The city scares me. A lot. All the stuff I say about doing things that scare you--it all flies out the window in any place where the avenues start numbering in the hundreds.
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| The stuff of nightmares. |
I find it strangely true that I am more awkward and out of place in an area designed for human use than I am in those that are not, like caves. Somehow, I managed to forget this long enough to agree to a trip to Seattle with my sister.
It began with a disastrous end to a backpack trip. The gorgeous hike had started out looking like this:
The trail remained dry and easy to follow, lazily swinging by roaring waterfalls and through shallow creek beds. Fellow backpacker "Fire Master" Justin and I hiked on into the valley, stopping to nibble on glacier lilies and dreaming of a quiet evening fly fishing on an alpine lake seven miles up.
About a half mile from the lake, the landscape changed dramatically.
In a few switchbacks, we'd gone from a blazing summer day back to winter's chill. The lake, of course, was frozen over. Our attempts to make the best of it ended in my falling in the lake, getting sopping wet, and subsequently burning holes in all my belongings while trying to dry them out by the fire. To his credit, Justin only laughed at me a little. I shivered my way through a poor night's sleep before calling it quits the next morning--our planned two nights suddenly didn't seem so appetizing.
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| Tough choice. |
Further plans we might have made once we got back down were canceled the moment I turned the ignition key in my vehicle and found it dead. Fantastic--parked at a trailhead into the backcountry with no cell service. This is what you call a trip that was not meant to be.
After getting a jump, I drove home feeling extremely young, foolish, and wet behind the ears (perhaps literally as well as figuratively). This was what I had to show for a whole summer's worth of backcountry hiking?
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| Pity visit from a butterfly. |
And yet, I would have traded for any of the uncomfortable moments of the backpacking trip over my discomfort in Seattle. Sounds, smells, and sights assaulted my senses from the moment I woke. One can't just settle into a rhythm and hike the steep streets, since you have to stop every other block for a red light. One must navigate around construction and crazily slanted streets, cars gridlocked in the intersections, people trying to sell you random things on corners, and everything costing something (parking!). Most of America is used to this, but it's an adjustment for me.
I think of myself as living in the city while I go to college, but I've realized that isn't true. I can walk for five minutes off my campus and be in the woods, alone, whenever I like. There is nowhere in Missoula where I can't see my beloved mountains looming near.
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| The best of both worlds. . . |
Turns out I was wrong about cities in that they do retain pockets of wild here and there (or at least Seattle does.) Nature creeps in overgrown parks and unkempt backyards. Wildlife is actually quite abundant. When I stood on the docks and looked out over the bay, learned to slackline on the beach with a local friend, or biked through parks with my sister around Union Lake, I could see, at moments, falling in love with this place.
But not for me. At least, not now--I can't exclude anything from my future, seems like--but for now, my mind turns toward Alaska, the Arctic circle, the frozen and the remote. I'm glad I stepped into the city for a bit. Different paths in life are not more valuable than one another, they are only a preference. City life is just as much adventure after all. Except instead of avoiding snakes, you're avoiding parking tickets, and staying out of the path of giant buses instead of bears.
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| Thisss isss a hold-up! |
