I wrote this piece for Bikemonkey Magazine. It’s about a friend of mine from Hood River, Oregon who died of Leukemia. Just a fucking great dude. Left his mark on a lot of people. So much so the town built a trail in his name. John Krakauer even commented on this piece, which for me was a great honor.
The Story of a Trail
(and of all trails intersecting)
Move others enough during your lifetime by strength of character and consistent good cheer and a trail may be built in honor of you when it’s over. That’s what the community of Hood River did for Charley Laventure, who On October 27th, 2009, at 61 years, returned to the circle, leaving those who knew him with an aching vacancy in their hearts. Charley went, as would be expected, with consummate grace.
However it is received, loss is an unavoidable part of living. Without it, existence would lack the capacity to be poignant or so unbearably beautiful. Following loss, in the pursuit of levity, perspective and the going forwardness of life, it is natural that we honor those extraordinary beings who go before us, as well as the cohesion among fellows that the sudden absence of one of our own brings about. That is the spirit underlying Charley’s Trail; celebrating the best aspects of a likeable person and, looked at rightly, honoring the better angles of our nature as a collective community.
Charley’s Trail is a well built, technical, flowing section of tread roughly three miles long connecting the Seven Streams Trail to Twin Peaks Trail in the Post Canyon Trail System of Hood River County. Post Canyon is known more for its free riding possibilities than cross country, but you can do it all there, from mild meandering to grommet puckering launches off high-trauma ramps. It’s not an epic XC destination, but it is close to town, it’s fun, and you can ride your bike to it. Charley’s was built with a small grant, lots of volunteer labor and plenty of guidance from Jim Thornton, Trails Coordinator for the Mount Hood National Forest, Barlow Ranger District.
Jim has been an avid mountain biker since the sport was in its infancy, a natural fit for rangering the Barlow District, where 90% of the single-track in the 1.2 million acre Mount Hood Forest resides. From an outside view, his is a dream job. He builds, maintains and stewards just under two hundred miles of prime tread in one of the most stunning areas of Oregon. In thirty-four years of service to the outdoor community, his trail building skills have evolved into an intuitive art form.
At speed, Charley’s Trail requires attention and intension. But at a crawl, with the right sensibilities employed, the small details stand up and speak of a highly conscientious builder with an ecologist’s sensitivity. Rock armoring spares the sensitive cambium layers of exposed roots. A consistent camber keeps water moving. Natural benches are utilized. There is an obsessive sparing of trees. I’ve heard it said that the product of one’s work is a direct expression of the creator’s state of evolution. The closer I observe the trail, the more I am moved by the wider view of the builder.
“It’s all part of it, you know. Part of the experience.” Says Jim in a remnant Jersey accent. “You use what you can, save what you can.” This while standing beneath young vine maples arching over the trail. In fall their collective leaves form a floating stained glass arcature, the trail matures into a fleeting cathedral before winter lays its dark hand on it. Jim hopes you’ll notice.
Charley was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia just before he and his wife moved from Hood River to Boulder to be nearer their two daughters. They sold the kiln, the potter’s wheel, the bookstore and the house and left the community they’d lived in for thirty years. I am thinking about this, that movement is intrinsically rooted in us as a species, while drinking coffee from a Charley Laventure coffee mug at Jim’s house before a ride. The mug is handsome and unpretentious. Its true beauty lies in its economy, a pleasing fit to the hand and lip. The mugs are numbered now. No more will be made. Charley said to me after voicing concern over a piece of plate ware we bought from him being too beautiful to use, ‘Ah bullshit. I don’t want my pottery serving up dust on a shelf. I want it to be used. That’s what I made it for.’ The last Charley mug in our home broke several months ago. Both my wife and I had unwittingly attached a great deal of emotion to it, this evident as we stood over the fractured pieces. I held tightly as Jim relayed a story.
“I took a few days off work to get after the trail. It’s late fall. I wake up and it’s ugly out. Low ceiling. Snow’s falling. I drive up to the trailhead with my tools. Nobody’s out there. No tracks. An inch of snow on the ground, then two. It’s warm in the truck and I’m sitting there, arguing with myself about the whole thing. I get out and walk over to the sign we put in earlier, the Charley’s Trail sign. I’m standing there and someone drills me in the back with a big, wet snowball. I turn around. Hmm. I’ve had lots of snow fall on me, out of trees, you know? I’ve been working in the woods a long time. But sideways? I said ‘Oh…all right, Charley.’ I packed my tools out…had the best workday out there. I could see all the right contours with the snow over everything. Just incredible.”
As a metaphor for life, you can do worse than choosing a trail. From Bob Frost to Joe Conrad, it has been the muse of many. I know little about Charley’s path prior to meeting him. I can only fill it with imaginings between a few facts. I know he was a Vietnam veteran without any common tells of his tour. He was a charter member of a small commune that, like most others, disbanded for myriad reasons. I know he liked to ride bikes. He liked to surf. He liked to drink coffee and shoot the shit and laugh and it felt good being around him. He raised others with his presence. That’s enough. Every path is unreckonable but to the one who traveled it. It’s different for everyone.
This evidenced as Jim and I chat at the trailhead next to the Charley’s Trail sign. A newbie rides up, shiny bike, spokes safely reflectored, new baggies stiff over pale thighs.
“You guys know this trail?” He asks.
“Yeah, it’s fun,” says Jim, leaning on his bars. “You’ll be fine. Shift into a low gear. Lower than that. There’s one section you might have to push, but you’ll do all right.” The rider disappears, reappears.
“What happened?”
“It’s for experts,” he says, pointing at the black diamond on the sign. As he rides away he says, “It’s beyond me.”
Jim shrugs. “Anyway,” he continues. “Those guys. Charley and Sally. They helped out a lot of people in this community. They were all about community. I thought calling it Charley’s Trail would help keep that spirit alive.”
Building
“Once I had the idea,” says Jim, “I had to submit it. Stand up in front of the county forester and explain that I wanted to build an xc/allmountain/running trail, how I would do it, talk about minimum construction standards, how it fit into the master plan, etcetera. A lot of hoops to getting it done.”
Hood River Department of Forestry received a National Park Service Grant for 17,000 dollars in ’09, four thousand of which trickled down for Jim’s little project. That works out to $1,333.33 per mile for a hand-built trail. Not much. The majority of this went to hiring WINGS, the brainchild program of Allyson Pate. WINGS provides homeless and jobless men in the Columbia River Gorge between eighteen and twenty-three years old with a holistic set of life skills and a place to call home, four men at a time.
“WINGS was an idea brewing in me for a long time,” said Allyson. “One day…I’m looking in the mirror and I realized only I would make it happen, so I did. The residents come to us of their own volition rather than through the courts. It shows me they’re tired of the way things are going in their lives. It shows personal incentive to change rather than being told to by authority. That’s our only requirement, a desire to make a change.” She and the forest service communicated prior to Jim’s trail project about working together. When the money showed up she got a tap on the shoulder. At the end of our conversation I asked if she knew Charley. “Not personally, no. But I certainly knew of him. He was sort of a…he was popular. A lot of people don’t really get this place. They come and they play and then they go. But there’s just the greatest family of people living here helping each other out. He was one of them.”
I asked Jim how it was working with the WINGS guys. “They were great. When we first got out in the woods I sort of opened my heart, told them I came off the streets, too. They’d kill you for ten cents. I pointed at their shoes and said ‘I’ve stood right where you are. If you don’t want to be here, that’s all right. You can wait in the truck’. But they all got down to it. They worked their asses off without bitching. It’s hard work, but hard work in the woods. They got a lot done. I get all kinds coming to work with me. School kids in environmental programs. Federal programs. Some of the money from Obama’s America Reinvestment and Recovery Act created the Northwest Youth Corps, sort of like the old CCC, got a bunch of workers from them. The Urban Rangers program was one. There was a pissing match over who’d take all these inner city kids out to work in the woods. ‘I’ll take ‘em,’ I said. ‘Kids in the woods? What’s the problem?’ I had them brushing out trail, roughing in tread. Had them for two weeks. They had a great time and I got to share the woods with them on an intimate level. It’s great stuff.”
What the guys from WINGS didn’t do on Charley’s, volunteers did. On the first annual Charley Laventure Trail Day, thirty-odd people from the larger community showed up with Macleods and Pulaskis. Restaurant owners. Bike shop employees. Da Kine employees. Adventure companies. And a handful of folks from the Portland/Vancouver area.
“There’s a core group of folks from the community who really keep things going around here. Not just in Post Canyon, but out in my ranger district. When I think of places like the Umpqua or the Willamette National Forest, there’s just one main trail system in those places. Give me one of those jobs, man. Out here there’s…I don’t know the number. Lots.” He rattles off a bunch of trail names to me. Dog River. Surveyor’s Ridge. Gumjuwac. Gunsight. Cooks Meadows. Knebal. Eight Mile. Fifteen Mile.
“It’s more than I can do alone. Every year there’s blowdowns that need clearing. There’s a beetle kill area at the top of Eight Mile that gets sixty to eighty blowdowns a winter in a mile. There’s 180 miles of single-track open right now. We’re talking thousands of trees. They get up there in the snow and cut the trail out of pick-up sticks. They like to ride and they like to be in the woods so they get out and do it. If I didn’t have these folks behind me, we’d be losing trails. Some people don’t get it. They just want to ride. ‘Why isn’t this trail cleared yet’ they say. Come on out and work, man. I mean, we’re losing trails in some districts. They just get swallowed up.”
Brick by brick
A ride on Charley’s and you can’t help but notice the red brick used for trail armoring and for the foundation of the bench at the top of the climb.
“I drove by Charley and Sally’s old house and noticed a pile of bricks out front.” Says Jim. “My friend Cory, this freerider, was doing the remodel and I was looking at the remains of the chimney. I needed some rock and thought the bricks would work just great and would add another element to the trail. He helped me out, hauled them out in his pick-up after work. Took a few trips. We piled them off to the side of the access road. On Charley day we hauled them up to the trail and the bench area. There’s still some that need to be placed. Next trail day, I figure. They look kinda cool in the dirt.”
As I write this, I get more Ranger Jim e-mails. Short messages, some with photos attached. He doesn’t want to leave out anyone who’s stepped into the woods with something resembling a digging utensil. John Gehrig from Dog River Coffee hauled a lot of rock. The Da Kine boys also did a lot of the tread work. Kay from CAMBA gets out and clears trail. More photos of city kids with broad smiles and tired bodies getting familiar with a Pulaski. The last I spoke with him, he said, “This is not about me. It’s about the spirit of community.” Beneath his words and gestures lies another message. These are your days. These are your people. This is your forest. Come out and be a part of it while you can.
When Sally Laventure heard about the trail project it was well in motion. “Charley would be so honored to have a trail with his name on it in Hood River.” She said. When the trail dedication came about, she asked Jim to officiate. I asked how it went.
“Well…of course I cried,” he said, kicking at the dirt. “I mean, eighty people showed up. Sally came out from Colorado. I just talked about my experience being in the woods, what it’s done for me, how it’s healed me. I said how I admired Charley, that he was a hard charger in everything he did, surfing, biking, life. Told them I steered the trail near the things I thought Charley would like, near the wild iris populations, beneath the maples. I told them that trails, historically, have connected communities, villages and tribes. They were the roads before roads. I told them I thought building it was an appropriate gesture for Charley’s memory.”
Next to the bench at the top of the climb is a bowl. At the memorial a family friend showed up wearing a backpack. Everyone told Charley stories. His was that he was a baker who couldn’t find the right bowl for his dough. Charley, using his GI bill in Portland while trying to figure out what to do with himself, found pottery agreed with him. He heard his friends lament and presented him with one of the first bowls he made. He took it from the backpack. It appeared crude compared to his later bowls, having been broken and epoxied together several times since 1973. He donated the bowl as the vessel for the rocks Sally asked people to bring to the memorial. The rocks were sprinkled with Charley’s ashes as people added to the pile and told Sally the story of their rock. The winter rain collected and froze and thawed. The bowl is cracked and is returning to its original state. It holds the rocks still.
If you ever get there, please do the same. Sit on the bench and catch your breath. Meditate. Pray. Or tell a story. And put a rock in the bowl. You’d have liked Charley, and chances are he’d have liked you. Another bowl appeared recently, as the original had filled up.