We Survived 100 Miles Into the Wilderness

I'm Justin Rhodes. I'm Jonah Rhodes, my firstborn son. And I'm Austin Chaney, my adopted college dropout. And we're going to bikepack 100 miles in some of the gnarliest trails Pisgah Forest has to offer. By the way, We've never bike-packed. We are prepared. We are maybe inexperienced. But I can't let a lack of experience stop me from having an adventure with my sons. At this point, we had mountain biked once a month and we felt hopeful.

So I had some confidence in my athletic abilities. It wasn't until later that I found out— See, I don't even know that you can train for something like this.

Deep down in my heart, I think I will make it the whole way. I'm a very determined person.

I think all of us don't expect it to be as hard as it's going to be.

You never cramp. Monkey don't cramp. Monkey don't cramp because monkey eat banana. Monkey never crap because monkey every day bananas.

We need to be like singing the chant or something right now.

Work, work, work. It's old and wise versus young and energetic. Yeah, how did you get into this old man's group? How's your banana holding up?

It's looking good.

Getting a little brown. A little brown. Getting a little brown. Doesn't travel very well. But it didn't take long to run into problems.

Papa's and John's bike started to have loose bolts.

What's wrong now?

The bolt came off on this side. Oh wow, that works.

It's bent.

Your chain came off? We're all out of water. 2, 3 times. Yellow jackets. I left my backpack somewhere. It's the most critical bolt. It started to rain. I've never been so thirsty. You don't even care. After a good night's sleep, I realized I needed to have a mindset shift. This wasn't going to be a relaxing jaunt in the woods. This was going to be an endurance event, and I needed to focus on working hard from dawn till dusk just to get it done. But I noticed Austin was lagging behind.

I had some knee pains, which was not something that I typically deal with.

I realized Austin was slowing us down, and I had no idea what was ahead of us, and I don't think he would have dropped. So I had to make the difficult decision, and I had to tap him out. I don't think he would call it, but I'd have to call it for him. Do you have enough in your knees to get back? Okay.

All right, bud.

All right, guys, it's your knees, bud. You can't help it. We understand. It could be any of us.

This is quite the embarrassment. Um, it's just disappointing. I for sure thought I'd make the whole trip.

And things didn't get any better. Feel any better or worse?

No, not really.

You starting to feel worse? I've kind of sort of made the call, and we've talked about it on the trip. Campground is down that way. We should maybe go refresh, make sure this doesn't turn into anything with Jonah, make sure Sam's all right, get a resupply. I've been in communication with Mom. What's going on?

I feel really sick and I threw up all of my food last night.

Did you throw up a lot?

Yes.

And I don't feel good this morning. Okay.

I'm going to work.

Should I not go? Eat, make myself eat and drink, and then just go or sleep.

Do you feel like eating? You should not make yourself eat.

And you should not go. How about eating? Yeah. Alright.

Dropping out, I didn't feel good about it. Because I was sick and I wasn't thinking straight, and I still wanted to continue, but I wasn't able to.

The rest of us kept going the next day to the 50-mile mark. It just didn't feel the same, so we quit, and we had failed. Looking back on our failed attempt, seeing how difficult it was, I had to ask myself, why am I doing this? Really? There she comes. Where did I get this desire? I think it goes way back to how my late dad raised me. As a young man, he was a runner and a hiker, including hiking the Sierras in California. As kids, we'd hike up our mountain to find a Christmas tree, and we'd hike the tallest mountain in our county, Barawalo, in our free time on a Sunday afternoon. My dad didn't watch any TV or movies to speak of. "You're burning daylight," he'd say. But for whatever reason, he would take a break to watch some films at the local BAMP Film Festival, which are outdoor adventure films. But mostly my dad would take us outdoors every Saturday morning while everybody else my age was watching Saturday morning cartoons. He'd put us to work on the farm. I hated it, but looking back, it's one of the things I appreciated most about him. Not knowing it then, but this combo of outdoor adventure and work was setting me up for a life of hard work and adventure. It's no wonder I ended up a homesteader growing my own food. In my younger days, I pursued trail running, snowboarding, professional mountain boarding, and lots of mountain biking. But as we started growing our family, my obligations needed to be based at home and needed to involve the entire family. Homesteading was a perfect outlet for that— outdoors every day, plenty of adventure plenty of work, and there was always something for everyone. And we were working together. But as my boys became teens and our farm became more established, I realized we could mountain bike together and they could actually keep up. Then somehow we caught wind of this trail called the Real Pisgah, 100 miles through the Pisgah Wilderness, and we thought we should do this as a bikepacking adventure. I've been attending the local BAMP film festival for years now. And even though my dad is gone, I now take my own children. And I realized that the folks in those films, movies like Of a Lifetime, where a father and daughter go snowboarding together in Antarctica, or The Passage, which is about an older father and his grown sons going on the Passage canoe trip together, and even 2.4, which is a young family who climbs together with their young kids and even camps on the rock face. I realized that all these people, they're just ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and that we could do that too. After the initial disappointment wore off, I became obsessed with this event, and I was not going to let it beat us. So we resolved to train harder, prepare better, and to even go ahead of time and do sections of the trail so we know what we're getting into.

When Justin was first talking about the real Pisgah, the 100 miles, of bikepacking. I was like, oh, this is a great idea. So wonderful. It's going to be so fun. And, and then like after they attempted it the first time and it was like just way different than we imagined, I was like, this is insanity.

Why?

Why would you do this?

This year I'm a lot more prepared. Actually prepared. Last year I thought I was. I actually found a fun way to do some cardio, and that was through MMA, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu.

The last of your indulgences until tomorrow night.

The only way I can get away with carbs.

Have fun.

Thank you.

Hopefully you don't get too wet.

No more paved road.

59.

Once again, we started strong, real strong, and even stronger than last year.

I'm taking a picture every time you guys are breaking, and then I'm gonna have a slideshow at the end.

All right, young guy.

As far as Jonah goes I do have some concerns there. You know, being the young guy, you know, I was there. I thought I could outdo everybody, and I think he might have that mentality to just push a little too hard. I don't want to make this a race. I'm just trying to get this done.

We're looking at 14,000 feet total elevation gain, and I knew as busy as we are with regular life, this is gonna be our last shot. So we Got to make it.

Miles in, we're 8 miles in, we still have 19 miles.

What is your target?

We're still way ahead.

Okay, that's true.

10:50, almost.

But we're way ahead. Hey, take it, take it, take a meat stick. You're afraid that we're gonna not make it to camp, have to set it up in the dark? Sure. Well, if these old men hurry, we might not make it.

That's the puncture, right? Isn't that—

yep.

Oh no, that's just the seal. That's not a puncture.

Pretty sure it's tubeless right there.

Well, why don't we make it to Turkey Pen?

I'll go. It's not very far.

Fix it there because you could be fixing it while we cook. Yes. Is it rideable?

Yeah.

Do you think it's flat flat?

No, I think it— I think this is a tubeless tire and it had to fix itself, so, and in the process it lost some air. Okay, it's old.

And Austin, you have a spare tube and Joe has a spare tube?

Yes, it's not making a noise.

It's good. Hope this works. I forgot to test it before we left. You guys ready to see if this is going to work? Homemade, homegrown rice pilaf. So it's just freeze-dried and we're just going to pour the hot water on it. I think that's all you do.

Yeah.

Yeah, it mostly works.

What, might need more water? Oh my gosh, I don't know if because we're camping—

I think we're glamping at this point.

We just rode 16 miles, 2,200-foot climb, or this freeze-dried food is amazing. Oh my gosh.

After our refill and we had crossed the river, my tire went flat. So we started to fix it, and then it started to rain on us really bad, and I just wanted to quit because the truck was literally a half mile away. Could you throw that on me since you're waterproof?

Do you want me to, um— why don't you take a minute, get yours on? But soon after our refresh, we got a flat. And then it started to rain and it became real again. I know there's a special time in a man's life when he becomes stronger than his dad. And if there was ever a marker for when that happened with Joan and I, it was right then. I wish I could remember the first time I helped my dad, let alone captured on tape. We pushed on to camp, got there at about 7:30 in the evening. We were soaking wet. It was starting to get cold. I think the high of that day might have been 55 degrees. And I started to shiver like uncontrollable shivers. It was alarming. I knew I'd be able to warm up in my hammock setup. Of course, I had a hammock and a rainfly, but I even had an underquilt. This is a down-feathered barrier of insulation that goes under the hammock. But that isn't it. On top of that and over me, the same thing, but on top, a camp quilt. I got so warm and comfy. I got too warm. I became concerned for Austin when I saw what he had. Is that it? Is that your sleeping setup? This and, uh, what did you lay on to keep off the ground?

This on the floor.

Wow.

The one I had was nice and tiny and worked well for me last year. Actually, I ended up sweating in it.

How's everybody feel?

Great.

Everybody cold in their wet clothes from yesterday?

Yep.

And then Austin tapped himself out.

Physically, I feel fine. It's just, yeah, I'm exhausted. Yeah, yeah, like, I'm completely fine with it. I've done more. I've done more than I've accomplished last year.

How do you feel about it?

It's fine. I don't know, I just—

I mean, it sucks.

It does. I don't know if we're gonna make it. I guess it made me want to drop out is because I realized I could just go home and have a nice warm bed and a warm shower.

Hello?

Can you hear me?

Yes.

All right, uh, I'm dropping out. You're what? Dropping out. I only got an hour of sleep last night, so—

Oh no.

Okay. With some doubt and new resolve, Joan and I set out at a good pace. Joan is a little depressed now that we left Austin. As we started getting closer to the refill, I did start noticing this nagging, weird, numb-ish feeling in my, my penis. I figured I was probably just cutting my circulation off from sitting in this narrow seat and get better with walking around, so I just hoped for for the best. We just checked in with Mom. She'll be there in an hour and a half. That should be all it takes us to get this— what, 12 miles? Yeah, 12 miles down and on flat. So we just kept pushing through and humping it to the refill. We were excited to see everybody.

I ended up like bringing extra stuff like towels and things of that nature, and then an extra kit for bandages and stuff like that.

Sorry we're late.

I'll eat that whole thing.

Yeah, I brought a whole one for you. I don't know, I didn't know what you wanted. Oh God, you're the only one.

I even took the COVID off.

He was just in Enjoy it.

Don't tell off. I woke up at night.

My arms, my forearms hurt really bad right now.

Why does it hurt?

I don't know.

And then I had to, I had to look downstairs, and oh my word, I could not believe what I was seeing. I had a full-fledged rash developing.

Oh my—

Needless to say, I didn't get any shots. So, forget it. Best idea I could come up with to demo this. The thing that could very well put me out of this event. If this is my penis and I look at it at the break, that's about what it looks like. We're coming on some irritation. I told Rebecca I didn't even think this was a thing, and she said, yeah, I just saw a reel about this for a runner. It's a thing. The tip of my penis is chafing, and I ran the last 5 miles with my junk out. Rebecca Informed us that rain was coming that evening at 7 PM, so we set out on our last 6 miles of the day. We made it in camp before the rain did, which was good, but I was really hurting down there, and I knew this could potentially take me out, so I said, I got to get some relief. I took off all my— I got naked and just wore my poncho and was walking around camp holding it off of it. Seriously, I'm walking around camp like this. So just hopefully to up this healing scarring process so I could get on with this trip. Let me give you a tour of Camp 2. My tent, it's off of a little access road, so I'm afraid with the rain coming we might have a little wash here. So I've got all my supplies on rocks. How's the pilaf?

It's good. Can we eat under your tent?

Oh, you want— do we have to eat under our tent? Starting to rain. Jonah's going shorter span, but he's got poison ivy under there. You have to be so careful of that poison ivy. I got spaghetti tonight. We got set up just in time for this rain. Is that enough food for you?

Yeah.

Okay, it's supposed to rain. She didn't say how long. All night? She say all night? I can't remember. Um, but it's supposed to be 80 degrees tomorrow and clear, and the next day, so no more rain. If we can survive this, we're gonna be good. I woke up at 3 AM and it was burning. I'm thinking, I'm gonna drop because of this? What am I going to tell people?

Papa getting the rash, I thought it might affect the trip in a bad way. Of us having to quit or drop out.

But as I lay there and let that reality sink in, I was thinking, I'm going to disappoint Jonah. I can't. I'm going to have to figure this out. And then I remembered what Austin said to me.

You're the last person I think would back out.

Oh, really?

Because you've pushed through. So, I mean, there's so many things already in life that you just push through and you just—

Yeah.

And there's times where you're pushing through it and I don't even know it.

In that moment, I resolved I'm going to have to make this happen come hell or high water. At 5 in the morning, time to get up. There was no way I was going to be able to ride. I had an idea. Non-adhesive bandage. I had some Manuka honey. That's like an antiseptic. Good Boy Scout, I had brought a, uh, sports tape. Never in a million years did I imagine I was going to be wrapping this with sports tape. I'll spare I was fair putting it right there, but okay, here we go. Let's see if this is gonna work. Oh my gosh, I think it's gonna work. Oh my gosh. All right, there we go. I tested my wrap and it worked. When I got on the bike, it was doable. Then we set out on the tallest climb of the trip, Farlow Gap, 2,400 vertical feet. We got to the top of Farlow Gap ahead of schedule, getting sort of numb from tiredness but feeling hopeful. Then with just 15 miles left, our final climb, pretty gradual, easy climb, 1,000 feet. I hit a wall and bonked. Poor Jonah, I slow him down. Or I pace you good.

Yeah, Papa was going pretty slow up the hills and pretty slow on the downhill, so it's a pretty slow pace after that.

At one point Jonah looked to me and he's— I guess he could tell I was in pain. I'm slowing him down more than ever this last day. He says, if I have a 10 Pain scale, he's 1. Thanks for sharing, Mr. 17. I'm 46.

It's difficult to describe how hard this really is. It's— I mean, we jumped into this originally with very minimal training at all. As you can see from the beginning, it was, it was already difficult.

At one point at mile 988, I was worried that Papa was going to drop out. Because he had told me that I was just— that he was just slowing me down.

But I was this close. There was no way I was going to quit at this point. So I pushed through. And with just a few miles left, We got out of the woods and just cruised to the finish.

Congratulations! Yep.

During our final climb, Joan and I had a moment that brought this full swing. I asked him why he did this, to which he replied, it's good to do hard things. And then I realized we'd set out on an outdoor adventure to do the impossible, and we had accomplished something Extraordinary, just like all those folks we'd seen in those outdoor adventure films. We'd even finished a day early. Now I was fueling a sense of adventure and hard work in my son, just like my dad had done for me so many years ago. And I figured if we could bike 100 miles in 3 days, we could overcome almost any real-life obstacle. In case I never finish it. Hey, wait for me!