On Backpacking
“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”
Something about walking 30 miles through the desert a bag of used tampons next to your sunscreen can really change your whole perspective on shit.
For this past season of life, I have been seeking discomfort. Trying so many new things, being radically present, meeting incredible people, and just kind of generally changing the way that I live and understand life. This was all consummated by a recent trip I took to Moab, Utah. On this trip, with my friends, Jake and Tyler, I experienced many new things, from Canyoneering and Skydiving to shitting in a bag and not showering for 12 days. The most impactful of these new experiences, however, was by far and away backpacking.
From April 13th to 16th, Jake, Tyler, and I backpacked over 30 miles through the backcountry of Canyonlands National Park. For them, though the setting was novel, the practice of backpacking was very much not, they both have vastly more outdoor experience than yours truly. This daunted me at first, but it quickly became clear that their experience made them all the more eager to share this incredible challenge with me, and help me understand all of the reasons why they love it.
We began on the morning of the 13th. After waking up at the rim of the canyon we were soon to spend four days in, we enjoyed some yerbs, of course, and began to pack up and prepare to leave the car behind. As if my inexperience with this whole world didn’t set me apart enough, my body, in an ultimate act of comedic timing, gave me another reason to stand out. My period arrived a week early, about 15 minutes before entering the backcountry with two dudes. You kind of just have to laugh.
Jake and Tyler, night before backpacking
Nevertheless, we embarked.
I led the way for the first few miles. What an empowering feeling it is to know you’re carrying your whole life on your back. That your feet are the only way you are going to get from point A to point B. That only a sparse crowd of other people willing to put themselves through this have seen what lies between point A and point B. It is a magical feeling.
Lizarding
It is also beautifully normal. Just hours of yapping with my friends, getting to know each other better, laughing and sharing stories to pass the time and distract from our (my) blisters. Stopping occasionally to eat fruit snacks and take photos and look at our (my) aching feet and take turns leading the way. This is your day. It is the simplest thing you can do and also the most fun I have had in ages.
It really doesn’t matter at all where point B is. It is not about getting there. Eventually reaching a stopping point is incidental to everything the journey has to offer. Ancient petroglyphs that definitely resemble us and quite possibly hold a secret prophecy, dark caves that were just begging to be explored, and stunning panoramic views perfect for enjoying quietly with the awareness that we are among a lucky few people to experience them.
In spite of this, point B eventually found us each day. And even though the trekking part of the day was done, the magic of backpacking was not. I had not previously paid a whole lot of mind to how much screentime really impacts social interaction in my life. I figure, my friends and I work outside, we ski for a living, we’re not screenagers. It wasn't until I literally had no choice that I understood how important it is to have to confront boredom. And I loved it.
By the time we left the backcountry, I was dreading being on the grid again. Why did we ever leave behind a world where we absent mindedly make friendship bracelets, or playing cards (hearts was the game of choice) before bed, sleeping in a cave, consuming a potentially lethal dose of caffeine by accident (red juice!), looking at a big rock in the distance and just deciding to climb to the top of it, staring at the stars and trying to figure out which line of four is the Aries constellation. I am so incredibly grateful for this time off the grid. You have no distractions, nothing to focus on but what is immediately present and in front of you. The conversations get better, longer, more interesting, sillier. You get to know people you thought you already knew pretty well, you all start to talk like each other. It’s magical.
And that’s just the social side of it. This experience also transformed my relationship with nature.
Something that has been on my mind a lot this season has been the notion that I, we, are not the center of it all. The universe, our world, is this gigantic, breathing, constellation of life and motion. It is silly to think that I, or any of us, have any right to assert control over it. All of this incredible nature is going to be there, millions of years old, standing tall and strong, whether or not I am backpacking through it. And because of that, why try to mutate the future or opine over the past when the universe is just going to continue breathing all the same.
Being 15 miles out in the backcountry, off the grid with just my feet and a bag of used tampons affirmed this notion, that trying to be anything but entirely present is futile. I began to type that nature is a gift, but that implies we have some sort of entitlement to it. Being out there, at the whim of weather and vegetation, surrounded by such immense and untouched beauty, forces you to confront that there is nowhere else to be except exactly where you are. Both because you might miss an incredible view, but also because you could get struck by lightning or slice your hand open on a reed. The present is all we have because it is where we need to be to survive.
I hope to go backpacking often and forever. It changed me and awakened me more than even jumping out a plane or repelling down a cliff or hucking myself off of a rock could. We take so many things for granted on this planet. The more often you remind yourself of how little you actually need, the more you’re going to get out of life I think.
Rugged
