Adventures on the Sauce
Couldn't climb a straight line, but I made it to the top. Photo credit Clare Boland
Reading 60 Meters to Anywhere got me thinking about drinking and climbing and other reckless things I like to do. I've always admired the adventures of Ed Abbey, Farley Mowat, John Wesley Powell, and Lewis and Clark for their ability to combine adventures with alcohol. Ed always talked of his customary breakfast beer, as well as drinking "Magic Coffee," or coffee and whiskey on rainy down days on river trips. He also smoked a pipe and died at sixty-two I believe. Farley Mowat made his famous "Caribou Juice" in the Canadian Arctic by mixing Caribou beer with grain alcohol intended for the preservation of specimens. That almost killed him through his overloading of the plane by sneaking the beer into the canoe that was strapped between the landing gear unbeknownst to the pilot.
Then there's Mowat's description of the tenets of drinking in Newfoundland, which include:
If a bottle is placed on the table, then it must be uncorked.
If a bottle is uncorked, then it must not be re-corked or it will spoil.
If a bottle is uncorked, then it must be drunk as quickly as possible or it will spoil.
-As remembered from The Boat That Wouldn't Float
Sounds like alcoholism as a cultural tradition. Don't think he's alive either. John Wesley Powell and his men drank a Wyoming town dry before starting down the Grand Canyon, they all survived that leg of the trip. Lewis and Clark brought over 150 gallons of Whiskey with them out west, which lasted them less than a year. When they got back, Lewis partied his face off, didn't write up the expedition, and shot himself. Then there was Mo Anthoine, subject of Feeding the Rat, whose mother died of cirrhosis of the liver despite never having drunk a drop. So Mo did what he could to "redress the balance," chain smoked, and died of brain cancer likely due to a stint in an asbestos mine. I've always been more into Bridwell and Beckey than Robbins and Chouinard. But the latter two look a lot better these days.