Arctic Summer

I remember how the walrus sunned

Himself, how geese rose oft with a purpose,

How the lemmings disappeared,

Imperceptibly as the summer,

Or the flower I had pressed in a book.

--Celia Brown

On Solo Backpacking

My first steps up the trail were uncertain. I looked back over my shoulder at the car, and then it vanished from sight. Oh well--I tugged at the straps of my heavy pack and hiked on up the creek.

It hadn't seemed like a big deal on the drive up to East Rosebud Trailhead. I have camped out, traveled to the Arctic, and hiked many long miles solo. But somehow, hiking out miles beyond any other human being to face the night alone, depending entirely on myself, seemed different.

It was an experiment of sorts. I'm a pretty social person and lived pretty closely with other people all summer, so I wondered how it would go.

During the hike, I was distracted by being extremely sweaty and out of breath (elevation is a killer). Eventually I got to choose exactly when and where I wanted to bed down for the night.

Time: a couple seconds before nightfall. Place: mountaintop

I was sweatier than I'd ever been in my life, but I stripped down without worries to cool off and dry out my clothes. I stretched out diagonally across my tent. I brought no food with me (due to lack of a method to store it bear-safely), so I contented myself with snacking on the numerous growing wild berries.

Sooo many raspberries

I barely slept that night. Less because of any fear or discomfort (though those were certainly factors) but because it was so novel. After the summer of daylight and being around people, this was the exact opposite. Loud hoof steps crunched around outside my tent, but besides that, it was absolutely silent. No birds or even insects chirped, and the wind was still.

By morning light, before the sun had come up, I packed up my camp and moved on. There was a lake with my name on it somewhere up ahead--I didn't know how far, but I was determined to make it somewhere, or else it seemed almost like a waste of effort.

I hiked on and on. I almost turned back several times, exhausted by lack of sleep and the thought of the long drive I had yet to do that day. No one was with me; no one would know.

But I kept hiking anyway. And finally that moment, standing by the lakeside in the 6:30 AM light, was pure magic. It took me that experience to finally understand.

You can hike at your own speed, stop to eat berries when you want. You can ignore certain comforts, like food, without worry of causing someone else misery. You can cuss like a sailor every step of the way, or be in a bad mood without affecting someone else. Everything is your decision, which also means if you fuck up, there's no one to take up your slack. If there is a monster outside your tent, only you can wrestle it.

I was alone, but I wasn't lonely. I'm not sure what this says for my future, but I do feel a bit freed. Company is appreciated but not necessary. We're all going through life alone anyway--it's just an illusion that we are doing anything else.

Grouse aaall alooone

The Wild Life

The world is an awfully big place. But you don't realize this, really, until you start to study its components. Specifically, until you're paying thousands of dollars to study them. (Welcome to wildlife biology).

There's only one life to live that we know of, so at some point you are going to have to make a choice. There isn't enough time to study them all.

Z

The fishes. . .

The birdies. . .

Or the beasts, and that's just to start. There are further divisions from there, of course.

Do you want to spend much of your time on foot, sweatily hiking through the undergrowth and waiting for a mountain lion to rip your throat out? Would you prefer spending your time on the rivers? Or staring at blurry bird-shapes through binoculars for hours on end?

These are questions that college doesn't really teach you to raise. Nor will your classes teach you the answer. The only answer is in getting your feet on the ground, sweating in the underbrush, and squinting at bird shapes for hours on end. If you hate it, awesome, you can cross that off your list. But if you love it so much that you are hooked forever. . .

Then you're pretty much fucked. Sorry.

Forget about it!!

Because you love the fish, and the birds, and those little green things that you're trampling on. Everything has its own beauty and logic to it, all pieces to that gigantic incredible puzzle that is the world.

You have absolutely no chance of understanding even a tiny corner of it in your lifetime. But it's alright. . . you can die trying.

And this gull will sneer at you for your efforts.