Manatee Magic: Swimming with Florida's Manatees

Courtesy USF&WS

OK, I know they’re gentle animals. No one in recorded history has ever been injured by an enraged manatee. Still, when you unexpectedly come face to face with one underwater, you can’t help but almost swallowing your snorkel. So when I snorkel over a gentle rise of waving sea grass and nearly smash my mask into the whiskered muzzle of a full-grown 1,500-pound, ten-foot male, the massive looming hulk startles me. He is as scared as I am and we both flinch and stop dead, sizing each other up.


He has much more to fear than I. Humans have not been kind to manatees. Deaths due to boat strikes, pollution, and habitat loss keep the animals in trouble and the population of this endangered species is less than 3,000. But their plight has had some positive benefits--they receive lots of publicity and public support is growing to save them. As a result, they are popular animals and practically everyone knows about them: large as a cow, slow moving, gentle, appealing.

Because of this popularity, thousands of adventurers flock to Florida each winter to swim with them and watch them up close. Perhaps the best place to mingle with manatees is in the clear water of Crystal River just below the panhandle on the West coast.

To understand why this is the place to go, you need to know a little about what makes manatees tick. They are warm-blooded mammals, very sensitive to water temperatures. The arrival of cold weather finds them seeking out warm water around power plant outlets and springs. Such springs exist in Crystal River and from October through about April, dozens—sometimes hundreds—of manatees congregate in the river near the 72-degree waters of the springs.

This results in another congregation: people. Crystal River’s shallow shoals, clear water, and abundant manatees mean excellent viewing and on winter weekends hundreds of wet-suited manatee enthusiasts are snorkeling off of pontoon boats anchored around the river.

This winter, we joined the snorkelers in the town of Crystal River, about two hours south of Tallahassee, and hooked up with Diane Oestreich of Bird’s Underwater Dive Center. On a cool and cloudless December morning we meet her at the dive shop she and her husband run on the edge of Crystal River—at an ungodly six o’clock in the morning.

Two dozen sleepy manatee maniacs are milling around the dock, shivering in the early morning chill and eager to get into the water and see a manatee. But first Diane makes sure that we see, but don’t harm. We will be snorkeling around the fringes of Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, which has stiff regulations to protect manatees. Diane shows a video and gives us a short lecture on “manatee manners”—that is, not harassing the animals.

I am not a morning person so I have to ask Diane if the early shove off time is necessary or if she just has a sadistic streak.

“The earlier you go, the better visibility you’ll have,” she says “Get one group of divers in the water and things get stirred up quick. We want to get out first while visibility is still good.”

As we pull away from the dock I look over the pontoon’s railing and can’t imagine visibility being any better. The still water is crystal clear (Hmmm, wonder how the river got its name?). If there are manatees here they will be easy to spot.

And so they are. Barely ten minutes away from the dock, with most of us still wriggling into our wetsuits, Diane spots one. In the calm water I see what appears to be a fist-sized piece of floating bark. It’s a manatee muzzle and it disappears with a tiny swirl. Below the surface I can make out the massive outline of a manatee. We spy two manatees lying motionless in four feet of water. Diane throttles back the motor and we hover over the unperturbed creatures. They are sleeping, something which Diane assures us is their second favorite activity—eating being number one.

We head on to Three Sisters Springs, a small spring in a shady tributary and drop anchor. Diana drops over the side of the boat and swims toward the spring. I throw on my flippers, pull my mask down and join her in the water, taking care to remain out of the roped off “off limits” area that gives the manatees some refuge from divers. I barely have time to take my first breath when a huge adult manatee swims alongside me.

I have dived with manatees many times, but it is still thrilling to me. This is truly one of nature’s magnificent creatures, a huge lumbering beast with a gentle demeanor. Individual animals also have unique personalities. Some like to interact with humans, others don’t. This one wants to be touched. He sidles up to me and I oblige him. As I rub his flank, he pirouettes over on his back. I rub his exposed belly and his “armpits” (behind his flippers) while he lays motionless, enjoying the moment.

Courtesy USF&WS

At Three Sisters we watch two juveniles—there’s no other word for it—smooch. They are in a full face-to-face embrace, flippers clasped around each other’s body, rolling gently over and over in the shallow water. The less friendly ones stay within the confines of the off-limits areas to avoid humans but these two are not so shy. One finally breaks away from the embrace and swims lazily up to me, inquisitively nuzzling my dive mask.

We spend most of the morning at Three Sisters, swimming with and watching seven manatees, most of them continually coming up to us to look us over. About mid morning, we head out into the open water of Crystal River and Diana drops anchor near King’s Spring, a large spring in an open channel near Banana Island. Manatees congregate here too, but when we arrive there are two pontoon boats in the area and the water is filled with people. We see only one; a large adult with boat-propeller scars across her back who doesn’t want to have anything to do with us and quickly disappears into the off-limits area. So we amuse ourselves by swimming through the center of swarming schools of silvery mullet that part and swirl around us as.

That evening we sit on a deck overlooking the river and watch two river otters splash and play as the sun slips away. Somewhere out there with the otters a family of manatees is calmly munching away, oblivious to the perils they face but waiting to capture the hearts of another crowd of curious visitors.

DETAILS:

There are a number of dive shops in town but based on our experience one of the best is Bird’s Underwater Dive Center. They showed a strong conservation ethic and seemed to have the welfare of the manatees at heart. Contact Bird’s at 352-563-2763, http://www.birdsunderwater.com/.

(This article originally appeared in the Huntsville Times)

The Dirtiest Place in the World

In the parched savannah of Tanzania’s interior everything seems dusted with a thin film of ochre powder. Along the fringes of what passes for roads here, the dust is even worse, kicked up by passing trucks and pedestrians and hanging like a filthy cloud in the still afternoon air. I can feel the grit between my teeth, taste the people and diesel fumes and animals on my tongue as our tough-as-nails 5 ton truck, a beat up but determined blue beast, chugs through the African heat. The truck is old and primitive, a basic machine.

It’s also unstoppable, bucking and lurching along a grueling gash that slices through the African countryside. I can’t call it a road; it’s too primitive to deserve that moniker. Decades of rainy season floods followed by the hammering tires of heavy trucks make this never-maintained trail a nearly impassable ribbon of tortured earth. I’m thinking that nothing could be more punishing--except the alternative, a cross country drive across the scrublands, a near impossibility. So we keep pounding onward.

We’re on a mission, driving the beast from the dusty village of Kasulu—a town that my African friend called “the dirtiest place in the world” to Kigoma, a town hard on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. In the back a pregnant woman is bleeding—to death, if we don’t get her to a hospital soon.

We received word that a group of Tanzanians—a church choral group from Kigoma—was stranded somewhere along the road between the two villages, their truck broken down. So we set out yesterday morning, the three of us—myself; Chuck, a jack-of-all-trades type; and Jonathan, a missionary doctor from Kansas—to rescue the 30 or so men, women and children before nightfall. The thought of almost three dozen people stranded overnight in the African darkness without food and water and with bandits and predators lurking was not pretty. So we left Kigoma mid-morning, packed into an SUV with food and water, hell bent for Kasulu, white knights to the rescue.

Kasulu is 100 kilometers northeast of Kigoma, an easy drive under normal circumstances. But nothing is normal in Africa. The road is crowded with people, cows, goats, bicycles and carts. And potholes, damn potholes, everywhere. Fifty meters of smooth dirt is a blessing but even then you can’t pick up any speed lest you flatten a goat or dog or, God forbid, a mother with a child wrapped in a kanga at her breast and a basket of bananas balanced on her head.

Add another element of danger to the picture: the United Nations uses this route as a supply line between the railroad station at Kigoma and the UN refugee camps in the western region. So every few minutes a speeding truck with “UN” emblazoned on the door barrels by trailing a red cloud of dust. We see the drivers through their dirty and cracked windshields, sawing at the steering wheels as they try to keep their rigs from plummeting out of control into the bush. They seem oblivious to their surroundings, eyes straight ahead. People jump off into the bush; oncoming traffic has to pull over as the huge trucks bellow by leaving choking dust clouds and chaos in their wake.

Can the refugee camps be that in need of immediate resupply that these demons endanger themselves and anyone else on the road? No matter, the UN and the NGOs ride roughshod over the region and in addition to the supply trucks, earnest looking bureaucrats rush back and forth on the roads, their new vehicles carrying the acronyms and logo of their organization; WHO, ICRC, HOPE. I suppose they do some good but the results on the ground are not apparent, unless you count the bags of rice marked “USAID” that we saw at a duka in Kigoma—for sale.

Jonathan has been a missionary here for a year and is familiar with the roads. He managed to avoid the largest holes, some of which are deep and wide enough to qualify as craters. Nevertheless, it was well into midday yesterday before we bumped into the tiny village of Kwaga, barely halfway to Kasulu. We waved at the villagers as we motored through and less than two kilometers past the village we saw the beast. She was indeed broken down, her blue hood reaching forlornly for the sky.

All around the truck people huddled under the bed and in the lee side, seeking scant shelter from the searing African sun. We pulled up behind the truck and hopped out. I looked around, most of the strandees are women and girls but there are also toddlers and babies and a few men. The babies are obviously in distress, their mothers, some nursing, in bad need of water. I was amazed at their calm acceptance of their predicament. They patiently stood in line as we dispensed water bottles and fruit, not a word of complaint. I thought about how a like group of Americans would handle the same situation but I quickly erased that ugly scene from my mind.


The driver said the truck overheated and eventually stopped, refusing to start. Chuck took a quick look at the blue beast and figured that the water pump was dead—the truck would not go to Kasulu like this. We needed to get the women and children out of the countryside and to safe haven before nightfall so we packed as many as we could—which turned out to be twenty women, children and babies—into the SUV. This is a standard size SUV now, not some super-size vehicle. The Tanzanians were stacked like cordwood in the back, sitting on laps and atop each other in the seats. There was no room for Chuck and me so we stayed with the truck while Jonathan drove on to Kasulu, hopefully to return before nightfall to get us and the rest of the stranded group.

As Jonathan fired up the SUV he leaned out the window. “Try to be inconspicuous, white people stand out here.” And smiled and waved as he drove away. And that’s how I came to be stranded in the wild interior of Africa, surrounded by Africans, with no transportation, night approaching and one bottle of water.

We played mechanic and climb into the yawning engine bay of the beast. The water pump was indeed dead, the engine nearly drained dry. However, the engine had cooled down in the intervening hours and we were able to get it started. The remaining church group scrambled into the bed of the truck and we limped back into Kwaga. There we found a fundi—anyone who can fix things in Tanzania is called a fundi—and arranged to have the water pump repaired.

We started looking for a place to sleep when Jonathan rolled into the village. He had made it to Kasulu, found a church to house the Tanzanians and returned for us. Good news for all—a night on a dirt floor in Kwaga was not appealing. We wedged ourselves into the SUV, twelve people stuffed into one vehicle. The heat and dust and smell—we all reeked from sweat—was overpowering.

And then the most wondrous thing happened. The Africans—a choir group remember—broke into a joyous lilting African hymn, their voices cool and sweet. Here we were in the most miserable of circumstances, a day marred by mechanical breakdown, lack of food and water, numbing heat, frightened children and crying babies, and these people were rejoicing and singing. I was stunned beyond belief. That one charming, ephemeral moment will never leave me. When I am faced with a difficult time in my life I never fail to think of that moment of unfettered hope and gratitude.

It took us two hours to reach Kasulu, the Africans singing nearly the whole way. We stopped in front of a small Catholic church as dusk swept in. I hopped out of the SUV and pushed the double church doors open. The interior was dark and I was silhouetted in the headlights, undoubtedly a frightening apparition. Shrieks of “Mzungu!”—“White man!” echo through the church and terrified children scurried to their mother's safety. The mothers laughed as the rest of our passengers filed into the church.

The local priest offered us cots to sleep on in a stark dorm room and I stepped out into the night to watch the light fade over the African grasslands. And then the day’s second wondrous thing occurred. Hundreds, then thousands, then millions of African termites began to hatch. There were no electric lights and in the total darkness I could clearly see their delicate silvery wings catching the moonlight. The ground was covered with a shimmering silver carpet that rose into the darkness—an enchanting snowfall in reverse, the snow rising up to meet the sky. It was a blizzard of the most fragile life, entrancing and captivating, and I watched it for an hour before sleep pulled me to the cot. The next morning I stumbled out of the dorm and the ground was littered with millions of paper-thin termite wings.

Today we are heading back to Kigoma. Eight or so of us pile into the SUV and bounce out of Kasulu on the long and aching trek home. We finally pull into Kwaga to retrieve the beast. It is, naturally, fixed; the resourcefulness and ingenuity of these village mechanics never ceases to amaze me.

We fire the beast up and pull onto the road when a large and boisterous group of villagers rushes toward us, yelling and waving sticks. I briefly think we have committed some unpardonable transgression and are about to be beaten to a pulp but then I notice them carrying a prone body on a platform over their heads. It is a woman and she is obviously in great distress. She opens her eyes briefly and weakly struggles to raise her head. I am not a doctor but this does not look good.

Jonathan makes a quick assessment. She is pregnant and bleeding heavily and without help she will surely bleed to death. She needs more medical help than is available in this remote village--she needs a hospital, and soon. We load her into the back of the beast and take off for Kigoma, the poor woman writhing in terrible pain while we bounce over the rutted road for hours.

We make it to the hospital and she lives.

And I think: What if we had not happened to come through Kwaga today? What are the odds that on a rarely traveled backroad, a truck heading toward the only hospital in the region would happen through an isolated village at the exact time that a desperate woman needed emergency transportation? Infinitesimal, I say. And that was wondrous thing number three.

African Dreams

The setting African sun backlit the spreading acacia trees with a blood red wash. After a hard day of trekking over the Serengeti plains, all I wanted to do was melt into my canvas camp chair and mellow out. I had just slipped into a dreamy, staring-into-the-campfire reverie when the distinctive half-roar, half-cough of an African lion startled me out of my trance. Somewhere, just beyond the faint glow of our campfire, a lion was lurking in the waist-high grass of the savanna. The fading sun cast a cinnamon glow on the waving grass and I was certain that a huge maned male was going to lunge out of the grass and devour me. Of course, it didn’t help that I had watched “The Ghost and the Darkness” before setting out on this safari.

Needless to say, I didn’t get eaten by lions, but in Africa that is still a possibility. It’s this collision of brutality and beauty that draws visitors to the continent. And nowhere is this dichotomy more evident than in northern Tanzania where three of the most evocative places in Africa converge; the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and Olduvai Gorge.

Located at the center of these three areas is Lake Ndutu, an expansive soda lake on the edge of the Serengeti Plains. Lake Ndutu draws migrating animals by the thousands and is a prime wildlife viewing area for giraffe, lion, leopard, hippo, elephant, and the largest wildebeest herds on earth. Huddled on the shore of the lake is Ndutu Safari Lodge, a cozy enclave of gray stone and wood buildings. Legendary big game hunter George Dove originally established a bush camp here in the 1960’s. The lodge retains the humble feeling of its origins and it has become a favorite with visitors who prefer isolation and access to untrammeled areas to five-star lodging and luxurious trappings. The main building, dominated by an airy dining room and bar, is a low open stone structure with exposed beam rafters that faces the glimmering waters of Lake Ndutu. Small but comfortable stone cabins have replaced the original tents.

We first glimpsed Ndutu Lodge as our bush plane made a low pass over the dirt airstrip to shoo any wayward wildlife away.  We banked steeply, circled around and landed, coming to a stop in a swirl of dust. Our hosts, Paul and Louise White, loaded our bags and shuttled us to the lodge. The Whites are energetic and pleasant Brits who have found their niche in the African wilds. Paul is an outgoing fellow with a dry, understated wit. Louise is down to business, immediately taking us under wing, settling us into our stone cabins, and setting out our afternoon tea.

The Whites being Brits, they offer us afternoon tea, which we quickly gulp down—after all, we came to see animals-- before jumping into Land Rovers and bumping off into the Serengeti. Simply put, the Serengeti is Africa’s most spectacular destination, a bustling stew of wildebeest, zebra, lions, gazelles, giraffe, elephant, birds, Cape buffalo and dozens of other species of birds and mammals. At the height of the annual wildlife migration the nonstop parade of wildebeest and zebra followed by ever-attentive lions and cheetahs is unforgettable.

It’s mid afternoon, a sweltering and dusty day in the height of the dry season. The huge herds have left on their annual northward migration to the Masai Mara so our expectations for spying wildlife are low, especially in the heat of the day. We anticipate an uneventful drive into the interior with the hope of stumbling across animals later in the evening as the day cools and life stirs. But we’re barely ten minutes out of camp when two giraffes step out of a stand of acacia trees. Three kilometers further we nearly run over a lioness sitting alone in the middle of an unshaded savanna.

Paul heads for a nearby marsh, an oasis of green in the unending brown plains, where wildlife congregates in the dry season. Clouds of birds swoop low over the verdant grass and Paul is energized. Birds are his thing and he calls out several species in rapid succession--birds we’ve never seen before, and some we’ve never heard of--Secretary birds, Bustards, African kites, and on and on, colorful birds, colorful names.

OK, this is great, but this is Africa and we’re after the big guys. And then less than 100 meters away we come upon a herd of elephants, milling around the edge of the marsh, kicking up clouds of dust. We edge closer and suddenly out of the middle of the herd a juvenile bull, full of bluff and bluster, charges us. All I see is a massive gray hulk, huge ears flared out and a roiling veil of dust as he stampedes toward us, bellowing and shaking his massive head. We frantically dive onto the the floor of the truck. The bull stops thirty feet away and swings his head from side to side, very pleased with our distress.

That’s enough elephant viewing for us for a while so we’re off across the plains again and as we pass under a spreading acacia I see—no I sense—a presence overhead and look up into the piercing yellow eyes of a leopard crouched on an angling limb. I yell for Paul to stop and we skid to a halt directly under the big cat. If the cat wanted, he could hop right into our open truck. He decides differently and scampers down the gnarled trunk and disappears into the golden grass. The odds of seeing a leopard are slim; we see two before the day is over, plus hippos, foxes, cheetahs, dikdiks, impala, and enough other animals to call the day a complete success.

At dusk we head back to the lodge and a delicious meal of fresh salads, wine, tender beef tenderloin, and desserts. Ndutu Safari Lodge may have its roots as a hunting camp but there is no corner-cutting here, the service and food is first-class. While we eat small genet cats scamper over our heads on the rafters. Later, over drinks around the campfire we hear the nightly serenade of the lions in the darkness. Paul points out the constellations, weaves tales about wildlife encounters, tells lies, and keeps us laughing with a string of jokes that we’ll forget by morning. Conversation wanders to the next day’s itinerary; we’re heading to the Ngorongoro Crater, where Paul assures us we’ll see more wildlife than we ever thought of seeing today.

He’s right. As we drive up to the rim of the crater, a long, slogging climb that rises out of the Serengeti, the land gradually changes from savannah grassland to volcanic hills. We pass Maasai tribesmen herding their cattle, their bright red robes bringing welcome relief to the monotonous brown scenery. This is a sparsely populated area but the imposing Maasai seem to dominate the landscape. We round a curve in the road and two young Maasai stand on the roadside, faces starkly painted in black and white, a looming and eerie presence. The painted faces are part of the Maasai coming-of-age ritual, young men on the cusp of manhood.

We finally crest the rim of Ngorongoro Crater and spread below us, as far as we can see, is a vast concentration of wildlife, 250 square kilometers of zoological paradise. Thousands of ant-sized dots (we are still 1500 feet above the crater floor) are telltale signs of herds of wildebeest, zebra, and impala. Too many ants we think; there can’t be that many wild animals here. But as our Land Rover grumbles and bucks down the narrow rim road to the crater floor, the dots become larger and we can begin to make out distinct shapes: Cape buffalo, Thompson’s gazelle, eland, more variety and numbers than we had dared hope to see.

Ngorongoro is a constant stream of African vignettes. A daft lioness stalks and then charges two massive adult Cape buffalo who initially flee and then, coming to their senses, turn on their attacker and chase her off. A drying waterhole, one of the few remaining open bodies of water in this dry season, has become a grim charnel house of dead and dying animals. A large family of hippos dominates the shrinking open water. Around the open water is a large ring of deep and entrapping mud and in this mud is a scene of sickening carnage. Hippos, Cape buffalo, and zebras have become mired in the thick muck as they try to reach the water for a drink. Hyenas have waded in to feast on the trapped animals and have themselves become victims. Vultures swoop in to pick at the dead and the dying. It is a sad and sobering sight and another reminder that this is not some amusement park but Africa at its rawest.

Such tableaus are contrasted with scenes of captivating beauty and thirty minutes later we watch a troop of more than one hundred baboons parade single file past our truck while a huge bull elephant thrashes nearby, furiously tearing arm-thick limbs from an acacia tree. The show never ends and before the day is over we have spotted extremely rare black rhinos, a family of cheetahs sitting atop a termite mound, herds of wildebeest and zebra, huge flocks of brilliant flamingos.

On the way back to the lodge, we pass by the Olduvai Visitor Centre, snuggled in the middle of the Olduvai Gorge, made famous by anthropologists Mary and Louis Leakey who found evidence of 3.7 million year old Australopithecus Afarensis. This could be the cradle of human existence and standing at the bottom of this 300-foot deep, 30-mile long trench it is impossible not to be awed by its meaning.

Our last night in the Serengeti I was gripped with a sense of melancholy, knowing that the next day I would be leaving Ndutu. But then I remembered something a British mountain climbing guide once told me. “Africa never leaves you,” he said “Once you visit you leave a part of yourself there.”

He’s right of course, Ndutu is unforgettable, a dreamlike memory that I return to frequently.

(This article originally appeared in Marco Polo Magazine)

Safer to Jump

The usual comment when I tell someone I went skydiving is,“Why would anyone jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” In my case I have the perfect reply: It was safer than staying on board.

That’s because “perfectly good” would not be used by any sane person to describe the plane that we were taking us up for our first jump. My first look at the plane was unsettling to say the least. It looked like it had been through the Battle of Britain. I half expected to see bullet holes in the fuselage and Nazi swastikas painted under the pilot window to signify enemy aircraft victories. I know the FAA requires annual flight inspections but this plane apparently hadn’t been anywhere near an inspector since the Korean War. No competent inspector would have allowed such a raggedy aircraft anywhere near a runway. It sat, unpainted and forlorn, the tarnished aluminum fuselage wrinkled and patched, off the edge of a small Kentucky runway. I peered inside; with the exception of the pilot and co-pilot seats, the interior was completely absent any seats, belts or panels. Just a bare outer skin and a scuffed up floor. Yikes!

I double-checked my parachute packing and crossed my fingers that the plane could at least gain enough altitude to allow my chute to open before the plane corkscrewed into the ground. It would be a race to see which of us impacted first. I didn’t need this anxiety on top of my raging fear of heights.

Which brings up the obvious question: Why was I doing this? The usual reason; my friend Ed.

This was just another in a long string of adventures—or misadventures—that we have shared over the years. From mountain climbing, to rafting, to glacier hiking, to racing cars and a dozen other adventures, we’ve dared and bet and ridiculed each other into unreasonable activities. A recurring theme is to find ourselves on the precipice of some peak or flailing through big whitewater asking each other why the hell we’re here. Skydiving was perhaps the stupid pinnacle of that long litany of escapades.

But, I was committed. Backing out now was not an option. Ed would never let me hear the end of it. So we went through ground school, which was a short classroom period explaining the basics of what would happen after we stepped out of the plane (a greasy spot in the worst case), how high we would be jumping from (too high), how to pull the ripcord (I paid particular attention to that topic) and how to guide the chute (in essence, pull on various random cords and pray). Then we adjourned to a nearby field and practiced how to exit from the aircraft and hit the ground. This involved jumping off a six foot high wooden platform and landing and rolling in the Kentucky dirt. Next we were hooked up to a static line and stepped off a platform to experience the feeling of a parachute opening. I closed my eyes before I stepped off the platform—how was I going to step out of an airplane at 6000 feet? I stood on the ground and watched Ed step off after me. I think I could see his lips saying a prayer.

No turning back now, we’d paid our money, spent a morning learning the basics, now it was time to hit the sky. Six of us, most first timers, clambered aboard the airborne version of the African Queen. Much to my astonishment, the engine sputtered to life and the plane actually managed to taxi onto the runway. My last hope for not jumping was dashed. I mean, I never thought this thing would actually fly.

We bumped down the dirt runway, I could feel the bald and patched tires clear the safe embrace of mother earth and we were airborne. The pilot took us up in a lazy spiral to jump altitude and I peered out the open jump door as the lovely farm fields of Kentucky became more and more distant.

The jumpmaster looked at us and asked who wanted to go first. Much to my shock I saw my hand, seemingly detached from my body, shoot skyward. I think at that point my brain said “we’re going to die anyway, may as well go out looking brave”. I lined up in the doorway, Ed next, the others behind us. The ground sure looked a long way down. I felt a tap on my back and the jumpmaster pointed to the door. Wait a minute, did he really expect me to go through with this? I gave him a look: “Who me?”

But I had come too far to turn chicken now. I grabbed a deathgrip on the wing strut, stepped out into the rushing air stream and onto the license-plate-sized platform, looked down at the fields below and let go. I think I heard Ed whimpering above my screams as I exited the plane.

What followed was terrifying. I was falling to my death. I would never see my family again. My friends would remark on what a stupid way to end a life. My wife would live a life of luxury and idleness from my life insurance proceeds.

And then I remembered I was supposed to be counting before pulling my ripcord. How many seconds had I been falling? Four? Ten? I was supposed to count to six but in my panic I forgot everything except my imminent impact with the earth. Pull!

What followed was the most wonderful feeling I’ve ever experienced. The chute popped, immediately putting the brakes on my plummeting body. After the initial jolt, my fall turned into a gently drift and as my heart slowly returned to a rate of something less than 200 I actually began to enjoy the feeling of floating above the earth. I could see for miles in all directions. I picked out the landing field far below and jockeyed my controls to guide the parachute to my target. This was awesome!

I landed near the target, hit, dropped and rolled. The landing was a little hard but I was pumped. What an adrenaline rush! Ed landed shortly after, one field over. We high-fived, whooped and recounted the jump over the next few hours.

Five weeks later, the plane crashed during another jump flight, slightly injuring those aboard. Like I said, not a “perfectly good plane”.

Trekking the Florida Panhandle

Florida’s white sand beaches, lazy rivers and Spanish moss-draped forests offer nature lovers a wide variety of places to visit and play and some 200 miles of beaches and scrubland from the Florida panhandle eastward to Crystal River are still wild and undeveloped. This stretch of Florida, which roughly parallels Highway 98 along the gulf coast, is home to a diverse array of outstanding natural areas in a part of the state best described as retro.

The condos, souvenir joints and beach homes that dominate the state’s coastline are mercifully few here. Unbroken pine forests line the highways and a chain of wildlife refuges and state parks adorns this corridor, offering beautiful natural destinations within easy driving distance of each other.

Linking these stops provides days of exceptional outdoor adventures interrupted by slow-as-molasses towns and out-of-the-way mom and pop restaurants. We took a week to trek through the area, starting at the western reaches of the panhandle near the city of Destin.

We made our first stop at Topsail Hill State Park and its three miles of beaches secluded behind the park’s claim to fame--towering 25-foot white sand dunes. The park is well visited but somehow retains a relatively untrammeled ambience. It is a nice spot for a day hike and as we lace up our boots we spy a few tourists walking the beach but on this cool March day the beach is anything but crowded. We hike between dunes down to the surf and head west along the packed sand where we see dozens of shorebirds scurrying along the beach. Following a faint trail inland through patches of wispy sea oats, we stumble on a tea-colored freshwater lake shrouded in a thick stand of pine trees. Warily tiptoeing around the edges, we keep our eyes out for hungry gators but instead we are greeted with a cacophony of birds irritated at our intrusion. We spend way too much time hiking through the trees and we have to race a gorgeous setting sun to reach our car before dark.

Topsail gets us pumped up for more discoveries and we are not disappointed at our next stop, St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. Most of the park is a wilderness preserve—no vehicles allowed—so we ditch our car and backpack into the peninsula. The park is a 7.5 mile-long finger of sugary white sand that follows a low ridge line north, the Gulf of Mexico on the ocean side, St. Joseph Bay inshore. The narrow peninsula features high dunes and pine scrub and wide beaches. We are delighted to find that the thousands of acres of beaches and scrub are virtually deserted. On our two-day backpack into the peninsula we see six people. It is hard to believe there is still a place this deserted in Florida. The isolation is refreshing and we delight in scanning the beach both ways and realizing we are the only humans as far as the eye can see.

But we aren’t alone; on our return we follow a trail along a low ridge line traversing the spine of the park and we are repeatedly interrupted by the noisy shuffling of armadillos rooting through the forest duff for tasty grubs. We see a dozen, comical looking critters that momentarily halt to shoot us quizzical looks, completely unperturbed by our presence. We hate to leave St. Joseph but the word is that St. George Island State Park is just as wild and we want to backpack there also.

Our stomachs get the best of us however, and we are delayed getting there. Highway 98 passes through Apalachicola, a quaint town famous for its succulent oysters and we take time to enjoy plates full of these local delicacies. Oyster restaurants are liberally sprinkled along the highway so we pick one with a waterfront view and suck down oysters to our heart’s content.

We linger too long, arriving at St. George Island late in the afternoon. The day turned overcast and a front has blown in and by the time we load up our packs we are fighting a blustery, cold offshore breeze that makes hiking uncomfortable. Like St. Joseph, St. George Island is an anachronism—a wild, undeveloped gem that attracts outdoorsy types. Even on this cold blustery day, we stumble on three other groups of hikers and swap stories with them as dusk settles in. We set up our tent in a light rain and a storm rages all night.

The next day brings typical Florida weather, bright and sunny, as we pull into St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. To use the old cliché, this is one of Florida’s best kept secrets. The road from the entrance shoots seven miles straight through the heart of the 68,000 acre refuge, past thick pine forests and tall palm trees and as we drive we are confronted by a veritable ark of wildlife: hundreds of birds everywhere and where there aren’t birds, there are alligators, or turtles, or otters, or snakes. We run across a ten foot gator on one trail; on another we step gingerly over a pygmy rattlesnake coiled on a wooden foot bridge.

The refuge road ends at St. Marks Lighthouse, a picturesque 19th century structure sitting on the edge of Apalachee Bay. Gunslit-like window openings at the base of the gleaming white lighthouse provide convenient sunning spots for snakes and every windowsill is occupied by a logy grey rat snake soaking up the warm March sun. Pelicans dive in front of us as we eat lunch on the water’s edge.

Final stop: Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, home to one of our most appealing wild animals, the West Indian manatee. These ponderous creatures are very susceptible to the cold so through the winter they congregate in Crystal River around a spring that pumps 600 million gallons of warm 72 degree water out daily. Snorkeling with these huge animals is a real treat and we spend the better part of the morning carefully observing them from a distance until a mother and baby approach us. These close encounters are thrilling and we are approached numerous times.

There you have it: one week, five outstanding natural areas. Easy driving, good food, lots of old Florida ambience, beaches, lakes, rivers, gators and manatees. And you thought Florida was all about Disney World.

(This article originally appeared in the Huntsville Times)

Two Wheelin' the Trace: Biking the Natchez Trace in Style

Somewhere between the thirty and forty mile mark I began wondering why I had let my daughter Sara talk me into this trip. Sara had been pestering me all summer to bicycle the Natchez Trace Parkway with her but I wasn’t sure my aging body would make it so I kept coming up with lame excuses. Her persistence finally wore me down but only after a couple of major concessions on her part.

First, no way was I going to tackle the entire 450-mile length of the Nashville, TN to Natchez, MS parkway. Second, no camping. If I was going to bike during the day I was going to sleep in luxury at night. So after much negotiation, we decided that the section of the Trace from Tupelo, MS to Columbia, TN, a distance of 130 miles, was about right. Our plan was to leisurely pedal this section in three days, stopping along the way to take in the numerous natural and historical sites and spending the nights in bed and breakfasts. A last minute change of plans cut our trip down to 84 miles, three nights and two days of biking--still an ambitious trip as far as I was concerned.  No hundred mile days for me.

Our trip started when we checked into the Mockingbird Inn near downtown Tupelo. Our host Sharon Robertson showed us to the Sanibel Island room of the extremely cool (according to Sara) two-story house. I had to agree with her, it was very cool. Each room has a different theme, from Africa to Paris to Venice. Our room’s island theme was about as close to the atmosphere of a beach house as you’ll get in Tupelo. Maybe this trip wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

We relaxed on a backyard swing beneath huge overhanging shade trees and met Rod and Betsy Chamberlain from Georgia. They were also biking the Trace, Rod attempting the leg from Tupelo to Franklin, with Betsy driving the support vehicle and joining him for selected stretches. Over dinner at a pub just across the street, I found out that Rod is 76 years old, so I figured maybe I could make it after all. Little did I know--more to come on that.

We were up early the next morning enjoying the Mockingbird’s bountiful breakfast. This inn has been named one of the top ten B&Bs in Mississippi and, based on our experience there, the rating is in no danger of slipping.

I almost hated to leave but we bid good-bye to Rod and Betsy and headed out to the Natchez Trace. If you’ve never ridden the Trace, it is a completely different experience from driving it. Traffic is sparse and no commercial trucks are allowed, so you can enjoy a serene ride without having to worry about ending up as road kill. The parkway has gently rolling hills and gracefully contoured curves and the scenery is a snaking ribbon of imposing trees, cotton fields, winding creeks and lazy-flowing rivers. Clear springs, towering overlooks, Confederate graves, caves, Indian burial mounds, and historical markers--including the grave of explorer Meriwether Lewis--appeared at frequent intervals. This gave me lots of excuses to stop and rest. We quickly settled into a slow, idyllic pace and pedaled to our own rhythms.

Our first day’s goal was to bike 45 miles to the Belmont Hotel in Belmont, MS. I still swear that Mississippi miles are longer. This was where I began wondering if I would make it. Our normal 12-mile-an-hour pace slipped to six (an average we never exceeded the entire trip). We struggled into the lobby of the grandly restored Belmont Hotel hot and tired. The Belmont was built in 1924 and stepping through the double front doors immediately transports you back to that decade. The lobby and dining room still feel elegant. Unfortunately, the period feel was lost on us. The only thing we wanted to see was dinner and a bed.

I did not have the same enthusiasm when I awoke the second morning. More like trepidation. Would I make it through the day or end up sprawled by the roadside, desiccated and distraught? Ron Deaton, the owner of the Belmont, must have sensed my misgivings. He loaded our bikes on a trailer and gave us a lift back to the parkway, avoiding seven miles of traffic on busy Highway 25. Once we were back on our bikes we felt better and--lo and behold--we soon heard someone huffing up a long hill behind us. It was Rod who had camped at nearby Tishomingo State Park. We rode with him for a while but we could see we were slowing him down so urged him to go ahead. Last we saw of him was his bike disappearing on the horizon. So much for my hope of three decades of youth giving me an advantage.

Surprisingly, the second day was much easier. We covered 40 miles easily, stopping along the way at Freedom Hills Overlook; at 800 feet, the highest Alabama point on the parkway; Colbert Ferry on the banks of the Tennessee River; and Rock Springs where dozens of hummingbirds were congregating before their annual migration. We pulled into Florence and the Wood Avenue Inn for our last night. This 1889 Victorian mansion has all the trappings--wide porches, octagonal towers, antiques, and fireplaces everywhere. We sat on the shaded back porch and celebrated our successful trip.

Footnote: Rod Chamberlain emailed us and he made it all the way to Franklin. If he can do it, I guess there is still hope for me. Maybe I’ll talk Sara into riding that section next year.

If you would like to bike the Trace check out the Natchez Trace Bed and Breakfast Reservation Service which can assist in arranging biking trips. Many of the B&Bs are close to the Trace or will provide shuttles to and from the parkway. 1-800-377-2770 or www.bbonline.com/natcheztrace

We found the B&B owners to be extremely “biker friendly”, providing bike shuttles, tips on backroads to avoid traffic, where to get water, and directions to restaurants within walking distance. We recommend the three we stayed at for this reason.

The Mockingbird Inn, 305 North Gloster Street, Tupelo, MS 38803, 601-841-0286. Within walking distance of restaurants. Two easy biking miles from the Trace. One of the best bed and breakfasts we have ever experienced.

The Belmont Hotel, 121 Main Street, Belmont, MS 38827, 662-454-7948. Eight miles from the Trace. One restaurant within walking distance. Check with owner Ron Deaton for shuttle back to the Trace.

Wood Avenue Inn, 658 North Wood Avenue, Florence, AL 35630, 205-766-8441. Twelve miles from the Trace but the owners will provide shuttle to and from the parkway. Within walking distance of many restaurants.

(A version of this article originally appeared in the Nashville Tennessean.)

Iceland: Bad Name, Great Country

The charisma level is low; even the name sounds bleak: Iceland? Conjures up visions of cold days, colder nights, frostbitten toes and somber skies. Because of its gloomy image the country doesn’t make many appearances on peoples’ bucket lists. So I was not enthused about visiting but it was my buddy Ed’s turn to pick the destination for our latest adventure trip and Iceland it was. My hesitancy was not eased on our approach to Keflavik airport. The ground below looked stark and barren, devoid of any distinguishing features and, especially, any vegetation. Oh boy, this is gonna suck.

Three hours later I am up to my waist in a lake in Laugervatn, flyfishing for arctic char and marveling at the vast and captivating scenery. The place is beautiful. How could I have been so wrong?

That’s a question I keep asking myself over the next days as we make our way around the island. The Icelandic backcountry’s natural beauty is so unexpected that we find ourselves constantly in awe. Iceland’s volcanoes and geysers and glaciers and waterfalls challenge the writer’s storehouse of adjectives; illusory, otherworldly, fantastic—nothing seems to capture the feel of the country. Everything lies outside the parameters of normality. It’s a raw and powerful beauty, the country throws rugged vistas at you, daring you not to be captivated by the show.

We trekked around the island’s perimeter, roughly following the Ring Road, a two-lane, 900 kilometer pavement-and-gravel-roadway that bumps against the North Atlantic as it circumscribes the coast. Along the way we had a full schedule of whitewater rafting, hiking, glacier climbing, whale watching and snowmobiling .

We modified our plans somewhat to vent our anger at the erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano, whose shifting ash plume had delayed our arrival from JFK, costing us a day of partying in Reykjavik. Wanting to get an up close look at the active cauldron, we drove up a narrow back road on the volcano’s north face followed by a short hike to a dead end on the banks of a raging mountain river. A low cloud cover hid the peak but we could hear an ominous low rumbling—an extended thunderous roll—booming out of the gloomy clouds. The water was swift and milky from the volcano ash and blocked our progress—no way we would see the volcano from this approach. Disappointed, we backtracked to the Ring Road and a couple of hours later rounded a curve and there it was—a massive gray plume reaching 20,000 feet into the sky, pumping tons of ash, rocks and fire into the clear blue sky. It was impressive—a powerful display of nature at is angriest. A massive field of steaming rock flow fingered down the mountainside, threatening the postcard-pretty house and barns of a hapless farmer caught in its path.

The impact of the eruption on Europe is highly publicized but the impact within the country is epic—washed out bridges, farm fields layered with ash, silted rivers, blackened skies, respiratory problems for residents caught in its downwind path. We drove the rest of the day and part of the next through the ash plume, headlights blazing, billowing ash obscuring the road behind every oncoming vehicle. Impressive.

The effects of the volcano were still obvious the next day as we hiked up the face of Skaftafell glacier. The crusty white ice was sprinkled with a fine dusting of gray ash, marring its natural beauty at the lower levels. As we climbed further the ash seemed to dissipate and the characteristic glacial blue hue revealed itself. We hiked through ice tunnels and crevasses and blue ice caves, an easy trek on one of Iceland’s many disappearing glaciers. Our guide pointed across a low bouldered plain, stretching some 800 meters to the ocean. The glacier had retreated that distance in little over ten years, a sad tale repeated all over the country.

Near Hofn we impulsively took an unmarked side road into the interior and hiked up into the mountains where we stumbled into the midst of a herd of reindeer. They approached within ten meters as we crouched behind a low knoll, the herd’s large bull silhouetted against the steel gray sky as he sniffed the air sensing our presence. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime poses and we were just in the right place to capture it.

At Husavik on the northern part of the island we cruised out of the harbor to catch glimpses of minke and humpback whales which obligingly surfaced and showed their tails for us as we snapped pictures. It was nature at its finest, their black smooth skin slipping slowly and dramatically into the blue waters of the bay. So it was particularly jarring and upsetting to see minke whale on the menu of the restaurant that night--an unsettling and brutal aspect to an otherwise enlightened country.

After an easy day on the ocean, we were ready for some more strenuous action and so we were mildly disappointed with the whitewater on the Vestari Jokulsa, one of Icleand’s premier rafting rivers. This is primarily a Class II-III river. Ed and I have rafted all over the world and while the scenery was excellent, the action was low. Our guide, Jeff, sensed our frustration and told us we needed to return the next day and do the Austari Jokulsa, one of the best whitewater rivers in the world. A good idea, we took him up on it, with plans to return in the morning. Unfortunately, his second recommendation was not so good. We were staying the night in the tiny village of Holar, a wide spot in the road consisting of a few farmhouses and a University. Jeff told us to be sure to check out the Beer Club, run by a friend of his at the University.

Big mistake. The club is open to faculty, staff and guests only. Since we were staying in a cabin on campus, we qualified as guests. Our bartender, who insisted his name was Gummi Bear, plied us with multiple samples of every brand of beer sold in Iceland, the faculty members joined us in revelry and we staggered back to our cabin in the early morning light. Not a good prep for a day of whitewater.

But our raft awaited and the next morning we pulled on our dry suits (the Jokulsa is glacier fed and COLD) and warily stepped into the river. The Austari Jokulsa lived up to its billing. It is an awesome river with big water, second only to the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in my experience. Huge standing waves provided two plus hours of continuous and intimidating rapids, carving through some of the most rugged and forbidding landscape in Iceland. The paddle was challenging and exhausting and after a full day of rapids, eddies and drops we were exhausted.

We had just enough energy to drive into Reykjavik and grab a couple hours of sleep before hitting the legendary nightlife of the city. Reykjavik rocks all night long. A string of bars in city center is a hive of activity that spins up near midnight and parties on until early morning. Don’t like the scene? Move to the bar next door, there is another party rocking through the night. Reykjavik’s party crowd is young, cool and intent on having fun.

Reykjavik is cosmopolitan and modern with remnants of its origins as a shipping port still evident, a charming, clean and picturesque city with an easy going, vibrant populace. Another surprise, it hums with the energy of a major European city. Just another in a long string of surprises from this country.

Details: We set up our trip through Nordic Visitor, who took care of all guides and arrangements based on our trip desires.

http://www.nordicvisitor.com/ 

Laugavegur 26

101 Reykjavik, Iceland

Tel: +354 578 20 80

Direct: +354 578 20 86

Deal's Gap, The Southeast's Premier Biking Road

It took a five hour ride, an overnight camp in the rain and a cold morning before we finally arrived at our destination: a twisting, snaking, up and down stretch of two-lane road that has become a Mecca for motorcycle riders throughout the Southeast. This desolate ribbon of narrow asphalt in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina attracts motorcyclists from all over the country who revel in the road’s challenging banked curves and blind turns.

This is Deal’s Gap, a name that triggers almost mystical feelings in motorcyclists. It is located high in the mountains on US Highway 129 between Topton, North Carolina and Maryville, Tennessee and straddles the state line. Highway 129 curls and bends for more than fifty miles and is a challenging ride the whole way, but in one eleven mile stretch the road twists itself into a spaghetti bowl of 318 turns, a continuous feast of rights, lefts, climbs, and drops. There is hardly a better motorcycle road anywhere in the country. The Gap is legendary within biking circles and on weekends the road is headlight-to-tailpipe with hundreds of bikes.

Deal’s Gap is both demanding and beautiful, carving its way through the Smoky’s lush mountain forests and past breathtaking vistas of deep valleys, clear mountain lakes, and forested mountains. But most riders barely notice the beauty surrounding them, hardly daring to tear their eyes from the highway lest they become road kill. This is not a road for the faint-hearted.

The Gap’s reputation is what brought the five of us across three states to attack its legendary curves. But now that we’re here at the bottom of the hill and ready to go, we have a couple of problems. For one thing, the day has turned cold and rainy and there is a fine mist swirling around us. To make matters worse, the rain from the previous night has pounded many of the leaves out of the trees and onto the road. Slick curvy roads covered with wet leaves are a bad combination for motorcycle riding.

So we adjourn to Deal’s Gap Motorcycle Resort, a combination gas station, store and general meeting place for Gap riders to talk things over. The store is a small dimly lit place stocked with T-shirts, hats and other Deal’s Gap memorabilia with sayings like “Asphalt Surfer”, “I Survived Deal’s Gap”, and other less-than-confidence-inspiring slogans. We gather around a television playing a continuous video of two riders leaning and gunning their way through the Gap. The view on the screen is from the handlebars of the tailing bike and we watch the lead bike lean, slide, and squirt through S-curves, around bends and across double yellow lines, passing slower moving bikes and cars at dangerous (and obviously illegal) speeds. The speedometer of the trailing bike is visible in the video frame and it registers speeds that we usually don’t see on the Interstate. Watching the video is not a good idea, kind of like seeing Jaws before going for a swim in the ocean. It causes a lot of shifting of feet and “Maybe we oughta wait a while” discussions. But we are five guys astride motorcycles--no way any one of us is going to suggest turning back. Manhood is at stake.

So we mount up and head into the Gap. With 318 curves, everything happens too fast to catalogue in your brain but here’s what I remember of the ride:

The road twists uphill to the mountain’s crest, crosses the Tennessee state line, and then begins a dizzying downward spiral. Dark gray cliffs hug the road on one side and the skinny shoulder drops hundreds of feet into nothingness on the other. Stands of unforgiving oak, hickory and maple trees crowd right up to the road’s edge. As I come around a sweeping left curve, there is a tow truck parked on a pull off, like a vulture waiting for dinner. Around another curve I come upon a Tennessee state trooper car, blue light flashing, hovering near a wrecked bike.

I had dreamed about downshifting and upshifting, leaning, accelerating and decelerating up and down the rapid elevation changes of the road. Instead all I see are dark spots on the road that look ominously like ice and blankets of slippery leaves sprinkled liberally in the middle of 180-degree turns. I glance down at my speedometer: barely 35 miles per hour. So much for my plans to swoop through the Gap and arouse the envy of my friends.

I’ve just about resigned myself to an excruciatingly slow run through the Gap when the road almost miraculously dries out and we crank up the speed. John, the only Deal’s Gap veteran in our group, is ahead of me on his black Honda Shadow, leaning through the curves. I try to keep up, not an easy task. But I get into a rhythm, leaning easily from left to right, shifting my weight and feeling the exhilaration of dancing through the curves. Too soon, we come out of the last sweeping curve, pumped with excitement.

At the bottom of the hill we pull over and the rest of our group join us. We all come through unscathed, even one friend, who—unbelievably—has not ridden for twenty years and borrowed a motorcycle for this trip. I figured he would eat pavement at Deal’s Gap but he, like the rest of us, is an immediate Gap fan and we begin planning a return trip before our engines even have time to cool. What can I say; it's an addiction.

(A version of this article originally appeared in the Huntsville Times)

Llama Luxury: Trekking the Backcountry in Comfort

Less than a mile into our hike through the thickly forested mountains of North Carolina I begin to appreciate my new hiking companion. He carries all my gear, does not bore me with endless conversation and follows silently behind me, keeping a discreet distance, stopping when I stop, trotting alongside when I scramble up a slope.

A couple of hours later we stop for lunch on a level plateau surrounded by a green palette of maple and oak trees. While I contentedly chew on my lunch, he just as contentedly chews on daisy asters and clover.

But what do you expect from a llama? My surefooted companion has freed me to enjoy the wildlife and scenery of the mountains without the burden of a cumbersome backpack full of food and gear. After years of lugging tents, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, clothes, food, and all the other paraphernalia that I seem to need to make it through a few days in the wilderness, I started thinking that there must be a better way. My answer came when I discovered llama trekking.

A popular activity in the Rockies, llama trekking is slowly catching on in the Smoky Mountains. And for good reason. Llamas are appealing creatures with personalities more like a dog than a horse and the freedom that comes with having a pack animal to carry your gear cannot be overstated.

If you’re like me, you don’t happen to have a llama standing around in your backyard so you’ll need to hook up with a llama trekking outfitter. There are at least two such companies in the Smokies and they offer a variety of treks, ranging from easy half-day adventures to extended three-day camping trips. I picked a company located near the eastern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

Our overnight trek starts with a human-llama bonding session, kind of like one of those high school dances where you circle the crowd trying to pick up a hapless victim. I sidle up to a white and brown llama and he tilts his head sideways to have his ear scratched. That’s all it takes, I’m his new best friend. High school should have been this easy.

Bonding achieved, I load my stuff into my llama’s two saddlebags and we head into the mountains. I feel like Noah leading his charges to higher ground. The narrow mountain trail parallels one of those ubiquitous North Carolina mountain streams, tumbling cold and clear out of the highlands. As we traipse uphill through a lush thicket of mountain laurel I realize that this is going to be a typical Smoky Mountain hike—in a word, steep.

I also immediately grasp that I have entered a whole other level of backcountry trekking. The hiking, minus a thirty pound backpack, is liberating and the usual Spartan rules of lightweight and low volume packing are out the window; with a llama to bear the burden you can add a little extravagance to your trip--maybe a bottle of wine, a book, a pillow, an inflatable mattress. I could grow to love this llama thing.

That’s the bottom line; llama trekking adds a considerable degree of luxury to the usual freeze dried noodles, instant coffee, one set of clothes hiking trip. Goodbye austerity, hello comfort.  But don’t get the idea that llama trekking is just for the out-of-shape and families with little kids. If you’re worried about the wimp factor, you can opt for long distance multi-day trips that offer more adventure.

No matter what your preference, llama trekking is a fun and unique adventure. Just don’t expect any campfire conversation from your new companion.

Details:  Two companies that offer llama trekking in the Smoky Mountains are English Mountain Llama Treks (828-622-9686, www.hikinginthesmokies.com) located near Hot Springs, NC and Smoky Mountain Llama Treks (865-428-6042, www.smokymountainllamatreks.com) near Sevierville, TN.

(A version of this article originally appeared in Blue Ridge Country)

Soaring Over Alabama

This is not right. I have a death grip on the control stick between my legs, the ground below is rushing towards me and there is no engine sound coming from my plane. In normal circumstances these factors would be a recipe for disaster.

From the back seat I hear a calm voice say “Pull back on the stick.” I ease the stick back and the sailplane gently climbs into the clear blue sky. Wow! What a rush! This is my first time to ever pilot any kind of aircraft and the glider plane’s almost instantaneous response to my touch on the stick is thrilling.

I’m soaring 8000 feet over the green foothills of the Appalachians in north Alabama and loving every minute of it. I swivel my head left and right and take in the expanse of forests, fields and undulating hills stretching for miles in both directions. The sunny sky is clear, a few puffy clouds cast faint shadows on the hills below. Off to the right I see the airplane which just towed us into the sky banking down to return to Moontown Airport, a tiny grass airstrip just east of Huntsville. That plane, a Piper Pawnee, is a muscular ex-cropduster that easily towed this light Blanik sailplane up to 6000 feet before I pulled the lever and released the tow cable.

The takeoff was stressful. Although my instructor, Mike Baker, had given me extensive basic flight instruction and orientation on the glider plane, the fact remains that I am a total novice as a pilot and jockeying the plane around while being towed by the Pawnee required all my concentration and a deft touch on the stick. By the time we reached 6000 feet I was already sweating profusely. And it took a supreme leap of faith to release that cable. No matter how much confidence I have in Mike and this glider plane, it was still scary to let go of the only thing with power and trust your life to the vagaries of invisible air currents and updrafts. But once I pulled the lever and released the cable, everything changed. The first couple of seconds were tense as I held my breath hoping the sailplane would not plummet nose first into the red Alabama dirt below but the plane shuddered a little in the Pawnee’s turbulence and then—magically—regained its composure and we were suddenly free and gracefully sweeping through the sky, silently soaring in the rising air.

Now I’m scribing graceful arcs through the sky, banking the Blanik to one side and the other, gently swooping back and forth, a fluid ballet. The plane responds to my touch and I’m feeling pretty good about my piloting abilities. Mike tells me to put the plane into a shallow climb until I feel it start to stall, then push hard on the stick. I point the nose upward, wait for the telltale flutter of the stall and push the stick forward. The plane noses over and gathers speed in a smooth noiseless rush. I’m feeling comfortable, I expected this to be a high adrenalin adventure but the only way I can describe it is calming--no irritating engine drone, no scanning of oil pressure or engine temperature or RPMs. The controls in the Blanik are simple; a stick, control pedals, an air speed indicator, a string attached just ahead of the canopy to indicate wind direction, and a fore-and-aft ballast adjuster. That’s about it, just pure flying.

I’m feeling pretty cocky about my skills when Mike asks if I’d like him to take the controls from the back seat and show me a few moves. Sounds good to me and he takes over. My cockiness instantly evaporates. He wheels the plane into a tight turn, the left wing nearly perpendicular to the ground and then pulls the stick right and the plan tilts lazily over on the opposite wing. He executes a series of dance-like moves that would be the envy of any aerobatic pilot and I realize how amateurish and tentative my flying had been. My transitions were jerky and abrupt, his are smooth as syrup. He climbs nearly vertical into the sun, pushes the nose over and eases the plane into a silky downward spiral. I obviously have a long way to go to reach any level of competence in this sport.

But that doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm and I eagerly retake the controls. For another hour or so I swoosh over Alabama, carving wide turns, gaining and losing altitude. And then it’s time to land. I spy the grass runway a couple of miles away, line up and begin my descent. I consistently keep the plane too high-- I gotta tell you, landing a plane without an engine is nerve wracking. I definitely do not want to be short of the runway—how will I regain altitude to avoid plowing up some farmer’s field with a very expensive sailplane? Mike repeatedly tells me to lower my glidepath, which I finally do. At the last minute he takes the stick and we skim across the grass runway, finally settling to a halt.

I am ecstatic. I open the canopy and pump my fist. This is much better than I had ever hoped. Where else can a rank beginner take total control of a plane and experience the thrill of flying in one day?

In Memoriam: Mike Baker, my instructor, was killed shortly after this flight in the crash of a MEDEVAC helicopter in Colbert County, Alabama.