“In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”

-Robert Pirsig

I'd only been living in Colorado a year or so when I first heard tell of what I came to think of as the Hole in the Rock expedition. Researching via the internet wasn't yet a thing and my local library in Crested Butte housed nothing on the subject. Thus for at least a decade what I knew about this incredible journey came via word of mouth, passed along on roadtrips or during fireside conversations. The stories shared were fantastic, inspiring, unbelievable. A seed was planted.

It took Dan's nurturing to bring it to life. Because he'd been born and raised mormon, the stories I'd heard as an adult had been with Dan since his earliest days, and not just as "stories" but as a historical narrative of his people, of uncommon faith and trust amidst and against indescribable hardship. A journey that the settlers predicted would take 6 weeks had stretched out to 6 winter months. 139 years later, and with the benefit of roads, trails, pneumatic tires and boats, and no beasts of burden to care for, we would traverse it in 6 leisurely spring days.

Share this Story

2017 Tacoma TRD Sport, DCLB, 93K miles, GoFast Camper, Solar, Idaho

Monticello to Mt. Hillers.

June 30th, 2021

Skirafting Idaho.

*Not your father's version.

Promaster Campervan.

June 30^th, 2021