Chris Cooper
Job: Case Manager
Primary Outdoor Sports: Backpacking, Bouldering, Trail Running
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunset
Favorite Camp Chore: Starting a Fire
Non-Outdoor Hobby: D&D, Spoon Carving, & Video Games
Trail Snack: Gummy Worms
Favorite Camp Game: Cribbage
Guilty Pleasure: The TV Show Friends
Three Words to Describe Yourself: Eclectic, Anxious, & Fun
“My first backpacking trip as an adult was in the middle of winter. Neither of us had been backpacking. We just threw a bunch of stuff in there like jeans and cotton t-shirts. We got to the spot and there was like three feet of snow on the ground. We were gonna hike up to this shelter, but we weren’t planning on snow. And, it was going to snow more that night. So we got up there, we were soaking wet, because everything was cotton. Everything was wrong, but it proved you could survive and have a good time.
And it was like, “Oh my god, you can just be out in the woods and just have fun like a kid.’ I was building snow forts and we had a big fire going. It became fun again.”
“Nature is my god. It’s something I can’t control. You know those times when you’re out in the wilderness and you get a giant crazy storm coming in. It’s blowing up and dumping snow and maybe it's 10O outside. You can’t control that, but you can control how you react to that.”
“Sometimes, you want to get out and be like, ‘Oh, I’ve only got one night. I wanna get out five miles and just be in nature.’ It’s like going to church, a place to recharge.”
“It’s what I loved about it as a kid. My brother and sister and I would have pine cone wars or build forts out of sticks next to trees. But then, when you hit junior high or high school, you kind of stop doing that because you’re like, ‘That’s for kids.’ As an adult, you should look for those times where you get to be a kid again.”
“I don’t know if you ever skateboarded when you were younger, but part of learning to skateboard is you’re constantly hurting yourself. You’re dinging yourself up and you learn to crave that. You’re like ‘Oh, I want to go out there and skate’ because sometimes the wipeouts are the fun part. You get the scratches. You get the sprained ankles. I think sometimes that’s with backpacking too. You just want to be miserable. You kind of want to test yourself.”
“I’ve always pictured two types of trips. When people ask to go backpacking, I’ll ask ‘Do you want to go somewhere where there are scenes or a spot to play around?’ Usually people want to combine the two because that makes an epic trip. But, if you could only choose one or the other, which one would you choose? For me, I would like the one where I have more things to do. If I had a river or a lake to play around, even if it was overgrown, it’d still be the spot that I would pick instead of camping on a mountain and just having to sit and look at the thing.”
“It’s uncontrollable which is part of the reason why it’s amazing. You can’t control nature, no matter what. It can be pouring down rain, you can really want it to stop and it’s not gonna stop. The mosquitoes could be attacking you. I mean swarms when you get to camp. You’re exhausted. There’s nothing you can do about it but try to solve the problem or deal with it. Even if you check the weather and everything is gonna be sunny, it doesn’t mean it’s gonna be sunny. It’s unpredictable. It’s uncontrollable. It’s awesome.”
“Memorable trips are usually the ones that you suffer the most. You look back at ‘Wow, that was crazy!’ But, it was so awesome. The Lost Coast, we did it when it was pouring rain the whole time and had 40-60 mph winds in our face blowing sand at us. All the rivers were three times higher than they should have been and poison oak was everywhere. In the moment, it was like, ‘This fucking sucks.’ Then, at night when you set up camp, you’re like ‘Waahooo!’ because everybody just went through a sufferfest together.”
“It’s good to get out of your comfort zone, whether it’s a guided trip or with friends and family. You get to learn more about yourself. You get to shake things up in a somewhat controlled manner because you’re choosing to leave your comfort zone instead of shaking the rock and being forced to leave your comfort zone. So you can practice that. I didn’t ever think I would enjoy backpacking and I was wrong. It’s good to try new things.”
