Into the wild

Love for outdoors took Semple around the world

By: Julianne Pepitone

Posted: 2/14/08

As a child, Ian Semple scrambled up a tree every time he felt upset, confused or contemplative. He retreated to the branches all the time, like when he cut off his finger using a log-splitter at the age of 5, when he fought with his older brother Harton ("an indoors-y kid who doesn't get me at all"), when he became a young geologist, reflecting on his fieldwork in Sardinia, Belize, Mongolia and more.

He'd stay for hours, nights even, knowing that if he wasn't home in three days his mother Judy Semple, who called him "E-o," would start to worry. No matter how late he was, Ian dawdled near his home in Sewickley, Penn., splashing in creeks, climbing hills and even eating a bug or two.

Ian's love for the outdoors changed him from an adventurous child to an experienced world traveler. The senior geology major has traveled to dozens of countries to conduct fieldwork in his study concentration - sediment tectonics.

Ian's room in his house on Euclid Avenue, which he shares with six roommates, is filled with objects from the past that have defined his present: the colorful map he refers to with relish ("The eastern side of Brazil used to be connected to Africa!"), the "Outfloat, Outswim, Outlast" Survivor-style shirt from Marietta College (he transferred after the Ohio school flooded during his first semester) and the Mongolian drinking bowl from his last trip ("They chase their liquor with pickles").

Ian erupts in spontaneous, childlike laughter when he recounts that trip to Mongolia. His blue eyes laugh with him, below the kind of floppy mohawk that doesn't make a big deal of itself. He speaks candidly, using the same tone when discussing his trips, his adventures ("my friend had a punctured lung on this mountain, but we handled it") and his pet peeves (messiness, disregard for others).

"Ian's a big common-courtesy person," senior Ryan Kelly, his roommate, said. "He can get irritated. But he doesn't stress about a lot, especially the future. He's the go-to guy when people need to feel balanced."

Ian said he feels most stable when he is relaxing in nature, especially the woods.

"I love being able to appreciate the outdoors," he said. "It's really valuable to understand the earth. It's fun to be able to explain why it's there."

"Fun" is a word most people would find strange for that trip to Mongolia, with its blazing 116 degree heat, dust storms that create sand dunes even in sealed vans and poisonous spiders that spin webs thick as dental floss.

But the National Science Foundation was willing to pay one student to study a fault plane in the Mongolian desert, and when SU Earth Sciences professor Laura Webb was asked to choose, it was obvious. Ian had taken the necessary courses and received glowing reviews. He was one of few people so enamored with the outdoors that he could handle spending a month in the desert.

"Ian was a rock star," Webb said. "He totally embraced the experience, from the heat to the geology. He has a terrific sense of humor - a bonus when you have a group working closely together for a month."

The trio took a 16-hour flight to Ulaanbaatar, where 97 percent of Mongolians reside. The suburbs were not houses, but "gers:" tents made of felt, which are the homes of the last nomadic people on the planet. The group spent two days packing backpacks filled with food and tools: a rock hammer, geology compass, carbon-dating acid and chisels.

They set out for the desert less than 48 hours after their plane landed, and hired two drivers for the green vans that careened across pothole-ridden roads and dusty animal skulls. They walked across dried lakes, avoided hungry vultures and met a monk who performed a blessing ceremony. They traced broken shale across hundreds of miles of desert from July 26 to Aug. 26, tracking a major fault's location, embarking on a chase Ian seemed born to run.

* * *

Ian seemed to be born into a future as a trailblazing, bug-eating, desert-braving geologist.

In 1979, Ian's mother Judy returned to her home in Sewickley for a Fourth of July party to visit her parents; she had spent months living with a 104-year-old Navajo Indian woman as a high school capstone project. The 18-year-old Judy laid eyes on Harton Semple, 28, and it was love at first sight.

"I was a wild child," Judy, now 52, said. "I told him I wanted to do something crazy."

And crazy it was. After a whirlwind two-week courtship, the new couple went hiking in Yosemite National Park. Judy and Harton married in 1982 and embarked on a yearlong honeymoon, traveling to 70 countries.

Judy quit work for a year and Harton, an English teacher (who "looks like Ben Franklin with moccasins," Ian said), took a sabbatical. The pair hiked, drove and flew across several continents during those 12 months, with only each other and the small packs on their backs to hold onto.

* * *

From the beginning, Judy saw much of herself in Ian.

"Ian was probably the easiest child to raise ever," Judy, now a head radiology nurse, said. "I never once had to raise my voice. He was a happy child, always easygoing and helpful."

With the freedom to spend days playing in creeks and rivers, Ian's excitement for the outdoors grew. Judy and Harton took Ian and Harton III, his brother, canoeing through Canada several times and, over time, expanded their family travels to dozens of countries. Ian became addicted to traveling, always wanting to see more, clamoring to change his surroundings.

"There's more to life than what's learned in school," he said. "You've gotta get out there and see it."

Ian still plans to continue school however, as he took the Graduate Record Exam between trips this summer. He wants to pursue a master's degree in geology "out west someplace," the University of Oregon or Boise State, maybe. But once Ian graduates, he's "gone," he said.

"I'm not a loner, but I am alone. I want a house out west, in the mountains. I'd live off the land and put my possessions in a land trust so when I die, everything goes back to nature."

It's an odd paradox: a bubbly, self-described "floater" who befriends a wide range of people wants to live alone with only the world and his wits. Ian ties himself to the real world through a small group of friends who understand his need to leave civilization periodically, he said.

"It takes a certain person to go to Mongolia and not know anyone," said Ryan Kelly, his roommate. "His social personality attracts people, but he doesn't go out looking for all these friends. I could see him going off and being alone for a few years."

Ian wants to continue traveling, meeting monks in third-world countries and chasing fault lines across thousands of miles of sprawling desert. Judy worries sometimes, not about Ian but the circumstances around him.

"Ian is a wise traveler who's getting wiser," Judy said. "But the world is a politically volatile place. People are poor and desperate."

Some of Ian's dreams, like studying geology in Africa, scare Judy. But, she said, all a mother can do is give advice and hope for the best.

And Ian hopes for many things: financial security, which he considers feasible thanks to many opportunities for lucrative geology fieldwork. He wants one "perfect day" each week: he'd cook three "awesome" meals of fish, meat or french toast, read for a few hours, go for a bike ride, climb a rock wall and end the day with a bonfire.

As an adult, he will inherit Rockledge Farm: the natural playground and home he loved so much as a child. With money and a house, the dream would be complete with a woman who understands his passions. The insecure part of him isn't expecting that, but Judy says Ian simply hasn't found her yet.

"He won't end up alone," she said. "He's hurt girls, and he's been hurt, but he just needs someone with similar interests. He's going to be all over the world, and he deserves someone who understands. He's very independent, and that can be frustrating. But he's a social person at heart, and he'll find someone."

Ian isn't so sure. "I make girls angry. She'd probably kick me out."

In that case, there's always a tree.

jpepiton@syr.edu