Walk On

We've spent the day burrowing into a snowbank, four little rabbit warrens against the bulk of Mount Hood. We piled up the snow all day, tamping it down with our snowshoes, with ourselves--flinging our whole bodies on top of the mounds to compress and sinter the snow. We dug into our mounds, excavating the snow inside and piling it on top, then built shelves along the sides and covered those in fir boughs.  We have little shelves for our candles, air holes, a wall to block the entrance from wind, the works. We have only one casualty--a broken shovel. I hang up my snow-encrusted wool poncho to block the door entrance. Testing out our little hidey hole in the afternoon, still warm from the exertion of construction, it seems stable enough, and almost cozy. My partner crawls inside and disappears for twenty minutes, recovering from the expenditure of building the thing.

As the temperature drops and snow-sleet falls into the grey-lit gloom in a smacking sound, the men make a last minute rush for firewood. I fan the infant flames in desperation with a pot lid, wet smoke burning my eyes, my nose, my lungs. I've taken off my gloves--they are wet--and this is a mistake. The pot lid is icy metal and I am soon blazing hot, sweating, and icy cold, some body parts in various states of frozen decay.

Fire crackles, burning a hole deep into the snow. Grey digs a deep channel through the snow to aid in oxygen flow. The group gathers round, later, once we've established those flames, shoving our faces full of chili, bread, tea.  Grey asks us if the chili is good--nobody answers him. Our mouths are too full. We thaw out the various bits and bobs of our flesh and our clothes. After declaring that I'm going to burn my gloves as I hang them up to dry, I do, indeed, melt a hole in one finger of my liners. Intentions, See. Intentions.

Photo taken by Reverend Blue Sky of the inside of his shelter.

With the shelter as built as it's going to get, with the food gone, wearing almost every layer I've brought, mittens roasting like marshmallows on the ends of my ski-poles, I relax. In the frenzy, the rush to complete a safe snow cave before nightfall, I have been fully present. All day. I realize this now, only in retrospect, only as I type these words while sipping on a glass of red from Barefoot.

I sink, I sink into a reverie. My mind is far away from the red ocher fire, from the soft snowfall, from the moon-lit glow of cloudy dark. My mind is in the front country, back in civilization, focused on the the people I have left behind. Conversations left unfinished that can, paradoxically, never be finished. A life path that I turned away from, the uncertain future that faces me now, the pain and grief that I have brought to others in choosing to become myself. Regret tinged with determination, mixed with hope, salted with loss--all of this and more occupies my mind.

I tell Cameron that I've wasted my twenties. Wasted, in pursuit of choices that served my ego, though I can't phrase it so clearly at the time. He counters that I wouldn't be where I am right now, experiencing this fire, this group, without those choices. This does not mollify me, at the time. I brood. A whole world of beauty in the night, and I brood. I see nothing.

And then I crawl into my cave next to Kellen--we've built a two-person structure--and sleep in fits and starts, plagued by drips of water and dreams, sore hips against the inadequate boughs and too-thin foam pad I brought. I'm warm enough, but not comfortable.

When I wake for real, it's light out. I've slept until 7:30 AM, a real feat for me. Kellen and I extract ourselves and begin to problem solve our most urgent needs. I poke Grey, still ensconced in his bear cave, and tell him we're walking back to the van together, half a mile with an empty sled to get firewood and warm up. Grey says he'll meet us there. 

In the rush of the next couple of hours, I'm caught up in the urgency of packing up camp prematurely. We're coming back early--health and safety overrides our desire to gut it out another night. Grey packs up the sled like it's some kind of magical anti-gravity device, piles of back-packs and pots and coats in haphazard fashion, and it promptly spills out its guts all over the snow. I re-pack it, wrapping everything in a green tarp and colorful bungee cords. As we walk back to the van, Grey and I split the sled pulling. I go the last quarter mile, wearing far too many layers, trudging in my snowshoes, sweating and knowing that I don't need to worry about sweating--I will be in the van soon, back in civilization, not sleeping in a snow cave where sweat now can be deadly later. Every so often the sled tips over. It still isn't balanced properly, but at least the tarp keeps the gear together. The men walk behind me, propping it upright when it spills. I am determined to make it to the parking lot--me and the sled. We don't need help. I remember something I heard in reference to a weeks-long backpacking course: "It's just walking." I can't see the van, but I can keep walking. I know that it's up ahead.

A lifetime later, I pull into my parking spot at the place where I'm staying, exhausted. Sore. My clothes are dry, my feet are warm, but my sleeping bag--stuffed into a tiny compression sack in the backseat--is wet. And I wonder how a second night would have gone. And I'm overcome, thinking about our 24 hours in the snow. My body is back in civilization, but my mind is on the mountain, surrounded by my class, digging with urgency in the snow.

If I could laugh right now, I would laugh. It's almost comical--I'm there, thinking about here, I'm here, thinking about there. I put my head down on the steering wheel, turn off the car, squeeze out some tears. I rest, hunched over in the driver's seat, avoiding going inside. I don't want to unpack. I'm not ready for the experience to end--though it already ended, hours ago, when we arrived back at Trackers and unpacked the van.

I have a vision of myself in a long canoe, going downstream. I am at the head, paddling. The water is wide, deep, clear. A forest rushes by on both sides. It's a classically beautiful nature scene. But I cannot see where I am going--I cannot shift the vision to look out from my own eyes, I can see this picture only from the side. The canoe, in profile, the trees, the ribbon of water. No sense of where the river is flowing to, what lies ahead.

I'm told that I have to keep paddling. I can keep walking. 

Photo taken by Grey at Frog Lake on Mt Hood. Grey Jay eating bread.