Still Chasing It: Life After Tongue Cancer

Roger has logged more days outdoors than most people would in two lifetimes. He spent thirty-two years working in and running the outdoor program for the City of Eugene. He's spent over 3,000 days on the water as a sailboat skipper. He's been a wilderness EMT and instructor for NOLS Wilderness Medicine and a PSIA-AASI telemark instructor, with enough whitewater, mountaineering, and elk hunting seasons to fill a career twice over. Roger was introduced to RecPak years ago through Joy, a family friend, while elk hunting, and it's been an essential piece of gear in his pack ever since.

In 2025, Roger was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He had part of his tongue removed that October, followed by thirty days of radiation that wrapped up in early January. The treatment did what it needed to do, but it left him with a mouth that's still recovering: tissue too sensitive for sharp or dry foods, salivary production down by about 80 percent, and a body that's had to relearn how to take in enough calories to keep up with the life he's always lived.

"Eating, for me, is really difficult," Roger said this summer. "I've lost nearly 20 pounds, and I'm having a hell of a time putting it back on, 'cause it's really challenging for me to eat."

What hasn't changed is his drive to get outside. "I'm trying to not let cancer define who I am," he says. So he hasn't slowed down. He's adapted, and he's kept going.

Eighteen Days on a River That Never Sat Still

Before his surgery, Roger spent eighteen days on the Tatshenshini River, which runs through the largest international protected area in the world. It's the kind of trip most people only read about: grizzly tracks on every stretch of shoreline, glaciers calving in the distance at night, and a river so braided and glacially fed that the crew sometimes couldn't tell which channel to follow. For three long days the rain fell sideways, and the group rode it out huddled in a tent big enough to hold all twelve of them.

"Everything you do should be focused on the expedition succeeding," Roger says of trips like this one. That includes fueling, and after treatment, it's a rule that matters more than ever.

Nine Days, Eighty Miles, and a Boat Full of Groupers

This spring, Roger captained a bareboat charter from Key West out to the Dry Tortugas, an 80-mile sail through 80-degree heat, 80-degree water, and 80 percent humidity. The trip ran nine days with a crew of seven, with free diving stops along the way where visibility ran 100 feet deep and Goliath groupers the size of a backhoe shovel drifted past.

As captain, Roger was responsible for the boat, the navigation, and the crew, day and night. He needed fuel he could count on that wouldn't pull him away from any of it. "We had a refrigerator and freezer and everything, but not everybody's going to want to eat soft foods all day long like I do, or like I can," he says. "So my mid-morning supplement was a RecPak, and my afternoon supplement was a RecPak, just to make sure I was getting all the calories I could manage."

Back on the River: The Grand Canyon

This September, Roger launched on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. With a mouth still too sensitive to manage much solid food, he planned his fuel around RecPak to close the gap.

"I'm relying on these (RecPaks) because I need to get calories and protein down," he said before the trip. Simple as that.

By the time he reached Elves Chasm, a fern-draped waterfall grotto deep in the canyon, Roger had a new caption for his photos: "Cancer free and loving life."

Elves Chasm, Colorado River, September 2026. Photo: Chris Schiller

Adventure, Adapted

Roger isn't chasing a comeback story. He's doing what he's always done: guiding, sailing, hunting, and putting himself in wild places, on his own terms. RecPak has become one of the tools that lets him keep doing it. That's not because it's flashy, or because it replaces a meal he'd rather cook. It's because when the trip is long and the conditions are hard, it's fuel he can count on getting down.

"I'm sure there are a lot of people probably experiencing what I am, life with and after cancer, that are in a similar boat," Roger says. "I want to keep doing what I have always been doing."