To define brazen is being bold without shame. Snowshoeing into the backcountry at the base of Mount Rainier with blizzard like conditions, as I’m packing an abundant spaghetti dinner including a full bottle of wine I believe hits both of those points. It all started when I wanted to do something different with a backcountry snowshoeing trip for my birthday in December. My good friend Abe decided to join me on this crazy adventure and we both thought we should eat something other than dehydrated meals on the trip to celebrate the occasion. There weren’t a lot of choices at the local grocery store near Ashford so we kept circling the food isles, finally looking at each other with smirks on our faces as we decided spaghetti sounded delicious. Ground beef, noodles, sauce and of course a bottle of wine to top it off. A slight oversight, we didn’t think about the weight of the wine bottle, nor the glass bottles of sauces.
We headed to the trail-head, stuffed the food inside of our packs and started heading into the back-country. The weather was perfect for the first couple of miles but as the elevation grew and my pack felt heavier, the weather started to cloud over and we started to feel like we were in a snow-globe with the snow encompassing us. Finding a lunch spot under a gigantic tree and happy to get our backpacks off, we unpacked our fancy backcountry dinner and began cooking. The meal was truly sublime as we feasted on spaghetti, wine and great laughs in the middle of a snowstorm. Maybe I missed a couple of days of physics class in school because after packing the empty glass bottles back into our packs somehow they didn’t feel any lighter after consuming the food. The whole trip was amazing and made my birthday extra special. I certainly have no shame from packing a full spaghetti dinner into the back-country as it is a memory that will stay with me forever and puts a smile on my face every time I think of it.
Be brazen enough to make a memory that will last a lifetime.