Dirt Bagging is becoming a lost art. What is Dirt Bagging you say? It was, and faintly is, the art of travel, adventure, and experience all on the smallest of budgets. Usually cans of sardines in mustard sauce, hand rolled cigarettes, and sleeping in your truck are common occurrences when on a dirt bag expedition.
Dirt Bagging hit its hay day in the mid 70's in Yosemite's Camp 4. Here climbers would spend months living in the camp, climbing hard day in and day out, drinking wine from leather pouches, eating cold beans, and only spending $2 a day max. From my research the first documented and published works of Dirt Bagging was Jack Kerouac and his buddies traveling from coast to coast, living the life, and doing it for next to nothing.
My college friends and I were heavily influenced through climbing into this life of Dirt Bagging. Every weekend offered a new trail to navigate, rock to get scared on, and river to wrestle. We often had jobs with the utmost of flexibility to allow for spur of the moment trips to the desert, river, or mountain (if we had jobs at all.... i.e. Tony Cappa, Colin Coulsen, and occasionally myself). The beauty was the spontaneity, simplicity, the usual outcome of adventure, laughs, and friendship.
College ended, much to my dismay, and we all took new roads to follow. Kyle went to CA to work as an English teacher, Colin and Tom building cell phone towers in South Dakota, Phil teaching in Denver, Dane in CA sitting in the cubie, Tony going back to college, Kazu to New Hampshire for his Doctorate, Joe delivering babies out of a fire engine, Gee somehow getting into grad school, and me teaching full time in Aspen. Yet the flame has not extinguished. I hear stories through the grape vine about cross country bike tours, climbing Indian Creek 3 weeks in a row, traveling to Guatemala, driving to Joshua Tree for the weekend, and quitting your job to live in a motorhome you bought from a gypsy in Fresno. This is what life is all about and I am happy to be part of a culture of people who go on day to day with this drive and passion to really do it right (in our eyes at least).
The following pictures are of Kyle and I's latest Dirt Bag foray. It was over my spring break and was a small pre-season paddling pursuit on the Colorado and Yampa rivers. On the Colorado we ran Barrel Springs into Shoshone and on the Yampa we can Cross Mountain Gorge at about 2300cfs. It was a true Dirt Bag experience in its finest. We paddled difficult rivers, laid on the ground around a fire sipping PBR, smoked DRUM rollies, ate sardines with crackers, slept in the van down by the river in Steamboat, and didn't shower for 5 days. What a life....enjoy the fotos...
