Ride the rocks

Adventure sports for jaded times.

By Joshua Davis

A FEW YEARS ago my wife and I signed on to the last white-water-rafting trip down the Kali Gandaki River in central Nepal. The area was about to be dammed, and the Gandaki's huge, body-devouring rapids would be turned into bathtub-size ripples. With 10 other travelers and a local guide, we hired a cantankerous Nepalese bus and headed out into the Nepalese wilderness. We thought we were in for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

We were wrong. Not because the Gandaki wasn't beautiful nor its rapids body-devouring, but because we were floating down a well-trod path. Within a few minutes of our first group meeting, we realized that 8 of our 10 fellow rafters were from the Bay Area. It seemed as if there was an owner's manual to being young and hip in San Francisco and that one dictate was to buy a Lonely Planet guide and go trekking/rafting in Nepal.

As we drifted through the isolated canyons and deep forests of the Gandaki, a significant amount of float time was dedicated to faux camaraderie ("We'll have to have drinks at Bruno's when we get back") and discussing the merits of various burrito shops in the Mission. But secretly we all hated one another for intruding on our "remote" Nepalese adventure.

In a day when even outer space has been conquered, what adventures are there left to us? Every corner of the earth has been mapped, every culture documented, filmed, packaged, and sold with an accompanying soundtrack. In the age of exploration, a hardy soul in Madrid or Peking could start walking and before long arrive at the edge of the map. Now there is no edge.

Our generation of explorers is relegated to trying the fourth route on a thrice-climbed spire in the Bugaboos. The tallest mountains have been climbed by thousands, so our thirst to be first forces us to fragment the already-explored and pretend that being the first to summit the left side of a mountain is just as edifying as being the first to summit it full-stop.

Or perhaps the thirst to explore leads us into the absurd: witness the race to be the first to circle the globe solo in a balloon. Now, I'm not saying it's not exciting to tether yourself to a giant ball of helium. I'm sure it is, and I'm closely following the race. But there's something a little sad about having to invent adventures for ourselves.

Take skydiving, for example. In the popular consciousness, skydiving is the caviar of adventures. I went out with Adventure Center Skydiving (1-800-FUN-JUMP) in Hollister. It's about an hour and a half south of San Francisco, and it runs an efficient show. I was rocketed up to 15,000 feet, strapped onto some guy's chest, and propelled out the door before I knew what was happening. On the video they filmed, I see myself screaming my head off and shouting, "Yeah, man, I'm f**cking skydiving, all right motherf**cker!!!!!!"

But I was just doing it for the camera. After about 20 seconds of trying to stoke myself on the idea that I was skydiving, I realized that nothing much was happening. The ground was so far away, it didn't matter that I was hurtling toward it at 170 miles an hour. It just looked far away the whole time. And there was nothing but air all around, so it didn't even seem like I was moving. It felt like some large man was lying on top of me in a wind tunnel, which will certainly appeal to some but didn't make me feel like Marco Polo.

My main problem with the idea of adventure is that it's been turned into convenient, bite-size quantities that are supposed to provide the USRDA of fun for the average American citizen. Rock climbing, river rafting, skydiving, paragliding, and mountaineering – all have become increasingly formulated to fit into our busy schedules. We only have so much vacation and weekend time, so we need to be sure that (a) we will get the desired amount of adventure and (b) it will fit the allotted time slot.

In order to know those things, we need to know what the outcome of any given activity will be. So we rely on the fact that many others have gone before us and achieved desirable results.

My dictionary says this: "Adventure: (n.) An undertaking involving risk." But the Adventure Center in Hollister is proud of the fact that its instructors and jump masters have a perfect safety record. Where's the fun in that? I'm not going skydiving because I want to be safe. If it were a real adventure, they'd say, "We'll take you up there, but the last guy who went out hit the ground at 170 miles an hour, and it wasn't pretty."

The defining factor of an adventure is that you don't know how it's going to turn out. That's the risk. Maybe you'll die, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll end up in New Jersey. It sets you on a roulette wheel and keeps you jumping. To give you a sense of what I'm talking about, here are a few open-ended ideas that should set you up for a little heart-thumping, life-invigorating wildness you won't have to share with the guy sitting next to you on Muni. Good luck, Godspeed, and I hope you come back alive.

Scree skiing

One of the simplest, most exhilarating adventures I can remember is sliding down a good-size Sierra peak in a burgeoning avalanche of small rock. Scree is the loose rock that covers a mountain slope above the tree line and makes for great downhill hops, spins, and midair caterwauling. With no ropes, no padding, and no worries, you never know what will happen. Drive east for three and half hours, pick a deserted peak (I won't tell you which one because then you'll all go to the same place), and start running.

To really push the boundaries, strap on a pair of old skis at the top of the rock slope and try skiing the stuff. It's a little hard on the skis but a great challenge. If you make it to the bottom, you'll have earned your dinner.

Upper Cache Creek

This relatively unknown river two hours north of San Francisco can sometimes get crowded with commercial rafting trips, but there's no reason you can't buy yourself an inner tube, set off at midnight, and have the time of your life trying to keep your head above water as you hurl through class-three rapids in the dark. Outfitters such as Whitewater Adventure (1-800-97RIVER) will sell you a flashlight, but they'll also try to convince you that it'd be safer to go with one of their guides. Don't be deterred.

Hobo heli-hiking