IN THE MIDDLE (In The Beginning continued...)

So it wasn’t a lack of boyishness or adventure that kept me from the wilderness. In all respects I should have been yearning to be out in the woods doing all the things my brother was doing! It was a lack of knowledge and experience. I wish my father had just picked me up and tossed me into the woods before I was in high school and said “here it is! Get over all the things you think are inconvenient and uncomfortable and learn to enjoy it!” because I know I would have enjoyed it right away.

It’s kind of like swimming. When you’re a kid, swimming is terrifying. My dad picked my sister up when she was little, and tossed her in the pool to teach her how to swim. That was her first experience. It freaked her out like none other, but she sure did figure out how to dog paddle! And once you know what you’re doing and the parameters in which you’re acting, it’s fun! I hate swimming, so this analogy doesn’t really apply to me. But you get the idea.

Then one day I decided, “heck, what’s the harm in trying this out?” I borrowed my brother-in-law’s old pack, his old sleeping bag, my brother’s Thermarest sleeping pad, an old two person Kelty tent, went out and bought a pair of backpacking pants… and set off with my father and my brother-in-law on the adventure that would jumpstart my need for more adventures!

During my first semester of college I was running low on my supply of friends. Due to extenuating circumstances and a bunch of stupid reasons, several of my friends and I had gotten in tiffs. I started college very down on myself and the rest of the world. It was a low point in my relationship with God as well. Everything just sucked to me. Which is probably why I decided to try this backpacking business. What did I have to lose and who would be out there to judge me for it? Nothing, and no one.

So we headed toward the mountains, Nelsen Lake in Dinky Wilderness our ultimate destination. I wasn’t sure what I was looking to gain from it, but I figured I’d gain something. What I really wanted to know was what about this activity captivated the minds of so many people. I knew nature was pretty, and seeing a deer in nature was something to stop and take pictures of, but I wasn’t really sure why so many people enjoyed strapping on twenty plus pounds of weight and walking on a trail.

Fifteen minutes in I was already out of breath. But I was trying to stay optimistic. Look at the pretty green grasses (huff-puff) and that little chipmunk scurrying down the (huff-puff) trail (huff-puff). Half-way there I so badly wanted to ask the childish question “are we there yet?!” but I held that in. My feet hurt, my legs were shaky, the pack that had been designed for a man was rubbing at my shoulders and hips. The only saving grace of the trail was my trail-mix… mostly just the m&ms. Why was I doing this again?

[Nelsen Lake through the clearing]

And then we came through the clearing, and what unfolded before me took away every preconceived notion, every huffed and puffed hate whisper under my breath on the trail, and all my stress. I was standing in a field of gold and green and red grass, rocky peaks spread out behind a shimmering lake. Absolute silence enveloped me. Now it made sense. This was why so many people took part in backpacking every season. There were no people, no electronics, no problems… there was just peace… peace and quiet and solitude in an absolutely gorgeous setting. I knew that moment that I would be doing this backpacking thing again and as much as possible. And that came without even having any adventures yet!

The most memorable part of that first trip was the following morning. I had been trying to think of cool ways to commemorate my first backpacking trip, and I posed the idea to my brother-in-law, “Hey Phill! Wanna get up tomorrow morning before the sun rises and hike up to that ridge behind us to watch the sun rise?!”

To which he responded, “You want to?”

I nodded excessively.

“Let’s do it!”

So we got up at the butt crack of dawn, strapped on our headlamps and camelbacks, and began our trek uphill. We made it just in time. The ridge of granite behind our campsite was the perfect little spot to take in the beautiful amber rays peeking over the horizon. All those people back in the city still in their beds were missing out on such a glorious piece of the day, and I was sitting miles away from civilization, with my little point and click digital camera, on a slab of granite, with two of my favorite men, watching the sun usher in the day.

After watching the sunrise we hiked up further. Phill wanted to get to the highest point on the peaks that we’d seen from the clearing the day before. Just being out there like that, roughing it, already covered in a layer of sweat and dirt, felt so right. We made it almost to the top before dad and I decided that where we’d stopped was a pretty good spot. Phill kept going.

[My first MUSCLE PICTURE with Phillip! Nelsen Lake behind us]

My first muscle picture, or “hero picture” as others have called it, was taken there looking out over the Sierra Nevadas. At that point I started to understand another piece of the reason why people backpack: for the solitude and peace, but also for the adventure and the conquering of mountains. How many more mountains could I stand on? How many more lakes could I sit at and ponder about life? This was my new element. This was where I belonged.

That little something inside everyone that’s connected to the wilderness, clicked in me. That piece in me became wild. I would always thirst for the next trip or the next moment I could spend in the wilderness. It was a part of who I was already, just took that first little experience to set it loose.

["Look Ma! I caught us a FEESH!']

When we returned to the lake from our morning hike, my dad taught me how to fish. I had never even fished! That just wouldn’t do anymore. That day I caught nine fish. Most of them I set free, but the three of us ate fish for dinner that night. And that was another reason I discovered for why people enjoyed backpacking: for the solitude, peace, the adventure and mountain conquering, but also the survival instinct. All creatures are born with a survival instinct. Catching fish that day, to me, was like surviving. Sure we didn’t really need the fish to survive that night. We already had dinner. But if we did need those fish to survive, we had them. Bear Grylls would have been proud.

The following day we packed up and hit the trail for home. I still wasn’t too keen on this whole carrying thirty pounds on my back and walking around in the wilderness thing. By the time we got to the cars I was irritated like none other. It would be a while before I enjoyed the actual hiking aspect of backpacking.

That first trip to Nelsen Lake was a huge turning point in my life. I had accomplished something I never foresaw myself doing, and I’d come home with the “Top of the Mountain” perspective. Seeing the multitude of stars in the night sky, the sunrise, the unobscured view of the Sierra Nevadas, the picturesque beauty of the lake all helped me get back to being human. I’d started college as a robot, void of feeling and relationships, not comprehending the simplest of human interactions. That trip kicked me back in gear. It didn’t change me right away. Rarely does God change anybody overnight. But the process had started. Every trip would and still does unveil a new “Top of the Mountain” perspective that alters my very being. I only wish this change could have started so much earlier! All those times I closed the door to the wilderness, I should have been stepping outside with wilderness, and closing the door to civilization behind me.

I guess the objective of all of this is to point out how much I missed out on for all those years I didn’t pay attention to what God created for me. And while I was at home on those backpacking weekends watching movies and eating junk, I could have and SHOULD have been out in God’s country allowing Him to show me all of the amazing adventures He had lined up for my life. 

So don’t let that chance pass you by! Set aside all of those preconceived notions that you have about how inconvenient the wilderness is and how gross it is to pee behind a rock. Write them down on a post-it note and set them on fire in a trashcan! It doesn’t matter how overweight you think you are, or how out of shape you may be… it doesn’t matter if you think you’re just not cut out to hike more than three miles in a day or to even carry thirty pounds on your back. You don’t have to be the tommiest of all tom-boys to enjoy it or survive it. Who cares if you huff and puff when you’re climbing up the mountain, everyone is huffing and puffing! You don’t need to be a macho buff guy or a super sporty chick. Young, old, male, female, in shape, out of shape… Anyone can do it. Everyone should do it… at least once. And if after that one time you decide it’s just not for you, then there’s nothing wrong with that. But you will be different after you try it. A part of you that you didn’t even know you had will be released. And that alone is a good reason to try. 

[Sunrise on Nelsen Ridge]

IN THE BEGINNING

I started backpacking my freshman year of college. Looking back, I wish I’d started earlier. I had plenty of opportunity to begin my adventures long before that. My father has been an avid backpacker since he was in high school as a Boy Scout. My brother fell in step as well, travelling up through the ranks and eventually achieving the title of Eagle Scout. All those years he and my dad were involved in scouts I could have been tagging along. The camping trips, backpacking, everything in the wilderness, they were all at my doorstep waiting for me to take part in the adventures they offered and I spent so many years unknowingly closing the door to them.

I had been unintentionally brainwashed into thinking that backpacking was a boy activity. And I was not a boy, so why would I partake in it? I’d never slept in the wilderness, never gone number one or number two in the wilderness, never really eaten a meal in the wilderness… I was neglecting what would eventually be one of the best parts of my life all because of what I’d been led to believe about it.

Let me lay more ground work for it.

My mother is not a wilderness girl. She likes her city, her modern comforts, her toilet, her bed, her bug free zone, her dirt free zone, her running water, her car, her grocery store down the street, the high heels that she wears to church on Sundays, her curling iron, hot showers, magazines, television, pretty dresses, refrigerators, clean clothes, fans, painted toe-nails, comfortable couches, an overabundance of pillows, gardening, the internet, and her cell phone. All wonderful things in our modern world, but in my mind… none of them really contain any character building qualities.

During the earlier years of my life I was much closer to my mom than my dad. So all those things that she didn’t like about the wilderness, I naturally decided not to like as well, even though I’d never taste tested it for myself. The wilderness was dirty, inconvenient, something to drive to and look at a few steps from the car, tiring, filled with bugs and other nasties like squirrels and mice. What horrified me most was the idea of having to go to the bathroom out there in the unknown. No toilets is a horrifying thought when you’ve never actually gone without them. And how exactly did a girl go to the bathroom in the wild? With different plumbing than boys it just seemed far too difficult and more effort than it was worth. How can sleeping on a thin sleeping pad be more comfortable than a nice, thick mattress? Mosquitoes? Ants? Spiders? All of it was just more than I wanted to experience. I was quite comfortable with being a city girl. I didn’t need any merit badges or to know how to tie a clove-hitch.

All of that isn’t to say that I was a girly girl. Heck no. False. Far from it. I was the tommiest tom-boy around. I played with G.I. Joe and Max Steel, built Lego castles, pretended I was a pirate, or Link from Legend of Zelda, or a ninja. I trained in Martial Arts, played street hockey, drew pictures of super heroes, idolized Batman and Robin, had Water Wars with the boys in my neighborhood, and often times was the only girl invited to their birthday parties. When you grow up in a neighborhood full of boys, boy things become your reality. Girly things are girly and not fun. Ruffles on dresses and socks are unnecessary and ugly. Pink is the worst color in the world. Scraping your knee after trying to hop a homemade ramp and crashing your bike is a battle wound to be proud of. You are ushered into a realm that eventually most girls are kept out of. The sign on the tree house reads “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” but you know the password, come bearing popsicles for everyone, and will beat them up if they don’t let you in. 

                                           [TO BE CONTINUED]

[and by "played with G.I. Joes" I meant "still play with G.I. Joes"]

THE WILDERNESS

It centers you, focuses your priorities, rearranges what you think of as important. It tests you and refines your character, like carbon deep underground being pressed into a diamond. Out there in nature, surrounded by trees and rocks for miles and miles, you gain a different perspective of life. I call this the “Top of the Mountain” perspective.

There’s nothing like sitting on a granite slab at 14,495 feet watching the deep, burnt orange glow of a sunrise unfold before you… or staring up from the flat of your back, nestled into a warm sleeping bag, while shooting stars flash across a night sky. The sense of accomplishment that fills you, the challenges presented before you, the mental and physical trials, the camaraderie, all leading toward one goal: a new perspective.  You don’t know that’s the goal though, because to you the goal is the peak or the lake or the next campsite. But what happens when you achieve those goals? Something changes inside of you. Either you discover some part of you that you didn’t realize was there, rediscover a piece that was suppressed, or find that a new part of you has been created. When you get to the top of that mountain and gaze down at all the wilderness you came through and everything beyond that, something clicks inside. You know you won’t be the same person that you were when you left civilization for that adventure, because a piece of you has become something else… something wild.