Mountains take a long time to take in. In the way good writing takes time and presence, so does sitting before a mountain. It might take many afternoons, returning to the same spot on a log by the lake, and indeed many lifetimes if the place of observation is varied. For a mountain reveals its secrets slowly; some not at all. The sunset observed from the log is not the same as the one from the rock, yet both are special, unique and will make a heart sing and worship before them.
What is it within a soul that is evoked by pillars of granite, deep forests of green? These are mountains; they call to me. I rise early, leaving the conditioned space of my modern existence. Teapots, central air, a roof, hot water. I step into wild. I choose a day that suits me. I take the necessary step of being a dabbler in God’s creation. A search online for “mountain hikes within 2 hours of Colorado Springs” offers plenty to suit my fancy. I skim quickly, decide slowly. I reason against elevation graphs and trip reports from years ago. How hard can it be out? Getting outdoors is needed; I don’t do it enough. This work is dangerous. We would do it less if we knew what we were in for.
So I drive. I enter the slow meditation of passing cars, flickering lights, and the beat beat beat of exhausted tires over asphalt snakes which crisscross these abandoned roads. I fight exhaustion. The wind shudders the car. The staccato whap whap whap whap of a drift onto the rumble strip snaps me alert. My soul is tired and exhausted. The drive in silence is holy, surrounded by the sounds of this machine and the muffled world from within it. But my mind is not silent, nor my heart. Alone with my thoughts and not for long, I give up and throw on a podcast. “For knowledge”, I reason. A lie, for distraction wears fine clothes. I embrace her willingly. I don’t learn much, but my mind slows down. I settle into detached distraction with ease. I’m at home here. Soon I arrive.
A hike is a risk. Bare might be the surface of the moon, and to start on a hike is to pit your capabilities against nature itself. I am driven to be tested. Oh! Unsatisfied man that must conquer all we set our eyes upon! Nature laughs at us; we venture forth swaggering into it’s clutches, in our hubris place ourselves at its mercy, and know not our peril. As a kid I was in the Scouts, back when that meant something and taught boys the skills to be men. Be Prepared was the Scout motto. Is it still? I’ve internalized it and have overpack. Nature will accept what is given, take those conditions, and test me against them. A heavy pack, enough supplies, food, water, and clothing for a week will crush you on a 10-mile hike. Speed is opposed to presence, which I seek. Nature honors speed and so do her creatures. See the deer, the mountain lion, goat, osprey, or fox. They are lithe and weak within their world. They have little baggage, but not less care. I am a sojourner here; this is not my home, I am a spy, no, enemy, and do well to tread carefully. A little water, a stout stick, some energy bars, and I’ve created an outside experience for myself to enjoy. My mind is at ease, and that will be a problem later.
People frequently describe wilderness as “pristine” or “delicate”. There is not such place in my experience. Perhaps the languid waters of a Cayman lagoon would fit that description. I walk among the deep forests, high peaks, walls of decomposed granite, pines that reach to the heavens and sway ominously as the north winds rip down among their branches. I stand beside the corpse of a mighty ponderosa pine. A hundred years old, 4-feet in diameter, now laying on the ground among the mangled bodies of the siblings it crushed as it fell, topped by the wind in its hubris. An earthen pit 10-feet deep where its roots were ripped without regard from the earth. Exposed. Desecrated. Fallen. It is not sad and the forest does not weep. The winds that tame these mighty fronds are themselves a part of this place, shaping the canyons, blowing dust among the high alpine scrub grass that clings to existence on the slopes. The mightiest fall. There are lessons here for us, should we stop and hear their truths. The years will pass, the winter snows and spring rains and the heat of summer. Slowly, the cycle of time will enact its inevitability on the old tree; furrowed trunk decomposing to fresh earth. Bear, fox and a chorus of birds make homes among the brittle bones of its branches. Life proceeds and the tree will return to the dust. More lessons, more truths. The “pristine” is an illusion and it’s deadly. That’s not to say we have no effect. We do. Forests burned by the hundred thousand acres in our hubris and fury. We are uncharitable guardians of this grace that has been entrusted us. But the forest will endure. Observe how tame the wild dandelions in my backyard, or how quickly the fescue goes to seed when not mowed. Nature finds a way. The forest will go on, it will return. It is blessed and in spite of us.
The forests don’t trouble about the struggles of men, dreams of iron and asphalt. The troubles of the forest are simpler, more eternal. Life is precious because it is short, frantic, practical. The deer who leads her two fawns to lap slowly at the spring of a high mountain lake, her eyes up as her tongue is down and lap lap laping while her brood tiptoes unsteadily along it’s banks. She is calm, she is knowing. Her two are curious, then excited as they hear a sound beating in the rushes. It is the wonder of new experience, and their new legs trip over each other as they dance their way towards this new sound – then bolt as a thrush explodes upwards towards the sun. Mama watches, lap lap lapping, steady and serene in her presence. Who has taught her to drink so measured, while the thrush terrifies her children, her eyes scanning, watching, finding. Finding me, as I stand still 30 paces from her across the inlet. Her back arches ever so slightly, tension building, her lap lap lap lap quickening its rhythm. The threat is me. No one has taught her this. She knows because nature knows and forgives not. Her children are blissful unawares. Tonight they sleep between the lush grasses by the lakeside to the gentle murmer of water against rocks. This is the rhythm of eternal things, that go on, that proceed. If they survive the winter, their fuzzy pelts will become sleek and hardened. They will learn measured fear like their mother. They will be grown and have cares of their own; for now, they are protected, comforted by nature’s way and the hand of God.
I bring something here. Myself, my worries, cares and frustrations. I put on the miles. I sweat through manufactured clothing made by kids in Taiwan that costs $200 and keeps me cool and warm at the same time. Truly, I have purchased an experience. It is the literal “wilderness pass” at the trailhead. A written name, if I am honest, my own, in the register book before I proceed. Then a chirp, doors locked to protect what I leave behind and I enter this world on no other terms than my own. And leave only if granted by nature and God. I choose the more pleasant trail that meanders to a more beautiful place. What am I seeking? Adventure I say, perhaps beauty as well. They are both right, but for the wrong reasons. In my carelessness, I adventure casually, staying the trail of the million other boots that have passed this way among the years. Worn down over the decades, rutted by the rains, dust blown by the wind, pressed down by the interminable boots of hikers, hunters, campers, day packers, and the “not from around here” types who I greet with a too often scornful glances at the presumption of their treading in my wilderness.
We have much to learn. Unlike the sea, the mountains endure. The sea returns, again and again, beating against the shore that holds it back. The rock of a mountain just is. Immovable, solid, reckoning against time and place. It works slowly and on us slowly; we want it to go faster, but it won’t. It’s not the way of the forest to work quicker than time. It is only ourselves, unsatisfied creatures of hurry and bustle, who resent the lessons we are being taught. Only with the hindsight of years, perhaps many of them, perhaps only a few, do we grow to see that the lesson was there all along, all around us. In the branches, the rushes, the smell of sweaty pine sap and damp moss and the call of a grey jay echoing between canyon walls and the shrill howl of the mountain lion. The shiver that runs down my spine, the hairs which stand on end, the quickening of my heartbeat and the sweat that forms on my brow. These are signs of our humanity, but also of our place. To know fear, to stand in it, to be small. We must be humble in the midst of grandness all around, this is our task. A true great joy, as the waters that surge through the narrow canyons of this place can attest. Their swirling depths and constant motion over the rocks that might hold them back, but are merely smoothed down over a hundred years. We won’t live a hundred years, we should let ourselves be smoothed down in fewer. We would do well to walk in nature and not look for death, but for life. Perhaps, in only a little while, we can match our pace to that of the dear. Having drunk her fill, she turns, as her two fawns skitter and dance in the grass, and walks away. Slowly, measured, not hurried, not frantic, but delicately and with purpose. The grass she feeds on today will cover her grave tomorrow. She is embodied presence.