Everywhere Outside Can Be An Adventure

Perched on a rock overlooking the Rio Grande River in New Mexico.

Do you remember the first time you did something scary?  Something that made you think...maybe I might not live to see the light of the next day?  I bet most of you will say, sure I do and in your mind a picture of driving on the interstate or your first encounter with a bear or rattler on trail will come to mind.  Well, for me the first thing I remember that made me so scared was sitting in a tall tree at about age 10.  As the wind moved the tree back and forth with greater and greater force, I thought, eeek...how the heck am I going to get down?! 

Oh, how I love to climb up in a tree, up in a tree so high

I did get down from that tree and went on to do other scary stuff.  The standard for my idea of scary, of course, becoming ever greater as I aged.  How large were the effects of that early risk taking behaviors on my willingness to take more and greater risks throughout my life?

Given the freedom, kids will touch anything, once

If given the freedom and opportunity, all children are born explorers.  They do not know what a risk is…..everything is new, bright and shiny!  They are so close to the ground things like ants, grasshoppers, butterflies, tiny tree frogs are easy to inspect if able to be caught.  Following nature to secret places, deep in high grass or up a tree or into a creek turning over rocks, plucking that first snapping crawdad from under rocks, takes daring and courage.  Building upon a solid base of challenges to a child’s courage, walking through small injuries and learning that a burst of adrenaline is a good thing and is not going to kill you is all a part of growing up.  Well it used to be.

In hot pursuit....

In this day and age, parents must balance the possibility of injury vs. the pay off.  A child who is courageous, able to deal with stress and challenges in a positive manner and is curious often runs ahead, literally, of a parent's ability to catch him/her.  If a child doesn’t learn to deal with difficult situations and doesn't discover that they can work out either a good OR a bad solution for themselves, how then as adults will they have a basis for making good decisions? Risk taking and dealing with challenges in increasingly difficult situations builds confidence and teaches a child how to make good decisions. 

I am sitting on the edge of a cliff to take this shot in Santa Fe NF, NM

I can’t say that I make perfect decisions even now as an adult; I tend to go towards the unknown, the challenging, the risky.  Often, I fall on my butt. It usually is a lot of fun though and I learn a great lesson which empowers me to move forward. 

First view of Lake McDonald, West Glacier, MT

I’ve seen a few mountain tops, not as many as I have wanted to but still, I’ve seen them.  Paddled a few streams again not enough.  I’ve listened to animal noises in the dark, alone, on a wilderness trail and slept but haven't done this enough.  For me those early challenges, explorations into the backyard trees, woods and creeks pushed me to explore and to seek what is around the next corner.  I learned early that everywhere and everything outside can be adventure and that HAS made all the difference.

Dang, it's cold!

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost

Saying Good-by to Summer

Clements Mountain 9/14/2013

A bittersweet smile crossed my face as I stood looking at my favorite view of Clement's Mountain.  For whatever reason, I have loved this mountain from the first moment I saw it in early June.  Its regal continence stirred within my soul a wild longing...where it came from exactly, I do not know.  But this once, glacier clad mountain continues to speak to my wild heart and I acknowledge it with a kiss blown into the wind and few tears.

The side of Clements Mountain 8/2013

I came up here last Saturday thinking it would be my last time up before I move on to other adventures. I came to say goodbye, to ask it to watch over the wildness contained in this beautiful park.  To ask the Guardians who stand tall up there on the peak to keep safe the secrets I have only begun to hear and listen to.  But I was wrong.  I did come another day...yesterday and was able to enjoy the wildness of that mountain in all its glory. 

The meadow below Logan Pass looking up

It was snowing on Logan Pass on September 18, 2013.   Not a lot, not dangerously, the snow melted on the pavement as we rode up the Going to the Sun Road in the Red Jammer Bus, so I felt unafraid but wonderfully, wildly alive.  The small, wet flakes flew in a straight line with the wind into my hand.  Yet they clung 1000 feet up on the tall mountain sides which towered above me.  I was not driving so I could enjoy the cold, wetness as it hit my hands, my face.  I had them both stuck out of the Red Bus windows. 

The view out the back window of the bus

Luckily I was in the back of the bus...no one else cared. I shared the back seat with a stranger, someone I'd just met a few hours before.  The delightful surprise was that we both had our windows rolled down.  I glanced over and he was as enthralled with the weather and drive as I was.  Both of us,  like kids, were hanging out the windows and were enjoying the icy wind and fog-shrouded view of the steep mountains and valley.  I laughed to myself because everyone else was bundled in blankets.

Snow on the Gardne Wall

How great was it that a kindred soul rode in that backseat with me!  I got to enjoy the unusual beauty of the high mountains on such a day with someone who "got it".  That was an extra treat on this, my birthday.  So, the good-bye today was not just to my lovely, wonderful, wild mountains but to my 50's.  Yup it was my 60th birthday. The decade contained great discovery, adventure, health/un-health, happiness/sadness, personal and spiritual growth.  

Reflecting

I remember my 50th birthday, clearly.  I celebrated by backpacking alone out to my favorite spot in the Deem Wilderness, skinny dipping in Lake Monroe with the bridge in full view a few miles away down the lake.  I stood on that day, 10 years ago, upright in the shallow water and waved at the cars as they traveled home unaware of the naked aging yet still fit, beautiful body in the distance!  What will this next decade hold? I do not know. 

Looking back at Logan - Hawk weathering the storm

I am very excited though, if today is an indication of things to come.  How many get to celebrate on top of a 6500 ft peak in a small snow storm?  It was a fine way to say hello to new adventures and to remind me that summer lasts only for a time so live accordingly.

Fields of August Flowers at Logan Pass

The flowers bloom wildly & boldly but for a short time.  Fall comes and they grow golden with the coolness of autumn nights and sometimes the snow touches them early and they pass sooner than they expect to. Thus there is the need to live boldly and show one's true beauty and color as opportunity allows!  But some do survive to stand amidst the snow, brazenly resilient and colorful to the end.

I capture me while taking photo of friends

That will be my new expectation...to stand brazenly and colorfully and to live each day with the remembrance of September's cloudless blue skies.  I will enjoy the sun and walk up the mountain slope as far as I can for as long as I can stand upright to put one foot in front of another.  And then its going to be me and the walker clomping along.  I vow to never take things for granted but to enjoy and be amazed by the surprises around each turn in the road.  

Our shadows dance on top of Red Rock Falls in Many Glacier

So to put it in words we've all heard before and I paraphrase, I want to ...."slide into home base holding a beer glass in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other, beat up, hair askew, reading glasses slightly ajar, Leki poles bent, backpack torn and Keen sandals muddy, Yelling...WHOOO HOOOO! I did it up right!"

Sunset - Doing it up Right!