03/12/07 9:21 pm by TreksterThe Challenge

It started in casual conversation.  Harry, Loren and myself were enjoying another weekly meeting of the Cape Resurrection Board.  Our wives have referred to our meetings as “the boys club”, convinced that their men have created an excuse to get together, tell story and dream.  We know better.  “Mock us now, praise us later” we told them.  When the minds of men get together, great plans are made and great adventures relived.  It is here that events are evaluated, lessons learned and knowledge built to pass on to future generations.  Throughout history, it is men who have gotten together to plan great things, to dream dreams and to  shape events that change the world.  It may seem like a simple “boys club” to our wives, but we know better.  We are helping to write history.

Out of one of these fine meetings the challenge was born.  The three of us were gathered around a split section of log from Harry’s log mansion, that served as a coffee table, and were enjoying a hot cup of tea and the smell of Loren and Harry’s tobacco pipes.  The chill of an early fall Alaskan evening was being warded off by the crackling fire in the fireplace.   Despite conversation slowly changing from reliving our summer adventures to planning our winter expeditions, the memories of great kayaking trips were hard to put down.  Sure, the winter demanded a change in outdoor activities, after all, this was the year of the “Trifecta”.  Skiing would be at a decadal high, maybe the best ski year since the 70’s, but the thought of putting away summer adventures like sea kayaking was hard to deal with.  I don’t know who said it, but I think we all thought it about the same time, “Why do we have to give up sea kayaking in the winter?  The ocean doesn’t freeze!”  Suddenly, the idea was hatched and the plan began to grow.  We would commit to sea kayaking once a month for a full year.  !2 sea adventures, 4 different seasons and countless memories.  The three of us, Harry, Loren and Tim, we would make sea kayaking the winter sport that it was meant to be.  After all, the earliest known sea kayakers were the Inuit’s and Eskimos.  The image of a Bidarka on a sea surrounded by ice chunks, slush snow and cold dark water was seared on our minds.  This is the way it was meant to be.  We would experience sea kayaking in its finest season, winter.

The challenge began the month of October, 2006.  



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