Alone in the Wilderness
In every person’s life there are numerous turning points, events and choices that change you. Some of them change our direction, our very path through life. Some of them leave us indelibly scarred and crippled with fears and inhibitions. Some of them help define our very character. Hidden amongst the life altering events that whittle away at the soft green wood from which our characters are carved, are events of a curious nature that leave us changed yet mystified as to the nature of the change that has occurred. The true meaning or importance of these events may only be fully understood years later, if at all. Each one does, however, make an indelible cut in the process of carving out our personalities.
One such event happened to me in the summer of my eighteenth year as I was asked to serve as guide on a hiking trip into the Desolation Valley wilderness area in the northern Sierra Nevada range. The scout troop was in the care of very green young scoutmaster. I, while technically an adult, assumed no responsibility for their behavior or even their safety other than to see that they did not get lost along the way. My familiarity with the trails was all that I proffered and when that expertise was not needed, I was a free agent and endeavored to remain scarce except for an appearance at mealtimes.
The first day of hiking was as typical as they come for a scout hike. We had said our goodbyes to those parents who had unloaded us at Loon Lake and had started at a fair pace in the direction of our first goal, Spider Lake, where we would eat our lunch. After the first mile the usual complaining and whining began, but we made good time to the lake, rested, and sampled our first trail meal of the trip. Anything tastes great after four miles of hiking. We camped at Rubicon Reservoir for the night where we would soon discover that a folding saw, vital to the remainder of our trip, had been left at Spider Lake. With the exhausted young scoutmaster collapsed in his tent and the young scouts, recently nigh unto death on the trail, now scattered through the forest with a new found energy that could power the whole of Las Vegas on a hot summer night, it became apparent that I would have to retrieve the saw myself.
I could have little anticipated the life altering experience that I had embarked on as I set off alone for the ten mile round trip between the two lakes. As I walked alone and away from the incessant din of the young boys, I became aware of every sound and sensation of the forest; the wind in the trees, the rush of the river, the smell of pine and vanilla from the bark of the Ponderosa Pines, and every chirping bird and scampering forest critter. I felt myself becoming an integral part of the forest, the world, and the universe itself. I belonged here; I was at home here, and I was at peace here. Something, inside me had changed.
I have spent a lifetime pondering that moment and exactly what it meant to my life. My love of nature, the mountains, and hiking were certainly cemented in that moment. But, I think that was the moment that I realized that I had a reason for being and a need to investigate what that reason might be. Many of my life’s intellectual pursuits are rooted in the changes of that moment. I feel certain that my spiritual journey through life was also permanently altered in that moment and much of who I am because of it.