Sara Knight - 5/26/09
I bet I was dreaming about a bed…or a steak. Either one would have been glorious. But when my alarm went off at 5:15 a.m., whatever luxury I was subconsciously indulging in evaporated in the cold, dry mountain air of the Colorado wilderness and I woke up to my seventeenth day on the trail. This morning was a relief though. It was the first time since day one that I hadn’t started out even a little homesick. This trip was the longest I had ever been away from home without contact of some sort, and I was definitely feeling the thousand miles or so that stretched between my familiar back yard in Hallsville, Texas and me, camping in or very near the San Isabel national Forest near Leadville Colorado. I had set out on this 22-day Outward Bound adventure two and a half weeks earlier with a fiftyish-pound pack, ten complete strangers, and no idea what I was doing. All I knew when I started the trip was that I wanted to leave East Texas. For a whole year after high-school I had been trying to figure out how to get away. Because I didn’t have a plan or a destination when I graduated, I ended up going to a junior college close to home. I was okay there, but not content. I just knew in the back of my head, in my heart, that I didn’t belong there. Something was missing. And now, once I had finally managed to leave Texas, even if just for a little while, I found myself missing how familiar it felt, the same view out my window each morning, the ducks that motored around the nearby pond all day, the thick, syrupy-sweet smell of honeysuckle on the morning dew. Here in Colorado, it had taken me more than two weeks to finally adjust to life on the trail, a new scene every day, different animals and smells. I had come out here for an adventure, an experience, a chance to learn something new outside of my, so far, very small world. And I found just that, but it cost me dearly in tears and worries. For that first part of the trip, as I lay in my sleeping bag each night, I choked back my saline fears as I thought about my parents and how now, here, I couldn’t talk to them or see how they were doing. I hope they are ok. I thought over and over again. I hope my mom made it home safe. What if she got in a wreck? What if her plane crashes on the way to pick me up next week? It would be all my fault for wanting to come out here in the first place… But that particular morning, day seventeen, was different. I awoke to the cold, smooth air that washed over my face, and I felt a slight shift. It was nothing too terribly noticeable, like the like the line between cool and lukewarm. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew it was good. I continued to lie there a few more minutes, staring up at the signature bright blue of the Outward Bound tarp, breathing in the thin, cool morning air, embracing this strange new feeling. As I listened to the heavy sounds of my three tent mates’ breathing, I thought about how nice it was to wake up early and snatch some much need time alone to think. I had really grown attached to my fellow adventurers. No matter how much you like the people you are around though, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week is a LOT of time, especially to an only child who has spent the last 19 years of her life with her own room and the chance to go home at the end of the party. This, though, was the slumber party that never ended. I cherished those few extra minutes in the morning to clear my head and prepare for the day; I needed that time or, as I had discovered earlier in the trip, I didn’t get along with anyone quite as well. That morning it seemed especially important that I not skip out. I needed to figure out what was different. My watch started beeping again. 5:20. Ok. It’s time to get a move on. I shook myself out of my reflective trance and shut my alarm off, hoping the sound hadn’t woken anyone else up. I lay there for another second or two, bracing myself for the world outside of my little cocoon. Then I began the process of putting on layers, a technique that I had found to be invaluable on those fickle Rocky Mountain mornings. Ok where are my shorts…ah-ha! Down by my feet…Man these things are looser than they were when I started this trip, even over fleece, hmmm. Ok now you have to sit up. This won’t last long but your jacket is under your head and you will be warmer if you...I’m glad these guys sleep like rocks…Ok fleece on. Now where is my hat? I have got to rein this hair in. Seventeen days without washing it and you’re still worried about what it looks like? Really Sara?...Anyway, where are those gloves?...oh yeah. In my shoes…ok gloves. Hat. Fleece…now shoes. Once that lovely little ritual was finally complete, I grabbed my headlamp and journal and slid carefully out from under the tarp hoping, yet again, that no one else would wake up. I stood up and stretched, trying to relieve my back after yet another night of the sleeping bag tango, trying to stay comfortable and warm while avoiding any rocks and roots that had strategically placed themselves under my sleeping pad. I cracked here, and popped there and finally worked all the kinks out. Then I looked around. Our camp site was slightly elevated, tucked away off the trail among the aspens and conifers native to the region. Behind us, among the vegetation, lay ancient boulders, nestled into the earth like sleeping giants. I wish I knew what kind of rock it was. I hadn’t paid attention when our instructors gave the geology lesson. Some were the size of small houses, a pale to dark grey, almost sad looking, cast off from whatever magnificent mountain they had once embraced. Drawn by my love of heights, and the prospect of greeting the morning sun’s orange juice and tangerine face from an open and uncluttered vantage point, I headed toward the largest of the boulders I could see. And as I walked I couldn’t seem to shake the sensation of something different. My body felt normal, the soreness of the first few days of hiking had subsided; I wasn’t hungry yet or thirsty; I didn’t even have any particularly strange emotions. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind though when I reached the base of the boulder. It was probably about fifty or sixty feet at its highest point and conveniently slanted downward toward our camp. The sun hadn’t made its grand entrance yet, so the boulder stood, dark and mysterious, but welcoming, as if it had a secret to share. With the help of some of the smaller, surrounding boulders, I climbed up on the back of my soon to be perch and walked up the rest of the way to its shoulders. Once I reached my destination, I set down my headlamp and journal, and still standing, scanned the landscape. The tents had vanished into the shadows and leaves of the trees behind me, and to my right grew more trees and boulders and the dim light of the struggling morning. Ahead though, and to the East, I could see the first glow of the sun reflected on the morning clouds that hung above the nearest ridge, announcing the arrival of a new day, and the warmth it would bring. Perfect. I closed my eyes and stood a moment, feet planted in the top of the boulder like a defiant tree. I inhaled the morning peacefulness through my pores, the song of the birds, the sun’s alarm, and the yawning breeze as the earth exhaled its sleep. I opened my eyes and sat down, seeing nothing but stillness in every direction, like being caught in a painting or a photograph. My eyes traced the back of the ridge as it rose to the sky, an old man struggling to stand. And there at the crest, the sun was working its way upward into the purple clouds coated in gold and pink, floating in a translucent blue sky. It wasn’t the first spectacular sunrise I had seen so far, but was the first one that said my name. As I let myself get lost for a bit in the splendor, I drifted back once more to my home in East Texas. This time though, it wasn’t with feelings of homesickness. Instead I thought about the pines and oaks, so tall they hide the sunrise until it has already pulled itself up over the horizon, and out of the warm sea of color. As I breathed the cool mountain air like a glass of water I remembered how thick and wet the air is in my back yard, like trying to breathe hot milk. I became aware of the rough, grey rock beneath my feet and hands, and how high off the ground I was, separated from the earth yet still a part of it. And then I was standing on the sand of my driveway and the hills around my home, but no matter where I went I was still planted in the ground. And with every flash of home, the mountains worked their way into my heart, becoming the place that I would miss, the place that I would dream about at night and talk about in the day. As I perched there and dissolved into the rock and sky and the thin air between I thought, this is home. This is the most at peace I think I have ever been. Twenty minutes passed like a century or a second and my alarm beeped again, dragging me back to the present and the task at hand. I stood and started my decent back down to earth, slowly so as to savor the taste of my new realization. This is home, I thought again as I made my way back toward camp. I never want to leave. I will live here one day, in the mountains. When I arrived back at camp, I lit up the two Whisperlite stoves and filled the pots with water to boil. Then I dug through the food bags for the hot chocolate and tea before going over to the two, snoring tarps and gently letting everyone know that it was time to get up. And all the while I smiled, inside and out, because I finally knew what was different. The next few days of the trip, moving from point A to point B slid by like a dream. Each morning that I woke up in a new place on a new root or rock, I smiled because I knew I was home. I soaked up every scene, making every mountain and stream and tree and flower a part of me. I didn’t dream about beds or steaks anymore either. I slept soundly each night, embracing the earth and the land where I knew I would live one day.
