Every once in a while, like once or twice a year, you stumble across a website that’s so idiosyncratic it’s like entering another universe. Such is the case with Cold Splinters, a blog that feels like the 1968 love-child of national park ranger and a tree-dancing hippie chick. I mean this in the best of ways.

And blog–what an empty, insufficient word. Cold Splinters is a perspective, a worldview, a looking glass to the outdoors that’s filtered with Kodachrome, cigarette smoke, and old leather moccasins. Am I not making sense? Okay, to be more literal, Jeff Thrope uses Cold Splinters to write about the outdoors, but he writes about days gone by, even when he’s writing about stuff happening now.

Cold Splinters is filled with wonderful archival images (the 1930s, ’50s, and ’70s are well-represented), old folk music, pioneering mountaineers, bearded poets, and so much more it’s ridiculous. It’s like he’s the curator of a culture that meets at the intersection of the Whole Earth Catalog and a Ford Fairlane station wagon. He makes you want to grow your moustache out, strap on an external frame backpack, and tie a blue bandana around your forehead. Indeed, if Cold Splinters ever features something obviously modern, such as an Arc’teryx jacket, it’s like being shaken out of a dream.
He’s not afraid to throw random bits of anything into the mix, like old ranger patches he finds on Ebay, but he tells good stories, too. Here’s one:

In 2001, a friend of mine and his father set out on a camping trip in Glacier National Park. It was a 14 mile hike from the trailhead to the campsite, and along the way, they met some doctors that were on the same journey. My friend sped up towards the end of the hike to see where they’d be sleeping, and while he was ahead, his father had a heart attack. The doctors found his father, did some life saving doctor things and had him airlifted out of the park to a hospital. There also happened to be a long distance runner already at the campsite who, the following morning after the helicopter came, ran down the 14 mile trail and the extra several miles to my friend’s car, and drove it back to the trailhead to save time for the rest of the group. It’s a hell of a story that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about all weekend. My friend’s father was at the party where the story was told and still keeps in touch and visits the doctors that saved his life. Great ending.

Well, it’s time to let Jeff speak for himself: Okay, man, what’s your story?
I went to college in Colorado, and on a whim, moved to New York for an internship a few days after I graduated. I took a year long hiatus from any kind of outdoor adventure, and after the beginning of a bad winter, convinced a friend from Chicago to spend a December weekend paddling a canoe around Cape Sable in the Everglades. I got back and incessantly bored anyone who would listen about what I had seen, so I decided it’d be a good idea to a) keep camping and b) write instead of talk about it.

What’s Cold Splinters all about?
Pretending you’re outside when you have to be at your computer.

And the name comes from…?
I thought it was from a Johnny Cash song called “Old Splinters” but now that I’m Googling it, I don’t think that song actually exists. That’s the story I’ve told to the handful of people who have ever asked, so somewhere along the way I must have done a wonderful job convincing myself that was the truth. At any cost, it’s nothing important or meaningful.

The vibe…do you own a wormhole straight back to 1973? Tell me about your obvious affection for this certain other era.
I started shopping at thrift stores at way too early of an age and I suppose I picked up a minute obsession with the look of the junk that people were donating to Salvation Army. Plus, the people in those photos deserve some recognition! Their packs were way heavier.

You get to use your wormhole to go back in time so you can spend three days hiking and camping with one and only one of these men: John Muir, Ed Abbey, Yvon Chouinard, or Louis L’Amour. Who gets the nod? Justify your answer, please.
More often than not I’m rereading an Edward Abbey book and/or searching Ebay for old articles he wrote in the Mountain Gazette. He had a way of making the world seem to rotate around a lone yucca plant in the middle of the Utah desert without getting sentimental about it. He was bitter and loved women and beer as much as he did the Southwest. Who wouldn’t want to walk through the Canyonlands with a guy like that? I’d be ten steps behind while he aggressively ignored everything I was too nervous to say.

AT or PCT? Why?
AT. I’ve put in many hours on that trail since living out east and I’m always bummed that I can’t spend more time with the thru-hikers that I’ve met. I’m sure the folks on the PCT are just as good and just as tough, but after a few nights in an AT lean-to, you just want to keep going.

A few months ago, I spent a weekend on the AT by myself, waking up early on Sunday so I could make the long hike back to the train. It didn’t take as long as I had anticipated, so I took a detour to a diner a mile down the road from the train station. After ordering a cup of coffee, the sweet middle-aged woman behind the counter asked if I was on my way to Katahdin. I was rather certain that a “yes” was going to warrant some kind of reward, so I lied and ended up walking the rest of the way with my coffee and a huge piece of chocolate cake. I’ve always felt bad about that, so now I have to redeem myself.

Boiled wool or waxed canvas? Why?
Boiled wool. Some waxed canvas feels like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, so I’ve always stayed clear of it. I suppose that’s odd.

What’s for breakfast on third day of a backpacking trip?
I’d like to believe that I’d fire up the stove for some instant grits and a packet of McDonald’s pepper, but I know from previous experience that it ends up being whatever is left in my pack that doesn’t need to be cooked. Probably a piece of bread that claims it’s a bagel.

Why, Jeff, why? Why are you putting such effort into make such a cool site? Is it the fame? The glory? Or the financial rewards?
I certainly haven’t seen any financial rewards. Nor have I seen fame or glory. I get sent a bunch of camping gear to review, which couldn’t be more amazing, but I work hard on CS so people, including myself, have something enjoyable to read during the day. I’m usually daydreaming about the things that I write (or don’t write) about, so researching topics like the genus classification of mountain goats isn’t much of a chore. If at some point someone paid me to do Cold Splinters, I’d have it made, but I’m pretty confident that won’t ever happen. So for now, I’ll continue to meet the incredible people that come by the blog and not take myself very seriously.

All photos from Cold Splinters.

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