July 21st - Of Angful Topographical Encounters

Okay, I promise that not all of the blog entries are going to be these lackluster attempts at discovering the meaning of life but I want to catch up to the present so I am going to continue with old journal entries.

As we came over the Beartooth Pass before the wreck I began to notice that an absurd number of decisions in my life have been based on my ability to access mountains. First off, I spent five summers from middle school all the way through high school backpacking with Widji. By the last couple of years I was working part-time at REI to make funding the trip experience easier. After a 42 day backpacking expedition to ANWR the summer after senior year of high school (the culmination of those camper years) I headed to the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. I did not decide that I wanted to spend four years hiking the cascades and then look for a school nearby; I really did like the feel of campus. But the proximity to Rainier and all of the other hiking, climbing and mountaineering nearby probably pushed UPS above some other similar schools.

I studied abroad in Chile. Foremost I wanted to speak Spanish but if could do some mountain scaling on the side... all the better, right? Then I went to Russia which is not the obvious place to go for mountains. But if you want to travel in Central Asia, home to some of the less explored and most spectacular ranges in the world, you better know some Russian. My independent study projects in both countries centered around austere mountain regions and how people got by economically under such circumstance. Maybe I was looking for a formula to adopt for myself. Last January I traveled to Bolivia with Chris Andree and Ella Brown. There are mountains and it’s cheap. This year I am heading to Kyrgyzstan to work with kids in the mountains. Finally, every summer since that ANWR trip I have gone back to Widji where I would be called a "backpacker" (not a canoer) though I lead both types of trips.

This pattern should have been obvious but it was so integral to my decision making that I never reflected upon it. So now I am struggling to answer the question: what is it about the mountains that draws me? Do I go to these places because of the mountains or do they just tip the scale? Regardless, it seems to be the deciding factor. Is putting all of this time and energy into going to the mountains a good thing?

The last reason any one should do anything is because of inertia. That's boring. Boring is dumb.

So, it seems that I am quite smitten with the mountains. Okay, a 10 year plus often long- distance-relationship amounts to a little more than a crush. I have had and am having a passionate love affair with mountains. Justification enough for otherwise irrational actions... but at least with a person there is a hope that the special gal in your life can love you in turn. Maybe, build something with the loving foundation. Even brotherly love is a give and take. So what do I give and what do I take from the hills?

This is likely as close as I will ever come to knowing the relationship that so many people share with their god. Just before the trip I wrote to my Grandmother (AKA Nana), reassuring her that the wilderness was my means of spirituality after she confessed concern for my inability to be sheparded by the Lord. I meant the analogy to comfort her, but the similarity may be closer to the trip that I am comfortable with or than I can really comprehend, knowing only one half of the analogy. This makes me uncomfortable because I tend to be very skeptical about religious belief; it seems to me to function more for the believer than as an independent truth. Arranging my life around such beliefs would thus be to settle for a less than satisfactory answer to so many important questions. I would rather never know and always search.

This discomfort led me to an uncomfortable hypothesis. Is it possible that my relationship with the Alpine is some sort of a substitute for the failure in my personal life to find that quintessential dynamic romance? Would I shape my life around one person as I have shaped it around snowy summits? Or do I feel incapable, afraid. I choose a love that can't reject me. If that is the case, it does not bode well for the growth of love with any non-topographical characters. The lousy fear of incapacity would put unneeded pressure on any semi-successful romantic relationship.

An amusing pessimistic thought is that I revel in sharing my passion for the hills with adolescence. Often full of angst and inexperience, they are prime targets to utilize the mountains as an escape from other pressure and potential insufferable failures.

I think I have a nice way of side-stepping this remorseless self-doubt and justify my sweet amour. Mountains are never and were never an ends. They are a means for learning, mostly about people. In the mountains I best see myself for who I really am and I am able to better see others for who they truly are. I know what I want to be in large part due to the self-reflection and observation of others I find in the mountains. A little knowledge of yourself and others can go a long way towards happiness.

The rhythm of the days is at work now. I feel no stress or hurry. If only I could take that back to the clutter with me. There is a stream murmuring in the background. Never ending, it might as well be silence. What is silence but timeless noise? Unchanging, the noise just repeats itself again and again. As a small enough interval, it must be silence.

I love that the mountains never change and yet are constantly altered. That a thing can be two seemingly opposing things at once... still yet shifting. A person is similarly aware of only one thing while oblivious to all others. Wonders. It is in contemplating these oppositional harmonies, these self-conflicting consistencies, that make life more than simple analysis and rational choice. They give life its captivating taste. Who needs answer when you have good questions?

I have been wet, tired and happy most of the day.

I sleep tonight under the stars at 11,000 ft with joy.

I love.