Lessons from the Trail

About an hour out of camp, light snow floated through the air as temperatures lingered in the low twenties. My husband, Jim, and I occasionally walked out of the falling snow through tunnels of drooping Rhododendron and twisting Mountain Laurel. My mind began to still as I moved through the layer of new snow. Three days earlier we began our longest section since the start of our journey on the Appalachian Trail. We supplied for four nights for the 60-mile section between Unicoi Gap near Hiawassee, Georgia and Winding Stair Gap outside of Franklin, North Carolina. Our goal, this day, was a 12.5 mile hike to Carter Gap Shelter.  With 7.5 miles to go, the bitter cold taking its toll, and the tracks of hikers ahead of us beginning to disappear under the new snowfall, we forced ourselves forward without stopping. As long as we hiked, our bodies clothed in layers, stayed warm. If we stopped for more than a few minutes, we began shivering…and so we just kept moving. Finally, through the snowy trees, Carter Gap Shelter came into view. Arriving at the lean-to shelter, we immediately shed our snow-wet gear changing into our dry clothes while gulping down hot chocolate to warm our bodies. Too cold and exhausted to prepare a meal, we forced down protein bars and along with four other hikers, cocooned ourselves in our sleeping bags the remainder of the day and night. 

The next morning we woke to more snow from overnight and even colder temperatures …somewhere in the teens. Everything was frozen, from our cook stoves to our hiking shoes. Skipping breakfast, we began hiking as quickly as we could to warm ourselves. My hands and feet were so cold that my mind began an internal “Google Search” of the symptoms of frostbite. What are the symptoms? What warning signs are cause for alarm? How long do I have before my fingers turn black and fall off!? The cold, discomfort, and pain pushed my thought process to cloud and obsess. Was I now risking becoming hypothermic? Finally after hiking about thirty minutes, my body began to warm, and my mind began to clear. My fingers survived, and so did I. 

As the hiking warmed us and pushed us forward, we began to refocus on the trail and the day…a day which to our surprise and delight began to gradually unfold as a truly, beautiful day. The sun dissolved the clouds and warmed our faces as the sky became a crystal clear, cerulean blue. The layers of the Appalachians stretched out around us as we headed toward our climb up the steep and rocky Albert Mountain, the fire tower at its summit, and the 100-mile mark of the trail. What began as a difficult, daunting morning, to our amazement, became a gorgeous, incredible day to hike. This is what the trail does…it constantly surprises you.

  For Jim and I, one of our deepest motivations to hike the Appalachian Trail was a steadfast persistent desire to do something “bigger than ourselves”… something that would push our limitations and immerse us deeper into nature than anything we had yet experienced. We were drawn to the idea that an epic journey like hiking the 2,193 mile Appalachian Trail could connect us to that more direct and deeper communion with nature. Every hiker carries with them on their journey reasons for even taking on the challenge of a thru-hike. Often, many of these are common or shared reasons, but often there are also reasons that are very personal and specific to the individual. Equally significant, an aspect of the trail that is both shared and unique to the individual, is not only what you bring to the trail or your reasons and expectations, but what the trail GIVES to you…the things the trail shows you, the opportunities it offers you, and the lessons the trail teaches you.

Regardless of varied experiences, expectations or motivations for attempting to hike the trail… shared or personal…the trail becomes the great equalizer. All hikers face similar obstacles and challenges… known and unknown…injuries, possible illnesses, fatigue…equipment failure, bad weather, difficult terrain, set-backs…doubts, fear, loneliness, boredom…and always, the unexpected or the unknown. All hikers are at the mercy of nature and all of her elements. You learn quickly that a distraction from concentration of thoughts and actions… a disruption of mindfulness…can lead quickly to a plummeting down and eventually push you off the trail…or in hiker talk, if one cannot “embrace the suck,” be in the moment, push forward and learn to hike your hike…it will come to an end quickly.

The Appalachian Trail is in the truest sense, a rollercoaster ride. It is constantly up and down…physically, emotionally, and mentally. This is the most true consistent of the trail. From the beginning of our hike, Jim and I would go between hiking quietly lost in our own thoughts and self-reflections to having discussions and conversations around all manner of topics. One of our many discussions that continued to surface revolved around one of of the first big lessons we found ourselves learning…“You cannot predict the trail!” We learned quickly that it often mattered little what the Guthooks Guide or the AT Guide told you about the miles or the terrain that lay ahead. Nor did the advice of another hiker, even one who had hiked the section before, prove to be all that accurate. The scale of difficulty, the way you feel, react, and move through the day on the trail holds so many variables that are not associated with the topography or the miles. On any given day or any point during the day, a hiker can have every imaginable (and unimaginable) response to where they are and what they are doing: One cloud moving over changes the light in the forest and shifts your entire mood, a knee pain going downhill that wasn’t there yesterday begins to annoy, the sound of a trickling stream draws your awareness to the symphony soundtrack surrounding you in the woods, the overpriced high-end piece of equipment that worked flawlessly yesterday is now malfunctioning, a mentally tough day of extreme doubt or loneliness weighs on you, the weather and the terrain suck so bad you just cannot stop repeating the same expletive over and over and then you turn a corner at the top of a ridge to step out on an escarpment overlooking a stunningly beautiful vista. Ultimately, on any given day you question why you are even doing this hike until suddenly you know EXACTLY why you are doing this.

We had to learn that each day would be hard and each day would have its rewards. We had to learn to hike one step at a time and to be in the moment and simply keep moving forward. Emotionally, we had to learn to push through and not allow doubt, fear or anxiety to spread. Physically, one has to learn the difference between pain and injury. Sometimes, pain has to be pushed through. Like any viscous cycle, pushing through pain can also lead to mental drain. And so we learned the mantra “do not predict the trail.”  We would literally verbally remind ourselves and each other with this mantra throughout our days on the trail.

Leaving Franklin, North Carolina, our 110-mile mark, we had learned we could mentally and physically push ourselves. We had pushed through tough weather, physical discomforts, and some bigger mile days, and now pushed on through the Nantahala Outdoor Center to Fontana Dam and entered our next big milestone…Smoky Mountains National Park. The hike changes in the Smokies. By the second day the terrain shifts, the flora and fauna change, the entire atmosphere of the trail becomes different. The mystique of the Smokies begins to seep in until it engulfs you. The green moss, misty mornings, layered vistas, and the incredible Fungi Kingdom within the park boundary is mystical. It holds a magic and beauty that is hypnotic and frightening. Though we honestly were not sure why, we had approached this part of our hike with an apprehension, but hiking into the mist and moss covered deep hidden trails, we were seduced by the Smokie’s secret sirens and completely enamored and entranced. The Smokies were another lesson about the unexpected…the Smoky Mountains were amazing!

On March 12, halfway through the Smokies, we hiked to Newfound Gap and shared a shuttle into Gatlinburg to take a zero day and resupply. Gatlinburg became a shift in our journey that we were not expecting. We had been gathering small, sporadic information on the trail about growing concerns over the Coronavirus, but most everyone on the trail and messages from friends and family, all encouraged us that being isolated on the trail may have been the preferred place to be. Gatlinburg became our first experience witnessing the public reacting to the growing concerns over the virus and the common use of the term pandemic. While most of what we witnessed was business as usual, there were subtle changes in how people were behaving, less availability of some supplies, and the beginnings of a shift in some business practices. We also were able to gather more first hand information from news and media outlets. We made the decision to continue our hike deciding as long as we had the ability to resupply, stay informed, and connect with family and friends we would move forward. As we hiked out of Newfound Gap to complete the Smokies, our minds relaxed away from the Coronavirus back to the trail. Three days later, we were exhilarated as we hiked out of the Smoky Mountains and arrived at Standing Bear Hostel. We had just traversed from south to north, the entire ridge of Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a life changing experience.  

We had learned our lesson over the last month that you cannot predict the trail…we had come to understand that “the unexpected” was the nature of the the trail. Then suddenly even that idea began to be distorted and turned upside down. In those few days as we hiked through the Smokies, and in the few days that followed, a new reality around the seriousness of the now named COVID-19 virus surfaced and it hit us… and our hike. Suddenly, it was no longer questions of the “unexpected” because the new obstacle haunting and daunting us was “uncertainty.”

Uncertainty became our new nemesis. Could we continue to safely resupply? Uncertainty. Could we safely go into the trail towns and experience them the way we had? Uncertainty. Could we trust the shuttle drivers or could they trust us? Uncertainty. Would we be at risk to being exposed or risking spreading the virus in small rural communities? Uncertainty. Could we communicate with family and friends as needed? Uncertainty. Could the other hikers trust one another?Uncertainty. With “uncertainty” hovering heavy over us, we made the decision to leave Standing Bear Hostel and hike to Max Patch and onto Hot Springs, North Carolina.  As we headed out in the rain toward Max Patch, my thoughts were about our hike, how it had shifted and was continuing to change. The hike had begun to reach a point we had strived for…it had become our “new normal” and was becoming our home. We were even beginning to get our “hiker legs” as our 9 and 10-mile days were becoming 12 and 14-mile days.  But now, there was so much uncertainty even about continuing. My heart so wanted to keep going, but my head knew what we needed to do. The rain stopped and we paused for lunch. We were happy, resting and discussing the hike to Max Patch. Jim grew quiet…I think he already knew and had begun to accept the finality of our situation…I just wanted to keep my mind on the journey to Max Patch. But near the end of lunch, I looked at Jim and said, “We need to get off the trail in Hot Springs, don’t we?” My emotions surfaced…and I just cried.

None of our pre-trail preparations dealt with this much uncertainty…we prepared for winter weather and Lyme disease…we prepared for twisted ankles and sore feet…we prepared for snakes and bears, we prepared to eat bad and stink worse…and we were prepared for all sort of challenges, physical and mental…but we were not exactly prepared for a pandemic!

When we walked into Hot Springs, North Carolina on March 19, the world was changing. We ordered take-out as restaurants had closed to dining, and we strolled down the subdued street to the outfitter store where the atmosphere was quiet, heavy with gloom instead of the anticipated warm greetings of an excited trail town. Then an image I observed at the outfitter store confirmed our perceptions and allowed my heart to accept we were making the right decision for ourselves and others to discontinue our hike. Typically, in a trail town, one will see a hiker box with items other hikers have discarded to lighten their load and to share with one another. Instead of a hiker box, I noticed several large boxes with canned goods, bread, and other items in the middle of the store. I inquired about the boxes to learn that the goods were to help provide for local community members who had already lost their jobs. Uncertainty was not only part of the trail…it was everywhere.  

     The intensity of emotions start from down deep and wave up. Jim and I are still conflicted about leaving the trail and still today are constantly scheming of ways to get back on or debating when to return. We know people and friends who have found ways to continue or who plan to return to the trail soon. We know we will return, but we also know to return now would not be the hike we set out to take and our reasons for the hike would be would be lost in hiking around and through the pandemic. We understand that some hikers can come to terms with that distraction, but our decision to leave the trail was to try and focus on compassion- it was not about surviving and continuing. It was about our families, friends, the small trail towns, other hikers…It was about our communities, our country, and our world being profoundly affected by the pandemic. We could not continue our hike knowing what others were dealing with…loss of future, loss of jobs and security, loss of homes, and loss of life….living in uncertainty.

We have spent the last month self isolating on a family farm in Eastern North Carolina. The anxiety from the growing uncertainty this pandemic creates has led me to reflect on many of the lessons the trail was beginning to teach me. I quickly realized that the early lessons from the Appalachian Trail were resurfacing to help me understand, accept, and deal with the circumstance of our new reality around COVID-19 as it slowly unfolds. “Embracing the suck” and “expecting the unexpected” on the trail are now becoming ways to face this new uncertainty. I had to learn to not waste thoughts - thoughts that distract or thoughts that project too far into future or dwell too much in the past. And like the trail, I have had to be more aware that while I cannot fully predict my path around this pandemic…I have to push myself forward one step at a time and stay fully present. Navigating our way through this pandemic will not be a casual day hike, it will be a long and difficult thru-hike.

Our interrupted hike along the Appalachian Trail taught me that the trail and nature really do not exist for me or any other hiker. Nature can be indifferent to us. One must simply learn to experience nature…accept it, recognize its marvels, majesty, power and beauty, be humbled and learn from its unexpected revelations. 

I count on hope. I hoped the Appalachian Trail would be a spiritual, meaningful journey through nature that awakened us to even more possibilities. It was. It is. And what we learned was that the hike does not end at Hot Springs, NC or on the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine or anywhere… a true thru-hike, a true trek, a true journey does not end….the hike continues off the trail…even during a pandemic. 

first steps

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time. ~Stephen Wright

If we could choose our first memory, I perhaps would choose my first steps, the moment I first walked. What would it be like to remember what it was that drew us from our cautious crawling or being carried in protective arms to the desire to stand, step and move forward...to take that first risk. What innate inspiration pushes us to perambulate, pulls us forward to learn the dance of a double pendulum? Our earliest expression of independence...we are not really taught to walk...for the most part we learn to walk on our own.

First steps seems like a good enough place for a story to begin. For me many of these first steps were taken while visiting my grandparents’ home in North Alabama. As a child, it seemed a magical place - filled with wonder, mysteries, and exploration. Anchored against a small mountainside, an old white, wood frame farm house, wide porch spreading it’s length, white washed stone steps dropping down to a sloping yard ending at a shelf of chert, red clay and pine saplings dropping some ten feet to a road, and a narrow line of trees and the edge of a lake. The house at one time sat deep below the mirrored glass surface of the lake. It was moved from its original foundation in the nineteen thirties as the result of the construction of the Guntersville Dam, a project of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority and part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program. The dam was part of an initiative to create a continuous navigation channel the entire length of the Tennessee River, and required the purchase of over 110,000 acres of land (over 24,000 acres of which were forested and had to be cleared), 90 miles of road, fourteen cemeteries, and over 1,100 families that had to be relocated ...including my grandparents. I have seen photographs of the house when it was in its original location and have heard stories of my grandparents preparing meals and renting rooms to the workers clearing the land and constructing the dam..trying to survive the depression era in the rural south.

But, for me as a child, it was my Elysium. Being pulled from place to place by my father’s tenure in the military...from the northeast to the southeast to the southwest and abroad to the Mediterranean; this was the place that through my childhood to which we would always return.  This old farm house and the land it perched upon bore the closest semblance to “home” I knew.  It held the deepest sense of familiarity, the most stories and the longest history.

It smelled of old wood, air dried laundry, and propane heaters on which sat water filled coffee cans to humidify the room. There was the faint left-over chemical smells on my Aunt Florence from her beauty shop in town, the citric and tannic aroma of the SeaBreeze tonic that my aunt and grandmother thought cured most all ailments and always the smell of every traditional southern food imaginable... most grown in the garden, harvested from the field, caught in the lake or slaughtered from the barn, pens, or coops...recipes supplemented with the occasional government provided “commodities.” They were poor...but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know because the world there was enough...it provided me with what I needed - entertainment, stimulation, and education. I didn’t need fabricated stimuli... I was too busy being in what was around me to notice what they didn’t have...or what I didn’t have.

I loved being there in that old house. I loved the root cellar you could walk right into out the back door, the large moss covered drum just off the back porch filled by the constant flowing sweetest cool spring water I have ever tasted, the musty crawl space under the front porch filled with dusty tools, and black widow spiders. I can hear the pedal pump organ abandoned in the living room, the sound of my grandmother snapping peas, the rhythmic moan of the front porch swing, the familiar creak of the third step just before reaching the upstairs rooms and the sounds of oscillating fans singing you to sleep on feather mattresses beneath iron headboards under open windows in the humid Alabama summers.

The house was a museum...filled with anthropological artifacts, historical objects and works of art. The cheap framed print of an embarrassingly handsome Jesus bathed in exaggerated chiaroscuro light, landscape prints of far away places, old family photographs next to embarrassing grade school pictures. There was a massive claw-footed dining room table, victorian print upholstered chairs, handsome antiques and cheesy souvenirs from Rock City.  And then there was the behemoth hulk of a massive mirrored hutch moored to the wall like a great abandoned ship....”arranged” like a giant Joseph Cornell assemblage...a calamitous clutter of every sort of trinket, photograph, vessel, bric-a-brac, odd objects, junk and treasures...sitting like a holy alter in homage to the “great southern gothic” and to every Flannery O’Conner story I have ever read!

The house sits in my memory like a sacred temple. But, it was outside where most of my time was spent. It was the woods and the land that sparked my imagination, filled me with awe and inspired me...roaming across the slow, undulating slopes that extended from the base of the mountain where some great hand had reached out and dug through the earth with it’s fingers spread wide leaving furrows and knolls covered in Pine, Oaks, Maple, Poplar, SweetGum, Hackberry, Dogwood and more. Where rock formations could transform from geologic wonder into the hull of a ship or the fortress of a king. Where you could be a pirate, a spy, an Indian, a soldier, a pioneer, an explorer...anything. Where you could take your first steps and learn to walk in these foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

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It was an arduous ascent across the face of a different mountain in a different mountain range.  Even with the piercing sun and a wedgwood blue sky, at this altitude the air was cool and thin. This was our second fourteener and though Mt. Beirdstadt at 14,060 ft. is rated as a class 1 or 2 climb (an “easier” climb) - it is as one guidebook states,“still a fourteener, and all fourteeners are hard!”

Our trek began at dawn greeted at the trailhead by a couple of moose clearly not nearly as amused by our presence as we were theirs.  Setting out early to avoid any risk of afternoon thunderstorms on the summit, we crossed a high serene marsh at the base of the peak and began making our way up the trail.  The trail became the slow unrolling of a tapestry stitched to illustrate a grand vista...the higher we climbed the more the tapestry opened to unveil a larger and wider view.

It was a well defined track at times smooth other times rough and rocky... but always, always...up. After a couple of hours, the trail’s definition dissolved dispersing across a sheet of loose slippery, imbricated scree before ending at a large boulder field.  The boulder field was the last obstacle before the summit, a pyramid of large rubbled rock and boulders extending some four hundred yards further up to the peak. This is where Anne grew excited. Not just because we were now close to the peak, no something deeper, more primal...child like! I could see it in her face and I knew what she was thinking... “finally... some shit I can climb!!!”

We love exploring the Rocky Mountains, but like me, Anne spent much of her youth exploring the woods and mountains of the lower Appalachians.  Growing up in the Piedmont of North Carolina, the plateau region located between the coastal plain and the Appalachian mountains, she spent days with her family exploring both the beaches and the mountains...but it was the mountains she preferred. Family trips to the hills for picnics and walks in the woods...the deep lush forests, sinuous streams and countless waterfalls. She loved these mountains. When her father, a firefighter, took a second job, delivering supplies to small stores throughout the region, Anne would often tag along... for companionship, time together and to take in the hills. She loved the small mountain communities, the main streets with their stoic old buildings, homespun store fronts and quaint restaurants... West Jefferson, Sparta, Banner Elk, Wilkesboro and more all nestled between the mountains that enchanted her, the mountains where she loved to walk and where she reveled in taking the trails and paths that would lead out to large rock formations she could climb...Hanging Rock, Grandfather Mountain, Pilot Mountain, Chimney Rock, Blowing Rock and more.

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The Appalachians... these are the mountains most familiar to us, the valleys and forests to which we feel connected...the mountains where we have the most history.  Anne and I learned to walk, hike and backpack in the Appalachians. We grew up exploring their wonders and captivated by their mystery. Our first steps to travel and explore began here. Now with a year and a half of nomadic travel behind us and inside us, we recognize our desire to do something more, something with perhaps a different way of seeing, connecting and learning.  Desire and Connection play and replay in our thoughts and in our motivation to travel and explore. Gliding through the bends of a ribbon curved road enveloped in autumn’s palette, you want every curve to simply be the prelude to the next....you desire the road to continue on and on, show you more and more, and take you deeper and deeper.

Pushing our desire to connect in a more immersive way, we have chosen to explore the paradox of moving away to get closer...to be more removed in hopes of experiencing a stronger connection.  And so we have chosen to make a shift...a change in how we travel to experience in a way that could move us deeper into a place and allow it to move deeper into us... growing our connection, our conversation, our relationship...creating a purer communion.  And so for now we have determined to return to a place where many things began for us, to step away from our “road trip” way of exploring and to seek the sublime in steps... walking... walking a long trail, making the woods our home for awhile...walking where we took our first steps...walking the trail through the Appalachians.

OUR WATERSHED

In any case, when a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country’s rivers and streams that country is not longer fit to live in. ~ Edward Abbey, 1968

Spending time in Atlanta, in February 2019, I ponder living in a concrete world. Rain poured earlier in the week and runoff gushed out of holes cut into the cement walls next to the sidewalks. Rain traveled through an impervious world finding ways to flow on its unnatural course creeping into the flat in the old building we were renting. Brown water, garbage and sediments advanced and effused into storm drains. Do people in urban areas think about the water that easily flows from pipes in their businesses or homes?

It is not just city dwellers who may take water and other natural resources for granted...it is the miner and CEO of industry...it is the farmer and rancher...it is the construction worker...it is the recreational water user...it is all of us. How do we achieve harmony with nature and live within its scope in a world that chooses the need to pursue goals of economic development and advanced technologies?

On June 1, 2018, my husband, Jim, and I began our nomadic journey away from the “American Dream” and outside the traditional paradigm of how people live. Author and co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project, Paul Kingsnorth, describes “withdrawing from the fray” in his book Confessions of A Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays. Kingsnorth continues, “Withdraw [ing] not with cynicism, but with a questing mind. Withdraw[ing] so that you can allow yourself to sit back quietly and feel - intuit - work out what is right for you, and what nature might need from you. Withdraw[ing] because refusing to help the machine advance - refusing to tighten the ratchet further - is a deeply moral position.” Jim and I wanted to explore, discover, and learn from and about the environment and humanity. So, we embarked on our adventure.

Our first travel quest took us to Alaska via the Alaskan Highway through Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon and into Alaska. Driving to Alaska is remote. We were elated to see the dramatic mountains, awe-inspiring glaciers and diversity of wildlife along the way. We observed a mother bear and her three cubs playing in a field, saw our first porcupine, and made a u-turn to see a herd of caribou. At the same time, we were distraught to see the countless turnouts and roads cut through the wilderness to provide access for timber and mining trucks and heavy equipment. We also warned our family and friends that we may not have cell service due to our remote locations. Surprisingly, we did have service. Cell towers loomed above the landscape throughout much of the Alaskan Highway.

Alongside the man-made turnouts and cell towers on the Alaskan Highway, blemishes continued to arise in this remote landscape - large plots of naked land exposed to the elements where maybe a mosaic of trees once stood...and plastic pipes extending out of rivers and streams. I wondered...are these pipes pumping water out or sending waste into the streams and rivers? Who is monitoring these operations in such a remote area? My contemplations around this strip of environment provoked emotions and questions pertaining to our connections to nature. I was awakening to the truths around the atrocities committed against our environment and at the same time, seeing the beauty and diversity existing in nature. In Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez describes the men working for the oil companies in Alaska. He shares, “...the world seemed on balance...or at least well intentioned. Part of what was attractive about these men was that their concern for the health of the land and their concern for the fate of the people were not separate issues...the fate of each hinged on the same thing, on the source of their dignity, on whether it was innate or not...” We can only hope “these men” along the Alaskan Highway had concern for the health of the land” and “concern for the fate of the people.”

We found on our journey that there are people “concern[ed] for the fate of the people.” Our first experience observing this concern for our environment happened on our resupply in Whitehorse, Yukon on the way to Alaska. We visited the local farmer’s market and noticed a banner with the slogan Protect the Peel. We inquired. The college intern working the booth explained the ongoing debate and history centering around the Peel Watershed. She explained that the Peel Watershed is one of the few pristine watersheds left in North America. The debate stems from the threat of mining and industry degrading the watershed of First Nations Peoples in the Yukon who hunt, fish and subsist off the land. These indigenous people who desire to live in harmony with the watershed and protect it for future generations. This brief conversation began my thirst for more knowledge around mining and watersheds. As we traveled through Alaska and back to the lower forty-eight states, we began to notice more and more evidence of debates around mining and watersheds. These observations were just the beginning of a recurring theme, our watershed.

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In August 2018, we returned to the lower forty-eight states and landed in one of a few, cooler temperature spots we could find - Telluride, Colorado. As fate would have, I stepped into a local bookstore and eyed a book titled River of Lost Souls by Jonathon Thompson. I purchased the book to read and noticed a flyer next to the register: Author Talk with Jonathon Thompson at the Telluride Library on Sunday.

From Thompson’s lecture and book about the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, my thoughts were saturated with facts about abandoned mines and mining and the history and cost of natural resources and lives. I learned about tailings and acid drainage and what happens when an abandoned mine sits and leaves its “scarred history” on future generations. I learned how communities are willing to give up an entire watershed to economy. I learned the Navajos living in the San Juan Mountain region are afraid to use “their lands” on the Animas River for farming because of the unknown toxins permeating the ground and crops. I learned about the damage done to the land and the toxins and metals released into ground water that never really go away. I learned how industry throws around phrases like “treating water into perpetuity” when these mining companies cannot cost effectively make such a commitment. I learned that the Gold King Mine was a crisis to the people along the Animas River. However, the Gold King Mine incident is just one event - similar events occur repeatedly where mines have been abandoned, seeping toxins into ground water.

Spending a second week in Telluride, CO in the summer of 2019, I read an article about the restoration of the Delores River in Rico, CO. In the 2019 article, “Letting Nature Take Its Course” by Deanna Drew, she explains an experimental restoration project being conducted in Rico, CO to help control acid drainage from past mining in this area. Drew writes that the Rico community alerted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the “thick orange mineral sludge containing dangerously high levels of heavy metals” in 2011. According to Drew, the EPA ordered the Atlantic Richfield Company “to clean up the site and identify a long-term management solution for the tunnel’s perpetual flow.” Drew states that the scientists and engineers involved in the cleanup, observed that downstream of the mine existed a natural, riparian area with a healthy wetland.The scientists and engineers decided to use an experimental, restoration approach to stabilize one section of the Delores River using a “new passive wetland treatment.” The new process utilized natural materials to reduce metals in the water. The article stated that the passive wetland treatment system is showing a decrease in the metals. However, the article also stated that the wetlands will need to be “monitored and maintained for the foreseeable future...solids will still need to be dredged and wetland plants will need to be added and replaced.” The article claimed this natural restoration approach was more cost effective than the traditional treatment which treats the sludge as it drains into water ponds. Both approaches cost millions of dollars and need management. So, is this new natural approach really restoring? Or is it simply a perpetual, toxic garden to be constantly replanted and managed? Is either treatment truly sustainable?

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For the next several months and into our second year on the road, we continued to witness more and more community efforts to protect and restore water quality and watersheds. Many communities and the people inhabiting them are thinking about nature close to home. There are many examples of local coalitions throughout North America trying to promote healthy watersheds and educate the public. One example of a community thinking about its watershed is Crested Butte, CO. To Protect and Restore is the motto for the Coal Creek Watershed Coalition in Crested Butte, Colorado. We found the following sign at a firewood box outside of town in June 2019:

Suggested donation of $5 for 7 pieces of firewood goes directly to the funding of portable toilets placed at camping spots in the surrounding valleys. These toilets are placed by the Coal Creek Watershed Coalition, a local non-profit organization dedicated to protecting Crested Butte’s local watersheds since 2004. Human waste in the back country and thus in our rivers and streams is becoming a major problem and health hazard. Please help fund the toilets you will be using tomorrow morning after a tasty cup of coffee. Please enjoy this beautiful place and help us preserve for future generations.

We also talked to locals who described the debate in Crested Butte around No to the Brush Creek Monstrosity. People in the Crested Butte community bonded to reject a 240-unit housing development that would not have sustainable access to water and would pollute local streams.

All of the community efforts we observed made an impact on my thinking and actions. I reflected on how I can help in the efforts to protect watersheds. Of course, Jim and I bought the firewood to support the Crested Butte coalition. But what else could I do as an individual to help? One effort I have consistently done for about fifteen years - pick-up trash. I recall the amount of plastics and trash we picked up in December 2018 while watching windsurfers near Tampa, Florida. One surfer told me that the amount of plastics we see occurs each day on this beach! He stated that most of the plastic is washing up from other places. We continued to pick up trash around lakes, on trails, and in campgrounds as we travel.

After reading Susan Freinkle’s Plastics: A Toxic Love Story, I began thinking about my use of plastics and how, at least, to limit the use. I had already stopped using plastic straws. And I am mindful when purchasing plastics. Limiting the use of plastics is hard. We are inundated with plastics in our world. What else can I do? I began educating myself about watersheds and completed the EPA’s Watershed Academy modules and read more books about our environment written by a variety of authors (see list of books at the end of this blog).

Then, in April 2019, we happened upon one of my favorite experiences on our travels. On a lark, Jim directed us to Ghost Ranch to camp, hike and just be where Georgia O’Keefe painted many of her desert landscapes. At the visitor center, there was a flyer asking for volunteers to help the Keystone Restoration Ecology group and the volunteers from the BioPark in Albuquerque, New Mexico with the Ghost Ranch Watershed Restoration Project. We decided to extend our stay at Ghost Ranch so we could volunteer for the project. Jen and Steve from Keystone Restoration Ecology explained to the volunteers about the power and intensity of the 2015 flash flood and the restoration efforts to correct the meander in the Chama River in order to slow the flow of the water. According to Steve, ranchers and farmers in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s changed the flood plain in this area through poor agricultural practices - building up land to farm and graze animals.

Steve and Jen described the flood of 2015 as devastating - destroying buildings on the Ghost Ranch property, leveling the vegetation, moving boulders and bringing sediment that changed how the Chama River flowed. The project goal is to level the sediment, use existing rocks and boulders in order to slow down the water, replant the riparian zone plants, wetland plants and bank plants and try to recreate the original flood plain as much as possible. Listening to Steve and Jen discuss the river and the watershed and gaining hands-on experiences of cutting and planting willow shoots, moving and placing large rocks to redirect the water to form a different meander in the river, and shoveling clumps of wetland plants to restore the river banks was enlightening. The “book knowledge” I received from the EPA’s Watershed Academy coupled with this hands-on experience and the knowledge of Jen and Steve expanded my learning about watersheds and restoration.

This experience at Ghost Ranch fueled my desire to learn more about watersheds and anything water. Through more reading, traveling, and observing, I was shocked to learn in urban cities like Flint, Michigan and Baltimore Maryland, problems of lead pipes continue to exist contaminating drinking water resulting in poisoning children and sickening adults. Also, in urban areas, construction site runoff and the amount of impervious cover create more and more runoff sending heavy sediment loads into streams and ground waters changing its natural course and increasing flood risk. In Amity, Pennsylvania, fracking pushes toxic metals into the ground water seeping into well water people need to survive. In Eastern North Carolina where my family lives, turkey and hog houses send waste into surface water sources and ground water. A percentage of these same fecal wastes are allowed to fertilize crops adding more waste to surface and ground waters. In Amarillo, Texas, large feedlots dump manure producing extra nutrients from cows and other animals into surface water seeping into ground water. In agricultural and rural communities throughout North America, nutrient runoff from fertilizers, manure storage and septic systems add excess nitrates and phosphorous into water sources producing dangerous levels of algae and increasing the risk for eutrophication depleting oxygen from ponds and streams killing the native species. In coastal areas, high salinity and brackish waters are creeping inland due to rise in ocean levels. All of these water pollutants degrade and change the natural watershed.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a watershed consists of a land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt to creeks, streams, and rivers and eventually to outflow points, such as reservoirs, bays, and the ocean. However, I prefer explorer, John Wesley Powell’s watershed definition, “that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community.” The majority of watersheds in our communities are degraded due to pollution, dams, and/or other man-made structures blocking or slowing natural flow. Have we crossed a boundary where natural watersheds have evaporated? Are we solely dependent on technologies to have access to safe water?

According to the EPA’s Watershed Academy, there are point and non-point water pollutants. The EPA defines point source pollution as a single, identifiable source such as a sewage treatment plant. Since the establishment of the Clean Water Act in 1972, point source pollutants for surface waters are “more” regulated. The point source polluter must retain a permit with load allocations stating how much of a certain toxin or pollutant a water source can hold. This permittee then monitors the load allocation through a self-monitoring reporting system. How sustainable is quality water if we allow load allocations for a variety of toxins to be dumped into our surface waters? Do we trust those that are self-monitoring and self-regulating toxins entering our waters?

Non-point pollutants are much harder to regulate and according to the EPA are the number one cause of water pollution. Two examples of non-point water pollutants are agricultural and urbanization activities. Grazing animals may cause an increase in nutrients in the runoff through manure and fertilizers into water sources. These excess nutrients end up in streams, rivers and ground water. In urban areas, construction sites may cause extreme runoff and sediment disposal if not properly managed during a rain event. Non-point pollutants usually come from runoff from varied sources which bring sediment, nutrients, and other human-made pollutants into rivers, wetlands, lakes, streams and ground waters. There is no monitoring system for non-point pollutants - just suggested “best practices.” Communities can educate water users around these best practices.

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While reading the material in the EPA Watershed Academy, I found it unsettling that the term “ecosystem service” was broadly used. I contemplated the word “service” attached to natural resources. I decided that Mother Earth cannot continue to benefit us when our decisions revolve around a capitalist society. We can no longer preach the word sustainability when we are past the sustainable mark. We cannot defend our current practices and protect our future. Rachel Carson’s words in her book, Silent Spring, published in 1962 haunt me -we are “moving on a faster trajectory than mankind’s sense of moral responsibility.” The machine is advancing and most of us are caught in a careless indifference. Maybe we cannot fathom ideas as immense as climate change, water wars, famine, overpopulation...Some of us feel we are immune to the suffering and hide in our consumerism and technological haze.

Rachel Carson suggested in 1962 that “the public” is not aware of true environmental issues because economics drive our society. In our social media driven world, we are aware. We are all witnesses. We are flooded with images and debates centered around poisoned waters, species extinctions, melting glaciers, rising ocean waters and plastics floating in our waters. We know the truth. We know industry and capitalism run our country. We crave it all and desire more. We do not want less. Our selfish desires hinder our ability to see who we are - humans dependent on things that drain and kill our natural resources.We are steeped in our self-centered world governed by those who choose sides around politics and economics. We are not basing decisions on humanity and the realization that natural resources are not here to “serve” us. For me, humane decisions start with clean and affordable water for all. The battles over water are already in motion over the Colorado, Nile, Jordan, Ganges, Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. Water wars encompass issues concerning access to safe, quality water due to climate change, over population, and economic boundaries. How do we stop a course already set in motion?

Clean Water Act and the EPA suggest protecting the water from its source - the watershed. The EPA is only responsible to “help” monitor and regulate point source pollutions and surface waters. Many ecologists believe a wholistic approach to restoring and maintaining the watershed is the key to quality water. In the United States, it is the responsibility of each state to monitor and regulate watersheds. In reality, it is up to each community and its citizens. In Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, Susan Freinkel comments, “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” We all have a moral responsibility to make hard choices. Choices as simple as turning off the water when we brush our teeth or not using a plastic straw to bigger moral choices of decreasing or not buying overproduced chicken and beef or over developing land with no natural water source. We can research and find companies thinking about how to reduce water consumption while making their products or recycling the existing plastics (check out adidas.com and arvingoods.com).

We count on hope. Hope only lies in each of us to make a difference in small and big ways and to take care of the natural resources closest to us. I will continue to pursue volunteer activities that help the environment wherever my backyard is these days. I will be mindful of the best practices I know to help with water pollution. I will continue to think through my use of plastics and my consumption of products that use water wastefully. Just like a river sculpts the land, each of us need to carve out our own choices, moral responsibilities, and voice for Mother Nature to keep our selfish desires from further dilution of the natural world for our future generations. But, is there time to make changes? Who will do it? It is not just up to the youth of today to think about the future Earth. Everyone must act now.

To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands. It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger. ~ Kahlil Gibran, 1923

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Selected Bibliography

     Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire. New York: RosettaBooks, LLC, 1968.

     Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1962.       

     Drew, Deanna. Letting Nature Take Its Course. San Juan Skyway Visitor Guide Summer/ Fall, 2019.  Published May 2019.  

     Freinkel, Susan. Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011.

  Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet.

     Kingsnorth, Paul. Confessions of  A Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2012.

     Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 1986. 

     Thompson, Jonathan. River of Lost Souls. Salt Lake City, UT: Torrey House Press, 2018.

     Watershed Academy Modules (EPA)

Listing of Community Efforts Around Watersheds We Observed (So Far):

Protect the Peel (White Horse, Yukon)

No To Pebble Mine (Near Bristol Bay, Alaska)

San Miguel Watershed Coalition (Telluride, CO)

French River Watershed Protection Advisory Committee (Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia)

Water Not Gold (Near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia)

Like Whales #No Pipe (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

No NAPL (Northern Access Pipe-Line) WATER IS LIFE (Buffalo, NY)

Save the Hooch (Riverkeepers of the Upper Chattahoochee)

Friends of the Reedy River  (Greenville, SC)

Jefferson River Watershed Committee (Montana)

Moab Area Watershed Partnership (Utah)

Elk River Alliance (Fernie, British Columbia)

Delores River Restoration (Rico, CO)

Tomichi Creek Restoration (near White Pine, CO)

The following community efforts are all from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia…

Remember Deep Water Horizon 

One Oil Spill Can Destroy Our Economy

Don’t Be a Fossil Fool 

Offshore Drilling Not Worth the Risk

Other references and valuable resources about our environment.

Secret Knowledge of Water / Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America  by Craig Childs

The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark

“The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (essay) by William Cronon

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard 

The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich

Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold

Downriver: Into the Future of the Water in the West by Heather Hansmen

Deep Creek by Pam Houston

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (fiction)

Stand Up That Mountain by Erkskine Leutz

This Land Our Land: How We Lost the Right to Roam and How to Take It Back 

Trespassing Across America by Ken Ilgunes

A Long Trek Home / Small Feet Big Land / Mudflats and Fish Camps by Erin McKittrick

Upstream by Mary Oliver 

Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River by David Owen

 “Jefferson Rising: A restoration success story” by Tom Reed

The Sun Is A Compass: A 4,000 mile Journey Into the Alaskan Wild by Oline Van Hermert

Dark Waters - produced by Mark Ruffalo based on a New York Times article. (Movie)

The Rover Allele - A year and a half of travel

I bent low to pet our dog and calm her uneasiness. We were traveling on a small boat, a tourist vessel. This vessel in its earlier life likely served a different purpose as a small fishing boat or transport for goods and supplies.  The boat carried about two dozen passengers, a mixed population of travelers - retirees, German tourists, a small local tour group, family vacationers, and of course - one dog. This was our second trip in as many days across the Kachemak Bay from Homer, Alaska to explore some of the nearby communities and landscape. We hoped to be fortunate enough to have a whale sighting, but had to settle for the occasional otter stretched out on his back holding a meal of crab or mussel with no interest whatsoever in a small, passing vessel of gawking day-trippers.  This was perhaps the most “tourist thing” we had done on our journey thus far. We mostly chose to find our own way to seek out and explore places. This excursion to Halibut Cove, Alaska included in the cost of transport, a “specially prepared meal of Alaskan cuisine served at a lovely cafe in a picturesque fishing village”...honestly, we simply wanted to get across the bay to the cove! Besides, we had already, earlier in our journey, enjoyed (repeatedly) our favorite meal the entire time on the Kenai Peninsula... stuffing ourselves (not unlike those otters floating in the bay) on halibut sandwiches and beer at the Seaview Bar in the small town of Hope, Alaska. But now, here on this deck, gazing out to sea, entranced by our view in the distance of the volcanoes that help define the edge of the ring of fire, we turned our heads and faced toward the approaching shore taking in the smell of the salt spray and the sweet aroma of the growing forests of sitka spruce, cedar, and mountain hemlock.

The truth is our pup really didn’t need much comfort from me on the deck of that boat. One of the many endearing traits of our dog, Mona, and one that made her such an excellent traveler, was her complete sense of trust in us. Mona never balked at our travels or any situation we put her in. She rather, in virtually every circumstance, simply embraced each adventure. Her sense of curiosity and delight in exploring is one of the many things she taught us, and why she has been an integral part of our travels.  She was not just our pet, but our companion.  Sometimes Mona’s connection to what we have done is so strong that it seems as though it was her that was taking us places... there are many stories to tell of her keeping us from straying off trail or leading us to a new and unexpected discovery.

The lessons Mona helped teach us - the joy of exploring and the wonder of discovery are some of the reasons we travel and chose to leave what was familiar and embrace a different lifestyle. When we began this journey we held those ideals and others as both motivation and purpose.  A year and a half later those reasons remain...but now have grown, loom larger, and have become more defined... and they are complemented by more... so much more.

We began our journey a year and a half ago traveling and living in a 2002 Dodge Ram Van we bought for $5000 and built out as a camping vehicle with sweet smelling cedar siding, a comfortable bed, and ample storage for a cooler, a small battery, and our hiking and camping gear. We named our mobile tent, “Rex.”  Rex was awesome... pretty tight quarters, but we loved it. Through those travels in Rex, we came to realize what we were doing was evolving and evolving, very quickly.   Our motives to adventure travel was never a lark, and it was never our intention to light out for new territories on an extended vacation trip from which we would eventually “return home.”  We sold our home over a year in advance, and ultimately, sold or gave away most of our belongings in order to prepare for living a more minimal and mobile lifestyle. Initially, we were committed to at least a year. However, somewhere between sitting on an abandoned beach outside of Seward Alaska, passing through a kaleidoscope of leaves raining down on the windshield of Rex driving through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, weaving through the celebration of the New Year in Key West,  and walking with our sweet Mona through a maze of sculptural rock formations in Polly’s Cove, Nova Scotia, we realized we would not stop.  This was not a decision... it was a realization.

By and large, we all choose our paths based on a calculation of sorts...a process of taking into account all sort of “reasonable” and “sensible” considerations.  Legitimate and prudent considerations perhaps...but is it possible that too often we allow our decisions to become mired in their connection to  prospects of success versus failure, reward versus loss, and security versus uncertainty? And, that underneath it all, with all our prudent deliberation - our decisions about what paths to take are ultimately choices based on what we believe the paths might look like, and what we want them to be like in the end. We strive to remove as much uncertainty as possible,` being careful not to step too deeply into the uncomfortable or the unknown. We try to erase from our minds in whatever way necessary the realization that no matter what we think will happen or where we think the journey will take us that we cannot completely know.  And so, we become so busy trying to orchestrate our destiny that we overlook the fact, that more often than not, our desire for less uncertainty leads to less possibility. 

In our travel, we are consistently rewarded by what we set out to see, but equally impressed and amazed at how much more we find. For us, travel has opened doors to possibilities - possibilities to learning and learning to understanding.  Our travel has become on many levels a return to school, an extension of our education and our new job. We balk when asked if we are retired or if our “lifestyle” is part of our retirement. Retirement, a construct unique to western industrialized culture, has never resonated with us anymore than has the idea of home being a designated place.

The boat we sailed in with Mona across Kachemac bay was a simple and beautiful vessel of slick finished wood, painted with rich green and white elements complimented with brass fixtures and webbed netting strung along the railings surrounding it’s polished deck. A boat can hold an alluring sculptural presence.. it’s shape, form, elegant curves, symmetry and structure...the inherent metaphors associated with it as a symbol...the vessel..holding things, a means of transporting and exploring place, time, and culture...something that can take you to, as well as, remove you from.  Indigenous cultures in the far north often think of their boats and kayaks not simply as vessels or tools, but as something alive and, as such, deserving of the respect you would afford a living thing.   The umiaq, a boat constructed from walrus skin stretched around a wooden frame was often used  as a vessel and a means to provide shelter. These were (and are) cultures born into movement... into travel.  When looking deeply into something, its significance can take on deeper, broader meanings.  As in art, so in travel, we are finding more and more significance in what we see... an emerging and stronger connection to the places we explore and the natural word we are discovering. Ten months into our travels we paused and spent several weeks at a family farm in eastern North Carolina building out a newer van - one that would provide us with more space and resources to continue our journey, our new Umiaq... our vessel for travel and our shelter for living.  We named it “Moby.”

In February, 2019 we paused in Atlanta, Georgia to welcome our grandson into our family. A bright red-headed, dark-eyed, insatiably inquisitive child who has brought us a new joy and a new reason and motivation to understand the need to protect the world he will grow up in.  Continuing our journey in Moby, we set out again to see what we could see...to explore, hike, trek, observe, document and write. We continued seeking the sublime. We spent time in the deserts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. We traveled to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, British Columbia, and finally spending the better part of our summer in the mountains of Colorado. As we entered autumn, we were refining our defining reasons for what we were doing and setting plans for future touring when our travel became tears.

 In October, we suddenly and unexpectedly lost our sweet Mona. It was devastating.  She was so connected to our journey that her absence stopped us in our tracks! Our plans to explore the Appalachians the first part of our winter before beginning to travel back across the southwest and then on to the northwest, lost all focus.  Our path was mapped and then it was erased. Our purpose - clear...became obscured.  Mona was with us and then...she was gone.

And so we stopped. 

*****

D4 is a dopamine receptor. This genetic marker has been found to be more prevalent  in individuals with connections to migration as opposed to those who have a history of staying in one place.  It is a genetic locus that relates to foraging, restlessness, adventure seeking, travel and like behaviors.  Whether it is one’s “calling,” part of their DNA, or they’re just a little bit “crazy,” travel for some is what they are drawn to do.  For us... it is what we do.  And so, after pausing to “re-set ourselves to the universe,” and adjust to our loss, we are preparing to move on and move forward.

Our travel is fueled by deeply personal motives, inquiries, and devotions and our focus continues to be to explore those ideals. But, in this path, this question has surfaced: what, if anything, should we do with our experiences, the knowledge we acquire, and the insights we gain? Should not simply...being there...in each of the moments, places, adventures, realizations, and experiences be enough?  Mostly, we believe that being in moment is at the root of why one should venture out; yet, still we wonder...Should we also play out the familiar story of returning to tell of what we saw, experienced, and learned?  How much importance should we attach to the idea that as Craig Childs states in Atlas of a Lost World, “Unless the traveler returns, no knowledge can be passed on, no map laid out, no later migration will occur”?   Is it possible to do both?

Our decision for now is to try to share on occasion some of what we are doing and hope that what we share might have a positive influence. We are not seeking an “audience,”and we have little interest in acquiring “followers”.   After all, humility is an easy blanket to wrap around yourself when you are in a place that is still wilderness, and when you are immersed in nature’s marvels... not in a photograph, a social media  post, or on a digital screen, but coming up between your feet, brushing your sleeve, and blowing across your face.  All we want to do is provide a view - the way a pull-out on a road offers a view, and an explanation of what you are seeing. We try to make sense of things... seeking a balance between the science that explains and the history that tells the story. Perhaps through sharing, we can help remind us all of where we are, and more importantly, that we cannot stay or go back... there is only the world ahead and moving forward to the next place.

The loss of Mona caught us unprepared for the deep hole in our heart her absence has created, but we try to find comfort in the exuberant spirit she exuded and learn from our loss.  Loss, though of a different kind, is something we have become familiar with as we travel from place to place.  We are witnessing and documenting first hand a natural world that is clearly and unquestionably in harms way.  A divisive world floundering in hate and indifference...steeped in a complacent, complicity that is allowing atrocities to grow.  Yet while we are witnessing great tragedy and sorrow, we are also witness to enormous beauty.  We do see joy, kindness, possibility...and hope...and the significance, and necessity to build on that hope.  So as we begin a new year, and a new decade we continue to make our plans to carry on. Unsure of what we will encounter, there in lies the fun of it, the adventure of it, and the reason as well as the need to travel on.

A Reflection from Six Months of our Travels

STATING THE OBVIOUS

During the last week in August, camping about six miles outside of Crested Butte, Colorado we chose to spend the day hiking the popular “Oh Be Joyful Trail”.  This trail is an eleven mile out and back hike crossing meadows, passing through small forest groves of spruce or aspen, and tracing gentle streams. The trail meanders between two mountain ridges through the beautiful “Oh Be Joyful” valley until it reaches the valley head framed by impressive twelve-thousand foot peaks.  The sky shed its early morning clouds and a serendipitous sun broke through at mid morning when we began. “Oh be Joyful” seemed more and more the fitting epithet for the trail as we hiked… and even now in the late summer, the streams persisted, gently flowing with the occasional stair step falls, small cool pools and end of the summer wild flower bouquets enhancing the familiar aromatic balm of the backcountry. A transcendental trek on a perfect day - clear, crisp, and cool as we began and just beginning to approach a subtle early afternoon warm when we arrived at the turn around point.

Reaching the turnabout we came upon a couple, a man and a woman, rising from their shaded rest at the trail intersect. His Don Quixote like silhouette faded when the man stepped out of the shade revealing his flushed pale skin, roughly hewn chiseled features and silver hair. As he busied himself adjusting his “armor”… the full backpack he was returning to his wiry frame following their rest.  The woman, no squire or foil to this Quixote, instead seemed perhaps more his muse or his inspiration. A knowing wise face, she exuded a much larger presence than her small frame. Her hair haphazardly shoved up under a hat and pack already in place, she stood inhaling to our amusement a couple of short breaths from a small pipe that it was pungently clear had been filled with cannabis. We exchanged with them the amiable greetings in camaraderie that most hikers meeting on a common trail will share.  Yet from this first greeting they talked to us as if they knew us or at the very least were expecting us! As they spoke they were at once both interesting and endearing with the demeanor of a couple that could without pause easily finish one another’s sentences. They radiated a connectedness that made them appear as complimentary to one another as the streams running in sinuous ribbon-like lines across the valley floor are connected to the mountains from where they emanate.  

We assumed at first they had traveled the same route by which we had just come and were, like us, about to turn around to make the trek back… except for the full packs. They explained that they were continuing on the intersecting trail toward the north looking for a place to camp for the night and hoping they would not get rained on…much!  Then very excitedly he began telling us that we should hike on up the trail further as it would lead us to a beautiful, blue alpine lake!  And while he continued to relay excitedly the virtues and wonder of their adventures there, she (agreeing with his descriptions but in her more calm and circumspect manor) described the details of the trail in order for us to find this treasure. They spoke to us with the certainty that it should be our natural inclination to follow their advice. His frantic and comical excitement and her beguiling descriptions clearly had their intended enticing effect as both of us immediately said, “Lets go!” We wished each other well and headed off in different directions…they toward wherever they went next!…and us toward where they had already been!

With an unexpectedly inspired vision of an alpine lake fed to us by these etherial strangers, we continued on the new addition to our hike and our new goal. In jest, we began to question whether or not our guides were in fact real or some strange alpine aberration…mountain ghosts…sent to inspire us to hike toward something special! Passing over meadow, hurdling boulder, wandering through wood, and fording stream, we marked our progress by their foreshadowed trail descriptions and landmarks. When reaching that part of the trail of which we had been warned…the part where the trail grew steeper and more difficult…without pause we just kept hiking!  While we are not novices at hiking and backpacking, for someone of more experience (and a clearly sturdier physique), this would perhaps only be seen as “that steeper section”…but for us hiking at near eleven-thousand feet and perhaps still needing to acclimatize a bit more to the altitude, it felt pretty damn steep!  The trail followed a series of steep switchbacks followed by long straight steep sections…steep sections that as we climbed began to look like a dolly zoom effect in the movies…with each step forward the trail tunneled and pulled away looking longer and longer! We would at last crest a hill or round a curve only to find it was a false peak or there was still another high altitude hairpin to go around…and we were not yet seeing any sign of the lake! But…we kept hiking. To add to the mystery of the now illusive alpine Arcadia was the appearance of a series of different trails disappearing in diverse directions off across the distant tundra. Given the lay of the landscape and our views obscured by rock or hill, we had no way of determining which one of these was the trail we were on and therefore, had much more mountain to traverse!…or had we made a mistake, missed a turn, overlooked a landmark …so…a bit worried… we kept hiking. 

Now the bane to a good trek is doubt. It can at the very least distract you and at worse compromise your decision. I suppose in some circumstances it could even put you in harms way.  It is with good reason hikers are constantly cautioned to trust their instincts as much as they are advised to always be prepared. So while doubt as to whether or not we would find the lake perhaps should have seeped in through our weary steps; and while perhaps concern should have surfaced that if we went too far to reach our goal, we would not be able to make the return trip before nightfall. In our occasional exasperated, expletive filled exclamations of “Where the hell is this lake?”… we had no real desire to stop.  So we simply did what you do in these circumstances…put one foot in front of the other and continue to hike!

“None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with. Walk alone, across mountains or through forests. You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk. But the walker who marvels while walking (the blue of the rocks in a July evening light, the silvery green of olive leaves at noon, the violet morning hills) has no past, no plans, no experience. He has within him the eternal child. While walking I am but a simple gaze.” 

― Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking

When you hike…when you are really out in nature, especially the backcountry, and you allow yourself to be immersed in it, you have the opportunity to transcend boundaries.  When we finally paused and let our eyes be drawn away from the steep trail of rocks and roots to take in the broader view of the landscape around us, the view that greeted us was the lifting of a veil. What we became immediately aware of… the epiphany… was the awareness of and connection with…where we were! Where we were was amazing! What we were seeing was grand, majestic and magical. And what we were doing was truly… really, really FUN!

There is always some sort of magic to be seen on a good hike…as when we crested the ridge where our view to the the lake began to unfold like a bloom…expanding and spreading open with each step revealing the mirror blue-green skin of the lake below held in embrace by the twelve-thousand foot Afley Peak and Purple Mountain on its far shore. We were speechless! But not speechless in the sense that we could not talk…in fact we were dizzy with joy and could not stop talking and shouting. What we were saying was a sort of giddy gibberish that has become a common occurrence for us in our travels the last six months…something that we have come to describe as the “stating the obvious speechlessness”. We find ourselves shouting such clever descriptions as….”Look at this!..Look at this!…This is beautiful!” or “This is amazing!” or  “This amazingly beautiful!”… or “This is incredible” or“This is awesome!” or “This is amazingly, awesomely, incredibly beautiful!”, or Holy Fuck!…all we could utter in our ridiculous rambling rants were hackneyed expressions to describe something that was clearly beyond words and so we are left “speechless” to do nothing more than… state the obvious!

Finally we grew quiet…

Sometimes the sublime beauty of a place is such that any personification in words simply cannot get at the roots of the experience.  It is then when the silence often comes…it is then when you become quiet…and you look, and you listen and you can hear and feel a place talk to you… you begin to feel more deeply than one is typically aware of - or just what it is to be alive in a place like this. It is the sort of feeling that germinates and burgeons beyond our practical perception to a level of awareness awakening a symbiotic union. In those moments you are no longer a bystander, a visitor or an observer…you are drawn in… and given a seat at a commensal banquet along side, and holding no less or no greater importance, than the birds, the creatures, the flowers, the trees, the rocks, the stream, the lake, the clouds and the sky. You are nothing more than a piece of the panorama, a part of the landscape. There is no worry, no desire, no fear…instead there is exaltation… and the one taste left on your pallet from this pastoral feast is devotion. 

Time Traveling

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

Any fool can do it, there ain’t nothing to it.

Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill.But since we’re on our way down,

we might as well enjoy the ride.” ~James Taylor

We meant to post much sooner…but…

We planned a short stop “off the road” to take care of some unfinished business for a few days…it took longer!

We had planned to visit friends and family but forgot to consider that when you have more free time…it doesn’t always coincide with those who have less…it got complicated!

We  thought we avoided the heat and humidity of the southeast…when we returned it was hot as hell!

We headed toward the east coast of North Carolina…a hurricane came!

We were going to the mountains…we ended up in Florida!…there are no mountains in Florida!

We planned to head northeast…we ended up going south!

We planned to camp and hike in the Pisgah National forest…the hurricane…again (closed campgrounds and hiking trails)!

And finally as we headed in the “right direction” toward  the “right place” driving along pleased with how we had out smarted another storm, we discovered that the storm had already passed!..Somehow in our enlightened road wisdom we apparently had no idea what freaking day it was!!!

One of the things you can always predict in traveling is that the unpredictable will most certainly always have a role to play. 

And so when the phrase “It is what it is” seems at times like nothing more than a dismissive expression too often used to avoid or ignore and too closely related to apathy or simple laziness…we have come to recognize that in travel- it can be a well deserved description and even a “starting point” as to how to begin to deal with an unexpected situation.  It can be a sort of acceptance. Rather than being overwhelmed by frustration or drowning in disappointment, we can perhaps push ourselves to pursue a new course.  Wasting time obsessing over how our time traveling has been unexpectedly altered and our path unpredictably changed is some times a bigger waste of time than the detours, obstacles, impediments, interruptions, and setbacks.

Unpredictability has been that aspect of travel reminding us that travel is not about timetables, schedules, reservations, or itineraries, BUT more about how travel and traveling is a great teacher of how to live in the moment.

For every unexpected turn in the road we have encountered that could be seen as a setback, there have been opportunities created as well.  An unexpected stop introduces us to someone who recommends a memorable place that we otherwise would not have known about. Delays have given us the opportunity to spend more time with family and friends or introduce us to new friends. A flat tire or mechanical issue reminds us of the kindness of strangers. Detours make us slow down, observe more, and take a path less traveled.  And lest we forget…this entire journey of ours grew out of an unexpected change in plans!  We originally planned to attempt a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail this year, but after a formidable back-country hike in Colorado last year that shall I say, kicked our butt! …we decided a year on the road traveling and hiking might help us prepare more for that adventure further down the road. Perhaps, most importantly, these situations remind us to be patient, and encourage us to intentionally alter our path from time to time to experience something new. 

So in many respects, travel is as much about time as it is about place.  It is after all about how one spends their time.  If the expression “the journey is the destination” is to have any genuine meaning then it seems only prudent to understand it’s connection to time. We are learning in our travel that it has much less to do with how time passes and more to do with how we pass through time. This is how our travel turns us into time travelers!

“To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jim & Anne

THE TURNAGAIN ARM

“We desire not merely to know the sorts of things that are revealed in scientific papers but to know what is beautiful and edifying in a faraway place….

The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know.  Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: to approach it with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard.”

~Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

Today the clouds and the rain have created a filtered light that moves the rich summer greens here to become intensely deep… lush, opulent, succulent greens that look as if the source of the color is not the cones in our eyes reflecting waves of white light but rather the hues  revealing themselves as separate living things inside the plants.

We are camped at the edge of an expanse of grasses in Hope, Alaska on the Turnagain Arm - a large inlet of the Gulf of Alaska in the north of the Kenai peninsula.  If we are fortunate, we may have the opportunity to witness a tidal bore…the rushing of a true tidal wave as it pushes opposite against the flow of a river emptying into the sea. This is one of the few places in the world where this phenomenon occurs.  Our desire to witness this unique, natural event pales in comparison to the level of anticipation and drinking at the nearby SeaView bar by locals and the countless fisherman anxiously waiting for the rush of the salmon-run up the nearby Resurrection Creek…which we are told, could happen any day now! 

The image of the mountain in the golden hour light of an afternoon is awe inspiring, but it rarely captures the sense of presence the mountain imbues you with when breathing in its humbling sense of scale and listening to its song. 

While a photograph perhaps can capture a moment, inspire awe, motivate, evoke, inform, and enlighten… striking images of exquisite panoramas are a plagiarized perspective of travel….they borrow the beauty, steal the setting, and pirate the place, but they cannot take the place of the experience. They cannot capture what Barry Lopez (Arctic Dreams) refers  to as the invisible landscape - the stories, the myths, the people, the vision…that make up the real landscape…the cultural landscape.

We have been traveling for over a month and have driven over eight thousand miles.  There is a distinct difference between those two facets.  The eight thousand miles driving is often on some level simply a meditative way of moving from place to place. It is filled with anticipation, surprising turns, long conversations, silly songs, quiet reflection, occasional frustrations and more scenery than we can begin to explain!  The travel is the countless stories that unfold as we move or depending on perspective - a story.  It is the experiences, serendipitous encounters, revealing of nature, and the overwhelming sense of humility that begins to seep its way into all the cracks often created in all of us over the years by expectations of what we think we are supposed to think, do, and be.  Travel is our new school and our new studio. We are just getting started.  We sincerely appreciate the well wishes while we are on our “trip”… and we are grateful for the hopes and prayers that our journey will return us “home” safely…but… this is not just a trip, and we are home!

~ Jim and Anne