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Accomodation, adventure, Adventure Tourism, Creation, Edward Abbey, Henry David Thoreau, hiking, John Muir, Lessons from the Wilderness, National Parks, Nature, Outdoor Adventures, Outfitting, River, Silence, Uncategorized, White Water Paddling, wilderness, Wilderness Paddling, wisdom

The ‘Unhurried Grace’ of the Wilderness

This Side of the River

The Walton brothers are back and rested from their rafting trip down the Colorado River, full of stories, memories, and the gratification one gets from completing a once-in-a-lifetime wilderness adventure.  Over eleven days, they rafted 192 miles, bucking through 66 rapids, 28 of which were level IV or V (i.e., significantly formidable).  Since the Colorado is open to paddlers only by permit, almost everyone on the river is with a professional outfitting group. This is good because the rapids and cold water (around 50 degrees) are dangerous even when you know what you are doing.

So the brothers joined 12 other trippers at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, as well as 4 guides and 4 support staff from O.A.R.S. outfitters. They spent time at the start in orientation: man-overboard drills, helmet rules, and “groover” instructions (a groover is a backcountry toilet for solid waste, because we all know that everything we eat must come out, and that on the Colorado, everything solid that comes out must be packed out).  At 4:00 a.m. the next day, they set off down the Bright Angel trail from the rim of the Grand Canyon hiking down (with a capital D), nearly 10 miles to Phantom Ranch and the Colorado River. They began in a frosty, pitch dark with headlamps, and 3 water bottles apiece. By the time they reached the bottom it was 95 degrees and they were footsore, more than ready to on the river. The rafts were awaiting them in the cool brown Colorado, 4 for the 16 trippers and 4 guides, and support staff with other rafts with supplies like food, drink, gear, and groover. The group all agreed that this was the most physically-challenging day of the trip, and that hiking 10 miles downhill makes everything hurt: back, hips, knees, and, most especially, toes.

When you trip with an outfitter, you have to learn that you are the patron, and the staff is there to serve you.

This is so unlike any trip you would plan and execute on your own; on this trip, carrying the gear, brewing the coffee at 5:30 a.m., cooking the food, cleaning up the camp kitchen, and steering the raft through dangerous rapids was all done for the trippers.  This is fun for most people, and allows them a chance to enjoy being in the wilderness without any of the obligations of planning and paddling.  But, for the two paddling Walton brothers, this was hard. They enjoy the process, and welcome hard physical challenges, where testing themselves against the beauty, danger, and mystery of the wilderness is the main thrust of why they go in the first place. This is not to say they didn’t have a terrific time on the Colorado, only that they would have enjoyed a more hands-on experience.

It begs several questions that have plagued the national parks for decades. How do we get more people in touch with what the wilderness has to teach, and accommodate the novice explorer’s lack of expertise and physical fitness, while preserving the true notion of “wilderness”?  How do we make the wilderness accessible and relatable for people with disabilities?  We know that hands-on experience is a master teacher. So, if we want people to advocate for wilderness preservation, how do we help them be active participants instead of passive passengers?

The world is shrinking. The national parks are experiencing record numbers of visitors, and the wildness of the lands the government preserves is in peril when accessibility/development is at loggerheads with preservation of the virgin wilderness.

Edward Abbey, John Muir, and Henry Thoreau would decry the bulldozers ripping and gnawing at the wilderness so that the auto, RV, motor boat, and trail bike can reach far corners, in faster time, than would happen if we could only get there on foot, or with mute paddle.

What’s lost is the silent stretch of time and physical challenge that births reverence and awe in the undiminished wilds, something that industrial tourism* can never authentically afford.  For now, there’s the shallow surface beauty that national park visitors can enjoy in a quick stop-for-a-day.

The deeper, more mysterious, yet difficult to access  “unhurried grace”* of the wilderness, is won

only by those able and willing to do the hard work to get out and away from the crowds, and it is diminishing by the year.

~J.A.P. Walton

* Edward Abbey. Desert Solitaire. Chapter 4. 1968.

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adventure, Blessings, Creation, Creator, Desert, Faithful Living, God, Henri Nouwen, hiking, Lessons from the Wilderness, Nature, Outdoor Adventures, Perseverence, River, Silence, Uncategorized, wilderness, Zion National Park

Always Worth the Climb

This Side of the River

Let me tell you about a day I spent alone in Zion National Park last month.  My husband and brother-in-law set off at 7:30 a.m. to hike the Narrows, the most popular hike in the park.  The Narrows is a train of steep, high canyon walls along the Virgin River, and the only “trail” is upstream through the river itself.  The fellows wanted to hike a minimum of 6 hours upstream, then back in knee-deep water hiding infinite ankle-twisting hazards. Not wanting to go that far, nor get my feet wet (or my ankle broken a 2nd time), I opted for the more moderate 3-mile hike on the Watchman trail, followed by an hour in the museum, an afternoon nap in the shade of a giant oak at the lodge, topped off with a cappuccino from the coffee cart.  Not exactly “wilderness” but delightful nonetheless.

The Watchman is an uphill trail along a dusty, rocky path of switchbacks and ledges on the south and west sides of the east-side canyon wall.  In the early morning, when I hiked, it is gracefully shady and cool, and much less crowded with hikers (Zion N.P. has 5 million visitors per year, so it’s not a place to seek out wilderness per se).  The trail begins at the Virgin River and rises about 600 feet to a football field-sized outcrop with a 270-degree view of the park. I found myself thinking about the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) who built this trail in 1934.  CCC  Who were they? Could they conceive of the millions of people who would hike here for the next 100 years?

Toting 64 oz. of water, two granola bars, an apple, a hiking hat, my camera, and hiking poles, I set off alone, thinking of the distinctions Henri Nouwen makes between loneliness and solitude. It can feel lonely hiking alone in such a beautiful, magnificent place because there is no friend or lover to share the experience.  But, Nouwen insists that solitude does not depend on outer circumstance, rather an inner orientation of solitary rest that underpins our spiritual health.[1]   I did feel lonely at times, but it was also an inspiring, uplifting, strangely restful day in the canyon.  Besides, I made a few friends along the way.

I had silly conversations with a chatty canyon wren that was flitting gaily amongst the juniper and prickly pear.

I spent 10 minutes studying a green lizard near a wet patch of seep, and kept busy sweeping the heights with binoculars in search of peregrine falcon and California condor.  I saw mule deer with their laughably large, light-filtering, body-cooling ears.  I kept watch for the western rattlesnake.  (Since I am easily startled, I like animals and people who make noise to announce their presence).

Still, it was already pushing 80 degrees, this was an upwards hike, and because I am prone to acute altitude sickness, I had to rest often, yet keep going, albeit slowly, watching carefully where I put my feet, and leaning -sometimes too heavily- on my trusty hiking poles.  About halfway up, some people approached coming down.  And I thought I had started out early!  Then commenced the “dance” that occurs on narrow, gritty trails alongside high, dizzying ridges- no one ever wants the outside position, nor do you want to flatten your back along the canyon wall looking “craven” -as they’d say in Game of Thrones.  Onward and upward, through pinion pine, scrub oak, mosses and ferns doggedly rooted in the sandstone cracks and seeps until I was nearly level with the tree line. Here, the trail turned abruptly southward, still climbing toward a large plateau just made for walking, sitting, snacking, sunning, and thinking.  There were about 30 people already here, and more streaming in behind me, but I had the strange feeling that I had the place to myself.  That is the inner serenity that Nouwen speaks to, and that nature beckons us to immerse ourselves in.

The views are always the reward for hiking up.

True, I didn’t hike a Rocky Mountain 14er, but I was pleased with myself nonetheless.  With the binoculars, I could make out our old RV in the far parking lot, and the throngs of people at the Visitors Center.  To think this was all carved out by the Virgin River over time.

It made me wonder what God is carving out, ever so slowly in my life, and if the result is as beautiful as all this. And that unfolded another secret of solitude: it creates in us a deep, inner, carved-out space for the Spirit of God. Always worth the climb.

~J.A.P. Walton

[1]Henri J.M Nouwen.  Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life.1966.

adventure, Adventure Tourism, Bryce Canyon National Park, Camping, Creation, Creator, Desert, God, hiking, Hope, Lessons from the Wilderness, Mountains, Nature, Outdoor Adventures, Praise, River, Starry Skies, Uncategorized, Water, wisdom, Zion National Park

Thin Air, Thick Dust, Beauty All Around

This Side of the River

It is good to be home in Michigan after a 3-week spell in Arizona and Utah. Here, I can drink deep draughts of the autumnal palette of green, vermillion, orange and gold, reveling in this bounty of colors so much rarer in the western landscape.

Phoenix was particularly hot and dry where the greenish-yellow of the prickly pear and saguaro cacti stands in base-relief against the purple of distant mountains. Here, the only deep greens are on the golf course, watered with precious and dwindling flows from the Colorado River, and on the cell phone towers painted green to look like giant saguaros.

Climbing out of the desert into the high mesas to the north, the landscape changes in an instant. The cactus and sand give way to rock and bristlecone pine at the higher elevations. In appearance it seems an unforgiving landscape, but

the Hopi and Navajo have lived here for a thousand years, “thriving long in adverse conditions: poor soil, drought, temperature extremes, high winds.”*

Past the Grand Canyon and on into southern Utah, aspen join the autumn chorus, waving golden, glittering arms in gladness. Here, the weathered rock cathedrals tower, where sandstone is king, and sagebrush his queen as they reign over free-ranging cattle on a thousand hills. Here is the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, those life-giving ribbons of water, home to the pronghorn antelope, nattering prairie dog, and swift peregrine falcon. Here, too, is Zion, a river-carved fortress of sheer honeyed walls, and Bryce, with its colorful hoodoo armies blown by winds like fine glass.( Zion National Park   and Bryce Canyon National Park )

It is an entirely different kind of wilderness than what we experience in northern Michigan and southern Ontario.  Here, damp, verdant, fertile. Out west, thin air thick with dust, where the only immediately visible abundance for hundreds of miles is rock. To be sure, both are beautiful in their own ways. Both point to an imaginative Creator, who paints with a bold and vibrant palette.  Both give us the same gifts that wilderness always gives: delight in its bigness, contentedness with our own smallness, hope that life and beauty abound wherever we find ourselves, and that

nothing on this earth is godforsaken at all.

~ J.A.P. Walton

* William Least Heat Moon. Blue Highways. Chapter 2.

adventure, Affirmation, Blessings, Creation, death, Dying to Self, Faithful Living, God, Heaven, Home, Hope, Lessons from the Wilderness, Outfitting, Peace, Prayer, Serving Others, Uncategorized

Do You Have a Purple Notebook?

This Side of the River

If you had an hour to think about where you are headed, and why, what would you write down on your “outfitting” list?

We’ve begun a slow transition from the bluff back to Trout Creek, and the tall grasses and migrating birds are telltale signs that summer is nearly over. Normally at this time of year, the Walton brothers are busily outfitting for their annual fall paddle in the northern latitudes, when the hallowed and dog-eared purple notebook comes out with its years of collective wisdom- list upon list of gear, menus, and groceries that must be gathered before departure.

The brothers deeply enjoy the process of getting everything ready. As I write this, I have just put Hugh on a plane for Arizona to join 3 of his brothers for their paddle trip down the Colorado River.  He was lamenting that taking a trip with professional outfitters takes away much of the pleasure that the “doing for yourself” brings.  He was missing his purple notebook.

It is interesting to study the word outfit as a verb.  In wilderness jargon, it means to assemble the gear and necessities for an extended time away from civilization: water purification, camp stove, food, first aid kit, compass, tent, emergency distress signaling device, and the like. But it has made me think about whether or how we outfit for our everyday life. I tend to be a list maker, so it’s not a stretch to see how my adopted processes for daily tasks help me stay on course; a decades-old two-month menu cycle informs grocery shopping, and a bill-tracking database helps quickly settle accounts. Going to church every Sunday morning gives each week an anchor, adding stability and sanity into this busy life. Still, what do I DO on a regular basis to see to the proper “outfitting” of my life?  If I kept a small purple notebook of the necessities, what would it contain, and how would it keep me on a wise path? Do I enjoy the process of “getting ready” and what am I getting ready for?

When we were younger, this was easier to answer. We were saving money for a house down payment, for kids’ college, for retirement, and developing skills and talents that made us valuable in the workforce. We were learning our way through parenting, and, more recently, caring for our parents. We were studying Scripture and developing a deeper relationship with God and each other.

But what do I “outfit” for now, in retirement?  I am making new lists. They are less about preparing for the future as they are about understanding that the future is already here in the present. My own lament is in wondering how much “present” I missed all those years that were so focused on preparing for someday.  So, I find that the lists are evolving, much less focused on action and more focused on virtue.  Virtue? Yes. Character infused with godliness. It’s a high calling, and worth the study.

I believe in eternal life with God, which gives me a secure future that I didn’t fully appreciate in my younger years. A secured future gives us the freedom to take better care in and of the present.

My new set of lists is energized by prayer that God outfits me with grace, wisdom, contentment in any circumstance, and a truly benevolent heart for others.

Other things in my notebook (mine is blue) include to:

  • refrain from divisive speech
  • be the best listener in the room
  • honor my husband
  • cherish and dignify my mother’s final days
  • to appreciate creation in all its beauty and mystery
  • and to jump more readily with Isaiah’s enthusiastic response to God’s lament, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”  And, Isaiah swiftly replied, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isa 6:8)

~J.A.P. Walton

 

 

adventure, Affirmation, Creation, Creator, Faithful Living, Lessons from the Wilderness, Nature, Peace, Praise, Prayer, Silence, Uncategorized, wilderness, Wilderness Paddling, wisdom

Hush Yourself

This Side of the River

The Walton brothers leave in two days for their epic paddle on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, and as they pack and plan, I find myself wondering how Mark and Hugh will adapt to a group setting, because when it’s just the two of them, the trips are filled with long, contented, contemplative silence.  A group of 16-20 paddlers is sure to be filled with whoops and the idle yakking that an exciting adventure can bring out in boisterous, bombastic ways.

Silence and wilderness are comfortable companions.  Big, wide, primitive, and timeless spaces like the Grand Canyon almost demand our reverent silence. So much so that the human tendency toward ceaseless chatter is nearly a sacrilege. I say ‘nearly’ because there are times when a gasp or sigh just won’t do, when, in our inability to find the words to describe God’s perfect creation, we can only utter an awe-filled, praise-pregnant, “Wow.”

A few weeks ago, at a gorgeous state campground in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we were surrounded by such surreal beauty that we could hardly speak at times. Yet, there were our neighbors, blasting their base-thrumming music right up to the stroke of the start of quiet hours. Beautiful wilderness, birdsong, chipmunk chirrups, the wide river lapping the shore, thunder in the distance- all crowded out by someone’s idea of a sound so beloved that it just had to be shared with everyone.

We seem to have arrived at a cultural norm in which it is another person’s right to fill “my” personal space with any sound, at any volume they choose, and if I don’t like it, I can leave. I get to listen to their cell phone conversations, their music, and their video movies on line at the store, in waiting rooms, restaurants, and, yes, even wilderness campgrounds. They may find it entertaining. I find it immensely thoughtless- storms, earthquakes and fires of our own destructive making.  But, God told Elijah that he was not in the earthquake, wind, or fire. God was a whisper so low that Elijah had to go outside and be silent to hear it. (1Kings 19)

Where in this whole, big world can we go to find real silence-that quietness of space and soul that God can speak into with his whispers?

And why do we shun God’s silent places with noise that distracts and numbs us while overflowing into our neighbors’ lives?  I find this mindless and endless self-absorption disheartening at best, a habit-forming and careless* practice of escapism that effectively shuts God’s voice right out of our lives, and, what’s more,  intrusively does so to the people around us.

Just look to the creation! The sun rises and sets without a sound. The caterpillar curls up and noiselessly becomes a whispering butterfly, the trees mutely leaf out in a stunning welcome to spring, and the snowflake somersaults in freefall in glorious silence.

I think this is why I gravitate toward rowing, sailing, paddling, fishing, and beach walks. No, these are never silent, but the music is God-given, rarely brassy, harsh, or discordant. The rills of water against the oars, the foaming gossip of a white-capped wave spilling onto the beach, the scree of the hungry hawk, the wind like a cellist’s bow against the cedar boughs, and the laugh of the blue jay- now this is a symphony of harmonious delight, free for the listening. The wilderness preserves silence on this busy planet, which is one big reason it is important for us to be committed to the preservation of the wilderness.

The wilderness can give you the concert of a lifetime if you’ll learn to hush yourself.

Happy listening!

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~J.A.P. Walton

  • by careless, I mean that a person could care less