The nacho chips and salsa were just placed on the kitchen table and already conversation was shifting from how nasty the ski conditions were today to my idea of a family rafting trip down the Coulonge River next summer.
By the time the pizza was coming out of the oven, the mothers were planning the menu. The other dads and I were Googling river levels to see which rapids we could run and which we may need to portage. Sitting at the cooks’ end of the kitchen table, one dad, hearing talk about boxed wine and lawn chairs, suggested we best keep the portaging to a minimum and run everything we can. That was our plan.
If we’d invited Professor Ed Krumpe from the Conservation Social Science Department at the University of Idaho to join us for dinner, he’d say we were deep into phase one of the five phases of a satisfying recreation and tourism experience.
Anticipation and planning is the pouring over guidebooks, route and food planning, campsite booking, travel plans and gear preparation phase. It’s an important step because it creates buy-in and commitment. Done well it sets expectations for the whole group. Done poorly—well, you probably know the answer—the experience would more than likely end in disaster.
The dads were looking for a big water run. The mothers had more of a low-water float trip in mind. The dads were thinking of starting way up north in the spring and stretching the trip over 10 days. The mothers were thinking three nights in August without bugs. Eventually we’d settle on a trip that offered just enough adventure and margaritas on the sand bars.
These important details are best worked out before the travel phase, before the participation phase and before the travel home phase, so the final recollection phase is a pleasant one.
A truly satisfying experience, according to Krumpe, is one where expectations are met or exceeded. How the story will be told après ski in years to come has everything to do with anticipation, planning and setting these expectations before the trip. Our memories are burned into our subconscious and affect the planning or likelihood of follow-up trips.
But we know that family trips never, ever go exactly as planned, especially ones in the backcountry, which is why I believe there is an even more important phase of the outdoor recreational experience. The imperfect recall phase falls somewhere between Krumpe’s travel home phase and recollection phase. You may know this phase better as selective memory.
When planning goes all wrong—shuttles are late, rafts flip, fish hooks enter fingers, tequila runs short and bugs live too late in the season—imperfect recall is our natural ability as parents to remember the good times and block out or make light of the bad. Imperfect recall is really what affects the likelihood of a follow-up trip.
Rounding up our ski jackets and our kids, we’ve already forgotten how cold, windy and icy it was on the hill today. Going out the door, we make plans to meet again early next Saturday morning at the lodge. —Scott MacGregor
This article originally appeared in Spring 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or download the Paddling Magazine app and browse the digital archives here.
