Ramen, Blisters, Pits and Pains
I’m quite sure that I don’t understand hiking.
Despite the upsetting stain left by former owners, general unevenness
of padding, and the faint odor, I love my bed. I love it so much that
I generally prefer not to leave it in the mornings. Defying this affection,
I often forsake that soft cradle of relaxation in favor of hard, uneven
dirt disguising rocks and sticks that will poke my skin and kink my back.
I pay good money for indoor accommodations. Yet I leave them in order
to be outside, in a tent, below freezing. I wear my jacket in my bag,
and I still shiver. I awaken parched but my bladder is too full to drink
and my body too cold to go pee. I have forced my body through trials it
could never have expected, and so am hardly conscious to witness this
battle between bodily functions. A spider, creeping its way across my
face, finally yanks me fully out of sleep. I stumble a meter from the
tent, trembling with cold, and expose my most sensitive parts to the dry
wind.
While fresh water flows freely from my faucet at home, I carry days worth
on my back. The weight of it pulls me into the ground knots my shoulders
and back. Toilets, when they exist, are pits: large, subterranean, hollow,
cement cubes topped with an every day toilet seat. The mass of waste below
is clearly visible and, of course, reeks. While I sit atop a pit, a wind
blows, and the equalization of air pressure causes a cold and foul wind
to shoot up through my legs, around my bits, and into my nose. The sensation
is unlike anything else I have experienced.
Turkey, pesto, steak, ravioli, blocks of cheese, occupy my refrigerator.
On the trail, I mostly eat Ramen and expensive bars made of soy. My treats
are chocolate, jerky, and a box of macaroni and cheese. I’m constantly
hungry. I eat more than I should, finishing my nuts halfway into the second
day. By the end of the trip, dehydrated hummus and split pea soup are
my only choices.
On the trail my heels are covered in duct tape to prevent blisters, but
still the skin separates, leaks, and rises on my toes and pads. On the
trail the scent of my body shocks me, the only baths are forty degrees
and carry the risk of giardia. On the trail I keep a lookout for animals
that might be interested in eating me, and I fear that I might pee on
a snake or stuff my feet into boots filled with recluse spiders. On the
trail I see my blood every day, from a scratch on my knuckle, or a pressure
wound on my knee, and I don’t even know where the blossoming bruises
on my shins came from.
On the trail the world breaks down and I see something beyond obligation,
customs, responsibility and taboo. Finally, even if only for a couple
of days, I can let go of control. I have to worry about my pain and my
hunger, but not about my rent, my grades, my president, or the environment.
I can let go of all of it, every hopeless thing that wears on me lifts
away and I am actually free. It is intoxicating. I can move through the
world and watch it carrying on wonderfully, without my help. My surroundings
affect me, but they are too big, too amazing, too beautiful for me to
affect, or even want to affect.
Hard rock, cold, and pain scrapes my life away long enough for me to enjoy
freedom and beauty without analysis, so hard rock, cold, and pain are
exactly what I’m looking for.
For a full year I wrote a weekly column for a daily paper in Boulder CO. I wrote about being young, poor and green, and the column was widely loved throughout the city. It remains one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
If you've got some time on your hands...check 'em out.
Colder than the Hinges of Hell
Four More Ounces of Responsibility