There is a rugged simplicity in trail work that waters a strange seed in my soul. It is open dedication to the present moment. It is seeing, for the first time, everything as it is. It is not asking to be more.
I hiked through, slept on, and sang to many mountains this year. Each with their own history and depth. Trails ran by rivers and rivers ran swiftly through plunging valleys and peaks. These places did not speak, but rather showed me bluntly what it means to be an animal. To carry everything on my back and be subject to the beauty and harshness of the wild. They offered no options. Food must be eaten, miles must be hiked, work must be done.
Yet my ego pushed my body to perform. Hike the fastest, work the hardest. It had not to do with my crewmates but a ballooning perspective of my own standards. Still, the wild took everything I could give. It handed me my limits on the cold metal of an ax. It took my one hundred percent and cracked it, as easily as a sledge to fissuring backfill. I became more tired and unsure than I ever thought I could be. I constantly wavered between these two truths, through hitches, days and hours. Looking past this, however, I found in myself an anvil of strength. Resting heavily behind my sternum, where I think a soul would be. In the belly of a hike, whether from worksite to worksite or camp to trailhead, I would simply let the minutes pass by. Let my feet take one more step. In the thick heat of a project, I would swing my pick again. It was never a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’. A circumstance would not appear that I would die before my destination. I was and still am just a bear hunting my next meal. Just a leaf taking sun through a smoky sky. Just a rock in the middle of the trail, kicked to a ravine where I begin to erode, ever so slowly.
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
