The sun never really rises. Never really arcs across the sky. Never really sets under the leaden grey clouds. The first tendrils of fall are working their way across New Zealand as we make the leap to the North Island.
The whole thing feels, honestly, improbable. Not necessarily that time has passed, but more so that we are here at all. This trip started with a declaration which had no intention behind it other than escape and desperation: I cannot spend another winter in Seattle. It had nothing to do with New Zealand or the southern hemisphere or traveling internationally. I just knew that the winters in Seattle were dangerously bad for my mental health and that I wasn’t willing to put myself in that situation again. I was looking for an exit and I didn’t much care what was on the other side of that door other than sun shine and someplace that wasn’t Seattle.
And now, as the world turns and pitches I can feel the passage of time in my mammalian skin as entirely as I can feel the forest around me as Keith and I follow the sinuous path of the Queen Charlotte track from ridge to ridge above the bays below shining in every shade of blue. It’s quiet today, another sign that the summer is coming to a close. We see barely a handful of hikers all day and will share our campground with only one other couple. And though I have more than a month left before I fly home I cannot help but wonder if I have accomplished what I set out to do here. It feels pretentious to talk about living in the moment, a coifed nod to the ever-popular yet never defined mindfulness trend. After all, one’s follies and insecurities don’t evaporate just because you’re in a different timezone. I’ve been on stunning hikes where I wished I could be anywhere else and lazy days in bed grateful that I had nowhere to be. I’ve felt guilt over my privilege that allows me to go on such a trip while simultaneously grateful to be living in a trans body in this country and not the pulverizing hellscape that is the United States at this moment. Maybe it all comes out in the wash, or maybe there is no wash. Maybe hiking through the trees on this early fall day is all there ever is or will be, maybe I have sprung into being just now and that is the only thing that really matters.
That night, at camp, there is a rainbow that bursts into fleeting life just as the sun begins to set. Keith and I stand next to our little tent in dirty clothes and sweaty hair and watch the show unfold. And all I can think is that I am so blindingly lucky to have whatever it is I have right now.
You’d think it would be easy to find small suction cups in a city as large as Seattle. I certainly did. In fact, as a Millenial in the age of access I basically assume that I can find any item in 36 hours with minimal time or money spent.
In a somewhat disappointing turn of events, I have discovered that this is sometimes just not true. Which is how I came to be standing in the checkout like at my third Home Depot stop of the day hoping that the adhesive-backed velcro I was buying wouldn’t require more than a few hours of scrapping to come off the inside of my car windows.
But let me start at the beginning.
I am someone who is 30% good at planning, 50% amazing at hoping for the best, and 20% willing to grit my teeth and laugh through a bad situation that came about as a result of my poor planning. Which is to say that when presented with a completely free four day weekend I made three bad plans; each one thwarted by dubious safety, distance, and the fact that winter in the Pacific Northwest is substantially less forgiving than the winters I’d grown accustomed to in Southern California. Eventually with snow and cold temps in the forecast I decided on a small road trip through the interior of British Columbia, sleeping in my car along the way. The velcro I was buying from Home Depot was to affix insulated cut outs to my cars windows. The cut outs, made from a similar material to windshield sun shades, were to prevent me from freezing to death by adding much needed insulation to my car.* But because I am a reluctant planner at best, I was buying said velcro for said cut outs on Friday night on the way to the Canadian border with my car already packed and only about half of my insulating cut outs made. It was fine. Or, it probably would be.
An insulating cut out for a rear window in my car. The suction cups were supposed to go in the corners and attach it to the window.
* Fun Fact: While sleeping in a car you lose most of the heat through your windows which is why insulated cutouts are a great idea if it’s going to be cold. They’re also good for added privacy.
As I drove through the Canadian border, then through and away from the bright lights of Vancouver I was admittedly a little scared. The whole trip felt reactionary and maybe a little dumb. I was driving north into a mild storm because the weather everywhere else was worse. I had a scribbled list of potential campgrounds that would hopefully still be accessible in late December. And in the same list some views I’d hope to see along the way if they weren’t obscured by clouds. Even if this trip was a dud, at least it was better than spending four days alone in my small apartment.
I got to my first campground (read: dirt parking lot in the trees) around 10pm and as I was setting up my car for sleeping a light snow began to fall. In the space leftover by my conscious brain fear swarmed around like irksome gnats–near invisible yet persistently annoying. What if it snowed more than the forecast called for and I couldn’t get my car out in the morning? What if it was too cold to sleep? What if the insulation I was sticking in my windows was magically too insulated and I suffocated while I slept? Was that even possible? Or what if some crazy ax murderer came and, ya know, murdered me? Was I too close to the road? Too far? On what side of adventurous and idiotic am I currently residing?
I had only winter camped once before this trip. Three weeks previously Starman and I hiked up Rainier and camped below the Muir snow fields. It was challenging and cold, but I had another person to turn to if things went wrong. But out here there was no such security. For all my experience outdoors, for all the miles hike and solo trips embarked on, being outdoors by yourself can still bring forth a fear-spiral of ‘what-ifs.’
As I sealed myself into the bubble of warmth inside my car my only option was to hope for the best. I have rarely been able to logic my way out of being afraid. The only way I’ve found to get over being scared is through experience. By exposure to small fear again and again we slowly grow into confidence by way of practice.
And you know what? I didn’t freeze (spoiler).
The next morning I woke to four inches of snow on the ground and fluffy white flakes drifting from the sky. I drove north.
“On what side of adventurous and idiotic am I currently residing? “
Down two lane roads with no tire tracks and no signs of people for hours. I took small, quiet walks to lookouts and silent lakes. Sliding in the footprints of strangers left behind before the latest snow. It feels eerie to be alone in natural spaces that are designed to hem people in, to protect them. I stood against signs pinned to ugly chain link fences and listened to the somber roar of a winter waterfall as the snow slowly worked to fill in my footprints.
I saw small avalanche slides between trees laden down with white caps of snow. I drove under massive slide paths where the trees were shorn down to their roots by a long since melted tidal wave of snow. The land in this part of the world is stunning and I am exultant in its presence. Chock full of mountains rearing up from deep valleys, where towns grow small and stunted, the land too steep for any sprawling human habitation. And in the early afternoon the darkness begins to snake it’s tendrils across the sky and there is that familiar voice of fear again.
While this land is beautiful in the extreme there is an undercurrent which belies the wonder. To err in a place of darkness and snow is to accept the chance of high consequences. Hence the insulated cutouts. The two sleeping bags and pads, spare socks and warm booties. The extra layers, jackets, emergency blanket, shove, stove, and boots. My car is full of so much gear I likely won’t use because that is how I handle the fear of newness–with contingency plans and warm pants. But also because my knowledge of traveling in places like this tells me to be careful.
I have come to recognize myself as someone with a proclivity for to pushing beyond my comfort zone. In college I went from an occasional jogger, to having my ACL repaired for the second time, to standing on the starting line of a half Ironman triathlon in 18 months. After college I went from running the rare half marathon, to running ultra marathons, to lightweight backpacking, to completing a 2,650 mile thru hike of the PCT. All in three years. I feel like a coy fish who is constantly outgrowing their pond. Slowly changing until all at once I feel like a different person. The extra gear in my car is a means for that growth. The extra gear is what will allow me to take the first tentative baby steps into new adventures while relying heavily on previously gained knowledge in order to mitigate risk. The only way I’ve ever learned to safely progress my skills in the mountains are by keeping one eye on the lessons of the past and by embracing little fears.
Which is why I didn’t take my inability to find suction cups as a good reason not to go on this trip. It’s why I didn’t turn around at the Canadian border as the sun set and the temperature began to drop. It’s why when I woke on Saturday morning I pointed my car north and drove. Because the only way I’ve ever found to move forward is to embrace the little fears and allow them to teach me what they will.
The ground below me feels perilously steep. A long white chute of snow dropping away towards the valley floor. I step, and step again and the snow beneath my boots shifts a little and my whole body tenses. Far below me Keith is watching my painfully slow process. His mountaineering confidence and skill allows him to move quickly and easily across the same terrain I am clinging to like a frightened cat. Moments before, as he plopped on his butt and prepared to glissade out of sight he offered these parting words. “Remember” he said, “if you do have to self arrest lift your feet. If you dig your feet in while wearing crampons you’ll probably break your leg.” Casual, good pep talk.
I step, and step again. Repeating to myself “French step, French step, French step.” I am not even doing a proper French step–a mountaineering move in which you cross one leg over the other as you zig zag across a face–but the phrase focuses my mind. French step. French step. Ignore the dozens of ski tourers shuffling up the face around me. French step. French step. Ignore the couple having a shouting argument, the woman at the bottom of the hill too scared to go on, her boyfriend above me too ignorant of her fear to do anything helpful. French step. French step. The hill levels out and I stare around in wonder. It is so beautiful here.
The City
It’s Monday and I’m sitting at a red light watching cars stream past my driver side window where, through a combination of rain water and grit clinging to the glass, they melt into undistinguished blobs of light and motion before passing out of view. Above me, warm lights shine down from so many apartment buildings, glowing indicators of their invisible inhabitants. A reflection of a building, a city, a world full of so many people. Seen from the reverse I suppose I am just another invisible city dweller as indicated by my car’s headlights. In the span of a breath I feel my entire life collapse around me and I am left wondering how I came to be here. In this life, in this city, sitting in this body at this traffic light on this night. The light turns green.
“…is happiness a choice or a gift or a circumstance.”
As I drive through the rain blackened streets I perform a series of invisible yet impressive mental gymnastics. I think about the temp job I am working. I try and parce my feelings from each other but like a tangled ball of twine I cannot figure out what each string connects; what everything leads back to. I wonder if I am happy; is happiness a choice or a gift or a circumstance. I think about money and student debt and about the small apartment that Keith and I share. The choices of comfort and the resultant financial responsibility. I think about an alternate life, one in which I didn’t go to college, didn’t incur this wet blanket of student debt just to squeeze myself into the trap of specificity. I wonder if this other self would be happier. Or maybe I’m am simply dousing an imagined life in nostalgia, staring through rose colored glasses at a path not taken.
Or maybe it’s all irrelevant because I did go to college and graduated with all the accompanying debts and privileges and options and trappings. And now here I am in this life, in this city and the only option is to move forward. It’s the only option that is ever available to any of us.
The Plan
Before I found myself standing in a snow chute trying to French step my way off a mountain I felt the pull to escape the city. Our plans began as they so often do, as half formed ideas on a Thursday night which, by the miracle of the internet would be fully formed by Friday night only to be rethought on Saturday morning and finally acted upon.
“A brilliant last hurrah in celebration of a day before the world turned to black and we were forced to scurry into our tent like the small burrowing mammals that we are.”
On Saturday we left my car in an empty parking lot in Mount Rainier National Park and climbed up the shoulders of the giant sleeping beast. Above us was only a grey bowl of clouds and in the distance we could hear small avalanches sliding off the Nisqually Glacier.
We climb up up up towards the clouds into a land of white until all of a sudden the sky dropped away and the world was flooded with a pastel dreamscape sunset. A brilliant last hurrah in celebration of a day before the world turned to black and we were forced to scurry into our tent like the small burrowing mammals that we are. Bundled in the misty interior of the tent we laughed and ate half frozen snacks, taking unflattering selfies because one day I’ll want to look back and be able to remember this. Because one day I may no longer be able to. Sitting inside the tent felt like a return to normal, a shedding of all the trappings of society until we could simply be. Away from the myriad people and needs of a city. It felt like being back on the PCT, like tentative normalcy.
The Process of Starting
It’s been a little over two months since Keith and I finished hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. In that time I feel like I have arrived at the start of what can whimsically be called the next chapter of my life. I worry that it’s going to look surprisingly like the last chapter. Weeks spent working in a large city, apathetically trading hours of my day for money. While on weekends we flee to the mountains to press the reset button on contentment. I wonder if it will be enough.
At 30 I have somehow found myself at a crossroads between the two world views with which I was raised. When I was a child I was told to follow my dreams, to pursue passion and to live a life of intensity. At the same time I was taught that the American dream way my responsibility and right to pursue. The house, career, car, and children were the epitome of normal, of expectation. So was the high flying life of dirtbagging adventure. However, it doesn’t take an overly skilled observer to see that these lives are at odds with each other. Be risky and responsible, daring and dutiful, adventuresome and adherent. And I did it, I did what was expected of me.
I have spent time dedicating myself to my career. Spent weekends in the office and burned the midnight oil. Then, I spent a glorious sun-drenched summer following my passion for the outdoors and living a life or irresponsible freedom. In the end I found neither to be sustainable. I have checked the boxes, been a good worker bee and an inspirational traveler. Put my nose to the grindstone and wandered in the woods and after all of that I am left with nothing more than questions.
I find myself in the muddy middle ground of life after an epic adventure. At the start of the narrative that so few bother to tell. Where expectations give way to honest desires and the realization that I am not entirely sure what those desires are. But I think change first comes from the willingness to open oneself up to possibilities. To look around and imagine that things might be different than it is even possible to know. So while I stand on the banks of a future I cannot see I will allow myself the grace to be happy with hitting the reset button of contentment each week as I escape into the mountains. I don’t know if it will always be enough. But for now it is. It’s enough.
Stupid fucking Prius! I shout to nobody in particular as I’m forced to slam on my brakes. Keith is asleep in the seat next to me, he doesn’t even notice. We’re rocketing down the back side of Cajon pass on I-15 heading back to LA. Not quite home to LA. Just back.
What happened to me? I think as I glance around at the hundreds of cars swarming around me. Each with their own passengers, on their own journeys, with their own lives. Why am I so angry?These people aren’t out to get me. That Prius didn’t cut me off, he just wanted in my lane more than he wanted to wait for me to pass. Like all people, they weren’t being malicious; just too wrapped up in the own world to safely navigate mine. Oblivious, not evil. It’s a good thing to remember, it helps keep you sane in a city of 10 million people and rising. It’s too easy for this city to make you hardened and angry. That won’t do.
The pass levels out, cars merge and swerve around me. And suddenly from behind a hill comes the lights of the city. The darkness of the desert is replaced by the fluorescent glow of all those 10 million people. I can almost hear the buzz. And it’s then that a thought pops to mind. It’s clear and simple, and I know it to be 100% true. Just as I knew it to be true the first time it entered my head five or more years ago.
I don’t belong here. I think. This isn’t my home.
True. So true. But then again, where is?
It’s Saturday morning and I can feel a mosquito biting my shoulder. I glance down to watch the little creature suck my blood, but I don’t dare make a move to swat him away. Don’t take your hands off the brake. I think to myself. I grip the rope a little tighter, just to be sure.
Above me Ian maneuvers his way up Man’s Best Friend (5.7). Below me the ground drops away 90 feet to the gully floor. I can look out to my right and see the entirety of Red Rock Canyon State Park. Massive cliffs give way to barren scrub desert, and through it all little people clamber from their cars, snap pictures, yell at their terrible children and drive on. Do they even know we’re up here? I think to myself.
“Clipping” Ian calls down from above.
Automatically I feed out the rope to him. I’m pulled back into the moment. Standing on the side of a cliff face, half way up my first multi-pitch route. I want to do this forever.I think to myself. Maybe I’ll never come down. Maybe I don’t have to.
But that’s dumb. Of course we do. The route isn’t that high, and we don’t have any food.
It’s Saturday night and I’m still basking in the glow of my first multi-pitch. First anythings make you feel special. But then again, so does the wine I’m drinking. People mill around me, drinking, sharing stories of the day’s adventures. I chat with a half dozen people, and only realize later that I can’t remember any of their names. Somebody lights a fire and the whole scene glows orange. Somebody starts playing the guitar, it’s probably Adam, it’s always Adam on the guitar.
Outside our little campground the desert fades to black. The conversation turns to Sunday. What’s the plan? What’s the next adventure? We could do anything. Out here, away from real jobs and real lives we could be anything. Well, maybe not, but it feels that way. Or maybe it’s just the wine.
Tomorrow I’ll drive back to LA.I think. Not home, just back.
There are a lot of benefits when it comes to being “that girl who does all the crazy outdoors stuff,” namely that people will randomly strike up conversations with me about hiking, nature, camping, and generally all things that fall under the category of “outdoorsy.” I’ve come to love these conversations if for no other reason than it beats listening to people talk about their yoga cat, or whatever it is people do in Hollywood to stay active.
Recently this penchant for asking me about nature, turned into people actually wanting to go out into nature with me. I know, right? But go figure, people are weird. However one thing I quickly realized is that people have exactly zero clue as to what they’re doing. Don’t believe me, here is an actual conversation I had.
Me: Excited for camping this weekend?
Clueless Future Camper: Sure, what do I need to bring to sleep?
Me: Well you’ll need a tent, sleeping bag, pad, pillow if you like…
CFC: Tent? I thought we’d be staying in cabins! Isn’t that what camping is?
Me: Ummmm, no. Camping is like, a tent-based activity.
And so I present to you a handy guide for car camping. Or, for the uninitiated, camping where you drive to within 100 meters of your camp site, grab all your junk, and sleep in a tent. You know, camping.
