Paul Edlund: Passion and Purpose

Paul Edlund has a project in 2021 to climb one peak a month in a sustainable manner from his home. For many of these adventures he’ll ride his bike from his house to the trailhead, climb the peak, and then ride home. But sometimes it involves other sports too, like skiing.

This post was written by Footprints 2021 participant Paul Edlund:

Like hyperbole, assonance, and alliteration, “bildungsroman” is one of those words you may have heard and promptly forgot about while you were doodling in the margins as your eleventh grade English teacher was teaching the class about popular rhetorical devices used in classic literature. Snobbish vocabulary aside, a bildungsroman is simply the story of someone growing up and discovering who they are.

Classic examples include Once a Runner and To Kill a Mockingbird, but my personal favorite is the 1979 Breaking Away featuring a young Dennis Quaid’s powerful thighs and an Indiana kid who thinks he is a professional Italian bike racer. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, ride your bike to the grocery store, buy some popcorn or a cheap slice of pizza and soda, ride home and stream it on Amazon. Or come visit me in Bozeman and we can watch it together, I don’t care. It’s a great flick.

Point being, the forward momentum of young people actively experimenting, making mistakes and discovering what they are really passionate about is enough to make any audience cheer. This combination of conclusions; “I am really passionate about this” and “Not only am I passionate about this, but I think I could be really good at this,” lends itself to a storytelling that leaves the audience shouting a standing ovation when the credits roll. If you don’t believe me, then tell me why in the world Netflix thought it was a good idea to bring back Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai 36 years after the original Karate Kid. People love that kind of stuff.  

I’d like to introduce a series of ideas to you, building off of what we were just discussing.

1.     The coming of age story is exciting, engaging and fulfilling

2.     Real people spend years, decades or their whole life refining their behavior to reflect what they are truly passionate about.

3.     People, by and large, are not so entirely one-sided that they are only passionate about one thing

4.     In fact, most people are totally passionate about at least two things in their lives

Which leads into the thesis of this story: the intersection of two passions in someone’s life does not only double passion but compounds it into a completely new direction that opens a host of opportunity that would have been precluded had those two passions been handled separately.

There’s one classic example; Protect Our Winters has been successfully pairing the extreme stoke of backcountry enthusiasts with the meticulous litigation battles on Capitol Hill since Jeremy Jones harnessed the power of the gnar gnar in 2007. In short, most riders would never slap a sticker of Jeremy Jone’s cheeky grin on our Nalgene. Likewise, we would all rather watch the Dawn Wall than listen to Tommy Caldwell lobby at congress. But I’ll bet my new ski boots that at least 20% of the students at your local West Coast liberal arts college were turning their water bottles so their classmates could see the white and blue POW sticker. The intersection of two passions amplifies the momentum of both so much more than they could ever do by themselves.

 The list goes on. Vasu Sojitra uses his dedication to skiing to influence and educate the winter sports community about adaptive athletes and civil rights. Established bike industry members like Specialized, Trek, Surly, Salsa, Fuji,  Cannondale and Bikepacking.com each committed to using their resources, profit and company culture to engage in anti-racism. Alysia Montaño  leveraged her prestigious track career to dramatically influence how Nike sponsors their runners who are also mothers. The Kilian Jornet Foundation just opened this summer to support scientific research in the mountain ecosystems that are already being devastated by climate change.

**See below for a continued list

So what’s next? Great question there, camper. Watching these community members, industry competitors and general badasses is inspiring. Making commitments and public statements on Instagram could be the next step to healing a world that is increasingly damaged by climate change and social injustice. But in order to take the next step, we have to understand how the intersection of two passions doesn’t just create something entirely new, but actually propels this new passion into real action.

 Enter Footprints Running Camp. To this camper, a real coming of age story.

I heard about this camp for the first time when Dakota Jones swung by our office at Montana State University, here in Bozeman. I had been working in the Office of Sustainability for about 3 months, and I guess for him it seemed like a logical place to hang up a Footprints poster. During these first months on the job, I was trying to figure out what most people are when they are still new somewhere: how do I get along with my boss, when is it time for lunch, will I get in trouble if I leave 15 minutes early, that kind of stuff. But all the sudden there is this guy sitting in our office telling us about this kickass camp he is putting on and the things he wants to do.

Like most Montana transplants, I came here because I watched Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. I chose to pursue a career in sustainability in higher education because my college experience at the University of Montana was so wholly designed by learning about wilderness. There is something about driving northward from Missoula to the Flathead Reservation and watching East Saint Marys peak loom over the pass that changes the way you look at things. I was completely enamored with how wilderness experiences could influence young people; I decided I was going to learn the skills, empathy and respect to responsibly interact with this local wilderness and be an encourager to those who wanted to learn with me. This learning will be for the rest of my life, I guess.

To me, this camp is about how I understand this evolving connection to wilderness split into two passions: I love to run in this local wilderness, and I want to give to it as it has given to me. You could use words like protect, preserve, conserve, give, whatever. I am still learning about that, too. But I bet for most of us heading to Durango this summer, that’s why we are coming. We love to run in these beautiful places, and we want to learn how to give to it as it has given to us.

This camp is designed for young people who are equally passionate about environmental solutions and trail running. Sharing this combined passion links them with endurance athletes who are already leaders in the environmental movement. “We give you the knowledge and tools to implement your project over the long term. Then we tell the world about it, so other people can create their own solutions.” Thus, creating a chain reaction of inclusive education that inspires other runners to invest into their own local environmental problems.

This progression of education and action all starts with a coming of age story. Somewhere out there is a punk young kid who is thinking to themselves, “you know, I think I could be really great out this. I want to get even better at this.” The next step is meeting the right people who will help them along the way. You know that’s where I’ll be on July 25th,  2021.

-Written by Footprints 2021 participant Paul Edlund 

·      Patagonia has been using their outdoor apparel profits to combat environmental degradation since its inception in 1973. 

·      Eleven days after George Floyd’s murder, Black Diamond* said Black Lives Matter and made a formal commitment to incorporate social responsibility metrics into their company mission.

·      Tommy Smith and John Carlos used their Olympic success to take the Black Power movement and Black oppression in the United States to the international stage.

·      Latoya Snell uses her voice and sponsorships to make space for women, queer people and BIPOC runners across the world

·      The Queer Climbers Coalition is a Montana local club organizing events, educational opportunities and community for queer climbers

·      This whole list of POW Athletes

·      I would be remiss if I didn’t also include meme-lord Dr. Len Necefer who pairs his passion for internet art, humor and political activism to provide his followers with a reliable news source. Lolz.

*During this summer, Black Diamond came under scrutiny as consumers questioned whether they could purchase tools from an industry member whose parent company is associated with making and distributing tear gas. This tear gas was purportedly used to subdue protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement. While there is no total conclusion on what the right thing to do is for athletes who use BD gear, this example does bring to mind the importance of research and understanding nuances so athletes can make informed decisions.