About the presentations:
Traveler’s Journal is a presentation of the Peninsula Trails Coalition. All of money raised is used to buy project supplies and food for volunteers working on Olympic Discovery Trail projects.
Shows are each Thursday in February and March and start at 7 p.m. in the Sequim High School library, 601 N. Sequim Ave. (note: this is a change of location from previous years.)
Suggested donation is $5 for adults. Attendees 18 and younger are free.
One selected photo enlargement is given away each week as a door prize. Creative Framing is donating the matting and shrink wrapping of the door prize. For more information, call Dave Shreffler at 683-1734.
by Dave Shreffler
For the Sequim Gazette
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it.” — Mark Jenkins
I’ve been coordinating the Traveler’s Journal (TJ) adventure travel series since 2009 and every year I think, “This is the best series, yet!” TJ walks, treks, rows and pedals into its 24th annual season of adventure travel presentations next week on Thursday, Feb. 5.
The eight-week series features presentations by local travelers who explored various countries and cultures around the world, or right here in the U.S, and experienced the world the way it is, not the way they imagined it.
Join us each Thursday in February and March for a fun and inexpensive evening of entertainment.
The suggested donation is $5 and all of the money raised during this year’s TJ series will be spent on project supplies and food for volunteers who work on the Olympic Discovery Trail.
Each year the dream of a continuous, non-motorized trail from Port Townsend to Forks gets a little closer as Peninsula Trails Coalition volunteers donate thousands of hours constructing new sections of the trail.
To learn more about the Olympic Discovery Trail and the Peninsula Trails Coalition, visit www.olympicdiscoverytrail.com.
2015 Presentation Series
“Northern Reach: Exploring the Islands and Peoples of the North Atlantic”
Feb. 5
Presenter: Chris Duff
Duff is a writer, carpenter and adventure traveler who has sea kayaked more than 16,000 miles since 1983. He has solo circumnavigated the eastern third of the U.S. and Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and New Zealand’s South Island and was part of a team circumnavigation of Iceland. During the summer of 2014, Duff rowed his ocean rowing boat, Northern Reach, from the Faeroe Islands to Iceland, completing a three-summer, 1,000-mile exploration of the North Atlantic from Scotland to Iceland. An award-winning author of “On Celtic Tides” and “Southern Exposure,” Duff is currently writing about his northern isles adventure.
“Freewheels: A 450-Mile Bikepacking Escape through the Can-American Rockies”
• Feb. 12
Presenter: Nick Batcheller
In 2014, Batcheller and three Sequim comrades embarked on an epic bike journey through the Canadian section of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Like many great journeys, this one began as a physical challenge and ended up being so much more.
Batcheller writes, “I think I will always remember the towering teeth of rock jutting from the earth and the glowing blue glaciers hanging above the pristine lakes. I will certainly never forget catching that cutthroat trout in the Fording River or racing down miles of dirt roads at unsafe speeds, eating my friend’s dust. But most of all, what will never fade from me is the image I have of that afternoon, high on the pass, looking over at the glowing collective satisfaction on the faces of my three best friends who set it all aside for a couple of weeks to discover themselves once again.”
“Color, Chaos and Contradictions: Uniquely India”
• Feb. 19
Presenter: Maureene Dubiak
Dubiak’s love of travel began in 1970 with a trip to Mexico City and has continued to include more than 90 countries and every state in the U.S.
She considers India the ultimate destination. It is full of color, chaos and contradictions, and it’s only when you immerse yourself in the culture that you can truly begin to enjoy the experience of India. Her best memories of India are not those of the tourist attractions but of meeting the people in the villages and on the roads, getting a glimpse of their daily lives and what makes them happy, and understanding how they co-exist with different religions and cultures. She has found no better place to observe contrasts than in India.
“You’ll Be Stayin’ Another Night: A Cycling Adventure in New Zealand”
• Feb. 26
Presenter: Willie Weir
Weir has played the fools of Shakespeare and the nerds of musical comedy. He has worked as an actor, columnist, commentator, photographer, truck driver, bike courier, public speaker and tour guide.
He’s broken a couple of world records and way too many dishes. He has lived in Seattle for 25 years and lived on a billboard for 32 days. He’s received a few awards but has thrown away all of his trophies. He’s written two books (“Spokesongs” and “Travels with Willie”) and read a few more than that. He shares a birthday with President Obama but rarely shares dessert. Join us for what promises to be a lively night of entertainment as Weir cycles around New Zealand.
“Trekking in the Dolpo Region of Nepal”
• March 5
Presenter: Randy Johnson
Johnson is a professional fish biologist with a lifelong love affair with the world’s rivers, estuaries and mountains. In 1983, he first traveled to Nepal, saw Mount Everest, climbed a 20,000-foot peak and became spellbound by the Himalaya Mountains and the Nepalese people. He has returned to Nepal another five times, most recently in May and June of 2014 to trek in the high, arid valleys of Inner Dolpo, first described in Peter Matthiessen’s book, “The Snow Leopard.” Inner Dolpo is a land of blue sheep, snow leopards, yak herds and a traditional Buddhist culture hidden deep in the mountains.
Few Westerners have trekked there; Johnson has been twice — in 1994 and again 20 years later to hike the length of Tarap Valley and the upper Bantshang and connect with his 1994 route to the Crystal Monastery and beyond.
“Exploring Iceland on Foot”
• March 12
Presenter: Elaine Fredrickson
Fredrickson is a retired school principal who lives in Sequim with her husband, Arni.
Since her retirement in 2001, they have hiked in South America, Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, Italy, Nepal, Tanzania, Madagascar, Iceland, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Iceland is an adventure traveler’s dream. It is a land of wild and varied extremes, exemplified each day on the five-day Landmannalauger trek.
They hiked among boiling turquoise thermal pools, forded icy rivers and traversed lava — Iceland’s defining feature — which was both beautiful and challenging. Throughout it all the memories they bring home to their family and friends are of the interesting people they meet.
Travel has broadened the Fredricksons’ world view and helped them understand that people are more alike than they are different in spite of political, social and cultural differences. And they never lose the thrill and memories of the most amazing stories they hear around tables in mountain huts.
“Heat, Hills and Hot Springs: Exploring Idaho by Mountain Bike”
• March 19
Presenters: Dick and Heidi Pattee
In summer 2014, the Pattees were among the first cyclists to ride the newly opened Idaho Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route. Their tour was one of great extremes.
They experienced solitude and crowds, blazing heat and freezing cold, dusty desert landscape and lush mountain streams, scorched forests and exuberant wildflowers. Along the way they met many Idahoans who reinforced their preconceptions and a few who thoroughly shattered their stereotypes. Seventeen days and 550 miles later they had endured heat, hills, sore legs, tired lungs, anxiety about their food supply, a forest fire and hours-long climbs on rough, sandy, washboard roads. But they barely noticed.
They were too busy gawking at the breathtaking landscape, listening to the ripple of blue ribbon trout streams, visiting cozy mountain towns and indulging in the highest concentration of soakable hot springs in North America. Idyllic? Indeed!
“Walking Long in Scotland: Finding Value in a Failed Plan”
• March 26
Presenter: Ron Strange
Long walks have interested Strange for some time whether they be the John Muir Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail or the Southern Upland Way from coast to coast across Scotland. His latest plan was to go long and walk what is known as the End-To-End Walk in 2014 — 1,200 miles or so from Land’s End on the southern tip of Cornwall to the northern tip of Scotland.
This was to be a varied journey of 450 miles through the rolling southern uplands with its beautiful small towns, farming and sheep grazing areas, then through the industrialized midlands of Glasgow to the start of the highlands along the popular West Highland Way and beyond to the last 250 miles into the remote, deep, mist-shrouded glens and mountains of the sparsely populated far northwest. But the best laid plans have a way of going awry. Unforeseen circumstances present themselves. Months or years of planning get shelved as reality on the ground calls for a new plan.
The new adventure can begin as the old plan is scrapped. Strange’s long-cherished End-To-End dream now demanded that he make the metaphorical lemonade. Come find out how.
