would a Charleston hipster quaff ales at 11 on a Saturday morning?

Everyone here is, it seems, a Gorlitsky fan, and he works the crowd with aplomb, grinning, dropping wry one-liners, pausing dutifully each time someone asks him to pose for a selfie. 鈥淗e鈥檚 got a really good cause,鈥� says Howard Thomas, a police officer working the scene. 鈥淲e see a lot of bad accidents, and it鈥檚 nice to see something positive come out of one of them.鈥�

鈥淗e鈥檚 a good model to anyone in a wheelchair,鈥� says beer miler Thomas Sessions, an engineer who is paralyzed from the armpits down. 鈥淗e鈥檚 motivating me to become an activist and to think about getting an exoskeleton.鈥�

When I join Gorlitsky out on the race course, shuffling beside him as he picks his way to a sub-one-hour mile, I find myself in the midst of a happy family drama. Gorlitsky鈥檚 dad is walking behind him, holding his hand at times, lest his son falls. Stan Gorlitsky, 69, was a veterinarian before he started Allergicpets.com, and in a thick accent redolent of his native New York, he tells me, 鈥淚 do this every race. Every race. And I have to train for this, you know. I鈥檓 on the treadmill five times a week. At my age, it鈥檚 a pain in the ass.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 not drinking today,鈥� says Stan, who has three other sons, including one who鈥檚 living at home with Asperger鈥檚. 鈥淚鈥檓 the designated driver. If he slips and I don鈥檛 catch him, he鈥檒l go down like a cut tree. And it鈥檚 a bitch to stand him up again.鈥�

Gorlitsky pokes his crutches forward, one at a time, as a handful of admirers fan out behind him, their own race long over as they sip beer.

We round a corner. 鈥淎ny tilts, any sand, any cracks in the pavement, any grates or walkways,鈥� Stan says, 鈥渇orget about it. I have to concentrate. A lot of times, I just tune out conversations.鈥�

Today听he鈥檚 not missing much. After the second lap (and third beer), Gorlitsky says, 鈥淚鈥檓 already drunk!鈥� After the third lap, he says of his exoskeleton, 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 wear it on a first date. I鈥檓 a little self-conscious in it. It takes up a lot of space. But on a second or third date? Definitely!鈥�

Just before Gorlitsky crosses the finish line, he allows himself to dream of next year鈥檚 beer mile. 鈥淚 want to have bands,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 want it to be a relay race, a festival. I want to make it a love letter to Charleston.鈥�

Gorlitsky鈥檚 emergence as a public figure in Charleston was filled with sparkle and hope. In April 2016, Julian Smith, the longtime director of Charleston鈥檚 premier road race鈥攖he , a 10K that draws 40,000 racers each April鈥攚elcomed Gorlitsky into the event, even though he knew that the man would be out on the course听posing traffic issues for听much longer than the average runner. After Gorlitsky finished, in just under seven hours, Smith invited him to speak at a national conference for race directors. Gorlitsky, in turn, got a tattoo on his right arm that reads 鈥�17,932鈥濃�攖he number of steps his ReWalk took in the race.

But last year, Smith contracted glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, and in听January听he decided to step down. Before the 2018 race, Gorlitsky locked horns with the race鈥檚 deputy director, Irv Batten, who (in the interest of time, permitting, and insurance issues) wanted him to race in a wheelchair. Gorlitsky refused鈥斺�淚 probably dropped some f-bombs,鈥� he acknowledges鈥攁nd was ultimately picked up, ingloriously, by the race鈥檚 sweep van near the two-mile point, unable to complete the course in the three hours allotted all racers.

Batten declined to comment for this story, but when I visit Gorlitsky at the comfortable two-bedroom house he rents from his dad in the suburbs of Charleston, he has no qualms about describing his feud with another Bridge Run luminary, Marka Danielle Rodgers, a 62-year-old quadriplegic. Rodgers, a ballet instructor and disabilities advocate, has an incomplete spinal injury, meaning that she retains some motor skills and was able to finish the 2016 Cooper River race in just over two hours, using a less elaborate (but still uncommon) set of $20,000 mechanized leg braces made by the German company Ottobock. In 2017, she began to wonder what I Got Legs had actually accomplished, 18 months after incorporating as a 501c3.

鈥淲hat is actually happening with your foundation?鈥� she wrote Gorlitsky on Facebook Messenger in late November. 鈥淲here is the money going? Who are you helping?鈥�

He wrote back, calling her 鈥減assive-aggressive,鈥� and said that her 鈥渆motional statements鈥� called to mind Donald Trump, who听both he and Rodgers abhor.

Rodgers is reluctant to criticize Gorlitsky, focusing her concerns instead on the ReWalk. 鈥淭o put it out there to the public that you can just go to your doctor听and get a scrip for this device and go walking鈥攖hat鈥檚 misleading,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 almost dangerous. It takes half an hour just to put a ReWalk on. It takes a lot of work to learn how to use one.听It鈥檚 very frustrating.鈥� And for people whose spinal injuries are incomplete, Rodgers says, a ReWalk won鈥檛 work. 鈥淚t鈥檚 jerky on the body. If I tried to use one, it could induce muscle spasms.鈥� 听

Still, Rodgers鈥檚听principal question is a good one. What鈥檚 happening at I Got Legs?

When Gorlitsky started the nonprofit, he hoped to help other paraplegics buy exoskeletons. Soon, though, he realized that the demand for such devices was low. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e too expensive,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd they wear out after only a few years.鈥� Instead听he decided, 鈥淲e need to help others toward their own version of getting legs.鈥�

In recent months, I Got Legs has helped promote a fund-raising dinner for a 13-year-old paraplegic girl who needs an elevator in her home. It also made plans to aid two other mobility-related campaigns:听One, set up by a Charleston physical-therapy student, aims to teach Ugandans how to build wheelchairs inexpensively. The other involves a disabled Ohio woman trying to scrape together $2,000 for a hand bike.

The latest tax documents of I Got Legs reveal that it received $38,117 in contributions in 2017, along with $14,715 in program revenues. Much of this went toward the 2016 Ford Explorer that Gorlitsky uses to drive around Charleston and to races. I Got Legs received a deep discount on the vehicle, along with a Braunability wheelchair ramp, from Charleston-based , which adapts vehicles for people with disabilities. As for the remaining contributions, 鈥渁lmost all came from sponsorships,鈥� Gorlitsky听says,听鈥渕eaning that a business contributes money and in exchange they receive signage or advertising at our events or on the car.鈥�

Gorlitsky says that I Got Legs spent the sponsorship funds on two awareness programs: One is his own One Million Steps Tour, which sees him trying to log that many paces at road races (he鈥檚 currently up to 217,189). The second is what he鈥檚 dubbed the ReEnabled Racing Circuit, which includes the beer mile and two Charleston-area events that are not run by I Got Legs鈥攁 Turkey Day 5K听and a July Fourth听Firecracker Run.

Thus far, Gorlitsky says, about ten听athletes with disabilities have joined him鈥攊n wheelchairs, in leg braces, and wearing prosthetics鈥攖o compete in the ReEnabled Circuit. I Got Legs has not yet given money to any mobility-impaired individuals, though it plans to in 2019, through a Got Legs! Give Back Fund. It has, however, already launched a program, I Need Legs, designed to help disabled people raise funds. Last year, in its first effort, I Need Legs helped a Charleston-based blind woman鈥擥ina Applebee, a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in psychology鈥攔aise about $10,000 for a tiny home she described on her GoFundMe page as the 鈥減erfect fit for my blind feng shui.鈥� I Got Legs helped Applebee by, for instance, hosting a happy-hour fund-raiser at a local bar and introducing her to news reporters. 听听

Throughout 2018, Gorlitsky worked with a pair of Charleston consultants, Sandy Morckel and Frank Sonntag, whose outfit Solutions for the Greater Good helps nonprofits with organizational management. As Sonntag sees it, Gorlitsky is a 鈥渂ig thinker鈥� whose vision surpasses I Got Legs鈥� tiny budget, and who's already looking to fund stem-cell research and create an endowment. Sonntag would like to see I Got Legs focus on aiding the mobility impaired. But he tells me, his tone judicious, 鈥淎dam isn鈥檛 a pushover. He doesn鈥檛 just flatly follow our lead.鈥�

Gorlitsky says he arrived at his $150,000 budget for 2019 with the help of Sonntag听and the board. Without divulging specifics, he claims he鈥檚 got some large donors lined up. 鈥淚鈥檓 into big rhetoric for sure,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut people are starting to see that I鈥檒l live up to the rhetoric.鈥�

鈥淔rom day one,听my philosophy has been:听You have to raise public awareness. From there, you can leverage fund-raising money,鈥� Gorlitsky says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e a content-driven nonprofit,鈥� he adds, alluding to the thousands of autobiographical videos he鈥檚 uploaded to Facebook and other platforms. 鈥淲e create content, and we leverage it to build community and educate people. I don鈥檛 give a shit about money. If your nonprofit places too much emphasis on giving money away鈥攚ell, then you鈥檙e just a GoFundMe. 鈥�

On the morning after the beer mile, I join Gorlitsky for what is his听first marathon-training sesh鈥攁 ten-mile hand-bike spin through a quiet suburban neighborhood. He鈥檚 on the hand cycle; I鈥檓 on wheeled roller skis. As we glide along, he tells me that soon he鈥檒l be walking about ten听miles a week and also doing frequent hand-cycling and gym sessions. 鈥淚鈥檇 like to walk more,鈥� he says, before considering his training partner. 鈥淏ut I have to be mindful of my dad鈥檚 body, too.鈥�

Stan has been training on the treadmill, and he says, 鈥淚鈥檓 99 percent sure I鈥檒l make it. Bottom line: I鈥檓 his roadie. He needs me.鈥�

Logistics will be complicated in L.A. In December, Gorlitsky received a legalistic 11-paragraph letter from the Los Angeles Marathon office听green-lighting his participation but also making clear that its officials were not about to stop traffic for 30-plus hours. 鈥淵ou will start at the 32K mark at 6:30 A.M.,鈥� the letter reads. 鈥淵our walk to the start line is not sanctioned.鈥�

In other words, Gorlitsky will need to travel the first 20 miles on the sidewalk鈥攐ver the cracked pavement and patches of sand that give Stan Gorlitsky nightmares. He鈥檒l move with an entourage鈥攁t least one ReWalk technician, a few supporters, and also a filmmaker, Caitlin Weiler, who鈥檚 including Adam鈥檚 journey in a documentary on her late father, a quadriplegic. Gorlitsky鈥檚 crew will carry some food and water on the back of his wheelchair.

Simon Kindleysides navigated London with a team as well. He did the last 18 miles of his marathon on sidewalks, alongside streets streaming with traffic. Which means that when Gorlitsky guns for Kindleysides鈥檚 record, he鈥檒l be ReWalking onto a level playing field. 鈥淚鈥檇 say I have an 80 percent chance of beating Simon鈥檚 time,鈥� he tells me. 鈥淚 ran a 4:50 mile in high school. I played varsity basketball.鈥�

Gorlitsky questions Kindleysides鈥檚 claim to have moved along at a 62-minute-mile pace at the London Marathon. 鈥淗ow鈥檚 that even possible?鈥� he asks. Kindleysides says he told Gorlitsky, 鈥淟ook, every disabled person has different abilities.鈥�

A ReWalk service engineer, Wai Li, sheds a little light on this question. 鈥淕orlitsky is not too smooth,鈥� says Li,听who walked the Portland half marathon beside him. As is true to a certain extent for all exoskeleton users, he says, 鈥淲hen Adam gets tired, he leans in many directions. He leans over the crutches so much. Supposedly, they are just there for balance, but his hands got bruised. In the end, he had to stop every block and rub them.鈥� Kindleysides, who is better able to recruit his core muscles, walked more upright. His hands were sore but not bruised after his marathon.

鈥淪imon has huge trunk control,鈥� Gorlitsky tells me at the tail end of my visit. We鈥檙e at his house, and he begins scrolling through his rival鈥檚 Facebook feed. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of selfies,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a boy-band thing going on. He鈥檚 got the tattoos, the hair.鈥�

As I drive toward the airport, I remember something Gorlitsky said in an e-mail early on: 鈥淓very time I say the F-word to someone,鈥� he wrote, 鈥淚 do give them a big hug and tell them I鈥檓 sorry immediately after.鈥� Gorlitsky gets it. He鈥檚 young, and he鈥檚 had a life freighted with more frustrations and challenges than most. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before he learns to channel the frustration within.

Simon Kindleysides may already be there. When I call him to ask for his thoughts on Gorlitsky鈥檚 upcoming race, his voice is cheery as his kids squeal and cavort in the background. 鈥淗e says he鈥檚 going to beat me,鈥� Kindleysides says, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 he going to smash my record. Well听then, why doesn鈥檛 he just bring it on? Isn鈥檛 that what competition is all about? I wish him good luck.鈥�

The post The Paraplegic Marathon Man appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

For me, the biggest mystery swirling around fitness guru Kale Poland is why the retail giant Walmart has thus far failed to offer him corporate sponsorship. A few years ago, when Kale was competing in the excruciating Peak 500 footrace in Vermont, running a muddy mountain loop over and over听amid torrid rainstorms, his mildewed, blistered feet swelled up like balloons. His running shoes became skin-shearing straitjackets,听so Kale made a strategic move that would now be legend, if only Walmart had been paying attention: he sent his wife to the nearest Supercenter to buy him a pair of $13, size-13 Walmart-brand boats.

After the missus came back with the shoes, Kale proceeded to wear them through the race鈥檚 remaining 320 miles. He wore them as he ran through the midnight chill. He wore them as he stumbled through the race鈥檚 final loop, hallucinating, somehow seeing mannequins in the woods and letters printed on boulders. He wore them as he crossed the finish line, victorious.

And in the aftermath of his Peak 500 triumph, Kale Poland, who鈥檚 36, has only proven himself more qualified to be a Walmart spokesmodel. An amiable, can-do country boy who grew up in a tiny Maine farm town, he is the mastermind behind Cleetus Fit, a one-man school of exercise science meant to evoke a mythical, slack-jawed hillbilly.

Cleetus Fit flourishes on , where some 3,000 friends听lap up Kale鈥檚 wry three-a-day posts about, say, his dog Sage鈥檚 stick-fetching habits, his swim workouts, and his he-man runs through raging blizzards. It also lives and breathes in the green hills of New Hampshire鈥檚 Lakes Region, where 25 or so of his personal-training clients join Kale in eschewing the gymnasium to听build muscle by towing dumpsters across parking lots and doing push-ups atop the underside of a wheelbarrow. The Cleetus juggernaut at times strays into relatively more esoteric corners of the fitness universe鈥攚ith a partner, Kale recently opened , a studio in Meredith, New Hampshire鈥攂ut a chummy, hat-backwards听dudeness permeates all things Cleetus. See, for example, Kale鈥檚 eloquent Facebook diss of highfalutin听cross-country skiers (鈥淚 don't drive a Subaru or a Volvo and I don't lie awake at night dreaming about how I am going to win the waxing debate tomorrow鈥�).听Or consider a recent selfie that captured Kale out on a听185-mile training ride dressed in a cotton hoodie and stuffing pizza into his maw.

鈥淏EAST!!鈥� wrote one friend, adding a comment to the robust dialogue that accompanies all Kale posts.

鈥淚 thought that was raw bacon,鈥� wrote another.

鈥淵ou,鈥� rejoiced a third, 鈥渁re a marvelous hack.鈥�

On November 6, the world鈥檚 largest retailer will once again miss a chance to embrace this populist hero. That morning, Kale will leap into a University of New Orleans swimming pool to commence 鈥嬧�嬧�嬧�嬧�嬧��, the first-ever Deca Ironman鈥攖hat鈥檚 ten Ironmans in a row鈥攖o be held in the continental U.S. The race will see 16 brave athletes attempting to swim 24 miles (in other words, 792 laps) before they shuttle to nearby to bike 1,120 miles (160 mind-numbing repeats of a flat seven-mile loop). The sufferfest concludes on foot, with no less than 262 out-and-back repeats of the same half-mile-long patch of dirt. The clock will be running constantly, meaning that front-runners will likely retreat to their course-side sleeping tents for maybe three hours a night before finishing in roughly nine days.

The deca, born in Mexico in 1992, is still only held two or three times a year worldwide. It鈥檚 gaining popularity, and there are now even occasional double and triple decas for the most depraved sadists. None of these races draw听the fun-run multitudes, however. When Kale came in second in his first deca鈥攖he World Cup Ultratriathlon Challenge in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2012, crossing the line in 12 days, 10 hours, and 20 minutes鈥攈e was also the last-place finisher.

In Louisiana, race director Wayne Kurtz says Kale is most likely to distinguish himself by spending very little money on the race. 鈥淚f you give Kale a T-shirt,鈥� Kurtz says, 鈥渉e鈥檒l wear it for ten years.鈥� As Kurtz sees it, Kale is a possible dark horse at Decaman. (It鈥檚 almost impossible to handicap a race that so brazenly courts human decay, but a wise bettor would do well to back Ferenc Szonyi, a 54-year-old Hungarian who was the lone finisher in June鈥檚 , a 300-mile running race that traversed the Indian Himalayas, summiting听five peaks.) 鈥淜ale鈥檚 weak in the swim,鈥� says Kurtz, 鈥渂ut the guy can ride, and he鈥檚 great on sleep deprivation. We know he can grind through the night, but his biggest asset, really, is his calmness鈥攁nd his dad鈥檚 calmness.鈥�

Kale鈥檚 father, Wes Poland, who run the parts department at a tractor dealership in Auburn, Maine, is his son鈥檚 pit-crew chief. It鈥檚 a challenging job with its own adventures in sleep deprivation and stormy emotion. 鈥淭he deca is a soap opera,鈥� explains Kurtz. 鈥淎t one race last year in Mexico, three or four people on this one crew started screaming at each听other in Portuguese. Soon enough听they were leaving, midrace, and flying back home to Brazil. Kale and Wes, they鈥檙e steady. I can see Kale going top five.鈥�

As it happens, I live near Kale鈥檚 current home in the Lakes Region. We鈥檙e in the same cycling group, and in early September, I decided that America needed to hear his story. A few days later, at dusk, he and I were road-tripping to his parents鈥� cabin in western Maine, so that he could听do an all-night-long trail run followed by a punishing, sleep-deprived morning bike ride over a mountain pass.

鈥淭he thing about the deca,鈥� Kale says, driving along, 鈥渋s you鈥檙e miserable most of the time. It鈥檚 not like there鈥檚 joy in the misery. It鈥檚 just misery, so the training is all about building mental toughness.鈥�

In the lead-up to that first deca in Mexico, back before Kale was a sought-after, $50-an-hour personal trainer, his daily life had such hardships built in. He was living in Laconia, New Hampshire, pulling a graveyard shift as a supermarket shelf stocker then and also working full-time at Eastern Mountain Sports down in Concord, and even though EMS was 26 miles from home, he commuted on a bike鈥攐n a single speed, in the winter. 鈥淪ometimes,鈥� he tells me, waxing nostalgic, 鈥淚鈥檇 look at my schedule and realize, 鈥極h, God, I can鈥檛 sleep for the next two days.鈥欌��

In the years since the Monterrey deca, Kale has sought out new ways to sabotage his sinew. In 2015, he established an ultramarathon cycling听record, traversing a 255-mile-wide swath of Maine in 15:01. More recently, he鈥檚 taken to running the trails of New Hampshire鈥檚 White Mountains in pursuit of fastest known times.

We keep driving. The lawns around us are still bearing Trump signs two years after he was elected. We get passed by a pickup truck fluttering two American flags from the tailgate. We鈥檙e on Kale鈥檚 home turf. He grew up in Turner, Maine, which the听Portland Press Herald 鈥渙ne of Maine鈥檚 most conservative towns,鈥� a 鈥渇arming community that prizes self-sufficiency and low taxes.鈥�

Turner, it so happens, is home to one of New England鈥檚 largest chicken farms, a sprawling environmental nightmare whose scent permeated the town. 鈥淚n the spring, when it got warm,鈥� remembers Kale鈥檚 old friend Nick Harrington, 鈥渢he manure started to thaw out at the chicken coops, and you鈥檇 need to put up fly strips. You鈥檇 need a few dozen fly swatters in your house.鈥�

鈥淵ou could never get anyone to come to Turner for barbecues,鈥� remembers Linda Poland, Kale鈥檚 aunt.

In Kale鈥檚 childhood, motor sports were holy. 鈥淲e might have had a shutoff notice from the light company,鈥� says his uncle and neighbor, Dan Poland, a mechanic, 鈥渂ut we still had boats, four-wheelers, snowmobiles, campers, go-karts, and minibikes.鈥�

Kale was five when he was given his first snowmobile, a 295cc 1972 Polaris Colt. By the time he was ten, he and his buddies were ranging miles from home and changing out their own spark plugs and belts. Their favorite pastime involved climbing into plastic sleds, so they could be snowmobile-towed at blistering speed to the crest of a hill.

When Kale began dabbling, at age 12, in cross-country ski racing, his cronies regarded him as a defector. They called him a 鈥渇orest fairy,鈥� Kale says, and at first he steered clear of his new sport鈥檚 most effete practices. He refused to wear Lycra and instead raced in wind pants and a hoodie. He brought the same raw ethic of听his adolescent forays into triathlon. In his first tri, he swam over a mile with his head up, out of the water (he鈥檇 never learned the crawl). His borrowed department-store road bike had a ruined bottom bracket, and even though he was a formidable runner, he finished deep within the bottom third of the field in a lowly all-comers race.

The seed was planted, though, and in his undergraduate days at University of Maine鈥揗achias, Kale bought his first real bike. Glory was only a few thousand workouts away.

When Kale and I reach the cabin, Wes Poland is already there, seated at the kitchen table, drinking a Coors wrapped in a beer cozy. A merry and slightly jowly raconteur with a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache, he launches right away into comic stories. He tells me how at one quintuple Ironman, when the balls of Kale鈥檚 feet became two giant blisters, he duct-taped sandals to his son鈥檚 ravaged dogs, giving them a chance to air out as he hobbled along. 鈥淲e fixed the problem,鈥� he says, before gesturing across the table at his wife, Belinda, who is a nurse. 鈥淵our mother wouldn鈥檛 be too impressed by how we fixed it, but we fixed it.鈥�

鈥淚 just can't watch Kale鈥檚 races,鈥� says Belinda, who has aided Wes in crewing, along with numerous relatives. 鈥淢y job is to make people better.鈥�

Wes shrugs, snickering. Then he lays out his philosophy, which he honed partly by crewing at rural Maine stock-car races back in the seventies and eighties. 鈥淵ou just gotta suck it up if you want to finish what you started,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have any sympathy for the athlete. You can鈥檛 let him wallow in self-pity. You鈥檝e just got to keep him moving and fed. And you鈥檝e gotta stay focused. I don鈥檛 pay attention to what anyone else is doing鈥攖hat鈥檚 their business. And I try to keep things consistent. Kale is excellent at consistency. On the bike, you could set your watch by his laps.鈥�

By now听Kale is stuffing three headlamps into his backpack. It鈥檚 10 p.m., time for his run up the two peaks of nearby Baldpate听Mountain, elevation 3,812 feet. I鈥檝e already elected to forego the outing in favor of a little shut-eye, but when Kale gets back to the cabin at 3 a.m, dripping with sweat, we touch base, whispering in deference to his dad who needs to wake at four for a busy day at the dealership. 鈥淩ight now,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 do not feel like getting on my bike, and I think that鈥檚 exactly how I need to feel. I need to be exhausted.鈥�

鈥淣oted,鈥� I think, and then drift back into sleep.

At dawn, with Kale still gone, I head out for a walk on a winding back road. After maybe an hour, I hear something behind me, a bike, and then Kale and I are ensconced in a pivotal moment. He has full license to just zip past me, head down. It鈥檇 be kind of a dickish move, sure, but he鈥檚 training, and it鈥檚 cold outside. Does he really want his muscles to stiffen up in the damp?

Kale slows down until he鈥檚 right beside me, moving at a piddling three miles an hour as he and I shoot the breeze. 鈥淒id you go up to that quarry?鈥� he asks. There鈥檚 a sweetness in his tone, a caring. The original plan had been for us to ride together, but I tweaked my back. The injury鈥檚 put me in a slightly maudlin mood, and Kale, it seems, has picked up on this. He rides all the way in beside me, chatting. It鈥檚 no big deal鈥攋ust an easy gesture of kindness鈥攂ut it makes me realize that there鈥檚 so much more than sweat and snideness to the Cleetus program. There鈥檚 a humility and an unrehearsed warmth. 听

Everything Kale does in fitness has a welcoming vibe. His mission in life is to make outdoor sports fun for all, even if they鈥檙e not ectomorphic gear geeks. A decade ago, while living in Maine鈥檚 northernmost county, he dreamed up a footrace, the , to rebut the Tough Mudder, which he regards as a 鈥渇ake tough race for fake tough people.鈥� He obliged competitors to linger at 鈥渢orture stations鈥� as they slogged 30 miles through boggy river bottoms and over old railroad beds. The fitter the runner, the more often they were听asked to chain themselves to a truck tire or lug cinder blocks up a hill or push helmeted volunteers through the woods on a refrigerator dolly. There was no entry fee and no trophies, but Kale rewarded all finishers with a rusty railroad spike. One competitor so loved the Dirty 30 that he got a spike tattooed on his calf.

The Dirty 30 is no more (for liability reasons), but in recent years, Kale has continued to accrue fans鈥攆rom personal training and also from the听, where he鈥檚 taught cross-country skiing to grade-schoolers and also led mountaintop yoga, often luring 30 or 40 pilgrims who climb to the summit to partake of Kale鈥檚 guidance through downward dog.

The man is not unaware of his cult status, and at times his Facebook posts seek out a sonorous, sermon-like depth. 鈥淓verything I have seen,鈥� he wrote one morning last July, after the early death of a beloved Gunstock employee, 鈥渧alidates a theory I have had all along: Life is short. DO IT NOW. SPEND THE MONEY. TAKE THE TRIP. LIVE WILD.鈥�

One hundred and thirty likes ensued, along with 55 loves and 27 comments:

鈥淲辞谤诲.鈥�

鈥淭谤耻迟丑!鈥�

鈥淎men to that!鈥�

The next time I see Kale, on a warm September afternoon, he鈥檚 heading to a small, crunchy New Hampshire preschool鈥擲aplings, it鈥檚 called鈥攖o do a 90-minute session in his new role as the school鈥檚 mindfulness/yoga instructor. We ride there together in his pickup, and in a way it seems odd that a self-described redneck鈥攁 man who voted for Donald Trump in 2016鈥攚ould take such an assignment.

But Kale鈥檚 interest in yoga is sincere, even if he first took to the mat for branding reasons. (鈥淧eople were afraid of doing personal training with me because they figured that I was too hardcore,鈥� he explains. 鈥淚 wanted to soften my image.鈥�) Over the last couple of years, he鈥檚 gone all-in. He鈥檚 partaken of a heart-chakra-opening yoga workshop on a blood moon, and recently on Facebook he drifted into the namaste mists when he proclaimed, 鈥淚 am still in my infancy as a yogi.鈥�

Kale鈥檚 woo-woo credentials are seriously undercut by his taste for beer yoga,听which involves swilling large quantities of Pabst Blue Ribbon, but whatever. This fall听on Facebook, he wrote with thrilled lyricism about Saplings: 鈥淵ou guys. I went to a special place today. Kids were muddy and jumping off rocks and playing with frogs.鈥�

When we reach the 22-acre wooded campus, the children are inside a yurt, their teacher hushing them upon the sound of our footfalls. 鈥淥wl eyes and mouse mouths, everyone,鈥� she says. 鈥淜ale is here.鈥�

He stoops low and enters the yurt wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt, tattered shorts, and a ski hat, and soon the day鈥檚 mindfulness regime begins. It consists, basically, of running around in the woods, with Kale leading the pack. 鈥淟et's go to the stump circle!鈥� he shouts. We all scramble out there, snaking through the trees and the brush. When we sit down to pass the sharing stick, one little boy says that his favorite thing about Saplings is 鈥済oing on adventures and running.鈥�

鈥淵eah,鈥� Kale says, nodding solemnly as he clutches the stick. 鈥淚 second that. Definitely.鈥�

We quack like ducks as we weave along toward the Big Rock, then climb atop it before clambering on toward the muddy shores of the brook. Then a moment later, it happens: some kid steps on a yellow-jacket nest, and suddenly we鈥檙e all sprinting down a hill, the children screaming in terror, the adults scooping them into their arms. The yellow jackets move with us, a black听menacing cloud, and each time a child gets stung, an anguished cry pierces the forest.

We keep running. The wasps go into hiding now, lodging under everyone鈥檚 shirts. Kale and the teacher begin stripping clothing off kids. One little boy looks up at me, the interloper, and in tears he asks, 鈥淎re the bees going to keep chasing us forever?鈥�

We reach safety on the leafy playground, finally, and a week later, after I鈥檝e spent many hours icing my welts, I learn that every single sapling has fully recovered. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 even say the word bee,鈥� Kale tells me after his next visit. I start imagining these kids as future deca stars. I mean, they鈥檝e got the whole pain-tolerance thing down鈥�.

Kale is in focused-training mode now. As autumn comes on鈥攁s the leaves flame orange and then drift down onto the roads, becoming cold slime under our tires鈥攈is Facebook feed attains a quiet and sober timbre. Anyone who has ever entered a race knows the goose-pimply chills that precede the call to the starting line. Now that feeling seeps into Kale鈥檚 words, so that one morning in late October, he dials in on the specific agonies his trial will entail. 鈥淐ontact and extended exposure,鈥� he writes. 鈥淭he sun on the skin. The chlorine from the pool where the goggles press your eyes. The weight of your body on the bike seat pressing up against your ass. The wind in your eyes.鈥�

Sage the dog is momentarily left unmentioned. In these last, critical days, the PBRs retreat into the dark recesses at the back of the fridge. Homeboy鈥檚 got a race to run鈥攁 long one. He needs to be ready.

The post The Proudly Backwoods Fitness Trainer appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Tour de France broadcasts are almost cruel in their teasing. First there are the helicopter shots of the lovely French countryside: the green hills, the little stone churches, the sloping pastures filled with sleepy-eyed cows. Then we see the peloton snaking through some tiny upland village, past the boulangerie, the charcuterie. Then, just to drive the knife home, the camera鈥檚 focus narrows onto some completely charming outdoor caf茅 as the sun spills onto the cobblestones. In that instant, we鈥檙e almost programmed to think about alighting in a small village for a month, existing on fromage and Beaujolais.

Ultimately, most of us will shake off the fantasy. But it really is possible to vanish into the French countryside. I know this because in 1980, my uncle bought a crumbling, centuries-old house at the northern edge of the Pyrenees, an hour from the Spanish border, and never returned to American life. William Joseph Donahue was a Catholic cleric鈥攂oth a monk and a priest鈥攁s well as a sensitive poet who in middle age came to regard his Benedictine order in Washington, D.C., as hidebound and archaic. After writing a pained 28-page letter to the pope, beseeching His Holiness for 鈥渞elease from my religious vows,鈥� and following a brief stint as a newspaperman in Canada, my uncle moved to Montastruc-de-Salies, a small village where the church bells toll hourly and sleekly clad cycling squads spin through in springtime, mixing with tractors and stray dogs wandering the road. The Tour passed through Montastruc in 2008, and this year, on July 24, Stage 16 will wend 1,300 feet up and down the Col de Portet-d鈥橝spet, about 15 miles from the village.

In Montastruc, my uncle settled into a different sort of monkish life, staying so close to home that he once managed to keep a fire burning in the hearth for 77 days straight. Sustained by a meager pension, he spent his mornings engrossed in a singular project: translating Thucydides鈥檚 eight-volume from Greek into Latin. He bent over each page with a magnifying glass and scribed his work into small perfect-bound notebooks, his handwriting so minuscule and precise that, looking at it today, I find it luminous, like the calligraphy on a medieval scroll. On afternoons he tended a meticulous vegetable garden in the shadow of a cragged peak, Paloum猫re, elevation 5,280 feet, from whose summit the entire Pyrenees is visible, stretching snowily from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

It鈥檚 difficult to convey how dear and formative, and also perplexing, it is to have such an uncle. He was a man of letters, and as a brooding and outr茅 teenager inclined toward Hermann Hesse and Albert Camus, I idolized him. Uncle Bill had escaped the excesses of American materialism鈥攁 coup, in my eyes鈥攁nd there was something beautiful and delicate about him. He stood apart. I knew this, I think, even when I was three years old and he showed up at my family鈥檚 house in Connecticut on a hot summer day, mischievously smirking and light on his feet when he grabbed the hose and doused me with cold water as I ran all over the yard, squealing with glee. He was a slight man鈥攆ive foot seven and 140 pounds鈥攁nd all his life he retained the buoyant, playful spirit of a small boy. I loved him; that never wavered.

Still, ensconced by his smoky fireplace in the Pyrenees, my uncle was so far away from the suburbs of Hartford, where my father, his only sibling, was an estate lawyer and where I myself, despite my anti-capitalist leanings, was a high school ski racer, an expensively equipped habitu茅 of Mount Southington. Later I was busy with college. I got married, then began raising a daughter. I鈥檓 ashamed to admit that during the 26 years Uncle Bill was in France, I visited him only three times. We corresponded often, but there was a formality to my uncle鈥檚 letters, which might linger on the German theologian Hans K眉ng before signing off 鈥淵our Kinsman.鈥�

At Saint Anselm鈥檚 Abbey School in Washington, D.C., he鈥檇 been a beloved teacher of history and Latin. He was a brilliant and socially nimble man, but at age 53 he took to his hermitage, embracing the Voltaire quote that would ultimately be engraved on his tombstone: 鈥淲e must cultivate our own garden.鈥�

Is it OK to cut away from the life of work, as my uncle did, and from everyday interaction with other people? In the dozen years since his death, I鈥檝e wondered. I鈥檝e also missed him. During this time I鈥檝e become a diehard road cyclist, a whittled Strava striver with the standard fetish for vintage Gitane frames and cols de whatever. France exerted a certain tug on me. So this spring, a few months after my own 53rd birthday, I flew to Toulouse, rented a car, and began climbing into the hills. 听

I reach Montastruc听on a cool Thursday evening, just as the village church bells are striking six, bracing myself for a sad story. Montastruc was an agricultural village when my uncle moved there, but family farming has suffered in France, and now, a French tourism official wrote me about the place in an e-mail, 鈥淢ost of the inhabitants are old, quite old.鈥�

When I step into the town hall, I鈥檓 surprised to find that the mayor, 57-year-old Bertrand Lacarr猫re, is slim and dapper and readying for a backcountry ski trip in Spain. Lacarr猫re, who also plays guitar in a rock band, is a socialist and a Paris native whose family roots in Montastruc date back to the 17th-century reign of Louis XIV. As a child, he spent summers roaming the countryside here鈥斺�渓ike Tom Sawyer,鈥� he tells me. 鈥淚 caught trout in the river with my hands. I went hunting. I climbed into caves with other kids and met up with girls. I always knew that I wanted to do something for this village.鈥�

The issues confronting the Lacarr猫re administration are small-timey (on billboards all over town, I鈥檒l see public notices announcing the purchase of a municipal photocopier), but the mayor harbors a larger vision: to keep the village 鈥渧ital.鈥� He鈥檚 succeeded. The population is currently about 300 and growing. The Football Club Montastruc-de-Salies is 30 members strong, made up largely of twentysomething lads who work in Toulouse and return on weekends to 颅occupy ancestral homes and enjoy the region鈥檚 burgeoning outdoor scene. These days the skies above Montastruc are often filled with paragliders dropping down from the spires of the Pyrenees. Nearby is the low-key ski resort Le Mourtis, with 1,600 feet of vertical drop. And in summers, open-air concerts are held in the ruins of a 12th-century monastery, Bonnefont, a half-hour away.

When I meander back out onto the street from the town hall at dusk, I make my way toward the cemetery at the base of the church tower. Because I can鈥檛 remember exactly where my uncle is buried, I stroll the gravel pathways, marveling at the flowers on the graves and the distinctly French plaques that crowd the long, flat top of each tombstone, memorializing the departed鈥攁 grandfather, a husband, a great-uncle.

There are, it seems, only three last names in this cemetery: Esquerr茅, Lassale, and Mailheau. My uncle is an outsider, and I hate to think of him lying here all alone, for I remember how much joy he brought me. When I was ten or eleven, Uncle Bill and I often played Ping-Pong in my family鈥檚 basement. Our battles were cutthroat. Once, after smacking a forehand that went wide, he slammed his sandpaper paddle on the table and cursed, 鈥淒amn!鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 sorry, Bill,鈥� he added quickly, remembering that he was a priest. 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry. I shouldn鈥檛 have said that.鈥�

When I reach his grave, I find six memorial plaques. One I鈥檇 left there myself; another is from friends of my family. The remaining four are a happy mystery that I won鈥檛 solve tonight. I鈥檓 jet-lagged and ready for sleep.

My uncle's house is in a quartier of Montastruc known as Escat, a hilltop mini ham-let that consists of four dwellings and the ruins of a 700-year-old castle. The house is tidy and well maintained these days, occu颅pied by a 13th-generation Montastruc native鈥攁 schoolteacher鈥攁nd her husband, a football player.

When my uncle first arrived, he was the quartier鈥檚 only occupant, and the plaster skin on the walls of his house was so ravaged that blunt stones poked through. There was no insulation and no heat source, save for the fireplace鈥攏ever mind that he was situated 1,500 feet above sea level and subject to the odd soggy snowfall.

What I remember most from my visits is the dim, amber quality of the light inside the house, and the cool, cave-like air, and how, when you stepped to the windows in the morning and threw open the wooden shutters, life poured in. There was sunlight suddenly, and songbirds darting about in the bushes; the peaks of Paloum猫re shone snowy white in the distance.

My uncle loved being here, in touch with an ancient, elemental world. In his letter to the pope, he said that he鈥檇 conceived 鈥渁 roman颅tic love for medieval history and Gothic art鈥� as a teen, and in his poetry, which was never widely published, he described 鈥渢he phoebes calling鈥�/鈥塼hrough the reedlands of April鈥�/鈥塼he almond-colored castles up irre颅traceable pathways.鈥�

It was serendipity that he ended up on this particular hilltop. In 1975, when he was working on the editorial page of the Ottawa Journal, he met some young travelers, recent university grads from the Pyrenees. The Journal was ceasing publication, and my uncle鈥檚 new acquaintances offhandedly suggested he begin life afresh in France. A few weeks later he called one of them鈥攁 health care administrator named Nicole B茅gu茅鈥攆rom the train station in Toulouse, intent on looking for real estate.

In a village with almost no other foreigners, my uncle was known as l鈥橝m茅ricain. In 1996, when he acquired his first neighbors, Christian and Nicole Bosc, they became 鈥渢he people who live next to l鈥橝m茅ricain.鈥� He was well mannered and generous, freely sharing the fruits of his garden and loaning out his car, but he was so discreet that the Boscs didn鈥檛 even know he was Catholic. Intrigue built up around him. When my uncle gave the village officials a simple gift鈥攁 sundial he found in his house鈥攊t was regarded as possibly valuable, perhaps a remnant from the old castle. When I visit the mayor鈥檚 office, in fact, the sundial is still there, locked in a closet, a gray slab with a long, thin, rusty rod for a dial. Mayor Lacarr猫re tells me, 鈥淚鈥檇 like to put it out, but I鈥檓 afraid it would be stolen.鈥�

To me the prospect seems unlikely. The dial looks suspiciously like circa-1970 rebar.

Nothing of material听value existed in my uncle鈥檚 immediate orbit. This became crystal clear in 2006, when he died, at age 78, of kidney failure. My father flew to France to make the funeral arrangements. He called me from Montastruc and said, 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e just going to get rid of everything here.鈥�

鈥淎ll of Uncle Bill鈥檚 papers?鈥� I asked, suddenly stricken, doing the math. 鈥淎ll of his notebooks?鈥�

鈥淟ook,鈥� Dad said. 鈥淵ou are never going to read any of that stuff. No one else is, either.鈥�

My father had some reason to regard his younger brother鈥檚 withdrawal to France as frivolous. His own life had been infinitely practical. For 50 years, he had worked at the same law firm, stowing in his closet five business suits鈥攁 Monday suit, a Tuesday suit, and so on. He put three kids through college, and he represented his brother legally, working with the Benedictines to leverage his small pension. But Dad also saw something pure in his brother, and when I protested that Uncle Bill鈥檚 papers had to be saved, it was he who paid for my transatlantic plane ticket.

I ended up cleaning out the whole house, which was not difficult. My uncle鈥檚 array of possessions had been pared down to the contours of his simple life, so much so that each object seemed to shine鈥�this wooden spoon, this black-and-white television, this battered radio with a cord gnawed by mice. I couldn鈥檛 bring myself to take these items to the local version of Goodwill, and trying to sell them seemed absurd, so I summoned his neighbors to the house and, two by two, they arrived, offering condolences before solemnly trundling the relics home.

I gave the Boscs an aluminum stepladder, and Nicole told me that when my uncle was growing frail, she looked out for him. 鈥淭he first thing I鈥檇 do in the morning,鈥� she said, 鈥渨as peer out my window to see if there was smoke coming out of his chimney.鈥�

The bond was rooted in mutual respect. My uncle had grown up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, back when the area was still agricultural, and as a kid he鈥檇 earned a dime an hour helping a local farmer with his haying. He kept a victory garden during World War II. Country life was virtuous in his eyes, physical labor honest and good, and in Montastruc he was enchanted to be around people attuned to the land. Once, he told me, he went to a small party where a local family was unveiling its farm鈥檚 most recent vintage of homegrown wine. A man stood up and pronounced, 鈥淚 can taste the rocks on the back of the hill.鈥�

My uncle brought to gardening the same zeal for perfection that imbued his study of Latin and Greek. He was intent on cultivating one very specific sliver of land鈥攎aybe 50 feet by 40 feet鈥攐n the southeast-facing slope of a hill adjoining a cow pasture at latitude 43 degrees north, as expertly as he possibly could, and his gardening journals reveal an agronomist at work. Writing in French, he recorded the variety of each seed he planted, the date and the weather, and his stratagems for dodging the torrents of nature. 鈥淎s a result of last night鈥檚 storm,鈥� he wrote on August 15, 2001, 鈥渢he corn fell. I tried to straighten it with string.鈥�

A vague sense of defeat pervades every passage. 鈥淭he potatoes are good,鈥� he writes, 鈥渂ut they鈥檙e small.鈥�

I suspect that he wished his connection to the French soil was not intellectual but rather ancestral, in his blood and bones. His closest friends in Montastruc鈥擜ndr茅 and Jeannette Touzet, first cousins roughly my uncle鈥檚 age鈥攍ived together in the same rambling stone farmhouse where their fathers were born. My uncle spoke of the Touzets with a certain awe, as though they were made of a rare element yet to be discovered by science. 鈥淲hen daylight savings comes,鈥� he told me once, 鈥渢hey never even touch their clocks. They live by the hours of the sun, and at home they don鈥檛 speak French. They speak Languedoc,鈥� a regional Latinate patois.

My uncle met the Touzets during his first Montastruc winter. When his pipes froze one night, he walked a quarter-mile downhill to their home bearing a few plastic jugs and, in gentlemanly tones, asked if he could fill up at their spigot. Soon he was visiting once a week to chat about the weather, or the eggplant in his garden, or the mushrooms he found while foraging in the woods.

Andr茅 Touzet died in 2006, but Jeannette is still flourishing. When I knock on her door and announce that my name is William Donahue, I am instantly accorded VIP status. She is 90 now, and though she is silver haired and stooped, her smile still glows; in her wholesome, earthy way, she leaves Catherine Deneuve in the dust. I鈥檓 smitten, too, but thanks to my bad French and her challenged hearing, all we can 颅really do is grin at one another as we sit at the long wooden table by her brick hearth, which has been seared black by decades of fire.

When I return with an interpreter, Madame Touzet is able to tell a story that pierces me. We鈥檙e talking about the Touzets鈥� dogs. 鈥淭hey were all hunting dogs,鈥� she says, 鈥渁nd Monsieur William never hunted. He had no interest in killing things, not even a snake that got into his garden. He was interested in the dogs, though, and he always wanted to be included, so he went on a couple of hunts, just to watch. He became friends with the dogs. Sometimes he fed them scraps.鈥�

She shows me a picture of my uncle, 55ish and lean, wearing a white T-shirt and high mud boots as three dogs circle tightly around him. He鈥檚 bending low to pet one, and his face glows with delight. 鈥淪ee this one here?鈥� she says. 鈥淲hen she wanted sympathy, she would always go up the hill to Monsieur William鈥檚 garden. When she was very sick, she wanted to be with him, so I called him. He came down and laid her in his car. She died right there, in the passenger seat, on the way back to his house.鈥�

鈥淗ow did you know that the dog wanted to be with him?鈥� I ask.

鈥淚 just knew,鈥� says Madame Touzet.

It was only after my uncle died that I realized how much suffering his sensitivity caused him. His 1975 letter to the pope is a long confession exploring the anguish he suffered as a youth, as he set one woman after another up on a pedestal, only to be crushingly rejected. 鈥淎t 16,鈥� he writes, 鈥淚 already cast myself in the role of the poet reaching out for unattainable beauty in romantic love.鈥�

When he was 23, he told the pontiff, his devastation over one young woman was so total that he decided 鈥淚 would probably never be able to love anyone else.鈥� He gravitated toward the Church and became a novice monk at 25. The rites of Catholicism鈥攖he incense, the gleaming Communion chalice鈥攈eld a shimmering allure for him. He romanticized these things in the same way he did women, and he hoped, he wrote in his papal letter, that his carnal longings 鈥渨ould all be positively subsumed by my growing interest in the understanding of the Gospel and theology.鈥�

They weren鈥檛. The whole time my uncle wore the cloth, women kept falling for his gentleness and wisdom. He was the sage to whom they wrote long, soul-searching letters. The relationships were platonic but steeped in shared secrets and a tenderness that set my uncle in a tizzy. In the early seventies, when he met a nun poised to leave her religious order, he was as innocent and vulnerable as a middle schooler. A true romance blossomed. Then it disintegrated, and my uncle fell into, he writes, 鈥渁 state of utter desolation and confusion.鈥�

His fragility was not simply emotional. It was neurological as well. He had epilepsy, but he didn鈥檛 learn this until after the nun left him and he sat down to draft a poem. Concentrating, he suffered a grand mal seizure that left him unconscious for 45 minutes. 鈥淚 hoped that I would die,鈥� he wrote the pope, 鈥渙r that I would be a permanent invalid for whom any future would be impossible.鈥�

Soon after he arrived in France, his friend Nicole B茅gu茅鈥攐ne of the travelers he鈥檇 met in Ottawa鈥攎arried a doctor, Henri Llop, who was so taken by my uncle鈥檚 quiet charm that he insisted my uncle live close by, in case the epilepsy flared. Over the ensuing 26 years, he dined with the Llops once a week. By candlelight in my uncle鈥檚 dimly lit kitchen, or beneath the chandeliers in their elegantly appointed home, they ruminated and laughed over delicately prepared foie gras and goblets of Bordeaux. 鈥淣o one could listen like he could,鈥� remembers Nicole. 鈥淚f someone died, if you were grieving, he would grieve with you.鈥�

鈥淵ou look just like him,鈥� she told me when we met. 鈥淵ou even walk like him.鈥�

My uncle flourished in Montastruc, seizure-free. He鈥檇 left a religion that required the suppression of natural urges to partake in keen sensual pleasures鈥攖he sun on his back as he hoed broccoli, the piquant taste of a tomato he鈥檇 grown himself, in cow shit given to him by the Touzets. He was happy.

Which is not to say that Uncle Bill let his hair down. He remained celibate. I don鈥檛 know why鈥攊t鈥檚 not something he would ever have spoken about to anyone. But my read is that, once he came out from under the weight of the Church鈥檚 strictures, his sense of personal deprivation began to dissipate and he gradually became OK with being a little different from others. Maybe he realized that what he had to offer the world was a certain stillness, a shining peacefulness.

His retreat from the mania of modern America was nearly total. When I visited him in 2003, he was unaware that there was a chain of coffee shops called Starbucks. All he could tell me about the Internet was that he鈥檇 read about it somewhere.

In the weeks since my return from Montastruc, I鈥檝e been thinking a lot about what a single life can add up to. It is good, I鈥檝e decided, to achieve things鈥攖o rack up 300-mile weeks on the bike or to build a stable career. But very few people are able to transcend the rat race with sustained elegance. I鈥檝e tried to do it myself, moving from a big city to the sticks of New Hampshire, but I keep buying crap on Amazon Prime. My uncle actually left the fake, ephemeral world behind, and of late I鈥檝e felt like showing his notebooks to everyone I meet and saying, 鈥淟ook at this鈥攊n our own time, someone lived with an antique patience and care.鈥� I often feel like his example could save us. It could slow us all down just a little.

But the story of his years in France is, at bottom, not cosmic. It is small; it is local. Just before leaving Montastruc, I visit Madame Touzet again, this time with Nicole Bosc, and we talk about the plaques left on my uncle鈥檚 grave. 鈥淵es,鈥� Madame Bosc says, 鈥渢hat was us. That was everyone in the village, every颅one from every quartier. You wouldn鈥檛 allow a person like that to die without being honored. Your uncle created an interest鈥攊n the simplicity of his life, in his friendliness. That he came from so far away and took the time to learn about us and to care鈥攖hat was important.鈥�

Madame Touzet is sitting across from me, her hands clasped on the table, nodding in assent. When our eyes meet, she smiles: a flicker of incandescence. I feel myself swooning inside. Then she speaks.

鈥淗e was interested in the village and 颅everyone in it,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he gardens, the cows, the dogs, the cats. He was a good person. He was esteemed.鈥�

Bill Donahue ( @billdonahue13) wrote about biologist Bernd Heinrich in November 2017.

The post The Monk’s Tale appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Great lives often begin amid tumult and suffering. Seventy years ago, long before Bernd Heinrich became one of history鈥檚 , and ages before his scientific studies on ravens made him a , he was a skinny, impoverished kid living in a hut in the forest of Hahnheide, in Germany. Before World War II, his family had owned a vast agricultural estate roughly 400 miles east of there, in Poland, with foxes and storks and rolling fields of potatoes and sugar beets; but after the Eastern Front pushed west, they became refugees. Bernd鈥檚 father shoveled manure to survive, and the family lived mostly off forage鈥攏uts, berries, mushrooms, and also trout, which Bernd caught with his bare hands.

It was a confusing time. Bernd and his sister had no other playmates, and he spent long days exploring the forest on his own. His father, a top entomologist specializing in wasps, was marginalized in postwar Germany, and he could be tyrannical. Once when Bernd was five years old and collecting beetles, he found a prized rare specimen at the base of a stump, and his father confiscated the insect to punish him for being 鈥渙verstimulated,鈥� as he put it, when the boy leaped for the bug. Real men, Gerd Heinrich believed, were unflappable, with nerves of steel.

Was it there in the Hahnheide that Bernd formed the spine to notch an American record for the 100 kilometers, running the distance at a 6:25-mile pace in a Chicago race in 1981? Did hardship form the writer whose classics and offer readers both impassioned tales about animals and meticulous science?听

No, a later, happier chapter made him who he is.

In 1951, when Bernd was 11, his family wrangled passage to the U.S. and landed in western Maine. They planned to grow pota颅toes. Instead they were taken in for a summer by a kind family, the Adamses, whose ramshackle farm was a mess, a melange of dogs and cows and chickens and broken tractor equipment. To Bernd, the place was paradise, as he writes in his 2007 memoir, , recalling the adventures he shared with the two eldest Adams kids, Jimmy and Billy. The boys built a raft out of barn wood and spent countless hours watching baby catfish and white-bellied dragonflies. The Adamses taught Bernd English. He killed a hummingbird with his slingshot. He ran around barefoot and shirtless.听

Bernd Heinrich is now 77 years old and the author of 21 books. The vaunted biologist E.鈥塐. Wilson speaks of him as an equal, calling him 鈥渙ne of the most original and productive people I know鈥� and 鈥渙ne of the best natural-history writers we have.鈥� Runners also revere him, for his speed and for his 2002 book, . 鈥淗e was the first person of scientific stature to say that ultramarathoning is a natural pursuit for humans,鈥� says Christopher McDougall, author of the 2009 bestseller . 鈥淗e did the research himself, in 100-plus-mile races.鈥�

But let鈥檚 set aside the literary plumage for a moment. In many ways, Bernd remains the same inquisitive kid who found bliss in his first American summer. He still runs, though no farther than about 12 miles at a time. He still watches wildlife, intently, and he still climbs trees. Sometimes he even climbs trees in snowshoes. In old age, he is embracing the joys of youth anew.听

And he has returned to the Maine woods, to a 640-acre plot about 15 miles from that old farmhouse where he spent the summer of 1951. He owns a pickup truck and drives without compunction, but he does not have running water, phone service, or a refrigerator. He heats solely with wood and relies on a small solar panel to power his laptop and Wi-Fi router. He sometimes goes two months without ever leaving the property.听

Bernd is hardly a hermit. For the past three years, he has shared the homestead with his partner, 57-year-old Lynn Jennings, a nine-time U.S. cross-country champion and the 10,000-meter bronze medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It鈥檚 a happy and fruitful arrangement. Over the past five years, Bernd has staged a late-life creative tear that calls to mind Johnny Cash or Georgia O鈥橩eeffe, churning out a steady stream of academic papers, columns for , and four books, including , a just-published guide cowritten with Nathaniel Wheelwright, as well as 2016鈥檚 , which renders certain jays and blackbirds on his property as unique individuals, as fully realized as Elaine and Kramer on Seinfeld.听

When I began adding up Bernd鈥檚 septuagenarian streak, I realized that here was a rare man鈥攁 throwback. We live in an age that affords little time and space for communing with nature. We鈥檙e busy. Our days are fragmented. But Bernd has dug in his heels against this collective drift. He has recognized where he wants to be in old age and settled in, with purpose.听

In recent years, my life has echoed Bernd Heinrich鈥檚 to a degree. I, too, have recon颅nected with my own private Eden. In the autumn of 2014, after my only child left the nest, I moved from Portland, Oregon, to the countryside of New Hampshire with dreams of roughing it. I would heat with wood. I would spend winters without running water. The idea was to reinvent a rambling, 1790s-built summer home that has been in my family since 1905. My grandmother swam in the nearby lake as a child. I caught fireflies on the lawn when I was five. My new life there would be just like Walden, except with Wi-Fi.听

One of my first moves came that fall when, for $400, I bought a used woodstove and hired two musclebound guys to hoist the squat, 300-pound iron box up over the door lip, around a corner, and into place beneath an ancient brick chimney. The air was warm that evening, but there was a gentle breeze and a dry rustling in the trees, and I shivered with the prospect that I would soon be ensconced in the cold, wintry brilliance of my adventure.听

I was also anxious, for I harbored a secret so humbling that I was afraid to share it with anyone: I had never actually operated a woodstove. I鈥檇 seen other people build fires in stoves, but I had always watched from a distance, enviously, feeling helpless and pathetically urban. At 50, I was still a fire-building virgin, and now my survival hinged on a skill I lacked.听

That September, I watched numerous instructional videos on YouTube. Then I lit my first fire. The flames danced behind the glass of the firebox. The room filled, slowly and subtly, with a warmth that seeped into my bones, and the joy that I felt was primal: a campfire is home, especially when it warms a house like the one I was living in. The place has six bedrooms, an attached barn that has been gently tilting into the earth for over a century, and a scruffy 1.2-acre lawn denuded of trees. Not a single wall was insulated, so I had to shut down the plumbing and use the privy in the barn, lest the pipes burst.

Still, that first winter was grand. I holed up in a single sealed-off room, sustained by the fire. I chipped crusted snow to boil for dishwater and cross-country-skied every afternoon. I carried armloads of firewood in from the barn and wandered the cold house in old sweaters flecked with bark, a ragamuffin lord presiding over a new, untapped universe. No one had wintered there for nearly 80 years.听

But I wouldn鈥檛 say I was living in that house, exactly. The place was still owned by my mother, who was 84 and afflicted with Parkinson鈥檚. I was just camping there, fecklessly, experimentally. I鈥檇 never once used a chainsaw. The names of the animals ranging across the lawn remained a mystery to me. In order to ground myself, as I craved, I needed to go deeper. I needed to learn things鈥攁bout living on the land and about aging with grace.听

I had this vague notion that what I needed was a mentor, and I鈥檇 heard about Bernd. I鈥檇 read his book on running, and I鈥檇 seen a recent photo of him scything his own grass, shirtless, his senior-citizen sinews reminiscent of a Greek statue. In time, feeling slightly cowed, I wrote him an obsequious note. Generously, he invited me up to his cabin for a visit.听

Bernd lives three hours northeast of me, half a mile off a country road and up a hill on a path that in winter can be negotiated only on snowshoes. He returned to western Maine in 1977, after earning his Ph.D. in zoology at the University of California at Los Angeles and starting a job teaching at UC Berkeley. He bought a sliver of forest appointed with a battered shack that he lived in very part-time. He soon built a rough log cabin, felling the trees himself. He often stayed there four days a week, commuting east from the University of Vermont, where he began teaching biology in 1981. But after retiring in 2004, he and a stonemason friend reorganized a jumble of stones, the remnant of a vanished cabin鈥檚 foundation, into the base for Bernd鈥檚 new home.听

I start climbing toward that home late on a winter afternoon, when the conifers are laced with new-fallen snow. I follow the path until it levels out, then I hook left and find myself in a clearing that contains, magically, all the sights I鈥檝e read about in Bernd鈥檚 books. Here is his older cabin, a muted brownish silver, at the edge of the woods. Here is the gleaming new cabin and, on one wall, the doughnut-size hole that a northern flicker, a star character in One Wild Bird at a Time, carved into it. Woodsmoke billows out of the chimney.听

Bernd and Lynn step out onto the porch to greet me, each cradling a mason jar filled with beer.

鈥淵ou made it!鈥� says Bernd. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e here!鈥� says Lynn. There鈥檚 a specialness about arriving that would be absent had I simply stepped in from a parking lot.

Inside, the house is immaculate and sparsely appointed. The pine floors are lustrous, the books on the shelves upright, the interior woodpile absent of dust. A wooden chest that Bernd made in the eighth grade sits in the living room, and upstairs there鈥檚 a battered thermometer screwed to an exposed beam. The clutter is so minimal that each little item seems almost holy: this ladder leading upstairs, this knotted rope hanging beside it.听

In the fading light, Bernd is somehow of a piece with this unassuming decor. He is a humble man, withdrawn and shy, with a five-foot-eight frame and wispy white hair. I鈥檇 come expecting a crisp German accent, but no, he speaks with the down-home inflections of Maine, saying 鈥渞emembah鈥� for remember and invoking 鈥渨icked鈥� as an all-purpose adjective. There is nothing hifalutin about him.

But he exudes a quiet force, and he moves directly to the topics that matter. Within five minutes of my arrival, Bernd assures me that he will be buried on the property. 鈥淢y afterlife will be here,鈥� he says. 鈥淢y body will be here, in the trees, in the birds, in all living things.鈥�

He talks about the joys of hunting deer on his own property. 鈥淎nywhere else,鈥� he says, 鈥渋t鈥檚 just shooting.鈥�

He speaks with disdain for people who are overly pious in their regard for nature鈥攚ho, for instance, are against wood-burning stoves or think that bird feeders are bad because they build up dependence. 鈥淚 hate people who want to put a fence around nature,鈥� he says. 鈥淗ow can you be a part of nature if you don鈥檛 interact with it?鈥�

We drink and we eat, and in time Lynn throws open the door so the night cold sweeps in. Then she steps to the coolest corner of the cabin, the closest thing they have to a refrigerator, and scoops a squirrel carcass up off the floor. She flings it outside, onto the snow.听

鈥淐ome here, owl!鈥� she cries.

鈥淐ome here, owl!鈥� Bernd cries. They cast their voices skyward, up toward a tree, where a barred owl is perched on a limb. This owl is an old friend of Bernd鈥檚. On many other evenings, it has swooped down to the snow, almost to the doorstep, to retrieve a tossed chunk of squirrel.听

鈥淐ome here, owl!鈥�

鈥淐ome here, owl!鈥�

The owl levers its head slightly, watchful, but it does not heed commands. We are in a wild place.

The next morning, Bernd and I strap on snowshoes and go for a run. It鈥檚 an unnerving enterprise. Long ago I was a decent runner, but I鈥檓 now a skier and cyclist. Before driving north, I鈥檇 read a 2015 article that described Bernd, then 75, finishing off a workout at a 6:05-mile pace. He can still run a 10K in about 47 minutes, and I鈥檓 worried: Is this old man going to smoke me?听

He could, possibly, but he鈥檚 merciful. He starts out at a gentle 12-minute-mile crawl, glancing back at me every so often, solicitously. 鈥淚s everything OK?鈥�

Everything is OK. The packed snow has a fresh dusting on top, and we dip and climb through thick woods until we鈥檙e standing on Hemp Hill, where long ago Bernd discovered a flourishing marijuana crop, cultivated by an unknown entrepreneur. I think of him hunkering down in the nearby blind, researching , his 1989 landmark work, and its 1999 follow-up, . He studied both wild ravens and birds he hand-raised from nestlings and kept in a huge 40,000-square-foot aviary before releasing them. Ravens can live more than 50 years in captivity, and over time Bernd apprehended a Shakespearean intricacy in their social lives.听He noted the obeisance that lesser males displayed around Goliath, the alpha. And observing ravens calling loudly near a moose carcass, he wondered if they were being altruistic in summoning their friends to a feast. To find out, he hid in a blind made of balsam fir and spruce branches, playing recorded calls on a loudspeaker, and spent countless dawns watching ravens from the top of a tall spruce tree. Bernd went on to famously demonstrate that the calling ravens were actually motivated by self-interest. They were rootless juveniles, it turned out, who had discovered food in a mature raven's territory. By inviting other ravens to feed, they avoided being chased off themselves.听

As we run, he tells me that in 2014, Goliath and his mate, Whitefeather, found themselves in conflict with a third. 鈥淔or a couple days,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 saw huge aerial displays involving three ravens鈥濃�攖he pair, most likely, and an interloper. 鈥淚鈥檇 see two birds displaying their feathers at once. I鈥檇 see one bird chasing another, trying to get rid of it.鈥� It was a love triangle, probably, but however it resolved, Bernd has not seen the pair since 2014, and he鈥檚 left only with questions: 鈥淗ow long do ravens stay together? What about jealousy?鈥� Even now, Bernd finds himself scanning the woods in vain.听

We pass a river crusted in ice and stand on the shore as Bernd explains how, each summer, he and Lynn clear rocks from their chest-deep swimming hole. At one point, Bernd says, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where Lynn shot her first deer.鈥澨�

鈥淚 know the landscape,鈥� he tells me, 鈥渁nd so I notice when something鈥檚 out of place鈥攚hen the grass is bent, say. I didn鈥檛 know what I was going to research when I started living here full-time. But now I鈥檓 open to what颅ever comes along. It鈥檚 like being a kid again; I just go to nature and find the question.鈥澨�

A few years ago, Bernd saw some ruffed grouse diving under the snow. He started watching them and established, finally, that they did it not to sleep but rather to hide out in daylight from predators. He might have submitted his observations to Nature or Science, but instead he sent it, as he has sent 11 consecutive scientific papers since 2013, to , a journal that 56 years ago, when it was known as Maine Field Naturalist, published an article that later embarrassed Bernd.听

鈥淲easels in Farmington鈥� was Bernd鈥檚 first published paper, and it was little more than a medley of simple, clipped sentences. 鈥淩abbits were plentiful during both seasons,鈥� it reads, 鈥渁nd ruffed grouse seemingly scarce.鈥� When Bernd was in his thirties, teaching at Berkeley, he expunged the paper from his curriculum vitae and eschewed the title听of naturalist, choosing instead a label that implied more scientific rigor: biochemical biologist. He was bowing to public opinion, he says, which held that 鈥渂eing a naturalist was being a sissy.鈥澨�

But over time, he says, he grew uneasy with the esoteric quality of the papers he read in scientific journals. He became so nostalgic for the simplicity of 鈥淲easels in Farmington鈥� that last year he gave a speech bearing the title. Meanwhile he resolved that going forward, he would only make observations from nature. 鈥淧opular thinking,鈥� he says, 鈥渉olds that naturalists are not critical thinkers. They can鈥檛 do 鈥榟ard science.鈥� But a naturalist is someone who is a keen observer, and to do something original and true, you have to be an observer first. I consider myself a biologist, but I became one by being a naturalist first.鈥�

For me, what stands out about these papers is the curiosity Bernd brings to听familiar turf. Nearly all of us spend our days as he does, plying the same paths, and for millennia鈥攔ight into my grandparents鈥� earliest days鈥攚e were obliged to notice subtle shifts in our local landscape, to ask whether it was time to bring in the wood or to harvest the acorns. Now our senses are dulled, our eyes fixed on the screen. Do we ever notice the natural world?

As Bernd and I run, we watch for wildlife. Beneath some old apple trees we find the tracks of wild turkeys that have been picking at rotten fruit in the snow. Nearby are the tracks of three coyotes, one of which appears skittish: its marks come right up to recent human footprints, then dart away. Bernd had observed this behavior, possibly this coyote, before. Now he bends to the snow to investigate.

Anyone can look at coyote tracks, of course. But when I see Bernd do it, I鈥檓 aware of a larger story鈥攐f a man who experienced the trauma of war as a child, then learned that peace lies in nature and decided to make his life about connecting to it and understanding it.听

But Bernd鈥檚 wartime experience exerts a natural force of its own; the pain lingers in his animal brain. In 2016, he traveled with Lynn back to the Hahnheide forest. He went to search for memories, for places that figured in his family鈥檚 exile, and he located the exact spot where, seven decades earlier, he鈥檇 captured a rare wasp that he was able to trade back to his father for the beetle that was taken away.听

鈥淚 saw that,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 saw that and…鈥� Now his head crumples into his hands, and he begins sobbing in a mix of anguish and joy. 鈥淚 thought, Look at how fortunate I am and look at what I came from: nothing. We could have been stuck behind the Iron Curtain forever.鈥澨�

Soon, in discussing a recent trip to New York City and the endless gray expanse of buildings he passed on the outskirts, Bernd surprises me with another spasm of weeping鈥攁 flashback to a wartime horror. 鈥淎ll I could think about,鈥� he says, 鈥渨as going through Hamburg with Papa. The city was rubble as far as the eye could see.鈥�

He talks about his life not as calcified fact but as a mystery he鈥檚 still trying to make sense of, right now, as he鈥檚 speaking. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how I happened to come back to this land,鈥� he tells me. 鈥淚t was brewing in my subconscious for a long time. I always wanted a cabin, and I guess I was doing things in an unconscious way that were bringing me here.鈥� It was only after he鈥檇 begun construction that he found, through research, that long ago Jimmy Adams鈥檚 father, Floyd, had lived in the house whose stones form the base of his new cabin.听

As Bernd and I speak, Lynn is in the kitchen, washing the dishes. During her pro career, she was a warrior in the scrum of middle-distance contests, a fighter known for her merciless kick. Her brio has not dwindled. These days she鈥檚 a competitive rower. She can ride her bike 100 miles in just over five hours, and she still runs a bit, sometimes with Bernd, with whom she enjoys a playful rivalry.听

She applies most of her energy to homesteading, though. She rhapsodizes about the 鈥渕oments of exertion鈥� that come with dragging an 80-pound sled filled with groceries up the hill. To get the old newspapers they use to start fires, she dives headlong into the recycling bin at the local dump, invoking, she quips, a 鈥淔osbury Flop combined with a half gainer.鈥澨�

Cabin living has been a lifelong dream for Lynn. In 1978, when Runner鈥檚 World ran a story celebrating her early prowess, she said, 鈥淵ou know what I鈥檇 like to do someday? I鈥檇 like to homestead. It would be great. Build your own house, forget about telephones and television鈥︹��

鈥淚 remember reading that article,鈥� Bernd tells me. 鈥淚 thought, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 the girl for me.鈥欌�夆��

For a split second Lynn glowers at him, scandalized. 鈥淏ernd!鈥� she says. 鈥淚 was 18 and you were鈥攚hat? Thirty-eight?鈥�

Bernd shrugs, smirking slightly. But he says nothing, and I reckon he鈥檚 savoring the fact that eventually he did meet his dream girl, in 2011, when Lynn invited him to speak to her running camp in Vermont. At that point he was single, in the wake of a divorce. (He鈥檚 been married three times and has four grown children.) He invited her to visit the cabin.听

鈥淚 got a quarter of the way up the hill,鈥� Lynn remembers, 鈥渁nd I knew this was where I was supposed to be.鈥澨�

Bernd writes about Lynn in One Wild Bird at a Time. As the couple sat around a winter bonfire at night, sipping red wine, he noticed that his beloved barred owl had shown up by surprise, and he regarded its arrival, equally appreciated by Lynn, as the most wonderful thing he could hope for. 鈥淚n the moment of joy and mystery,鈥� he wrote, 鈥淚 felt connected with all the moments of my past and now my prospects for the future.鈥�

A special place can contain all stories鈥攁ll of the past and all of the future, all the beginnings and endings. In 2016, the summer before my mom died, I drove her up to New Hampshire for a final visit. By then she was heavily medicated, but when we crested the final hilltop, with its stunning view of the local pond, her eyes glimmered with delight.

Her reaction was rooted in long memory, and also in nature. She was a naturalist. So many of us are, in our way, and as Bernd sees it, this is a fine thing. Indeed, it could save us. 鈥淎 naturalist,鈥� he e-mailed me, 鈥渋s one who still has the habit of trying to see the connections of how the world works. She does not go by say-so, by faith, or by theory. So we don鈥檛 get lost in harebrained dreams or computer programs taken for reality. We all want to be associated with something greater and more beautiful than ourselves, and nature is the ultimate. I just think it is the one thing we can all agree on.鈥�

Six months later, in January, my mom died and I begin to contemplate a new chapter for the house. When I ask Bernd for advice on how to attract wildlife, he becomes evangelical; he actually visits to advise me. He stops by with Lynn, after giving a talk to birders nearby. The moment they pull in, at 7:30 a.m., Bernd spots a bird鈥攁 dusty gray phoebe鈥攂obbing over the lawn. He follows it: down the hill from the parking area, around a brick terrace, until there he is, my honored guest, standing under the barn, six feet away from the base of the privy. 鈥淚t went in right there,鈥� he says, pointing.

I can鈥檛 get enough of his accent. They-ah.

Soon he notes the abandoned start of a phoebe nest. It is graying and matted and set atop a support beam under the barn. It has been there for five or ten years, Bernd guesses, but I never noticed it. I have no memory of anyone at our house ever remarking upon a single bird.听

鈥淵ou could open up that window there,鈥� he says pointing, 鈥渁nd then maybe you鈥檇 have barn swallows. I鈥檇 also have a clearing around your house,鈥� he continues. 鈥淏ut see this grass here?鈥� On the steep slope to the brook, he means. 鈥淛ust let it grow. Don鈥檛 worry about it.鈥� Eventually, he says, bugs will settle amid the long stalks, then birds鈥攊ndigo buntings, say, and chestnut-sided warblers鈥攁nd then, finally, predators: mice, voles, shrews…

His advice is not revelatory; I鈥檝e read his books. But his being there is something. This man is New England鈥檚 avatar of wild living, and I want to develop what he has. I want the ability to hear a whole story coded into a single chirp from a bird鈥檚 beak.

So in the weeks that follow, I open that window in the barn. I drag some brush out from the woods, to give juncos and chickadees a place to alight before fluttering toward听the new feeders I鈥檝e hung. And I watch this one bird I spotted with Bernd, a downy woodpecker perched high on the trunk of a maple, pecking away, a bright tuft of red at the nape of his neck. 鈥淗e鈥檚 building the nest,鈥� Bernd had told me.听

I begin checking that tree every morning, and for weeks鈥攏othing. I鈥檓 crestfallen, and I say as much one day, writing a friend. But seconds after I hit send, I look out the window and see something red: Mr. Woodpecker himself, pausing on the trunk, then plunging into his hole鈥攏esting, likely siring his brood. Right there in my own yard. I feel almost paternal.听

But then Bernd writes to say he鈥檚 raising a clutch of baby crows and deepening his rapport with a resident swallow family. 鈥淚 spend hours watching them every day,鈥� he says. He鈥檚 been on hand, beside their feather-lined nest, for the birth of five babies, and he鈥檚 been transfixed by something startling: the male is bringing in the feathers. 鈥淭he usual avian sex roles are reversed,鈥� he writes, in a fever, 鈥渁nd it means much else is different, too. And so I need to know every nuance of behavior from beginning to end.鈥澨�

Attached to the note is a photo, taken by Lynn, of him sitting outside on the grass, in a chair, holding a white feather at arm鈥檚 length. His body language seems stiff,听frozen. It鈥檚 a weird picture, I think. Until I see, frame left, the blue blur, the swallow, fluttering past tree branches and rocks and weeds, right toward Bernd Heinrich鈥檚 waiting hand.

Longtime 国产吃瓜黑料 contributor Bill Donahue () is the author of two e-books,听 and . is an 国产吃瓜黑料 contributing photographer.

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Cyclist Danny Chew completed his first 200-mile day when he was 10 years old. It was 1972. He rode an orange Schwinn Stingray with high-rise handlebars and a banana seat. He rode for 23 and a half hours through the rolling hills near Lodi, Ohio, through daylight and darkness, then limped into his family鈥檚 shag-lined Ford van, a small kid in cutoffs and sneakers. His back was sore but his heart singing. 鈥淚 felt satisfied,鈥� he says modestly. 鈥淚 knew that I鈥檇 done something pretty cool.鈥澨�

For many people, the thrill might have been a passing thing, an evanescent boyhood delight. But Chew has Asperger鈥檚 Syndrome, and even though he is now 54, his giddy, kid-like fervor has never waned. It has instead distilled into a bright, lifelong monomania. He is arguably the most focused cyclist in the world. When Chew was 21, he resolved that he would ride a million miles before he died. He started logging his rides, obsessively, in hardbound notebooks. He kept records on how many thousand-mile weeks he rode, on his centuries and double centuries, as well as his streaks of 100-mile days. Graphs captured his yearly mileage and number crunching revealed that between 1978 and 1982 he rode an average of 14,867.0 miles a year. Neatly penned notes recorded strange adventures鈥攍ike the time he rode the long way from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, 182 miles, without drinking water or eating. He decided that he would never pursue a career, and that dating was not his cup of tea either. 鈥淚t鈥檇 be nice to have a relationship,鈥� he thought, 鈥渂ut then I鈥檇 have to get a job. She鈥檇 want kids. My riding time would go down, and I鈥檇 end up resenting it.鈥� 听

Chew lived with his mom. He remained a virgin until he was 38. He became the world鈥檚 greatest cheapskate, subsisting on little more than stale bread and expired jars of mustard, and he rode, fast. Chew completed the Race Across America eight times and won it twice, in 1996 and 1999.听

What Chew is most famous for, however, is an annual post-Thanksgiving bike ride that he helped launch on a snowy day in Pittsburgh in 1983 and has coordinated solo since 1986. The Dirty Dozen climbs 13 of greater Pittsburgh鈥檚 steepest hills, with riders racing the ups and coasting the downs. Eleven-time winner Steve Cummings calls it a quintessentially 鈥淐hewish鈥� event. 鈥淗e picks the worst weekend to do it,鈥� Cummings explains, fondly. 鈥淭he weather is horrible, and he never gets any permits鈥攈e just shows up and starts it.鈥� 听

Cycling Toward Recovery

This year鈥檚 Dirty Dozen will raise money for Chew, the event鈥檚 longtime coordinator and guiding spirit.

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The 34th Dirty Dozen, set for Saturday, November 26, will draw about 300 riders and will also, tragically, be a fundraiser for Chew. On September 5, he suffered a life-changing accident. While out for a ride in the green countryside in eastern Ohio, where he was visiting friends, he crested a gentle hill and then began descending at a ho-hum 20 or 22 miles per hour. It was a placid day鈥攕unny, with no wind. He and his training partner, Cassie Schumacher, were chatting when suddenly Chew felt dizzy. 鈥淗e veered left,鈥� Schumacher says, 鈥渋nto a ditch, a typical drainage ditch with high grass, and I never heard any screaming. He never lost consciousness, but he hit his head and he just lay there, face down, saying, 鈥業 feel freaky. I can鈥檛 feel my legs. Am I still part of the bike?鈥欌�澨�

He was 783,000 miles into his million-mile quest. 听听

It鈥檚 early October now, and Chew is lying in his bed at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, reckoning with the cold reality that he is now paralyzed from the waist down, with drastically decreased abdominal function and also a reduced ability to curl his fingers and grip. The accident broke his neck and irreparably bruised some of the roughly one trillion nerves in his spinal cord鈥攏erves that simply don't regenerate with the vigor of other tissues.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 a good thing I don鈥檛 have a loaded gun or Dr. Kevorkian with me,鈥� he says, his voice nasally and flat as I arrive for a three-day visit. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot to take鈥攖o give up that sense of freedom that comes with riding a bike.鈥� 听

Typically a dry-eyed stoic, Chew is now weeping whenever the Dirty Dozen comes up. 鈥淎 lot of people have children,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut the Dirty Dozen is my kid, and it鈥檚 all grown up now, and I鈥檓 so proud. I鈥檝e had people come up to me after the ride and say, 鈥楾hanks for the greatest day of my life.鈥� I give these people a goal鈥攖o finish every hill.鈥澨�

Still fresh from the accident, Chew is now almost wholly dependent on the rehab staff: moving him from the bed requires two caretakers, who wriggle him into a sling attached to a small crane that hoists him up before lowering him down into his wheelchair. Still, he has a new goal: he wants to complete his million-mile quest on a hand cycle. 鈥淚f I could ride 200 miles a week, 10,000 miles a year,鈥� he says, 鈥淚 could do it.鈥� 听

His physician, Elliott Roth, the chair of Physical Medicine and Rehab at RIC, has warmly embraced Chew鈥檚 mission, saying, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 impossible at all. Danny鈥檚 got a lot of things working against him, but 50 percent of people鈥檚 outcome is related to their own determination.鈥� Meanwhile, there are so many competitive hand cyclists with Chew鈥檚 level of disability (technically speaking, he is afflicted with T1 quadriplegia) that an entire division, Class H2, is reserved for them in international Paralympic races. The H2 world champion鈥�42-year-old former Team USA wheelchair rugby player Will Groulx鈥攔ides 180 or so miles a week.听

On this crisp fall morning in Chicago, however, Chew doesn鈥檛 even own a hand cycle yet. He is moving through the hallways in a large, clunky, high-backed wheelchair designed to be pushed from behind, and when his physical therapist steps into the room, asking him to self-propel that chair for six minutes, he is jittery, terrified. 鈥淪ix minutes?鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be exhausted.鈥澨�

Chew鈥檚 neck is still broken and braced. The shoulder muscles surrounding his broken neck are taut. His hands cannot grip very well and鈥攚orst鈥攈is newly paralyzed body is not effectively regulating his blood pressure. 鈥淏efore,鈥� Roth says, 鈥渢he muscles in his legs pumped blood up into his heart. Now that鈥檚 not happening, and his body is adjusting to the change.鈥� 听 听

Chew begins pushing the wheelchair down the corridor, and it鈥檚 a bit agonizing to watch. He is a world-class athlete; now he is moving with the weary doggedness of a 90-year-old in a nursing home. He is gritting his teeth and grimacing, and the wheels of his chair are not quite rolling, but rather eking forward in tiny, spasmodic lurches. The discrepancy between past and present is so profound, and so humbling, that it almost seems like giving up would be the most graceful course. But Danny Chew is used to racing through the night on three hours鈥� sleep. He鈥檚 crossed the plains of Arkansas at 2 a.m., riding into the wind with his neck aching and spittle on his face, and now he knows that only by resorting to his greatest strength鈥攈is focus鈥攃an he lift himself out of despair. He keeps pushing the wheelchair. Then, one minute and 50 seconds into the session, he stops. He is ashen and afraid that he will pass out. When the PT takes his blood pressure, it is 81 over 52. Later, after she bends to the floor with a tape measure, she announces that he has covered 46.9 feet. 听

鈥淚鈥檓 really tired,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 so tired right now that I could fall asleep.鈥� The PT rolls him back to his room. He鈥檚 airlifted back into bed, and I stand over him as he nods off. His body is long and lean under the sheets鈥攄evoid of body fat, ripped. And now his legs do not operate. Listening to the rise and fall of his breath, I feel nothing but mournful.

Life is complex, though. Many times during my visit, Chew is all lit up鈥攂right-eyed, zany, and on. My second day there, he subjects me to what he calls his 鈥淩TP鈥� mode of conversation, short for 鈥淩andom Thrust Process,鈥� asking me scores of questions鈥攁bout my relationship history, my shoe size, my political views, my exercise regime鈥攁nd scarcely ever awaiting an answer. He says he gets his eccentricity from his late father, Hal, a special-education Ph.D. and a proud freak鈥攁 vegetarian, a yogi, a devotee of Transcendental Meditation, and a man whose shag-lined Ford van bore a handmade wooden trailer capable of towing 13 bicycles. Hal Chew, he says, was a sort of guru. He was beloved by every hitchhiker he picked up on road trips, and in his basement, hanging barbells from two-by-fours, he built a bare-bones gym听that carried his two sons to cycling prowess. (Danny鈥檚 older brother, Tom Chew, was a member of听the U.S. Olympic development team in the 1980s.)听

The talk turns to romance. Chew tells me that his first kiss came when he was 27鈥攁nd that he bowled his date over. 鈥淪he got down on her knees, this beautiful woman,鈥� he tells me, 鈥渁nd she says, 鈥楧o you want to make love?鈥� I said no鈥攏o way. I love being different from the masses, and being a virgin was just another way I could be different.鈥澨�

When Chew was 38, radio shock jock Howard Stern invited him on air. The segment was entitled 鈥淧ick the Virgin.鈥� Stern shouted at Chew: 鈥淵ou鈥檒l never get a woman! You鈥檒l die a virgin!鈥澨�

鈥淭hat motivated me to spite him,鈥� Chew says. 鈥淲ithin four months, I was in Oregon, living on a houseboat with this woman, and it was really nice. Whenever I came back from a ride in the rain, she鈥檇 have put warm blankets out for me.鈥� The relationship was brief, and Chew doesn鈥檛 linger on it, reverting, instead to RTP mode, delivering me advice about matrimony鈥斺�淣ever marry anyone before you鈥檝e lived with them for three years!鈥濃�攂efore segueing into personal finance.

鈥淣ever ever eat a meal in a restaurant!鈥� he says, shaking his index finger at me. 鈥淚f you leave a two-dollar tip鈥攖hat鈥檚 money that could be invested. And when it comes to cutting your hair, just buy a $20 clipper from Wal-Mart. How much talent does it take to shave your head bald?鈥� The man is resolute about living life on his own terms.

Weeks pass. On Facebook, Chew鈥檚 older sister, Carol Perezluha, a professor of math at Florida鈥檚 Seminole State College, posts a video of her brother being rolled along a Chicago bike path looking out on Lake Michigan. He鈥檚 elated in the clip, saying, 鈥淭his is the furthest I鈥檝e been out on the wheelchair since I was hospitalized.鈥� An accompanying photo shows him canting his feet skyward in his chair, lakeside, so he can regulate his low blood pressure. The blood pressure remains a concern. It is still erratic. 鈥淪ometimes it gets so low he blacks out,鈥� his sister tells me. Once it spiraled听so high that a host of caregivers rush toward his bed, hovering. He is also having trouble regulating his body temperature. Sometimes, even after he asks aides to bring him four blankets, his teeth chatter as he shivers in his bed.听

Pre-accident, Chew suffered from occasional lightheadedness. The undiagnosed condition caused his crash. Is he fated to have a worse case of orthostatic hypotension鈥攑oor blood pressure regulation鈥攖han most paralyzed people? Dr. Roth doesn鈥檛 think so. 鈥淗is problem is very common for patients with spinal injuries,鈥� Roth says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something that over time he can manage, by wearing tight stockings, for instance, and abdominal binders.鈥� 听

Still, for Chew's family鈥攁 loving group who once spent summer weekends together, riding鈥攖he crash is a nightmare that has thrown his two siblings into a search for a wheelchair-accessible van, handicapped-friendly housing, and ongoing care. His sister tells me that their mother, now 84, has been in 鈥渁n awful state鈥� of late. 鈥淓very day, she tells me she wishes it didn鈥檛 happen. She鈥檚 become disoriented.鈥� 听

There are promising signals too, though, and when Chew phones me (the calls come in at odd hours: 6:48 am, 10:11 p.m.), his news breaks are triumphs: 鈥淚 can transfer myself out of bed now,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 rode my wheelchair nine laps through the hallways. It鈥檚 nineteen laps to the mile. I did the hand cycle for an hour.鈥澨�

On November 14, his physical therapist, Kate Drolet, tells me, 鈥淒anny鈥檚 improved immensely. He鈥檚 got a motorized wheelchair now and he鈥檚 completely independent on it. He goes all over the floor by himself, and after the Cubs won the World Series, we went to the victory parade. Even in the crowds, he didn鈥檛 need any help navigating. He is one of the most motivated patients I have ever seen. He is very intent on setting personal goals. He loves numbers.鈥澨�

A plan gels for his release. He鈥檚 slated to leave RIC on December 5, and this winter he鈥檒l live with a friend in eastern Ohio. This friend, it so happens, owns a gym, and Chew is already looking forward to the track there鈥攊t鈥檚 nine laps to the mile. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh firm听Desmone Architects has stepped forward, offering to redesign the family's home to make it suitable for Danny and his aging mom. The construction will cost over $100,000. 鈥淏etween Danny鈥檚 mind and Mom鈥檚 body,鈥� Carol Perezluha听says, 鈥淚 think they can do it.鈥澨�

Dr. Roth predicts that Chew should be able to get out on the roads, on a hand cycle, roughly a year from now, and a Pittsburgh friend is standing by, ready to serve as Chew鈥檚 coach. Attila Domos is a paraplegic. A 48-year-old onetime bodybuilder who fell from a ladder in 1993, Domos handcycled 407.7 miles inside 24 hours last August. When I call him, he is effusive with praise for Chew. 鈥淒anny trained me,鈥� he says. 鈥淗e told me that when you鈥檙e doing a 24-hour-ride, the night goes on forever. And he was right.鈥� 听

Another of Domos鈥檚 remarks lingers most, though. 鈥淩ecovery has almost nothing to do with how hard you work,鈥� he tells me. 鈥淎fter my accident, I stood for three or four hours a day, hoping that feeling would come back to my legs. It never did.鈥� 听听

What if Danny Chew doesn鈥檛 recover enough to hand-cycle great distances? I ask him. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not an option,鈥� Chew says. 鈥淚鈥檝e already ridden the wheelchair half a mile, and Attila tells me that translates to three miles on a hand cycle. He said he hates wheelchairs鈥攖hat he鈥檒l never do another marathon in a wheelchair. 鈥淟ook, I鈥檓 just at the beginning of my recovery. I鈥檒l get there.鈥�

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When 300 cyclists gather in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 26 for the grueling Dirty Dozen, the event will in many ways be an exact repeat of a bizarre sufferfest that's been celebrated annually since 1983. The riders will climb greater Pittsburgh's 13 steepest hills, with race points going to the fastest 10 men and 5 women on each climb. Victory will go to whoever scores the most points, cumulatively, on all the hills. The whole chilly 50-mile escapade will last about five hours.

One thing will be different, though: the ride will be a fundraiser for race founder Danny Chew, who was paralyzed in early September. 听

This year's race director, Jonathan Pratt, expects to give about $10,000 in entry fees towards Chew鈥檚 recovery. “I've been Danny's friend for about 40 years,” he says, “and he's in a real bind now.” Chew needs to pay off over $15,000 in uncovered medical expenses, buy a handicapped-equipped vehicle, and pay for a $100,000-plus renovation of his Pittsburgh home. 听

A Dirty Dozen bike jersey with a picture of Chew is , and a tribute T-shirt reading 鈥淒anny Chew Is My Spirit Animal鈥� is . The proceeds from the sale of both shirts will go to Chew. 听

Supporters can also donate to a created by Chew's nephew, Stephen Perezluha, a 2011 Race Across America finisher. 听听

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