Wild Adventures On A Budget

Some of my own wild adventures were far from home. They include climbing Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador (20,600 feet), hitchhiking to Mexico at 17-years-old, and kayaking days from the nearest road in Canada, in six-foot waves on Lake Superior. If I had more money years ago, I may taken more of these trips. Adventure can be expensive! Time can be an issue too, of course, especially when you have to travel long distances.

However, some wild adventures aren't expensive or in far-away locations. You can find fun and excitement near home, if you look the right way.

Dirtbagging - A Budget Adventure

Dirtbagging is not a common expression. It means stripping camping or backpacking down to basics. Put some things in any old pack or duffel bag, and just get out there in the wilds - without extensive planning or fancy equipment. Forget the extra clothes, sleep in a pile of leaves or next to a nice fire, and use your wits instead of your wallet for a couple days.

MY dirtbagging adventure started with a bus ride near Traverse City, Michigan (where I lived at the time). I carried the rubber tube onto the bus. The driver looked at that and at my small day pack, and he laughed. At the end of the line I got off the bus and walked another half-mile to the Boardman River.

My supplies? A homemade plastic bivy sack, a small umbrella, some snacks, and a few warm things to wear to bed. I didn't bring a blanket or sleeping bag. Everything was in a bundle on my lap as I floated down the river sitting in the inner tube. My butt and my feet were in the water the whole time, and I steered as necessary with my hands.

Evening approached, and the trout began to surface everywhere on the river. Deer jump back from the riverbank as I floated past. Several prehistoric-looking blue herons hunted for fish along the edges of the river. When I stopped, I feasted on wild strawberries and other wild plants. I didn't paddle much, but just went with the flow of the river. I relaxed, and even closed my eyes for a few minutes in the calmer parts. Of course, the trip still had some unpredictability, and thus adventure potential.

For example, the rain started when I set up camp, and continued for the next twelve hours or more. I was dry in my garbage bag bivy sack. I covered my head with the umbrella. A large white-tail deer almost stepped on me in darkness, and his snorting scared me half to death (as I did to him, I'm sure).

In the morning the rain had become a thunderstorm. I might have waited for better weather, but unlike a tent, a plastic bivy sack doesn't have space to do anything but lay there. It was time to go home, I decided. I bundled up my things, got into the cold river, and climbed onto the tube as the storm got wilder. The wind was blowing, thunder was booming, and lightning was flashing all over. I hopes the tall trees would keep me safe from the latter.

Past the wild stretch of river, I drifted by beautiful homes. I was wearing a heavy sweater, with my umbrella overhead, trying to stay warm and dry despite my feet and butt being in the water. It was still dark because of the storm, and I watched people drinking coffee through the windows of lighted kitchens. Some people looked up from their breakfast to see me in a flash of lightning, and I waved as I floated by.

I didn't want my hands to touch the icy water, so I quickly learned how to steer through the more frequent rapids using only my feet, kicking this way and that. A dam meant a portage through knee-deep mud that nearly kept a shoe, but finally, just before noon, I scrambled up the steep bank near home. I casually walked down the street in the storm, with my umbrella, my pack, and my rubber tube, hoping the neighbors were not looking out their windows.

Wild Adventures - Other Ideas

Friends and I used to drive to a big river an hour away for "Tom Sawyer day." We parked the car, hiked upstream for an hour or two, then built a raft of dead trees to float back to the car on. This sometimes involved falling off and chasing the raft. I did one trip where I rode my bicycle the thirty miles to the river, and then took it twenty miles downsteam on a homemade raft, through the Manistee National Forest.

What else can you do on a budget? Borrow or buy a book on wild edible plants and take a short survival trek in the nearest wilderness. Have your own adventure race with friends. Pack some food and water, get on your bicycle, start peddling, and see where you end up in the next day. Use you imagination. You can always find some wild adventures that don't require traveling far or spending much.