This year, I’ll be living and working eight days at a time high up Mount Columbia in the Sawatch Range of Colorado. It’ll be my first trail season working exclusively in one place. I’m excited about this aspect of the season because it is rare to have the opportunity to get to know one specific mountain, or area, so intimately.
Like our minds, landscapes are intricate machines. They are complex and can change, get sick, heal, be desperate, fierce. They take a while to get to know. A person does not just plop down in the middle of a vast wilderness, look around, and know the lay of the land or understand its tendencies. It takes some investigating, traversing, some getting lost. A person has the ability to let their surroundings in, but this means more than simply appreciating and admiring them. There’s a committal element to it, like the point in a relationship where a person decides (consciously or subconsciously) to fully let their guard down. It means submitting a bit to nature and becoming vulnerable.
It seems to go against the human instinct to fully embrace the inhospitable realms of nature, especially those like the cold snowy peaks of the high Rockies. Not just anyone will find themselves attempting to. It takes a person with a preexisting fascination with the non-human world and a repressed desire to shed oneself of their civilities. Through seeking this sort of isolation, assimilation of sorts can take place, letting something strange and new move in as our civilities are subsequently jettisoned. Imagine having all preoccupation with the hubbub of everyday life dissipate like one enormous exhale. When immersed in these landscapes for extended periods of time (not just a day-hike or weekend romp) the elements of our civil lives become increasingly irrelevant. The concepts of time, space, and life, in general, become more like that of an animal’s. Achieving a quiet, simpler plane of thought happens naturally.
I’ll be living in my tent up at treeline overlooking the last climb with Columbia’s peak to one side and the jagged continental divide on the other. I had to shovel out a big rectangle in the 2-3 foot deep snow for it. It overlooks the still snow swamped Horn Fork Basin. I built a crude, goofy snowman to keep me company for a while. I’m excited to be calling this place home this season. My new neighbors, the marmots and grey jays, appear to be skeptical of my arrival in their neighborhood, but I’m sure we’ll get along in time.
