Yet Another Place I Belong

Westcrack, Canyonlands NP, Utah

Have you ever had that feeling of "I really know that I belong here.  THIS is who I am.", and then felt stupid because this wasn't the first time you felt this way and the last time you felt this way was half-way across the globe in the complete opposite ecosystem in which you presently find yourself?

Near Bergen, Norway

Well, being in the outdoors has always really been about being on the "indoors" for me.  Heck, just saying "being IN the OUTdoors" is kind of strange, is it not?  Being outside, I mean really outside (backyards, car-rooftops, building rooftops, wingwalking on a bi-plane, road biking, unless you are in Death Valley, don't count) means there is you, your incessant monkey-brain chatter, and that silent hum of the earth.  And the sound of the feeling you get when your chatter says, "THIS is who I am.  THIS is me, being a human.  THIS is me being a species of animal, noticing sounds, smells, sensing danger, sensing safety, sensing beauty."  

I recently had four days worth of these moments while on a mountain bike tour along Canyonlands' White Rim Trail.  Four days, 84 miles (or so), 5 companions, 2 guides, and whole lot of sky....to match the whole lot of monkey brain chatter.  Like the the descent down Shafer Trail, steep and winding, I found myself descending within, into the depths of who I was at that moment, which was of course, every experience I had ever had up until then.  Descending into Canyonlands, each hairpin turn another layer of earth's millenia, I felt like I was descending through layers of city-fied stone that had built up around my core, my strength, my who-I-amness.  

Shafer Switchbacks

Once down, after crashing on the switchbacks in order to come back down to earth and get my blood donation out of the way right off the bat, the trip really began in earnest and I set about just being my unlayered, unadulterated self for the rest of the trip.  There comes a time, I suppose, when you realize that this is indeed what is meant by "vacation".  One "vacates" their layered self so their true, buried gem-of-a-self can shine, shimmer, and breathe again.  Like Canyonlands.  It is earth on vacation.  Or, as the sign in Kanab, Utah brags (about a similar geology), "The Greatest Earth on Show!"  

Our ride consisted of a minimally maintained old mining road (high clearance, 4 wh. drive only) winding around the base of the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands, eventually meeting up with and paralleling the Green River.  After a day of riding my adequate, but this 50-year old arse deemed MINIMALLY adequate, hardtail Cannondale (I also just learned that Crap-n-fail is Cannondale's nickname.  Fine.), I began to pray for the sand and not the White Rim layer that we were on most of the time.  My ability to manifest what I pray for proved to me later that I REALLY need to watch what I pray for!  Like, here's one that would serve me well for next time:  "I love full suspension.  I am fully enjoying my fully full suspension bike, even now!" or, "I love the harder surfaces because they are so much easier to ride on than in the softness of sand.  My butt is curiously in better shape than my lungs."  Cool.  

After our first night of camp, complete with Canyonlands' version of a sandy Hurricane Isaac, we awoke fresh with our faces already exfoliated from the night of sand that had found any and every breach in the tent, so, with that chore out of the way,  we got an earlier start on the day.  Our fearless trip leader had proved his fearlessness by groping around in the dark in the middle of the night, trying to keep important things (like the stove, tables, van, beer) from blowing away , but was unable to see the land-shark-boulders.  One bit him in the shin really bad, and swam away.  We know this because of all the landshark boulders still in camp, NONE of them had his blood on their jaws.  Bastards.  I guess he'll just have to man the boat the rest of the way.  Poor Dave.

Dave

A night of approximately 2 hours of decent sleep (flapping rain-fly, 50 mph winds, rain, laugh attack) is not really an ingredient for a triumphant 31 mile-day of mountain biking the following day, but alas, Holiday Expeditions makes the absolute hands-down best pot of camping coffee I have EVER had.  What do they PUT in that stuff that makes me forget about how much my bum hurts, how tired my quads are, and how many miles await me?  I'll never know, but after some of that and one of many superlative meals to come, I was back on the bike, taking turns between pedaling, gawking, photographing, hydrating, pedaling, pedaling, pedaling. 

The scenery of Canyonlands, from the perspective of "doing" rather than just "being" there, brought up thoughts that I often have when I'm hiking or backpacking somewhere.  These thoughts are related to the history of a place, and not necessarily the actual "what exactly happened here" kind of perspective.  But from the perspective that jerks me from the dreamy state of, "Wow, this place is so gorgeous, it would be GREAT to live here, in the midst of this scenery, to have a nice sustainable, off-the-grid cabin, a little garden, blah blah blah..." to the reality of what most likely was, from the pioneer wife's point of view of "What the HELL is this?  I gotta build a hut from what?  What trees?  Do YOU see any trees?  And haul water from where?  Because we can't build our mud cabin near the river because of what, flash floods?  And WHAT do you expect me to grow here? "......so they move on to less scenic but more sustainable places, and leave places like this for the more hardy insects and plants that belong here to inhabit, or not.  To leave places like this alone, so eyes can feast on what IS and not necessarily what COULD BE.  To leave places like this to be visited, not inhabited, by people.  To leave places like this as much alone as possible.  The part about "doing" the ride instead of just "seeing" this place, like from the window of a car or plane or from the seat of a motorcycle, is that you get a true sense (for an instant) of what "being" here would really entail, IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE THE NICE, FULLY EQUIPPED, FULL OF FOOD AND WATER AND GATORADE AND FIRST-AID KITS AND TENTS AND SLEEPING BAGS AND FRESH CLOTHES AND BEER AND TOOLS van following along supporting you.  Yes, there are TV shows documenting people being "heroes" doing what folks had to do to survive back in the day, but of course, back in the day, there were no TV crews there to save your butt.  So, I have thoughts like, "I love this place, it is so freakin' gorgeous I almost can't stand it, but I can see how someone who had to live here, survive here, make a life here might come to despise it." and those thoughts were usually just before lunch time, when the sun was blazing, and this was mild September.

Lunchtime, Day 1....Under the ONLY tree

Lunch sans tree....what did the pioneers do?  Probably didn't stop for lunch

The ride is generally an intermediate ride with very few majorly challenging climbs, depending on one's fitness and skill level.  I found the sand to be more technically challenging than the hills, which is understandable since I had not been on a serious mountainbike ride for well over 10, quite possibly 15 years.  There were plenty of times I was walkin' it, too...just like a pioneer, and it made me think, WOW, getting anywhere at this pace must have been HELL.  

Being waited on, hand and foot, by our guides Justin (Just-in-Time!) and Dave really made any of the difficulties experienced throughout the day just melt away.  I have never done a camping trip like this, through a guide company, and I'm here to tell you, it ROCKS.  My sole responsibility?  Don't die by falling off a cliff.  Not bad, I can handle that.  I'll leave everything else, oh except setting up my tent and wiping my own arse, up to the guides at Holiday.  Thanks, guys!

One of the many jaw-dropping views out and down a canyon

The hill up to Murphy's....um, had to walk this bear

Pioneer Bath

Green River, last day

So, for each of us, I believe our goals were personal and different, some voiced and some held in secret or semi- secret.  Which of course, brings me to the question of why we do so many of the things we do.  In the end, when we do things with others, I believe it is to merely have this shared experience, and the thing that is being experienced ends up being the backdrop, even the costume, in front of and behind which we interact with each other.  It can also be the catalyst for bringing us all together, and it surely is also a character in our shared experience.  

This character was the trail, the river, the canyons, and the sun, the sky, the stars, the heat, the coolness, the lizards, birds, and snakes....mother earth in all her macrocosm mirroring us as microcosms.  There was the friend who was riding because this was absolutely something she had never done (never camped OR ridden a mountain bike) and by golly was not going to die wondering what it would be like, and so was keeping this promise to her recently departed best friend, to live her life from now on NOT wondering.  There was the friend who just lives her life from this place anyway, and was doing this because oh-my-gosh this is the most fun to have a bunch of girlfriends be together doing this awesome thing!  There was the friend who is out to start seeing all these magical places in this great country of ours and what better place to do it than from the seat of a bicycle.  There was the gracious friend who had been there the year before and was there to share this experience again and to see if she could pedal more of the miles than the last time.  There was the friend who started as a stranger (brave, brave man!) who saw the trail from above in May and had said to himself, "I'm going to come back and ride this" and joined because Holiday Expeditions had the better menu!  And there was myself, who came because, well, I've decided to start this decade of my life with a fanfare for gloriousness and what better place to start than amid such eye-popping beauty and amongst such friends as these.

Early morning Kokepeli

Where do we GET the energy!?

Rear Left to Right: Joel, Teresa Jennifur, Melissa, Danell, Krisha
Front: Guides Dave and Justin