The Self Portraitby shaun roundy The Changing Face of Identity On page one, a blond-brown haired five year old smiles shyly at the camera in front of Captain Hook's pirate ship restaurant at Disneyland. On page eleven, a nineteen year old on skies flies through the air over white powdery snow and the stadium steps. On page 29, he's twenty eight, standing before an eight hundred foot waterfall in Mexico. Page thirty one, stuffing a sleeping bag into its stuff sack, sitting in a tent in the snow, cross country skis stuck in the snow nearby. Looking through my old photo albums brings back memories, but there are voids, too. I don't remember being five years old. I only remember that I played in the sandbox with Mikey, that I waved to people from the school bus window so I wouldn't look like I was sitting alone, knowing no one, and that dad once took me up, along with two brothers, in a single prop plane over the court and bell tower in Stanford, California. I have other memories, too, but I don't remember how it felt. I could tell you what it was like to be nineteen, too. I remember the facts. Fun was my main goal, and I had lots of it. I skied as many as twenty four days per winter, rode motorcycles up local canyons, drove my car too fast, and went to all the university dances. Things have changed since those days. Life has since twisted and turned five hundred and fifty degrees, and left me...here. And I'm different. I'm a different person. It seems strange to look back at old pictures and not quite remember being me. I once startled myself, looking in the mirror one morning to shave, by suddenly realizing that I was the same person as a four year old photograph I had recently seen. It puzzled me to try to imagine how I had transported myself from that point to the present without even noticing. And I don't like every aspect of all that has changed. Of course, I couldn't have stayed five or nineteen forever. Life happens no matter what you do, and all you can do is eat it up. Sometimes it's like boot camp--you're happy to have whatever gets slopped on your plate. But the last few years have been good. I've left boot camp behind. Life is edible, but I feel like I'm at a buffet--I'm not quite sure what's on my plate. Or like airline food--what's before me is edible, but I don't know where I'll be landing and what will be served there. I turn to the last page of the album. In the last picture, I'm rock climbing up a slight overhang. That was taken last week. How would I describe myself now? Who or what am I? Is it even possible to know? I flip back through the pages and taste again some of the most savory morsels....
Life Falls Short Basaseachic Falls drops a sheer eight hundred feet, from a river churning through deep gorges worn through solid rock to a lush green, Jurassic-looking valley, making it the highest falls in Mexico, perhaps in all of North America. Life is too short not to take the time to see such spectacular views and to stay long enough to let the sounds wear into your ears until they become familiar, comfortable. Life is far too short. If you don't pay close attentions, it will slip out from under your feet and be gone before you can so much as wipe your feet on it. If you don't pay close attention, it slips away and leaves you with a photo album full of empty pages. Life is far too short not to jump in a car and drive twenty two hours to see waterfalls and make new friends, so I accepted an invitation to spend ten days in Mexico less than a week before departure. Seven of us drove twenty two hours and hiked a mile or so from the car to the top of the falls. Now I leaned over the chain link fence and watched the river surge over the rim of the cliff and fall and fall and fall. I picked one drop of water from the rest as it catapulted into space and watched it go, fly, vanish. Imagining the weightlessness of falling, of spinning, of dropping and floating forever until the water drop disappeared form sight, mixing back in with the rest of the airborne river. Picking another droplet as it shot out over the edge, I tried to imagine what would happen if I jumped. In my mind's eye, I let myself fall with the water, watching now the rock fly past as the falling water became the only stable thing around me. I stopped imagining just before my water drop landed to be crushed by the other million gallons of water drops thundering to the bottom. Looking up again from the falls, I saw that everyone else had already begun the steep trail around the cliffs to the bottom. Wayne was shouting my name and waving. "Come on, Shaun!" I gave him the okay sign and reached into my camera bag, thinking,"Just a minute." With one hand gripping tightly the fence and the camera strap wrapped five times around my wrist, I tossed one leg over the fence and leaned out over the valley. From there, I had a perfect view all the way to the rocks where the river conducted its non-stop crash landing. Behind me, two Mexicans were talking, and threw a concerned word to me,"Cuidado!" "Claro, que si no!" Of course I'll be careful--'cause otherwise.... I pressed the shutter release, then pulled myself back over the fence. I ran over the narrow wood bridge across the river and up the trail until it dropped again--too steep now for any running. Even so, I had soon caught up to the group and we stood watching the falls from a stunning overlook halfway down the cliff. Ventana, they called it. Window. "Hey, look, you guys! The trail keeps going down!" Wayne was peering down through the trees and rocks behind us. We all turned and looked with him at the small trash piles, studying the breaks in vegetation below. Vacations are too short, and the inescapable pressure of their impending end drives people give in to the fact and live in the moment, doing things they might not ordinarily do. "Sure enough, let's go!" Tammy's voice rose with excitement as her sentence trailed off. Tammy's voice seemed to always rise in excitement as she danced around by herself wearing ridiculously large Mexican sombreros, as she struck up conversations with little girls in town that she couldn't carry much further than oHoHHola, as she kissed toads for the camera, as she jumped off the cliffs into the lake before any of the other girls. And so we went. We wound down along the narrow path laid over steep, slippery rocks and protruding tree roots. We wound down past small waterfalls and increasingly green vegetation all around. We wound down and down and down until we could follow the stream no further as it plunged over a cliff, falling another hundred or more feet to the valley floor. The trail seemed to end with the waterfall. We looked over the cliff's edge, then back toward Basaseachic. "Wow! What a view!" "It's so incredible! It's like something from a movie." "Or from another time period!" "Hey, somebody get a picture of me here in front of it." With that, Wayne leapt quickly across the small stream to stand on the wet rock that sloped steeply down toward the cliff and the valley floor a hundred and fifty feet below. "Hey, you be careful! That looks slick." "I'm okay, how's this look?" "Watch it!" But it was too late. Wayne's feet shot out from underneath him, his side hit the rock with a light thud, and then he was sliding downward toward the sharp edge of the cliff, not five feet away. "Wayne!" Tammy shrieked. Everyone else gasped. I had been ready with my camera and pressed the shutter release. Then it was over. Wayne had slipped to the edge of the cliff and caught his foot on a single clump of grass growing exactly on the cliff's edge, stopping the slide as suddenly as it had begun. Wayne stood and walked back up toward us. "At least go on all fours!" Wayne casually walked back and jumped across the screen as nonchalantly as he had the first time. The full impact of the situation, the gripping fear, the shot of adrenaline, the wonder of having been saved so miraculously from a bleeding, broken death below the cliff that the rest of the group felt so intensely would not hit Wayne until the rest of us had all fallen asleep later that night. "Wayne-O, you are so lucky!" "How about we forget about going all the way to the bottom?" "I've had enough adventure for one day!" "Yeah, let's go back." Life is so short. Sometimes when you feel the end near, like on vacation, you rush to use it all up, to taste every moment, afraid to waste even a drop. But after narrowly escaping the end, you walk more carefully, seeking instead security and the guarantee that life will last another day. Fear of the future either way. That's why fear won't save you. Instead, a willingness to live in the present no matter what--choosing and acting the way you want because you love life--offers the true answer. If we were willing to live in the present, then life wouldn't be so short after all. There would always be time to do what we truly long to do.
No Risk is the Biggest Risk of All Without knowing exactly why I'm going, I finish the day's work at Eleven thirty p.m., and finish filling my backpack with warm clothes, light-weight food, emergency supplies, and gear. I don't really care why I'm going, I only know that I am, and that I expect to know, by the time I get home in two days, why I went. Summer officially ended one month ago tonight, and I miss it as I stop packing and lift the pack to my shoulder. During the last five weeks of summer, I had driven nine thousand miles to Mexico, San Antonio, Moab, the City of Rocks, Idaho, and Washington state. Somewhere along the nine thousand miles of highway, I began to find bits and pieces--a sweet memory here, a forgotten emotion there--of my former life. I began to remember vividly what it was like to be carefree and happy. And I had begun to develop a taste for it all over again. Perhaps addiction is a better word. Now I want it back. I start the car and head for the canyon. Once the bends of the highway have covered the city lights behind me, I turn off the car headlights. The moon was full last night, and the headlights hide more than they show. with the lights on, my eyes adjust, and all that falls outside of their beam becomes too dark. With them turned off, my eyes adjust to the darkness and the moonlight illuminates tall mountains, pine covered slopes, and the highway. Moonlight becomes a fitting analogy for tonight's adventure. I need answers to yet-unformed questions, and they don't seem to be in my headlights. By leaving life behind for a few days, I hope to see more clearly everything else around me. Maybe there I will find the questions and their answers and I can get on with my life, shaping it into the one I want most. With the headlights still off, I pull off the road at Spring Hollow. The car heater had just begun to get warm, and the cold air that hits me as I open the door sends second thoughts down my throat with my first breath. Should I really do this? Winter is just around the corner, hunting season is in full swing, and I'm alone. Yes. Life's too short to stay home and do nothing tonight. I can't afford to take the risk of missing the insights I hope to find here. If nothing else, I will just keep moving. I've often heard that to survive in the wild if you get lost, you should stay where you are and wait for someone to find you. But I've tried that already, and I'm convinced that it doesn't work. They say good things come to those who wait. But if you wait long enough, all that will come to you is death, though that may seem good after wasting your entire life waiting.
A Little Love in a Big World I may have spent fourteen years waiting. At least I've learned my lesson now. Before I turned three, even my little brother, a year younger than me, would sometimes take my toys away from me. Dad says I'd rock on the rocking horse for hours afterward, crying. Waiting. "Maybe we should have done something about it," he says now. I remember when I was eight and we had just moved to Utah. The neighborhoods to the North of our home were new, the families were upper middle class, and the children were cruel. We had just moved to Utah and Grandpa and Grandma Cook lived in Hyrum, about ten miles down the valley to the South. Our family would often spend evenings there, playing in the yard, wanting to pet the rabbits that Uncle Val said might bite, watching the chickens and sometimes the sheep that lived around the house back then. After dinner, after a few card games among the grown-ups, after some television, after we children were nearly nodding off on the warm carpet, only pretending to be asleep, feeling loved and important and safe if anyone ever noticed us and mentioned our names, keeping our eyes closed and our faces still, not showing the smile we felt inside, just in case any movement or smile might interrupt the conversation and steal that precious moment of praise or concern or anything at all. About that time, we'd be rounded up and herded groggily to the car and we'd drive ten miles home and be tucked in and sent off to dreamland with memories of Grandma's raspberry jam and home baked dinner rolls and sweet words that we pretended not to hear. We had just moved to Utah and we had just returned home from Hyrum, and I had pretended to fall asleep in the back of the car. Everyone climbed out of the car, mom and dad picking up the smaller children and carrying them inside, my older brother and others making their own way in, half asleep. The car doors were closed and soon the car port light extinguished, and there I lay in the back of the car, pretending to be asleep, waiting for someone to notice me. Waiting. It was a test. Surely, if someone truly loved me, they would notice I was missing and remember that I had not climbed over the back seat and out of the car along with everyone else. Surely then they would come out and find me there asleep and gently wake me and bring me inside and tuck me in to bed with a goodnight kiss. Instead, there I was, feeling lonely and forgotten and sad, and warm tears filled my eyes and rolled down my eight year old cheeks in the dark. I don't remember now going inside. I don't remember if anyone missed me and came and found me there and brought me inside. Whether they did or whether I eventually tired of pretending to be asleep as the car must have grown colder and made my own way in, I'm sure I dried my own tears and spoke of it to no one. I would not beg for love. I did not want words of consolation that I had to request. I wanted real love, smiles and glances and hugs that come because someone wants to give them, not because I had to ask. And as years slid by, as I can see now, I continued giving this same test to those who seemed to love me. Waiting. Waiting for those who, perhaps, could stop the pain of a solitary existence just by seeing beyond the smile on my face, the easy laugh, the guise of always being happy and having the time of my life. The guise I played so well that it actually came to be true, nearly, for I was happy most of the time, and I did love life and adventure. Whoever has the most fun wins, I'd often say. And only sometimes, when Friday night had come and nearly gone and I had not found an adventure or a friend to be close to, did the pain return en force and I would drive up the canyon as fast as the car could go with the music turned all the way up until the wind and the sound and the concentration on the road soothed the ache and I could go home and sleep into a new day. As the years slid by, I learned more and more that fun and adrenaline were the solution, spreading it like salve over wounds, like jelly over burnt toast. Looking back now, I see clearly how everything--the loneliness, the test, the waiting, and the sense of adventure--came largely from growing up with not quite enough love. Not quite enough love to go around between eight children and parents that didn't have quite enough love between them, either. Not that I have any sort of patent on this, I know. The part of me that wants to be understanding and forgiving of this lack of love comes out sounding cynical when it replies,"So who does get enough love in this world, anyway?" And I know that I had it good--parents who cared and tried hard and all. They tried hard enough that it was an easy job to ignore the problems, the little evidences of unhappiness, of friction between them, easy to believe that we had an ideal family, that we had nothing to fear. But just because I hid from the truth, the fact remains that there wasn't enough love to make me feel perfectly safe in this big world, and I'm not afraid to admit that now, either. I just know better than to wait for the world to change on its own.
Crescendo, Diminuendo "Wayne, you are so lucky!" Wayne casually walked back and jumped across the stream as nonchalantly as he had the first time. "How about we forget about going all the way to the bottom?" "I've had enough adventure for one day!" "Yeah, let's go back." And that was enough discussion. Everyone started back up the trail we had just hiked down. Everyone except me. "Hang on, you guys! Look! The trail keeps going down here." Tammy and Mike made their way to where I was standing, the others hardly looked back. "Let's just go," was all I heard as they faded into the foliage. I looked up at Tammy and Mike. "I really want to go, you guys." I had come on vacation in search of adventure, and here it was, staring me in the face. I couldn't just walk away. If I did, I knew I would regret it forever. I knew I would always wonder what it would have been like to stand at the base of the astounding falls. I knew I would have a hard time forcing myself to forget and pretend that I didn't care so I could close my eyes tonight and fall asleep. Tammy and Mike must have understood. "K, just hurry, alright? We'll wait for you here." I would have preferred that someone came with me, but I would take no chances on losing this chance to go at least by myself. "K, I'll be extra careful!" And I was off. Only a thin crack in the rock filled with occasional tree roots bridged the gap between where we stood and the trail below. I had learned to trust the roots on the way down the trail above. I found solid holds on the wet rock and thin roots before moving my feet, then cautiously dropped myself lower and lower down the crack. "No problem! This is easy." I had begun rock climbing earlier this year and now felt very confident about going down and making my way back up the crack. "It's not that bad, you two should come down!" Tammy and Mike just shook their heads. Soon I stood below the cliff. The ground dropped away steeply here, but the footing was solid, so I waved good-bye and strode away into the damp forest. The trail soon carried me massive boulders along the river. Through windows between the piled up boulders, I often caught glimpse of white froth, churning and boiling its way away from the falls. I carefully placed hand holds atop mossy rocks and lifted and lowered myself along. At one point, the trail left the river and I looked forward to easier walking where the soil had not been carried away by spring storms and higher water. Rounding one bend, I found myself standing below an enormous boulder. The roof rose over twenty feet overhead and sheltered enough ground space to build a small house. I stopped for a moment, breathing in the stunning beauty, the fresh, moist air, the nearby rumble of churning water, the thrill of exploring a foreign country, then remembered my promise to hurry and set off again. After ten minutes more of hiking, including numerous short pauses that I couldn't resist taking, the rocks ended, the vegetation thinned, and only a tall green hill separated me from the bottom of the falls. I started climbing. The hill seemed composed entirely of a foul-smelling mud, but thick green ground cover held it in place. Occasional black beetles were the only other sign of life. Beyond the protection of the trees, the falls-generated wind and mist blew hard and thick. My clothes instantly began to drip with water. As the hill grew steeper, I placed my feet with increasing care, often steadying myself with my hands to keep from sliding back down the hill. The forest's edge now lie a hundred feet behind me, and then I heard the screams. The screams were faint with distance and competition from the increasing roar of the falls. I turned around carefully and looked up the surrounding cliffs. Three hundred yards away, I saw them. Tiny arms waving, signaling me from the ventana that the group had again reached, silhouetted against the late afternoon sky. I waved back and raised my arms in triumph, holding the pose for several seconds, knowing they would be taking pictures although I would be no more than a tiny white speck against the green earth. Lowering my arms, I turned and climbed on toward the falls. Finally I stood at the crest of the hill. The falls fell from almost directly above me now, falling through eight hundred feet of empty air, gaining momentum, bringing more and more air downward with them until the water crashed against solid rock and the air was forced out and became the forty mile per hour wind that threatened to shove me off the ridge, that soaked my clothes and hair now more than ever, that forced me to close eyes and wait for a half-second reprieve when I would wipe the thick water from my eye sockets and open my eyes just long enough to take another glance at the falls before closing them again, afraid of losing my contacts in the deluge. So close! Still, I could go even closer. I steadied myself on a rock and began hiking down over small boulders toward the falls. Just as the ground dropped away even steeper, I stood against the side of a two-story tall rock, over the surface of which ran a constant flood of water supplied by the wind. With the large backdrop, the wind became less forceful and I was able to leave my eyes open for two seconds at a time and examine the falls more carefully. What I saw falling toward me stunned me. My mouth hung open and I let the water blow in and run down the sides of my throat. Looking to the top of the falls, I watched pockets of water the size of small cars reach out into the sky and explode as the air below caught it and opened it like a parachute. The canopy would then hang open momentarily before another bomb of water would shoot through it, catapulting itself downward, then explode in turn. This whole process repeated itself six to seven times before the water reached the bottom where it exploded a final time into a white, frothing mass, hiding the earth around the point of impact. In a moment, I felt the endorphins rush hot through my neck and chest, the beauty and wonder of the entire scene, all the joy of living this one moment, and then I felt alone. I knew I would carry this moment with me forever, but I also realized that I would never share with anyone who truly understood, who could laugh along with me and share the awe of it all over again. To live a moment once is never enough. I also remembered that everyone would be waiting for me already, so I turned and climbed the hill again and make my way back. Cold drops of water continued to roll down my face and drip from my clothing even after I reentered the forest. Sometime while climbing the hill in the heavy mist, the rain had begun to fall without me noticing. As I hiked back up the cliff along an easier trail I had found, I couldn't get over the feelings that still tore through me--the panic and relief of Wayne's near fall, the reverence and awe at nature's violence and majesty. All this, I will keep, but along with the awe, will be a low, dark note of loneliness. And I'll share it with no one.
The Long Road to Anywhere The sky began to lighten outside the tent, but I stayed nestled in my sleeping bag until I was sure the air would be warming up outside. When the sun reached the tent sides, I unzipped the bag and dressed hurriedly. I hadn't found the questions or the answers last night, but at least I had come. Soon I'd be on my way up again. In the wide ravine where Spring Hollow began stood a tall aspen, its leaves all yellow and brightly backlit by the sun. The dark pines behind still lay in darkness, setting up a startling contrast. I stood and watched for a while, opening a can of fruit for breakfast, anxious to rid my pack of its weight before the day's hike to the summit, hoping to find some bit of meaning to life in the tree's bright leaves. When I returned to the tent and packed, everything fit a bit more snugly than the night before. I had no idea what time it was, I had left my watch at home. I had no idea how long I had slept, but I felt refreshed. The trail turned up again and I took occasional thirty second rests to keep from getting too hot. If I sweat now, I'd get cold later. The entire ground was covered by small, round leaves that had turned yellow, then started to turn black and dropped from their branches. Sometimes I'd nearly lose the trail beneath them, but a slight depression in the ground showed which way to go. For a while. As the trail rose steeply above a narrow, secluded valley, trees grew thicker and the trail disappeared. After following several possible trails with my eyes, I began making my way up, unconcerned. At the top of this ridge, I'd leave the trees and find the trail with the topographical map in my pack. Soon patches of snow began to appear on the ground between trees, and then I saw the tracks. I had already come across many deer tracks, but these startled me--I hadn't expected to see any. These were left by an animal with a large, round paw and four toes with no claws showing, roughly the size of my own hand with fingers outstretched. Mountain lion. I knew they lived in the area, but of all the local animals I knew, this was the most reclusive and uncommonly seen. The tracks were clearly less than two days old. The snow beneath them had turned to ice but not yet melted into the ground. My dad told me a story of finding tracks in this same area twenty-five years ago. At first, they had been close together, perhaps a foot and a half apart like these. Then the lion had begun to run, and the spaces between each set of four tracks measured over ten feet as the lion threw itself through the air. Impressive. Then an idea hit me. The Indians used to go off by themselves in the wilderness and wait, for days or even weeks, until they had some experience or saw something that would change their life. They would see an animal or something that would so impact them that they'd carry the memory with them forever and it would affect their very identity, even give them a new name. Vision quest, they called it. And here, not a mile from last night's camp, were tracks of one of the most beautiful and impressive animals in the world. Maybe I could use it for my own vision quest. Maybe I could see myself, somehow, as the big cat. Maybe I had found what I had come looking for. And maybe not. I only stood there for a moment, realizing the futility of trying to make more of the situation that it was. I kept hiking and reached the top of the ridge. Looking at the topo now, comparing its lines with the surrounding ridges and peaks, I realized that I had gotten quite a ways from the trail. It lay further to the south, near the pines and steep cliffs. Just as well. I'd take a longer way up, but it would be less steep, safer, more comfortable. The snow would be less deep here as well and I'd run less risk of slipping, of injury. I decided that it wasn't not so bad to lose the trail, afterall, to go my own way. I had a topo, afterall, and I knew almost exactly where I was. And I knew where I was going. Thinking back, I haven't always enjoyed such a luxury.
Lost I'm lost, but I can't stop to ask directions. Evening is falling and Beijing slips into a semi-darkness covered with thick haze from the many coal chimneys now heating the city. Many other bicycles pedal around me, but I am surely the only non-Chinese for miles. Two months have passed since I began studying at the Beijing Language Institute, I know the way back to my dorm, but I am lost just the same. When I first made the decision to stay in China, which had begun as a three week vacation after working in Taiwan for five months, it had been a fascinating never-never land, full of adventure and excitement. We had gone dancing at luxurious German joint venture hotels, attended embassy parties, and camped on the Great Wall, roasting sweet apples over a small fire in a rebuilt guard tower, and I was looking forward to more of the same. Of course, I had no idea what I was really in for when I called and changed my airline reservations home from September to December. As the following weeks and months passed by, the adventures with others became fewer, and I often felt stifled, bored. Perhaps worse than all else was the lack of information. I had spent an exciting five months with good friends in Taiwan, and was excited to consider and plan the upcoming years of my life. I felt anxious for the career counseling and information I knew was home at my university, but here, I could find nothing. I finally did find an on-campus library with National Geographic, Paris Match, and a few other periodicals, but I was already bored and restless. I enjoyed my friends at the Institute, but I didn't find constant high adventure and interaction as I had thought--or hadn't thought. Sometimes in the afternoons when I didn't have class, I'd pedal my one-speed down to Tienanmen Square and wander around the perimeter, looking for bullet holes from the previous summer's massacre. Like today. With my BLI student card, I got into the Forbidden City for only a few cents. Now I ride home, occasionally grabbing on to bus door wells to pull myself along the four miles. Tonight the cold Gobi winds have started descending south. The trip home is cold. I'm looking for answers, but I don't even have the questions. Just looking for something missing, some need unfulfilled. Near home, I let go of the bus door and stop at a small market. Outside the main market area is an old man standing next to a large steel drum. Inside the drum burns a small fire, and I draw closer to warm myself. The large drum also holds sweet potatoes, cooking slowly. A few lie on top, waiting to be sold. "Wo yao mai je ge." While my pronunciation must not have been perfect, I spoke well enough to get by. "Hao, san mao," the man replies, and I hand him a small bill. He picks up the sweet potato I had pointed to and wraps it in newspaper. Eating the potato with my fingers, I turn and watch people mill about the marketplace. I somehow feel better, just being around people again, eating their food, feeling a part of them. It is nearly nine o'clock, and I know they'll go home soon. I thought I had weighed everything out carefully when I decided to stay in China for four months; but the truth is, I couldn't have. I didn't know how this decision would impact my life. I could not yet know that Katie would dump me when I finally came home in December, that China would not always be the never-never land it had begun as. I could not know how I would get bored and stifled, and how the depression would stay with me for months after returning home to America. I could not have known that it would change my life forever, and even years later, I would not know how it had been changed, and I would perhaps never know if things had turned out better because of the decision I had made late one Sunday evening after a camping trip on the Great Wall. I could never have known all this, I didn't have a topo. The Cheshire Cat told Alice 'if you don't know where you want to go, you're not lost,' but I don't believe him. When you don't know where you want to go, you're the most lost.
Love's Never Enough Around noon today, day two of my solo high adventure, I had put my cross country skis on after a short lunch below a windswept ridge. From there, I had made my way up steep, snow-covered ridges to my first peak, then traversed and climbed toward my goal--Logan Peak, the highest of all the ranges surrounding Cache Valley. At one point, when I had stopped for a bite of granola bar and cheese, I heard the high, whiney sounds of deer upwind from me. Something spooked them, and they came running through the trees straight toward me, stopping only thirty feet away. I froze and watched. One turned and bounded off into the trees, but the other returned my gaze for twenty seconds before turning and following the first. Even after seeing hundreds of deer in the mountains or back yards, I'm thrilled to watch large animals alive in the wild. Late in the afternoon, dark clouds rolled over the mountains and hid the sun. A cold wind blew through the pines, and I began to worry. Am I prepared for a storm? I knew I was behind schedule. I had planned to cross the peak today and camped in Dry Canyon on the other side, where I knew I'd find plenty of dry firewood and shelter from the wind. I hadn't brought a watch, but I knew evening was near and I would not reach my goal tonight. When darkness fell, I had made it to the base of the final ascent to the peak. My steps were no longer the long, sliding, efficient strides, but short, tired steps carrying me to a grove of pines where I could find shelter from the wind and make camp. I put up the tent in the dark and wandered around, looking for dry sticks to build a fire. Before long, a bright blaze sat on the snow and began to melt its way down in. An apple hung over the fire on a stick, and I turned it as it popped and sizzled in the dancing heat. When I had warmed myself up as much as I thought I could, I kicked snow over the fire and carried my apple into the tent. After jumping into my sleeping bag, I let the apple's sweet juices gush over my lips and remembered the first time I had roasted apples on the Great Wall of China. Inside my 10 sleeping bag, I wore thermals and wool socks, and almost felt warm. I tore open a chemical heat pack and closed my eyes to wait for sleep. Sleep came, but not for long. The heat pack was designed to last eight hours. But I had saved it from last year or possibly the year before, and it may have only lasted two. I awoke with a shiver and curled my body closer together to save heat. Even so, sleep only came sporadically--fifteen minutes here, half an hour there. For the first time on my trip, I wished that I was not alone. I wished that I had someone to talk to, to drive away the boredom, or someone to snuggle with, to hold, to keep company with and to keep warm. I remembered Laura. I had met her two weeks after returning from China, in Russian class, sitting near the window and heater. I didn't know she had a crush on me from the first day, but by the end of the quarter, she had maneuvered her way into my life, and we were friends, studying together for the final exam. The rain was falling heavily outside my house when she walked inside. By the time we had forgotten about studying and lay on the floor talking about everything else, the rain had turned to snow and covered the earth with four inches of white stuff. We closed the books for good, pulled our shoes on, and headed outside. The clouds had dispersed, the stars were bright in the dark, clear sky. We walked across the bridge, pausing to listen to the thundering waterfall below. Across the bridge, we sat on the swings and the teeter totter, talking. I told Laura about Beijing, trying to shake the light depression that still clung to me at times. She listened and understood and we continued hanging out, then dating. And for a while it was enough. It was enough to feel loved and understood and have fun and share it with someone. I even began to love her, but it didn't last. Love is never enough. After I had stabilized, started feeling better again, we found that we no longer filled each others' needs and expectations, and we broke up. Before that happened, though, she gave me one valuable piece of advice: "There are some things you can only do for yourself," she said. I knew what she meant. She was talking about really getting better and up and up, about taking charge of my life and putting it in order. But I didn't want to hear that just yet. I wanted her, or someone, to take care of me and let me ignore whatever it was I was ignoring. Just the old scars, I guess, like those that everyone must have. And I'm doing better now. I'm taking care of myself and taking charge of my life, or at least trying to, and that's why I'm here, shivering in the cold, with my bag tightened till only my breath can escape the bag, listening to the shrieking of the wind as it shreds itself against the tower at the peak not a thousand feet away. Right now, I miss Laura, or someone like her, but maybe it doesn't matter, anyway, because love is never enough.
Never Too Late Soon I had reached the trees again and found an easier trail away from the river. Sometime since I entered the thick mist, it had begun to rain without me noticing. As the distance between me and the falls increased and the overpowering roar diminished, the lonely feeling, the futility of having had the whole adventure only to myself grew inside. I stopped frequently to look around, to take everything in, to commit it to memory, and to touch the trees and the dirt and the stones and drag my feet and fingers through the water below Wayne-O falls, as we had dubbed the spot where Wayne had nearly fallen to his death.. Ten minutes later, I had followed a steep but easy path back up the cliff and came out above where Tammy and Mike waited. "I wish you guys would have come, it was incredible!" I gave them a short description of the hike and we started up to where the others waited. We found them still standing at the Ventana. "Shaun, that was so cool to see you down there!" "I wish you would have come, too! It was stunning! The wind blows at least forty miles per hour right next to the falls! It's like nothing you've ever seen before! And I found an easy trail down." I didn't expect what came next. Wayne cocked his head to one side and pursed his lips lightly. Tammy glanced around at everyone and spoke for him. "I guess it's not too late." "Really? You guys would still go down? That would be the coolest! You won't regret it!" And the decision was made. "This is what I was looking for," I thought. High adventure and new friends to share it with. We'd go together and come back different people, fused with an increased measure of friendship, of loyalty, of the commonality of experience that would serve as the base of lasting relationships. The weather had turned colder as the sun fallen lower on the tall horizon, and clouds moved in and obscured the sky. By the time we had hiked to the falls, returned, and nearly reached the parking lot, I wondered if hypothermia or only intense hunger numbed the edge of my thoughts. The owners of an open air restaurant at the top let us change into dry clothing in their dirt-floored house, and we ate steaming burritos and quesadillas beneath a tin roof on uneven stools. I wolfed down two of each, then looked around the table. After this meal, we would return to Wayne's parents' house in Nuevas Casas Grandes. "Ya know what I love?" I looked around the table again, waiting for everyone, their mouths full, to ask me with their eyes. "I love that we're going home tonight and we'll still be on vacation!" It's never too late. Circumstances can change when you least expect.
Collecting When I woke up for the last time, the sun was shining on the tent, but it was not warm. My water bottle, laying next to me, had not frozen solid, but formed in tiny crystals along the sides of the container as I tipped it up to drink. I dressed quickly and zipped open the large tent door. Outside, I found a peaceful quiet. A light snow had fallen over night, tinkling against the sides of the tent, and now dusted the tracks I had left in the snow last night. I pulled the topo from my pack's map pocket and looked one more time to see where I had camped and where I had left to go. I kicked my feet outside of the tent and stopped to listen as a crow flew low over the tree tops cawing. It felt good to hear another "voice" after my long night. Somewhere during the night, while curling tighter to conserve heat and crushing new indentations in the snow beneath the tent, I had found a question--the first step in finding the answer I wanted. Everything seemed to boil down to "What do I want?" Knowing what I want would allow me to begin working for it, until then, I would be left floundering, going in no specific direction. But I had grown tired of thinking so much and broke camp. Someday I will have all the answers, and they will all seem obvious. I wish they would just come to me now. I wish it was all easy. As I skied in to camp last night, I had been thinking the same thing. I had wished the trail could be easier, smoother. I had grown tired--exhausted--of climbing again and again, always breaking my own trail. I folded the topo, had some cheese and rolls for breakfast, and broke camp. The night had given me enough time to let sore muscles relax and my pack felt lighter than ever as I hoisted it to my shoulders again and started up the last half mile of climbing. Sometimes I took long, relaxing steps, but the trail was more often steep, forcing me to herringbone, walking up the trail with ski tips far apart and tails close together. Never did it get so steep that I had to take more laborious sidesteps to keep from sliding back down the hill. Within twenty minutes, the final ascent lay before me. Behind me, I could see the highway running along the bottom of Logan Canyon, before me, a steep two hundred feet of altitude separated me from the tower at the peak. I dug my poles in and began the climb. The higher I rose, the more surrounding landscape became visible. To the North, the East, and the South, steep mountain ranges fell away from my feet and unfolded to the horizon. To the West, Cache Valley and Logan looked warm and inviting. The city sprawled out and blended into still-green farm land and marshes farther across the valley where the Little Bear River meandered and spilled through a mountain pass. Snow only clung to the highest elevations. The higher I rose, the closer came the peak, and I already began to breathe more easily as I realized I had almost reached my goal. Finally, I arrived at the top. Breathing heavily but still placing my steps carefully, I slid up onto the icy snow below the radio tower--the highest point for as far as I could see. I looked around at the untracked snow and knew I was the first one here on skis this year. "First to ski Logan Peak!" I shouted, as if to claim the peak as colonists once claimed new continents and islands. "So this is the top of the world." I laughed out loud for the first time on the trip and paused to take in several deep breaths at nearly ten thousand feet. "It was worth it." The hike had warmed up my muscles, and I felt better than ever. All the struggle and worry of yesterday's hiking and skiing, even the loneliness of last night, seemed insignificant. They were over, and now I stood and enjoyed the most beautiful view around and relaxed, knowing the going would be fast and easy from here on out. I knew I couldn't have felt so good if the trip had been easy. If it was easy, this place would be flooded with people and the beauty of solitude would be lost. Then I remember the questions and realize I have their answers. Sort of. I still may not know exactly what I want and what I want to become, but I will. I realize that it's still too early to expect to find answers that will last me for the rest of my life. I'm still making my way to the peak--to the place where I can overlook the entire range of mountains and valleys of life and then understand and choose. Anyway, I've reached the peak and have no more worries for the moment. I no longer need answers so much. I release the edge of my skis and let myself slide to the edge where the mountain drops away steeply, and think of rolling off a snowball and seeing how far it will go before breaking up and crashing to little pieces. Just to check for avalanche danger. But the snow's not right for avalanches or snowballs--it's too hard, windblown, and crusted. As I glide back and forth down the less-steep side of the mountain, I reflect absent mindedly on the peaks--the challenges and opportunities--of my life. I'm still collecting mountains and valleys, views and memories, building muscles and photo albums. There's no time and no use in stopping to sort things out now. That time will come. For now, I have a canyon full of snow to ski down and I desperately need the hot shower waiting at home. |