Cover image is my sister teal gardner at Elk Creek on a family visit
Thirteen ThousanD Feet
Through meadows and between rocks The alpine air, the little tarns The rock cairns Steep and looking Lost in feeling Movement, images, sounds, dust Fleeting moments One bird sang at summit 13000 feet Land of eagles, sky burials Take it all off and let it go Lay it down and leave it behind The fluid filled motion of the heart rushing hard, imperfect in the systole Something breaks lose and you think you got lost Left something behind, ultralight No time to consider what’s right or wrong Crowned sparrows sound different The sorrel tastes fine The best days align By what’s brought in our satchels “Words and books Like a small creek off a high ledge Gone in the dry air” And I radiate without caring Who the light falls upon Person, stone, or song I cannot be turned away From this pathless wonder that I am I seek endurance, to maintain
DOSEWALLIPS
I was looking for a spot to camp tonight, and I kept pulling off this little highway, really just like a forest service road. And I just... didn’t like it. It just didn’t feel right.
And I got to this spot where I was kind of up above the river, and could see down in a ways, that the spot was not level. And I thought, oh, this will be all right. But for some reason, I wanted to keep moving, and I looked at my map, and I saw this little forest service track going across the river up a road that looked like it went straight into somebody’s cabin. And I thought, What the hell is that?
And sure enough, there’s an old bridge built in 1963 that’s still drivable. I drove right across it, and there was a perfect spot right down by the water. But it looks like nobody would ever come there.
There’s no trespassing signs all over on the far side of it to probably discourage people even further. But here I am, at another magical spot I found somehow out in the world. I think we only went camping together one time.
And it was up this river. It was a two night thing. It was very chill.
First night we walked in pretty close. Camped at this campground that was abandoned because the road washed out, so it’s all mossy and overgrown. I jogged in there today.
It is about six miles or eight miles round trip from the trailhead. Plus, a little bit further. And I was sitting on the shore, where we had made a fire and camped that night.
And I thought, I wonder what would happen if that person just walked, walked up right now? I just started laughing at the absurdity of that. Because, of course, that would never happen.
And then as I was laughing, I was like, you know? I had a memory from something a friend told me that said: You know your heart is healed when you can genuinely laugh about something that’s happened. And so, I remembered that, and just as I remember that, I looked to my left, and I saw three harlequin ducks.
I guess you could call them fledglings, paddling upstream, dipping and sorting around for invertebrates, all females. And I just started crying. Because I’ve never seen Harlequin ducks up a stream like that, though I know they nest there.
They’re sea ducks, actually. And of course the wind picked up...
And there’s just these funny moments like that that happen to me.
I don’t really know what it means or if anything is really happening. Maybe I’m just inferring or implying or making things up. But things feel like they resolve sometimes through an external sign. That is an animal or a sound, or the wind, a water current...
Seems like there’s signs somehow. I don’t really know how that works. It’s nice to be around my allies again.
It’s nice to be here by the river. Anyway, I had a cry. And just before that, I checked this stump where I knew this reishi used to grow, and a bear had ripped it to shreds.
But there was still one little, tiny, reishi fruit trying to grow on it, and I thought, wow, what a funny predicament. The bear was like, All right, there’s some ants in here. Let’s go.
And no more resihi ever again from that log. Now it’s getting dark. It’s 2100, which is 9pm.
21:21. 9:21 on July 10, At the end of a long trip. Probably should have recorded stuff like this the whole way, but... I just had so much and so little to say. Just didn’t feel like a trip that could be caught in the moment.
I just had to be in it in the moment. There was no hope of trying to transmit what I was experiencing. Maybe it was too much, or maybe it was just the right thing to do. to not try to reflect... and to just accept that...
I would forget some things. And then I may not remember anything, really. But that it had left a certain impression.
There was a particular moment when I was driving into the Uintas with my friends, Blaine and Jack, and we were going to meet George, who had ridden there on a bike. We were listening to a song by Balmorrhea called Bowsprit, as we were driving across the sage rush plain, with little surface level ponds that were perfectly clear, and the Uintas growing larger in the distance, and Lodgepole pine forests, and Aspen stands, and Pronghorns. And I just couldn’t believe who I was in the car with.
I was with these two men who are very unique people. Who have chosen to be, like, a uniquely carved object that’s being wrought by their own directionality alone. And they have mostly a lot of confidence in their route. And what they really have is a lot of courage.
And I think in that moment I felt a level of gratitude for being connected with such people that I’d never known. I felt so happy to be linked with people. I felt, to myself, I said, “I feel so grateful to be linked with people like this.”
I actually started crying. And then as we rode up to camp, we saw George through the car windows next to his bike with his tent set up and everything laid out on the picnic table, organized. He’d been riding over 1,000 miles with something like... a lot of elevation gain.
I want to say, 100,000 feet. 130,000 feet of elevation gain. 1,750 miles, all self supported. And he had this big smile on his face, and we showed up with all this food, and we were gonna hike a 25 or 26 mile route the next day up to the top of King’s Peak, all four of us, in one day, and out, which is about 13,500 something.
And I could tell that he was just.. So happy to see us. And it was a really special moment for all of us, I think.
Even though I’m kind of an outsider in this group of guys, they all live together in Salt Lake. But I was just reflecting on that now, sitting alone here by this river, and in Washington.
Looking at the big leaf maple trees, which have had a hard summer. I think it got pretty hot. I’m looking at the ocean spray.
Drinking mint tea from some wild mint I gathered about two hours ago. Sitting on this bridge built in 1963. Thinking about my life.
The water beneath this bridge is the glacier color and water, the deep, weird blue that it can be around here, and it’s dark now, so it’s, like a denim, deep, dark blue. Surrounded by mossy cliffs. And a young forest that was logged not too long ago.
The birds have stopped singing, so I think I’m gonna head to bed. Head to the ferry tomorrow. Go back to Canada.
One last thought. I’ve been listening to this Ram Dass story a couple times lately. And one task his main teacher gave him was to love everyone, and to tell the truth. And it was hard for him, because he realized if he was telling the truth, he didn’t love everyone.
So what do you do with that one? Guess I’ll work on that one for a while, too.
Thanks for listening.
