Into the Wild

            “Who would do this?” whined Lil’ Pine as we pushed up the umpteenth hill of our 12 mile day.  Our response was ragged grunts while paused in a muggy meadow to mop brows with beyond-dirty bandanas.   It’s a question she’d posed several times before amidst fits of exasperated exhaustion, but not the right one. 

Not who, but why.  Why would any sane, civilized homo sapien forgo the utility of a vehicle? Of running, potable water? Of leak-proof roofs to protect from the blessed-yet-god-forsaken rain trickling through boots to damp socks—swamp ground for breeding blisters.  Water, water everywhere: stalwart in soaked sleeping bags; matted in hair where there, at least, it breaks the grease accumulated from two days sans shower (of the heated, tiled variety anyhow). 

My “why” before embarking on the 22-mile backpacking loop around Mount Rogers in Virginia was to reunite with friends; with nature; with my roaming spirit who, after six months of closed COVID borders, crammed essentials in a bag and high-tailed it out of Ohio.  In the eye of the storm (literally), the questions began, not with “Who?” or “Why?” but WHERE and WHAT. 

“Where is our next water source?”

“What is the forecast for tonight?”

“WHAT WAS THAT NOISE?!” howled aloud at 2 a.m., certain that the not-so-distant thud was of a bear paw rather than rolling log.

photo by Bougie Newt

All that unrest and distress—fears of being eaten alive by both mammals and mosquitos as wind whipped a rain-drenched tarp against my spent yet sleepless body, wildly led to an ultimate rest.  My mind focused entirely on survival, of trudging forward on knees burning a crumbling bridge between quaking quads and stinging shins, left little space that was quickly consumed by a quest for comfort: a cup of tea to warm frozen bones, the marginal softness of a rotting tree trunk to the unforgiving terrain, a white wet wipe too soon spoiled in a makeshift camping cleanse. Gone, along with drone of suburban machinery, was the inner monologue of constant insecurity spinning anxiety-stirring narratives.

Girls in the bush

In both inner silence and outward laughter we made it over the hill(s) and through the bush.  When we finally reached the car, the supple passenger’s seat became a throne.  The gas station bathroom with rickety lock and splattered toilet seat a sudden luxury.  The worn carpet at home a cloud cocooning my finally washed body. 

“This must be what heroin feels like,” I murmured to loving hands that kneaded CBD into my enervated limbs aglow in candlelight. 

A natural high.  That’s the why.

Why would anyone do this?  To refocus their lens.  Backpacking begets the byproduct of eons of meditation, an elated awareness of the present moment: savoring juice of fresh fruit, marveling at running water washing away grime, dryly enjoying the rain from behind a windshield rather than wet tent. 

The focus blurs again, eventually.  Already the patio furniture upon which I write has numbed my bum; the icy kombucha gulped in sidetracked awareness; my third warm shower not quite as rapturous as the first; my inner critic regaining volume as I worry, not of bears, broken bones, or brain-eating amoebas, but rather the minutia of the daily grind. 

It’s why I’ve got tabs with trails on my browser, already planning another masochistic adventure out of my mind and into the wild.