Ode to a 40 Day Thru-Hike in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado

As I peruse my album of well over a thousand photographs taken this summer while hiking among the high mountain peaks of Colorado, an irresistable yearning and tug of the spirit comes to haunt me. It seems that the world I have returned to live in -- with its schedules, things to do, business, and roadways arranged in a neat grid -- is so contrived, fleeting, and culture and epoch-specific as to be virtually meaningless. By comparison, our experiences in the mountains were real and timeless. Had we ventured into these mountains a thousand or one hundred thousand years ago, our experience would have been scarcely different. We would have had to contend with the very same mosquitos, heat, cold, sun, rain, hail, and difficult topography. We would have felt the exact same exhiliration upon reaching the next pass and looking out over another pristine glacier-carved valley lined with alpine peaks.

What can compare with living in nature's bosom for days on end? One gains an acute awareness of temperature, precipitation, one's bodily state and level of psychological "togetherness." One learns to examine the sky carefully and estimate the time left to cross the next ridge before thunderstorms break out. As one goes to bed, one guesses the likely nighttime temperature and plans accordingly. One is constantly aware of the challenges and needs of the moment and must solve problems whose consequences are felt directly in one's body: when and where to stop to eat, where to get water, where to camp and what kind of shelter to make, when to hurry, how to treat a sore, blister, or burn, when and were to wash, and so on. Compare these simple, yet vital decisions to the vast amount of ultimately pointless information we continually fill our minds with when in civilization -- information that loses all meaning when taken outside the context of one's reference group, society, and times.

Admittedly, we had our hard times on the trail, but their acuity is soon forgotten, and they are recorded internally as learning experiences that contributed to the greater purpose of the journey. There was a day when we slid 30 feet down a steep snowbank and got scraped up a bit. We set up camp in a ravine below to recuperate and were soon pummeled with hail and high winds. There was a morning when I had lost my ability to concentrate after a particularly poor night's sleep and could not get my gear together till 10 a.m. There were a couple times when my companion broke down and needed time to pull herself back together emotionally. There was even an instance when we were chased off a meadow by aggressive wild cows defending their calves. These challenges that we faced affected us on a deeper level than the setbacks one normally faces at work or school, which primarily involve the mind and its attitudes, mental knowledge, and thought patterns -- but not the body or the instincts.

Day after day, we lived in a world of silence devoid of the constant low roar of wheels whizzing over asphalt and all manner of whirring machines that service all modern homes and facilities, providing an incessant, unconscious backdrop of white noise wherever one goes. The silence of the mountains creates a whole new environment that is hard to describe. It is as if a whole layer of underlying anxiety were removed. When we would occasionally put on our headphones to listen to some music or voice recordings, it was a treat to be savored. We especially relished our one or two conversations per day with other long-distance hikers whom we would meet along the way and then discuss at length afterwards. In most societies, one is constantly submitted to information overload while being simultaneously deprived of adequate sensory stimulation. The result is irritability, anxiety, and continual mental preoccupation with "things to take care of." In the mountains, each dose of new information is mulled over and digested completely. City living doesn't provide enough time to be able to do this.

Given all these factors, is it any wonder that long-distance hikers are a strange lot? Fiercely devoted to their unusual lifestyle and otherworldly experiences, many of them forego career stability and wealth accumulation to spend three to five months each summer backpacking. Theirs is a double life. On the one hand, all efforts are made to nurture and extend the "real" life that is lived each year in the wilderness; on the other hand, worsening weather conditions and material necessity dictate a return to civilization at the end of each hiking season. The busy, vain life of society is the default to which every wilderness lover must inevitably return. But the tugging at the soul remains, drawing one back to nature again and again -- if not in body, then in spirit.

Enjoying life on the Continental Divide Trail