14 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORS

March 2006 15

ayaker, mountain climber, aerial photographer, researcher, geologist. Beyond their physical and technical abilities, these Whitman people share a desire to learn, a connection to the land and the cultures of the people who inhabit it, a sense of place, a desire to document the land’s degradation and to be part of its restoration. The scholars and adventurers featured here have ventured far off the main highways of the world, from its deepest canyon to its highest mountain peak. In their stories, we can see glimpses of what Whitman meant to them and what it can mean to the great outdoors around the world.

Whitman | OUTDOORS

16 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORSWhitman OUTDOORSWhitman | OUTDOORS

March 2006 17

s he scaled Mt. Everest and ascended the last of the Seven Summits, Brien Sheedy toted the Whitman Outdoor Program to new heights. An experienced outdoorsman with a master’s degree in geography, Sheedy has directed the Whitman OP since August 2001 and garnered extensive publicity from his recent climbing exploits, using them to focus attention on a program now recognized as one of the best of its kind in the nation. The program’s depth and quality, as well as its popularity among students, have continued to evolve under his guid-ance. Sheedy joined an elite international

fraternity on New Year’s Day 2006, becoming one of fewer

than 150 people who have scaled the highest peak on

each of the seven continents. The final

peak was Australia’s Mt. Kosciuszko, which capped a two-year whirlwind of climbing that included the granddaddy of them all, Everest (29,029 feet), on May 15, 2004, and then Russia’s Mt. Elbrus in July 2005 and Antarctica’s Mt. Vinson in December 2005. Sheedy, who

climbed both Everest and

Vinson with friend

and Whitman graduate Jason Tanguay ’98, makes a point of promoting the Whitman OP during his climbing excursions. “We’ve gotten a lot of press, from newspapers to books to radio and television,” he said. “The Whitman connection also shows up a lot on the Internet, on Web sites like everestnews.com.” Sheedy and Tanguay were joined on the Vinson climb by another friend and Whitman graduate, Phil Ershler ’74, an owner of International Mountain Guides (Ashford, Wash), one of the most respected trekking and mountain-eering groups in the world. Sheedy, who started climbing in 1990, has given a number of public talks in the wake of his Everest climb. This April, he will be a guest speaker at an Earth Day celebration in his home-town of Syracuse, N.Y., where he earned his undergraduate degree at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. “The fact that I’ve climbed Everest and the other peaks has done wonders to get Whitman’s name out there,” Sheedy added. “At the same time people are hearing about me climbing the Seven Summits, they are learning that I’m the Outdoor Program director at Whitman. That’s when the connec-tion is made in the public’s mind that Whitman is a strong school with a strong outdoor program.” Sheedy, who wears Whitman patches on his climbing gear and flies Whitman banners at mountain base camps and summits, recounted a story from a co-worker who was shopping recently at an outdoor gear store in Portland, Ore. “When he identified himself as living in Walla Walla and

working at Whitman, the response from the clerk was, ‘Oh yeah, didn’t your Outdoor Program director just climb Everest? Your college has a really strong outdoor program.’ Those kinds of comments are becoming more common.” Thanks to such publicity and improvements in the program, the Whitman OP has a significantly higher profile than it had five years ago, Sheedy said. “We’ve gone from an outdoor program with a good core of active students to one with a much wider base of student participation, and from an outdoor program that was recognizable to some of the schools in our region to a program that now has a strong reputation nationally.” One benefit of his ambitious climbing schedule, Sheedy noted, is that it raises his credibility with Whitman students interested in outdoor adventure. “Students here are pretty much driven to learn as much as they can about activities that catch their attention,” he said. “They want to know they are getting information from an OP director who knows what he’s talking about, and who continues to learn through his own experiences.” Student interest in the Whitman OP has doubled if not tripled during the past five years, Sheedy said. “The number of climbing classes has doubled. The number of kayak classes has also doubled, from one to two per semester. “Of more importance, the quality of our classes is much higher,” Sheedy said. The instructors, many of them students, now go through exten-sive training. Raising safety standards

in the OP has been a major focus in recent years, Sheedy said. Sheedy traces many of the OP improvements to more institutional support from Whitman. Sam Norgaard-Stroich, hired last August for the OP’s new assistant director position, special-izes in whitewater sports and telemark skiing. Cindy Hurlburt joined the staff a few years ago when the student government agreed to finance an OP Rental Shop position. “As a group, we can obviously do a lot more than when I was alone,” Sheedy said. Sheedy, who earned his master’s degree at the University of Texas, Austin, takes pride in the way the OP works hand-in-hand with academics at Whitman. “A lot of the students majoring in geology and environmental studies take part in our off-campus trips,” he said. “It’s great to see them explaining rock formations to nonscience majors, or to hear them talking to their peers about the envi-ronmental politics issues facing our public lands.” “We also help engender concern for the outdoors,” he said. “We teach students about stewardship, about the outdoor ethics of leaving no trace behind, and then we send them on trips to beautiful places. They learn to appreciate our natural environment for all that it has to offer.”

Formoreinformationon theOutdoorProgramandBrienSheedy’sexplorations,visitwww.whitman.edu/outdoor_program/

Climbing

StorybyDaveHoldenPhotoscourtesyofBrienSheedy

“Wehelpengenderconcernfortheoutdoors.”

— Brien Sheedy

Sheedy — flanked by Jason Tanguay ’98, left, and Phil Ershler ’74 on the Mt. Vinson summit — display their Whitman pride. (Below) Sheedy’s ascent of Mt. Everest was treacherous work. (Opposite) Sheedy pauses for a photo on his way up Mt. Vinson, which is also shown on previous pages.with purpose

Adventures reflect goals of Outdoor Program

WWW

18 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORSWhitman OUTDOORSWhitman | OUTDOORS

March 2006 19

he was an emergency medical technician and a U.S. Forest Service “Hot Shot” firefighter before she arrived at Whitman as a first-year student in 1999. At 5 feet tall, Rachel Smith ’03 liked “putting wet stuff on red stuff — water on fire. It was all about knocking down a fire — a storm-trooper mentality,” she said. But through environmental science classes at Whitman and a post-gradua-tion world tour of wildland firefighting courtesy of a Watson Fellowship, Smith had what she describes as a “shift of consciousness.” She began to see that fire — too much, too little or the wrong kind — affects biodiversity in ecosystems around the world. Today Smith is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, where she is updating the Nature Conservancy’s Global Fire Assessment, and she is an adjunct faculty member at Pasadena (Calif.) City College teaching classes about fire to “baby firefighters.” Her fiery journey began while she was still in high school in Everett, Wash. Interested in medicine, she volunteered to help on medical runs from the Tulalip Bay Indian Reserva-tion Fire Department, but she was told

she must be a firefighter first, so she earned her firefighting and EMT credentials. Although Smith arrived at Whitman with pre-med in mind, she found bioethics so interesting she shifted to an independent bioethics major with a focus on philosophy and religion. Her evolution of thought about fire began in faculty member Don Snow’s environ-mental science classes, where she learned “what it meant for a place to have value. I began to realize the values that are present in every place,” she said. But it was “only when I started trav-eling that I got the other side of it.” In the spring of her senior year, she received a Watson Fellowship, which funded a year of travel and study of wildland firefighting. She visited nine countries, fighting fires in six of those. “I spent time with firefighters, but also people who wanted to preserve commu-nity, either by burning land or preventing land from being burned,” she said. “I deeply feel that for too long in the West, we have imposed fire manage-ment plans on ecosystems, countries, even societies for whom our ideas are

alien,” she said. Through the fellow-ship, she began to look for ways to “drive community-based fire solutions.” Her journey provided much of the knowledge she poured into the Global Fire Assessment. Two months after she walked across the stage on Whitman’s Memorial Building lawn to receive her diploma, Smith landed in Auckland, New Zealand. On that first stop in July of 2003, she spent five memorable hours training to fly helicopters, which are used extensively to fight fires in the steep terrain there. In Australia, the next stop on her journey, she learned that continent “profoundly requires fire to maintain its health and ecosystem.” She spent time in Uluru Park in Ayers Rock, Northern Territory — the “spiritual homeland for Native Australians.” Over the past 100 years, many tribal members were taken away from the land and native fire-stick burning was prohibited, Smith explained. “After you don’t burn for 50 years, fires burn hotter and bigger when you burn again.” The land responds well to regular, intense fires that are not very severe, she said. As a result of the more severe fires created by decades of not burning, some of the biodiversity in that country has been lost forever. “In the United States, we treat fire like it’s a military operation with elite firefighting units,” Smith said. In Australia, the aborigines view fire as a tool and a resource, carefully tended to by the elderly female tribal members.

MORE ABOUT RACHEL• In addition to being rated a “Hot Shot” firefighter, Rachel Smith earned “Smoke Jumper” status between her first and second years at Whitman. Smoke Jumpers are the most elite wildland firefighters in the United States.

• She also studied fire in Portugal, Spain, Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Nicaragua during her fellowship adventure. The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship gives college graduates of unusual promise the freedom to engage in a year of independent study and travel abroad following graduation. Each recipient receives a $22,000 grant.

• She is organizing Nature Conservancy workshops in Berkeley; Santiago, Chile; and Bogor, Indonesia, this year. High-level policymakers and renowned fire regime scientists will attend the workshops, which will focus on different world regions. She will also present the Global Fire Assessment at conferences in Cuba and the United States.

Career takes on global focus

FireIn the line of

“They have all the knowledge and responsibility of fire,” Smith said. “The women are ancient, but they move very fast.” In South Africa, Smith earned her private pilot’s license, and in Scotland she learned how to fight fire using snow as a natural fire break. While there, she met a Scottish laird whose small manor abuts the Queen’s estate. Smith helped him burn the heather on the muir (pronounced moor) in order to save the natural cover. It was the tradition for gamekeepers to burn the heather to regenerate it so more deer would return, Smith explained. But burning on the muir was prohibited for many decades, and as a result much of the heather has been lost forever. While she works to incorporate what she learned on her adventure into updating the Global Fire Assessment, she has also applied for the Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley and would

Whitman | OUTDOORS

like to do fire research in West Africa, where she lived when she was 12. Her father, a doctor, provided medical care to the poor and sick in Cameroon for two years, she said. Her time there “abso-lutely changed my life. I loved the area and loved the people.” She has come to believe that fire is a global conservation issue, and indeed a hunger issue for African countries, and wants to do more research on that topic. In Ghana, she explained, two percent of the total arable land is lost annually to desertification through fire. “How is that not a hunger issue?” she said. Concerns about fire’s connection to hunger and other survival issues eventu-ally may lead her to her ultimate goal of working for United Nations Food and Agriculture. “If people realize fire is an issue, maybe we can decrease the problem of the wrong kind of burning,” she said. “It harms people and the ecosystem.” RachelSmithwrotethe NaturalConservancy’scurrentGlobalFireAssessment,whichsheaccuratelydescribesasa“goodread.”Thereport,includinggraphicsandspectacularpictures,canbeviewedatnature.org.SomeofherWatsonFellowshipadventuresareonherWebsiteseason-of-fire.com.

StorybyLanaBrownPhotoscourtesyofRachelSmith

Rachel Smith ’03 (third from left) is in turn-out gear after fire practice exercises with the County Fire Authority firefighters in Traralgon, Victoria, Australia, in the summer of 2003. (Top photo) Smith learned how to use snow and rain, as is shown here, to help control the fire while burning heather on the muirs in Scotland.

In South Africa, fire protection assoc-iations use “bombers,” such as this Turbo Thrush, as an initial attack device. Smith earned her private pilot’s license while in South Africa, although she isn’t flying in this photo.

A freshly-caught goanna (lizard) and a kangaroo tail roast on the fire as Smith cooks hot dogs during a meal break in Ayers Rock, Northern Territory, Australia. Behind Smith, Uluru tribal elders rest during the heat of the day. Smith explained the meat of kangaroos caught by tribal hunters is divided according to tribe, family and marriage ties. Portable and easy to cook during the heat of the day, the meat is the tribe’s version of “take-out,” Smith said.

WWW

20 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORSWhitman OUTDOORSWhitman | OUTDOORS

March 2006 21

Catchtheviewoncampus WhenMarkAbrahamsonfirstgotintoenvironmentalismintheearly1970s,itwasabipartisanissue.Republicans,forexample,foundedtheEnvironmentalProtectionAgencyandcreatedtheCleanAirandCleanWateracts,hesaid.“Now,we’vegonebackward.Weneednewleaders.Hopefully,someofthemwillbeintheaudiencewhenIspeakatWhitmaninApril.” AbrahamsonwillreturntoWhitmanforhis40threunionApril27-30.Hewillshowhisenvironmentalslidesandspeakon“WatershedInvestigations”April27.

somed. While on vacation in Walla Walla, he went hunting, and he shot and killed a pheasant. “It was so beau-tiful, I said ‘I can’t ever shoot one again.’” Instead, he bought a long photo lens and started shooting birds with a camera. It was then he realized if he could photograph birds, he could photograph anything. But Abrahamson’s work is about more than taking quality photographs. Before he ever gets in a plane with his camera, he spends many hours studying the environmental problems of the region he is shooting. He also spends a lot of time planning his trips, which he usually makes in the spring for maximum colors. This year he plans to photograph the Appalachian region, where the tops of mountains are blown off in the process of coal mining. He likened those images to seeing the Blue Moun-tains leveled. Abrahamson will also photograph Utah and parts of northern Nevada, which are potential watering holes for ever-expanding Las Vegas. Abrahamson’s environmental photo-graphs are in hundreds of collections around the country, both private and corporate. His work is also displayed at numerous universities, but he down-plays what most people would consider success. “I didn’t make (the scene). I just took a picture of it,” he said. “Farmers and Mother Nature made it.” He also is quick to point out his real success isn’t his dentistry or photog-raphy, but his two daughters. “Page, 35, is a mother, wife and epidemiologist” at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and Elizabeth, 17, is a high school junior and a “young lady about to make her mark in the world.”

did a series on the Chicago River, which led him to rivers in New York, and his work was airborne. He has researched and photographed water-sheds and the use of land across the country since.

By his own definition, Abrahamson was not a good student when he arrived at Whitman. He held jobs in school — sometimes two at a time — to make ends meet. But while at Whitman, the chemistry major found two keys to his success: respect and small classes. The college “was really important to me because I got to be around smart people — faculty and other students. Whitman nurtures the learning process,” he said. “What I really picked up was a background in science. I could not understand the environ-mental issues without a chemistry degree.” He also developed a love of reading and spends two to three hours a day reading and researching for his environmental photography work. His Whitman degree also earned him entrance to the University of Wash-ington dental school. He continues to work part time at his Seattle dental practice, which he credits with providing him the means to pursue his passion for environmental issues.

Abrahamson’s fascination with photography began when he was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. His first daughter was born, and he had access to inexpensive cameras, so he started taking pictures of her. There is irony in the way his photography blos-

lated: the development, farming and timber.” The way these factors affect watersheds is more apparent from above. “Here’s a good way to communi-cate with people,” he thought, realizing “I’m a lot happier photographing than going to hundreds of meetings.” In 1990, he found his environmental niche after taking a series of photos on the Stillaguamish River. He held exhibi-tions and published his work. “My focus on water quality was new, and it started getting attention,” Abrahamson said. Within a few years, he was exhib-iting his aerial environmental photog-raphy around the country. At a show in Chicago, he received a great response, but also was ques-tioned about why he didn’t photograph rivers in that region. “People are provincial,” he said. “They are inter-ested in their own neighborhood.” He

Mark Abrahamson ’66

efore development in the area surrounding Seattle skyrocketed, Dr. Mark Abrahamson ’66 fished, hunted and hiked the Cascades. The then-Boy Scout took his youth and outdoor lifestyle for granted. After he earned his bachelor of sciences degree in chemistry at Whitman and his doctorate in dental surgery at the University of Wash-ington, he tried to recapture his child-hood by moving to then-very-rural Snohomish County. In a vain attempt to keep it rural, he dived into land-use poli-tics and spent a decade attending land-use and planning meetings, ultimately succumbing to frustration and burnout. “I was getting nowhere in the political arena,” Abrahamson said. Instead, the dentist and amateur wildlife photographer discovered a better way to make a difference using his talents and passions. While on an airplane ride with a pilot friend, he had an epiphany. He realized as an aerial photographer, he “could see a lot more from the air — how things are interre-

Aerial photographerdocuments humans’toll on land

PhotosbyMarkAbrahamsonStorybyLanaBrown

(Above, left) The wind turbines along the border of Oregon and Washington are shown in this 2001 photograph. Abrahamson believes the wind farms are part of the solution to the nation’s energy problems. (Above) The controversial Klamath River Basin is shown in 2001. These photographs are cibachromes, created using a chemical process no longer possible because of changes in the film industry as a result of digital photography.

(At left) Mark Abrahamson’s view of the wheat fields of the Palouse.

AboveView from

22 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORSWhitman OUTDOORSWhitman | OUTDOORS

March 2006 23

t least once a week I think about how lucky I am to be at Whitman because of the students I get to work with here,” said geology Professor Bob Carson. “Life is great; it’s really great,” he said of his 30 years at the college. Over the past three decades, Carson’s esteem for his students and love of the great outdoors have become legendary — and intertwined. He is a recipient of the college’s Lange Award for Distinguished Science Teaching and its George Ball Award for

geological research and taken dozens more on field trips all over the world — from Mongolia to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. He and his wife, Clare, director of academic resources at Whitman, were leading a group of students on a geological tour of the Antilles Islands in 1997 when they ended up on the Carib-bean island of Montserrat as its active volcano was erupting. Carson and his students were thrilled to observe (from several miles away) live pyroclastic flows searing down the mountain — something most geologists can study only as million-year-old deposits. As Carson shows off his remarkable collection of digital photos, he stops proudly at one showing a group of climbers at base camp on Mt. Everest. Carson, Clare and a dozen students grin into the camera. “These aren’t just geology majors — he’s art history, she’s sociology, and those two are English majors; these kids are just phenomenal.” Carson’s pride extends to the entire

Outdoor

Apart from Professor Bob Carson’s many field trips, a separate field study program in environmental studies was pioneered in 2002. Semester in the West focuses on the ecological, social and political issues confronting the American West. The program is biennial with the next session set for fall 2006. Participating students study issues that range from grizzly bear and wolf reintroduction plans to the booming economy and culture of Las Vegas. They meet people who represent the full spectrum of opinions on the issues they study and explore the ecology of the region, from the grasslands of Hells Canyon to the deserts of Arizona. Students also read what others have written about the West and write their own stories of their experiences on the trail. Funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and Whitman College, the program is for Whitman students with sophomore status or higher. For more information on the program, and to read Semester in the West student writers’ essays from previous years, visit www.whitman.edu and search for Semester in the West.

Whitman | OUTDOORS

Distinguished Advising, but his most recent honor is a little slice of paradise. The students in his fall environ-mental studies course bought him and co-teacher Kari Norgaard each a piece of Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest — “which has more environmental issues and species loss than the Amazon” — as a thank you for the class. Although Carson counts this as one of his proudest moments, he said he couldn’t rank those many, many moments. Included would be: “Mount St. Helens erupting and (Whitman President) Bob Skotheim saying ‘This is a sign from God — it’s time we had a geology major’”; “hiring each of my colleagues and being so excited about every single one that came to Whitman”; “receiving teaching awards and alumni awards and advising awards because when that happens you know someone has said thanks to you.” Carson’s fame at Whitman comes not only from the passion with which he teaches, admires and cares for his students, but from the zeal with which he welcomes students into the world of research. With the help of the college’s Perry and Abshire awards, Carson has involved dozens of students in his

campus, and particularly the geology department and his colleagues there. “We’re turning out more geology majors per faculty member than any other school in the country. The only schools with bigger graduating classes are Carlton and Colorado College, and they have five to seven professors to our 3.5.” Carson notes that success breeds more success. As word spreads about the strengths of Whitman’s programs and students, more and more students are attracted, and that makes the entire college stronger. “We think that our students are very, very high quality. We’re very proud of where our geology majors are going — Cornell, Dartmouth, LeHigh, MIT, Princeton and Stanford.” But it’s more than just high quality in a specialized area, said Carson. “I’m amazed at how many of them are musicians and athletes. They all play ultimate Frisbee, they love field trips, they’re polite and they work hard. They’re all just amazing.”

StorybyLenelParishPhotoscourtesyofBobCarson

Professor Bob Carson’s classroom is the world

(Top photo) Oak Rankin ’05, left, and Taylor Johnson ’07, take a rest on a hike in Tibet in 2005. The city in the distance is Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. (Photo at right) Professor Bob Carson, bottom right, and his students pose at 16,000 feet on the north slope of Mt. Everest in 2005. Left to right: Taylor Johnson, Beth Blum ’06, Samantha Caruthers-Knight ’05, Meg Tuttle ’05 and Laurel Stratton ’07.

(Above) Five students with five different majors pose for a photo at 18,000 feet near Camp 1 on the Tibet side of Mt. Everest. Left to right: Jodie Gates ’07, Meghan Goss ’06, Mary Ashby ’05, Dan Berg ’06 and Amy Sharp ’06. (At right) Students hike on Mt. Etna near Sicily, Italy, in Professor Carson’s 2004 expedition. Bursts of steam blend with the clouds in the background.

Morgan Zeliff ’06 points to the Saddle Mountain Fault line in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington in the summer of 2005. Morgan’s senior honors thesis incorporates research she did during the summer geology trip.

classroom

Semester in the West

24 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORSWhitman OUTDOORSWhitman | OUTDOORS

March 2006 25

hen Rob Lesser ’67 attended Whitman, out- door activities for students were pretty much limited to skiing at Spout Springs and the occa-sional biology or geology field trip. Today’s students climb mountains, raft and kayak rivers and backpack through the wilderness. They can join the competitive ski team or fly-fishing club and scale the climbing wall on campus. “It’s really nice to see the Outdoor Program grow,” said the man who is considered a pioneer in the sport of whitewater kayaking, both for his

adventures and his contributions to the sport. At an Oct. 14, 2005, ceremony in McHenry, Md., Lesser and five others became the first inductees into the International Whitewater Hall of Fame. As the initial inductee in the “Explorer” category, Lesser is

described as “setting the standard for exploratory kayaking.” The hall of fame is part of Adventure Sports Center, which includes 500 acres of trails and an artificial whitewater course pres-ently under construction.

At Whitman, Lesser was on the tennis team, played intramural sports and socialized with his friends in the Beta house. He was also a class officer and spent “lots of time studying,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Boise, Idaho. “My time at

Whitman was focused on campus and not the outdoors.” That all changed when he moved on to a graduate program in zoology at the University of Montana, Missoula. “Vietnam was breathing down our necks,” Lesser said. “Continuing my education was very natural,” but the two years of military service deferment that came with it helped. In the spring of 1969, Lesser’s life changed course. “All the time I was figuring I would be drafted, but I ended up flunking my physical. It changed my whole future,” he said. A few weeks later, his climbing partner showed up with a new kayak but no river experi-ence. Lesser had a little rafting experi-ence from local community races. His friend urged him to try out the kayak on the Blackfoot River, and “immedi-ately a harmonious chord ignited deep within me,” Lesser said. “It just felt so liberating. I felt like an explorer … around every bend was something new and exciting.” Fifteen days and $150 later, Lesser had his own fiberglass kayak. He taught himself how to kayak by reading about it in a book, then hanging onto a dock and learning to snap his hips to right the boat. “That was it for training,” he said. River running skills would come through trial and error. The next four summers, as a seasonal ranger in Mount McKinley National Park in Alaska, he “went out and just gained experience on wilder-ness rivers. My roll was fairly profi-cient, and I had a fair amount of self-confidence.” He spent seven years based in Alaska, returning frequently to Idaho to kayak. “Idaho has some of the best whitewater rivers in the world, from Class I moving water with no riffles up

through Class V+ — very challenging. It also has some Class VI locations, which he defines as “unrunable.” In other words, he explained, “You probably will die.” “During the 1970s, I definitely had the fever,” Lesser said of his kayaking obsession. “Kayaking became my mantra of life. I was always looking for something else to give a try.” He wanted to become an expert in a sport that was largely unknown to the general public at the time. Lesser is most known for the first descent of the Grand Canyon of the Stikine River in 1985. “I flew down it in 1977, but felt it was unrunnable,” he said. After running Devil’s Canyon on Alaska’s Susitna River and Turnback Canyon on the Yukon’s Alsek River, he reconsidered the Stikine. In August 1981, he and four close friends launched down the seemingly impassable canyon. At the last minute, ABC Sports asked to film the run and provided helicopter and other support. The run was eventful with more than a few close calls on the river, Lesser said. But the big problem came when the TV crew “had enough film in the can for a good show and didn’t want to finish the run,” he said. Without the support, the kayakers had to pack it in with about 15 of the 60 miles yet to do. Despite the disappointment, Lesser said, the “American Sportsman” program about the run put the Grand Canyon of the Stikine firmly on the adventure map. Lesser returned to finish the canyon in 1985, and has been there six times altogether — although not all trips have been successful. “In 2000, I didn’t even get on the river, it was way too high.” Two young kayakers with another group opted to put in, he said, but only

made it nine miles on the wild river before they abandoned their boats and spent two days bushwhacking through wilderness to safety.

In the years since he first climbed into a kayak, Lesser’s growing passion for the sport has consumed his profes-sional life as well. He spent the late 1970s writing about and photographing the sport, then in 1980 took a job as the first sales representative for Perception Kayaks, the dominant manufacturer of kayaks at that time. He sold the sport of kayaking as much as the boats them-selves, helping set up dealerships and using his contacts in the kayaking community to further the sport. During the same decade, he helped develop whitewater rodeos in the West. Lesser saw these events as a modern-day fur rendezvous — a coming together of paddlers worldwide to share their skills, ideas and passion for running rivers. “An important cross-pollination of the kayaking culture took place at these gatherings.” Lesser also played a role in the evolution of boat styles and materials as they progressed from fiberglass to rotomolded plastic. “I got in on the ground floor and helped design the Mirage, Perception’s first really salable plastic boat,” he said. Since then white-water boats have shrunk in length from 13 feet to less than 6 feet in some cases. “I’ve seen a tremendous evolu-tion in the sport.” In the realm of conservation, he represented kayakers and other river

users when he formed the Idaho Whitewater Association in 1979. “We needed a voice to combat a dam proposal on the North Fork of the Payette River — a stellar Class V whitewater run,” he said. After eight years of hearings, low population growth in Boise at the time ultimately killed the need for the project, but the formation was the “coming of age moment for Idaho river users to get involved in the conservation battle.” While Lesser retired from his job at Perception in 1996, he still spends plenty of time in a kayak. “I most enjoy trips down the Grand Canyon (Arizona) or self-supports on Idaho’s Bruneau, Salmon and Lochsa now. Kayaking is all about spending time in beautiful places. It’s a lifetime sport.”

WhiteWhitman | OUTDOORS

At 60, he still plans to get back to the Stikine and continues to run the North Fork Payette top to bottom every summer. What he won’t do is go where some of the “younger crowd” goes in terms of shorter boats and “running drops with more rocks than water.” “They also do 110-foot waterfalls,” he said. “It’s not an arena in which I feel the need to be involved. New people are there to push the limits, and they’re doing a good job of it.” Formoreinformationon theInternationalWhitewaterHallofFame,visitwww.adventuresportcenter.com.LessercanbereachedatRobLesserID@cs.com

Rob Lesser ’67

StorybyLanaBrownPhotoscourtesyofRobLesser

(Far left) Rob Lesser paddles Disneyland Rapid on the North Fork of the Payette River in Idaho in August 1986. (Left) Lesser performs an “ender” at the 1980 Stanley Whitewater Rodeo on the Main Salmon River near Stanley, Idaho. (Above) Lesser surfs the “Pipeline” wave on the Lochsa River in northern Idaho in June 1985. (Below) In the first complete descent of the Grand Canyon of the Stikine in British Columbia in 1985, Lesser does an involuntary nosestand as he’s swept through the Wall 2 Rapid.

famewater

“Aharmoniouschordigniteddeepwithinme.”

— Rob Lesser ’67

WWW

26 Whitman Magazine

OUTDOORSWhitman OUTDOORSWhitman | OUTDOORS

March 2006 27

or Johnnie Kern ’95 kayaking has been a family affair since he was 13. Shortly after the Massachu- setts student arrived at Whitman in 1991, he began sharing his expertise with fellow Whitties,

teaching kayaking classes in the Sherwood Center pool. The English major spent the rest of his free time at Whitman playing lacrosse, climbing the wall, skiing with friends, and in his favorite academic pursuit, creative writing. His future, when he thought about it at all, seemed to be in writing. Perhaps, he would get his master of fine arts degree. But, as fate would have it, his kayaking siblings arrived on the scene the day after he graduated and “distracted me from everything productive.” That spring of 1995, Johnnie’s twin, Willie, and older brother, Chuck, took him to kayak a spectacular river close to Portland, Ore. Johnnie was captivated by the electric blue water and black volcanic rock of the 35-foot Spirit Falls. The Pacific Northwest ferns growing alongside were spectacular. “I was skilled (at kayaking), but not tremen-dously,” he said. “They showed and told me how to go off the waterfall.” From that day through most of the decade that followed, Johnnie spent his time working just enough to afford trav-

eling and kayaking internationally. “I dropped the pen and paper and picked up a camera.” His photographs were published in Sports Illustrated and Outside Magazine, as well as trade publications. His kayaking skills brought him corporate sponsorships, and his hobby became his career. His travels took him from Venezuela to Italy, Norway to Tibet, and in the beginning, it was all about the adrenalin rush. But “quickly it turned into a bigger thing — cultures, problem-solving … connecting with people and places,” he said. He sees the kayak as a “vessel to the rest of the world … ultimately going where no one has ever been.” Johnnie’s unorthodox career took an unexpected and painful turn two years after he left Whitman, when Chuck, then 27, was killed while kayaking the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado. “My brothers and I were extremely close,” Johnnie said. “It’s almost like an unwritten language on the river, you get to know someone really well, and when that person’s a sibling, it’s a very special connection.” After their brother’s death, Johnnie and Willie docked their boats. “Kayaking didn’t seem very interesting,” Johnnie said. “But friends we met through traveling inter-nationally organized a trip for us. We spent three months traveling through Europe in a small group. It was a healthy experience,” he said. “We started to remember what it was about. When someone close to you dies, your memories start to fade … what they look like. I wanted to hold onto him and his memories as tightly as I could.”

“Istoodwherenohumanhadeverstood.It’shardtodenythatfeelingwasn’tthebest.” —JohnnieKern’95

StorybyLanaBrownPhotosbyCharlieMunseyPhotography

Vessel to the world

The way to do that, Johnnie decided, was to go back to the river. “It’s never been about chest thumping or macho; it always felt a little deeper.” After Chuck died, “I took a long breather. Kayaking was definitely never the same, but (Willie and I) used the experience well and became the voice of common sense,” he said. “It was a great opportu-nity to share with the rest of the kayaking community a sense of responsibility and respect for the river.” Yet, despite his newfound caution, Johnnie continued to explore some of the roughest rivers in the world, including Tibet’s Tsangpo River Gorge, a run he says may have been the pinnacle of his career. “It had repelled people who had climbed Mt. Everest and certainly the two to three attempts to kayak it,” Johnnie said. “It is one of the most remote locations you could throw a dart at.” The deepest canyon in the world, Johnnie describes it as a 26,000-foot peak on one side and a 25,000-peak on the other, 13 miles apart. “Probably fewer than two dozen west-erners have ever traveled through the Gorge.” The trails are all on the right side, but in 2002, Johnnie and Willie and five of the other top kayakers in the world traversed the left-hand side of the river. “I stood where no human had ever stood. … It’s hard to deny that feeling wasn’t the best. “People in the kayaking industry said it was the equiva-lent of climbing Mt. Everest,” he said. “Kayaking has defi-nitely taken me to every corner of the globe, but more than anything it felt like this was the one I was leading toward. Honestly, I’m not sure it’s possible to surpass that in terms of grandiose accomplishments.” Kern spent the last half-decade kayaking five or six months of the year, and working as an independent contractor designing kayaks the remaining months. He currently designs boats full time for Liquid Logic Kayaks in Flat Rock, N.C., where he lives with Brooke McCaffrey ’97, whom he met in a Whitman creative writing class. While Kern will continue to take on the rivers of the world in a kayak from time to time, he loves his new job and his lifestyle now, and besides, he said with a laugh, “I’ve been carrying a kayak on my head for too many miles.” OutsideMagazineonlinetellsthe captivatingstoryoftheTsangpoRiverrunmentionedinthisarticle.Gotooutside.away.com.SearchforLiquidThunder.Clickon“IntotheTsangpoGorge.”Kerncanbereachedatjohnnie@liquidlogickayaks.com. InternetsearcheswillalsoyieldphotosandstoriesaboutnationalC-1WildwaterchampioncanoerTom Wier ’02,andkayakersDan Rubado ’04andLeif Anderson ’04.

Johnnie Kern ’95 communicates with fellow kayakers on one of his many adventures. (At right) Kern kayaks in Tibet.

WWW