One For The Road

from JHSM Online Magazine – Issue 18

Sick of Going Solo?

Maybe a little of both.

During the drive back to town I pondered the meaning of it all. Up to that day, I’d always put some people on a pedestal. In my mind they were ‘hero-proofed’ from consequence. Groceries, bills, ghting with a partner, getting stuck in a storm—the mundanity of life surely didn’t a ect the likes of Jimmy Chin?

But I was wrong. Nobody is immune. Everybody is an equal, at least in the eyes of nature. And no matter how much you’ve accomplished, your car can still get buried. Seeing a hero humbled that way made me realize that if such a man could fall, surely I could rise. And then, gripping the steering wheel and crawling downhill at a meager 10 miles an hour, it hit me: It wasn’t Jimmy that I aspired to be like. It was Rhonda.

A humble steed, maybe even a little beat up, but ride-or-die and willing to step to anything. She punched way above her weight for a two-wheel-drive Civic. On any given day in Jackson Hole, it was Rover, Wrangler…and Rhonda.

I never saw Jimmy Chin again (not counting his Disney+ series). And I eventually lost Rhonda to marauders in Salt Lake City. But the lessons I learned from both linger still. Any of us can get stuck, so you might as well give everything you’ve got, fearless and free. at’s how I want to be–in life, storycraft, and riding–powering through the falling snow.