Adventure Dining Guide is a culinary web series that takes you out of the kitchen and into the great outdoors.  This show was created to give backcountry dining the recognition it deserves, and inspire others to make their next adventure more gourmet.  Join host Michelle Shea as she hits the trial with athletes, chefs and outdoor enthusiasts to learn how to eat civilized, miles from civilization.

From where I was stood, balanced on top of a huge pile of dead trees stretching for 200 meters across the front of an old damn, I could see no good way forward.  My two year old, Eli, rested his hands on top of my head, and solemnly surveyed the scene from his perch on my shoulders.  We were searching for a new swimming hole, and had spent the past half hour thrashing through weeds, unsuccessfully attempting to avoid the poison ivy lurking in the underbrush, climbing over boulders, and balancing on logs.  We found an old damn which funneled water into a disused/crumbling hydroelectric plant, and the original thought was that if we walked out this damn towards the middle of the river, we might find a good spot in front of the damn where the water backed up.  The massive log jam in front of us, the product of decades of floods and storms, proved my intuition was wrong.

It was at that moment that I realized that the word “explore” really just means “to make lots of mistakes.”

I said as much to Eli, who really just wanted to swim.  He digested the information philosophically, then informed me we were “esplorering.”  I took that as his blessing to continue.

We backtracked (back down the damn, over the huge logs), then crossed from the damn to an island on a fallen tree.  A short walk and a short wade later, we found a beautiful, isolated gravel bar next to a section of river that was the perfect depth with a sandy bottom, and enough movement in the water to keep it fresh and not stagnant.  Freshwater mussels littered the river bottom, and small fish flitted from eddy to eddy.  We splashed and swam until it was time to head home for dinner.  Eli fell asleep on the way home, which is as good a measure of an expedition’s success as any.

The whole experience caused me to reflect a bit on exploration.  At the time I was only half serious when I said exploration really just means making lots of mistakes.  Yet as I thought about it more, I realized that making mistakes is a huge part of exploration. In order to make my musings more formal, I looked up the actual meaning of explore in the dictionary.  This is what I found:

EXPLORE:   A transitive verb. 1)  To investigate, study, or analyze. 2)  To become familiar with by testing or experimenting. 3)  To travel over (new territory) for adventure or discovery. 4)  To examine, especially for diagnostic purposes. -Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Definition #3 is a no-brainer, especially for my purposes.  But I think I like #2 best; in a nutshell, its exactly what we were doing. We figured there would be a good waterhole somewhere in the area we were exploring, and set off to test our hypothesis. Failure and mistakes are inherent to the process of exploration.  As famously pointed out by The Princess Bride, ”Anyone who says differently is selling something.”  A brief glance at history is enough to prove that exploratory expeditions seldom go completely as planned.  Look at my favorite explorer, Ernest Shackleton, who was well aware of this fact.  He famously recruited men for his expedition to Antarctica with a newspaper advertisement that read “Men wanted for hazardous journey.  Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.  Safe return doubtful.  Honor and recognition in event of success.”  He lost his ship to the ice, and his crew had to survive on whatever they could until rescued.  Hardly auspicious, yet we view Shackleton as a successful explorer.  Why?  Because of how he responded. Since making mistakes is an inherent part of exploration, fearing those mistakes shouldn’t hold you back.  Instead, the best explorers focus on responding to mistakes and challenges in positive and well-considered ways.

Back to Shackleton.  After he lost his ship, he undertook a daring voyage in an open boat to an isolated whaling village to get help for his men.  He ended up rescuing all of them. We’re not all Shackleton, or J. Michael Fay, or David Livingstone, or Ed Viesters.  But we can explore nonetheless. Because explore is just a big word that means to make lots of mistakes.

Soooooooo here’s some phoots from my recent trip to the mountainous Everest base camp in Nepal.

Stunning photography from a trek into the Everest base camp in Nepal.

When I first came to Brule, Alberta, I was profoundly excited at all the mountain biking potential it so quietly held.  I imagined there was a world of trails waiting, wanting to be discovered. Sitting in the yard, I would look at the mountain for hours. It was a strange combination of hoping and knowing there was an epic trail on her, waiting to see the love of a mountain bike.

Slowly, bit by bit, I am familiarizing myself with this place. Talking with locals and neighbors to get every little bit of information on what exists out here. However, with so much high quality riding in Hinton, Jasper and just outside of Brule, it has taken me a few years to find the riding right here in town. Knowing that if it didn’t already exist, this place was ripe, and perfect for building it… or maybe just restoring it. Brule sits right on the Jasper National Park boundary, and the area is full of nearly 100 year old mining roads, old prospect trails, and ruins.

Yesterday was a throwback. I ventured out and up to the Brule graveyard. A final resting place for many of the Groat family, among others, who helped make this region, and this province what it is today. I only meant to ride up there to see it, as I had not previously taken the opportunity.  Too busy riding the well known trails around our community pasture, nordic centre and Hinton, I began falling into the belief that nothing lay on that mountain but bramble and bear shit. I longed for single track.

I wasn’t prepared for a big ride. There was a half litre of water in my pack, 15% battery in my phone, and I had no idea what I was about to find. No camera, no tracking the ride, a raglan t-shit, no knowledge of what lay in front of me. I only knew these three things.

1. There were trails leading off the road.
2. When the mountain was on my right, I was headed toward Ogre canyon,  and when on the left back towards Brule.
3. All my hopes were about to be confirmed. The best feeling ever!

The bugs were bad. There was bear shit on the trail. It was over grown in many places. I ran out of water and filled up at the creek. I have no idea how far I went, or how much vertical I covered.  I kept riding this old single track as it wandered up and down and back up along the hillside below the mountain. Flowing S turns took me from a climb into a descent,  switching back into a climb. Every time I thought it petered out, I would come across an intersection.

This was the throwback. It was like falling in love with this sport all over again.

I couldn’t ride every trail I saw. I never rode the same trail twice, and I was able to do a complete loop back to the graveyard road (which is 52 st. oddly enough, in a town with only three streets!). This region has so much hidden potential to be a world class destination for our beloved sport. In many ways it already is. But I can’t help feeling there is a piece of that puzzle, waiting to be dusted off and joined with the rest.

I was in full pursuit of a dream, atop a bicycle, our noblest invention (thank you Stance films for “Life Cycles”).

It felt like a quest, a noble cause.

This summer, pursue your dreams and fly by the seat of your pants once in a while. Seek out the adventurer within.

Spread stoke, go far, and BE in the Mountains.