When Susan Eckert`s 40th birthday was looming in the not-too-distant future, she started thinking about where she wanted to be when the day arrived.
Africa, she decided.
”And then I thought, `What exactly do I want to be doing in Africa?` And I decided I`d like to be watching gorillas.”
Well, she missed it by a few hours, but that`s not enough to quibble about. On Sept. 19 last year, the actual day, the Evanston resident was in London, waiting for her flight to Africa. The next two weeks were spent on a big game and mountain gorilla safari in Kenya and Rwanda.
Not everyone can pick what part of the world they want to be in when a momentous (or non-momentous) occasion comes along, but Eckert is an unusual lady with an unusual job.
Five years ago, not too long out of a divorce and working on a doctorate in public health while moving up the corporate ladder in the health field, she came to grips with her career decisions: She wasn`t doing what she really wanted to do.
”I loved the outdoors, and I realized I wanted to share that love with other people . . . so I started my own business. It was very scary.”
The business Eckert started was organizing wilderness tours for women over 30. She calls the business Rainbow Adventures.
Dorothy Lingeman, 51, is a financial planner and lives in west suburban Bloomingdale. She was on the gorilla trip.
”All of us kept saying, `How can tomorrow top today?` Each day kept getting better and better. I`ve been on six or seven of Susan`s trips, but Africa was so special. I had dreamed of going there for years.
”Susan`s trips unfold with a great deal of comfort and enjoyment. It`s not, `Get on the bus, get off the bus and then hurry up and get back on the bus.` Even in the planning, she makes it so easy to do. I`m at the office by 8 and I usually don`t get home until 10, and I appreciate her step-by-step directions, like, `You need a passport by such-and-such a date.` No frenzy.
”Each trip has its own personality. I`ve been on trips with other groups, and the big difference is the closeness that evolves with Susan`s trips. You become like a family. On the Windjammer trip in the Caribbean, there was one woman who was about 78 years old. Every morning, I`d be sleeping on the deck, and I`d hear her go over the side of the boat and into the water for her first swim of the day.”
Eckert has taken women on llama treks over the Colorado Rockies–the women hike, the llamas carry the gear; on houseboat trips on Lake Powell in Utah and rafting in the Smoky Mountains; snorkeling around the Virgin Islands and cruising the Galapagos Islands; hiking down the Grand Canyon and riding camels through Africa.
Sometimes, she says, a woman will want to bring her husband. The answer is no. Sometimes the woman isn`t over 30. She doesn`t qualify.
The reason, she says, is that women over 30, and especially those over 40, are in the generation that grew up, got married and had children. Their husbands went off fishing and hunting and their kids went to camp, while they stayed home or juggled home with career. Wilderness adventures weren`t on their agendas.
Rainbow opens up the wilderness to women in a nonthreatening way, Eckert says; there`s no competition with men and there`s no opportunity for any sexist divisions, such as the men making the fire and the women cooking over it.
Chicagoan Maggi Czoty, 39, has five children, ages 4 to 14, and the first Rainbow trip she went on was a weekend spent horseback riding at Blackhawk Ridge, Wis.
”I was so proud of myself, being able to saddle the horse and do everything. I didn`t get any of this feeling from the others, `Will she be able to get up on the horse?` There was no feeling of being self-conscious.
”Since then, I`ve been on a week to the Canadian Rockies and another week to a dude ranch. I never got this sort of thing before, when I was younger, and I love the freedom now of being outdoors. Miss men? Not at all;
there`s a common bond with the women who go on these trips.
”I`m going to be co-leading a horseback trip and a canoe trip this year and I am so excited. Another woman who is a co-leader has nine children.”
Eckert offered eight trips her first year in business, and has 15 on the agenda for 1987. They range from weekend trips to Blackhawk Ridge to a 16-day walking and canal boating trip through England and Wales, and a 16-day trip to China, in which the women will hike and bike as well as travel by boat, plane and overnight train.
The trip to England is a repeat of a similar trip last year; the China trip is a first.
”I think, fantasize, about a trip for at least a year. China, I spent four years planning. I didn`t want to go there until we could do the things I wanted to do. And I wanted to travel the way the people in China do. We`ll spend a morning biking in Shanghai, we`ll take an overnight sleeper car from Beijing to Xian, we`ll take a boat trip on the Li River.”
The groups are small; 14 is about the maximum. Each trip is rated according to its strenuousness. The China trip, for example, is rated moderate, with the caveat that ”you must be in very good physical condition, as there is much walking”; a weekend canoeing trip down the Wisconsin River is ”easy” and hiking through the San Juan Mountains in Colorado is ”mostly moderate with some challenging.”
Each trip, however, no matter how strenuous, has an element of luxury.
A trip to Hawaii in March, for example, that featured sailing, swimming, whale watching and hiking, included two nights in tents, three nights in cabins and one night on a sailboat. But the last night was at the luxurious Coconut Inn, Maui. The China trip will conclude with three nights at Hong Kong`s Royal Garden Hotel. The weekend canoe trip down the Wisconsin River ends with a whirlpool and lunch at the Black Inn at Blackhawk.
Mary Jo Kanady, 44, Evanston, is a lawyer who has hiked the Grand Canyon, hiked in England and canoed Minnesota`s Boundary Waters with Rainbow.
”When we were up on the Boundary Waters, we would go blueberry picking and then make blueberry pancakes. Susan`s got her own cookbook. The food is a lot better than you`d usually get while you`re camping.
”The Grand Canyon trip was vigorous. I walked around Evanston a lot before we went, to get in shape, but that`s not quite the same. Going down the canyon was harder than coming up. It was very encouraging to see women in their 50s and 60s, and what they could do. And you don`t feel as obligated to keep the pace that you might feel in a mixed group, or if you were with the Sierra Club or something like that.”
Noncompetitiveness is such a key part of Eckert`s trips that she doesn`t even want the women to tell each other what they ”do in real life” until the trip is well under way. Lingeman describes one of her first trips:
”She asked us to introduce ourselves with our names and the reason we were on this trip, but she didn`t allow us to say what we did, whether we were in business or a housewife or any of that, because she didn`t want any labels or preconceived ideas of what we were.
”It was a surprise at the end. She handed out lists of our names, and one of the names said `Sister` in front of it. We all said, `Sister? There`s a nun here?` As it turned out, there was a nun, several nurses, a woman from Ch. 7 and several housewives escaping from their children.”
A trip to India is in the planning stage, tentatively scheduled for 1988, ”but I don`t want to hike,” Eckert says. ”Everyone else is hiking India now. I`m setting up a houseboat in Kashmir; I want to spend a week on an elephant safari; I want to spend the night at the Taj Mahal.”
Eckert believes all the trips bring women into closer touch with themselves and their abilities.
”Being in the wilderness helps people get in touch with the deepest part of themselves,” she says.
Lorrie Weinberg is a single parent with two daughters and is in her 40s. She heard about Rainbow Adventures from a friend soon after it started, called Eckert and went over to meet her.
”I was impressed with her and decided to go on one of her first trips. I hadn`t been divorced too long, and didn`t feel I could go on an outdoors trip by myself. I needed someone to take me by the hand.
”It was my first canoeing trip ever, the Green River in Utah. The further we went, the more fantastic it got. The canyons seemed to get deeper and deeper. We stopped this one day–one of the ladies turned 50–and we climbed to the top of the canyon and sang `Happy Birthday` to her. There wasn`t anyone else around, anywhere, except us on the top of that canyon, looking up at the sky and the river below, and singing `Happy Birthday.`
”It was wonderful.
”I think there`s this concept that women have to be with men to have a good time. It just isn`t so. I never thought about a man while I was out there. The adventure part is during the day and the camaraderie and sharing is at night.
”This year, I`m going on the Grand Canyon trip. I`ve been dying to go there for so long, and this is the way to do it.” —
1987 RAINBOW OUTINGS
Here is a schedule of summer and fall Rainbow Adventures trips for 1987. For more information, call (312) 864-4570.
Weeklong trips
(Costs do not include transportation to and from the startoff point.)
Shangri-La in the Grand Canyon, May 17-24. Hiking with pack horses to the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Rating: moderate. $750.
Panoramas in Southeast Utah. June 13-20. Includes rafting down the Colorado River and houseboating on Lake Powell. Rating: easy-moderate. $899.
Summer Solstice in Africa, June 21-28. Denali National Park and Prince William Sound by train, plane and raft. Rating: easy-moderate. $1,695.
Llama Trek East, July 11-18. Hiking with llamas through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Rating: moderate. $799.
Million Dollar Hiking in Colorado`s San Juan Mountains, Aug. 1-8. Hiking with pack horses and riding the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway. Rating: mostly moderate with some challenging. $775.
Classic Wilderness: Canoeing Minnesota`s Boundary Waters, Aug. 2-9. Rating: moderate. $625.
Banff: Horse-packing through the Canadian Rockies, Aug. 8-15. Rating:
moderate. $899.
16-day trips
The Best of Britain–A Walking Holiday in England and Canal Boating in Wales, Sept. 7-22. Rating: easy-moderate. Full package, including round-trip airfare from Chicago, $2,508.
Take the High Road to China, Oct. 7-24. Traveling by foot, plane, train, boat and bicycle. Rating: moderate. $2,595, plus $1,335 round-trip airfare from Chicago.
Weekend getaways
Canoeing down the Wisconsin River, July 10-12. Rating: easy. $209.
Great Wisconsin Summer Camp Retreat, Aug. 21-23. A lazy weekend at Blackhawk Ridge. You can hike, swim, birdwatch, visit a local winery or do nothing. Rating: easy. $239.
Horseback Getaway, Oct. 2-4. Includes riding lessons for rookies. Rating: easy. $219. —
