A Story from the Wild

I love being outside, in the wilds - complex webs of interactions, relations and dependencies, ungoverned by man.

It gives me comfort to be involved in a system that does not depend on me, that does not want or need my governance to continue and thrive.

7/ 25/16

It was right then, pulling some 50 cactus barbs out of my palm, staring down a treacherous descent and the approaching afternoon storm, alone and silent except for the wind and rustling brush...it was right then that I knew I would always take the path less traveled.

We had just driven south from Colorado Springs to Canon City on the promise of a river guide that if we brought beer and food, he would take us rafting down the river. We are about a month and a half deep on a cross country road trip and Colorado has been taking its sweet time with us. From lounging by lake and reservoir, to bar hopping in boulder, to climbing around one of the innumerable mountain peaks, we have certainly taken a fair bit of time to try and discern the whispered and windswept secrets of Colorado's natural and cultural landscape.

So we had just left the relative comfort of a welcoming couch and some friends, to continue the journey south, hoping to get a day out on the river. If you know river guides, you can probably guess; at the last minute out friend the river guide found paying clients and had to go handle them first, We told him not to worry and Morgan dropped me off in sight of some unnamed peak to climb.

I set off from Canon City Community College at 125 pm and told Morgan I would be back in 2 hours tops. I set off at a quick clip, eager to stretch my legs after the morning in the car. Mountain vistas to the west are a constant companion driving most anywhere in Colorado, and while beautiful, they only serve to make me more stir-crazy when stuck in a car.

Early in the day's trek, I looked up constantly towards the high point that I chose as my goal, eyes barely paying the feet any attention as my mind plotted a course up the unfamiliar terrain. All of a sudden, I came upon a rough gravel road, hewn into the mountainside. After following the roads switchbacks for a few minutes, I round a bend and run straight into the land owner.

A miner by the looks, he honks the tractor horn and I traipse over to plead my case. "You shouldn't be here" he says. I apologize and tell him I didn't realize I was on private land. He tells me to go back the way I came and drives off. As he rounds a bend I duck into the brush and begin my ascent anew!

As I continue upwards, I scuttle through the parched earth from bush to bush, keeping myself hidden from the prying eyes below. In my head, I think about the miner. Part of me feels bad for looking him in the eye and disobeying/trespassing, but I mean no harm, simply want to walk up and down...besides, I'm not even sure I believe in people owning things like a mountain and hoarding them away for themselves.

Stopping for a drink, I can see the snaking mining road heading back to the valley floor like a sunburned serpent. The low land lays out below me, a painting I could jump out into, but the mountains provide give the picture a third dimension, and with the elevated perspective I think better of any leaping.

Up I go, now scrambling more than walking, the summit is above and eggs me on like the finish line. As I climb the last few feet and stand on high, I can almost see the miner, shaking his fist at me far below. From the summit, all is clear; I can see the curvature of the earth meeting sky on the horizon, road and river like twin root systems connecting and disconnecting pockets of wilderness and civilization.

After some times of rest and revery, I decide it is time to see if I can find my way back down. Going down is always the part of a climb that is overlooked in the planning, even for a largely unplanned outing such as this. What is strenuous, but sure footing on the way up becomes steep and slippery on the way down.

After a few hundred feet of downhill scrambling, I am back in the gully I ascended. The gultch seemed the safer choice because a slip or fall holds less consequence than on the ridge, but sadly the ground here is littered with every type of cactus and other prickly vegetation imaginable.

As I slip and slide, careening down the goat path and letting gravity carry me, I think back to a similar descent in New Zealand. During that outing, Kilian broke his finger falling on loose rock and we all ended up with many stinging punctures from Spaniard Grass, a particularly nasty plant. Paying the memory homage, I check my pace and recover some semblance of control. However, with the combination of loose rock/gravel, and a poky cushion near every step, I knew it was only a matter of time.

Soon enough, I took a wrong step and my foot slid out. Instinctively, I reach out to break my fall and arrest my slide. A few minutes later, I find myself pulling the last painfully barbed spikes out of my hand and laughing at myself for getting into another situation where such discomfort seems almost imminent.

Finally, all the stickers are removed, or broken off and buried. As I pick my way carefully down the remaining riverbed, the pain recedes to a dull throb. My step slows, but my mind leaps and bounds from topic to topic, emulating the freedom of my stride, covering everything from dinner and the coming rafting, to where Morgan's afternoon has taken her, to rock climbs to come. At times, I can even see myself in third-person: walking dirty, bloody and alone down an overgrown herd path in unknown country, with no service and little other support available, without the blessing of the land owner...

Why am I here? Why do I do "this" - take paths unblazed, up unnamed peaks through loose rock and fields of cactus. I smile to myself, knowing that it doesn't make much sense on paper, but that the freedom of mind and spirit that comes with the physical adventure is worth it to me.