My Wilderness Roots

The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.

John Muir

Discovery.

We step out onto a green, dew-kissed trailhead beneath the soft glow of the rising summer sun. Snow-capped, Cascade peaks rise up in the distance like beacons ready to guide me through my second real backpacking trip. Anticipation and anxiety flutter beneath my ribcage in time with each footfall. One of my companions turns to me with a smile and says, “At the end of this week, you’ll either be sure you never want to do this again or already planning the next trip before we get back to the car.”

With everything I will need to survive the next 5 days strapped securely to my back, I wonder which certainty will settle over me by journey’s end.

Hiking out 5 days later, I am indeed sure.

Sunburn upon sunburn with face cracked from the heat of it. Peppered with constellations of mosquito bites. Searching in equal measure for shade from the intensely burning sun and wind to fend off the relentless swarms of hatching insects. Sore to my very bones. Sweat gluing layers of dust and bugs and grime to my skin. Desperately craving a shower and a hamburger.

And totally, completely, irrevocably obsessed.

There’s something so very primal about being here, present, surrounded by nothing and everything. I scale mountain peaks to perch upon rock faces, marveling in every direction. I fall asleep with the stars and moon as my night light through the tarpless roof of my tent. I stand naked and bathing beside the shore of a frozen lake with only the snowy green peaks and distant mountain goats as my witness. I lose track of time and find myself. I explore trails and scale granite scrambles and learn to find my own path through snow and tree and rocky slope.

It is nothing short of spiritual.

And yes, as I descend from Robin Lake to the car waiting at the foot of the Cascade Mountains, I am already planning the next trip in my mind, and the next and the next. Here, my thru-hiking dream is born.

The world at my fingertips, my life on my back, adventure beckoning me ever forward around the next trail bend. This is my happy place. My temple. The place where my soul sings.

Roots.

Hiking was an acquired taste for me.

Growing up, I loved tromping through the woods of Tenino with my cousin, catching frogs and building stick forts, but the trail didn’t call to me until much later. Every Christmas, my father (who has been hiking since his own adolescence) would slip a piece of adventure gear into my stocking, tossing a line into the waters of my hopeful curiosity. A pocket knife, a day pack weighing less than 3 ounces, a water filter, a pair of gloves… but he never forced the hobby on me. Only always an occasional, subtle invitation.

I finally discovered a quiet joy in casual trail walking during my undergraduate years, wandering the paths around the monastery grounds of my Catholic university. There was a peace there, threaded into the fabric of the dirt-blanketed path, the forested canopy, the spongy moss, the feathered tendrils of fern gently caressing my legs as I passed among and between them. I often ventured into these woods to think, to create, to write, to make new, fresh sense of my world.

In veterinary school, I again sought the solace of the trail, now as a refuge from the rigors of my curriculum, a place free from demands, from pressures, a salve for the daily anxieties of the under-slept, over-anxious veterinary student.

In the summer after my first year of vet school, my father invited me to backpack with him and his usual hiking buddy; this time, I agreed. It was still shoulder season in the Cascades, and snow clung to everything. I recall being cold, frightened, exhilarated, longing for a hot shower and a greasy hamburger. I didn’t backpack again for a full few years, not ready to again face the discomfort and unknown. But I thought often of the silent power of that faraway place, a pull from deep in my core that I couldn’t quite shake.

When the soles of my hiking boots next felt the soft, beckoning embrace of PNW trail, I felt like I was being welcomed back into the arms of a long lost lover. I fell deeply, passionately in love, more with every footfall. They told me I’d know, and I really, finally did.

Spirituality.

The Wild places smooth out my edges.

Exactly one year later, in the forested Quinault valley, I am covered in jungle juice. My right thigh and hand burn from an ill-fated pee spot amidst half hidden stinging needles. My knees ache from the miles walked. The clouds drizzle me with rain at intervals.

Yet still, I am here, present, comfortably uncomfortable.

Birds and waterfalls echo their songs through the valley. This communion with nature, this return to my primal humanity, this basking in my every sense and sensation as I survive in the wilderness… there’s no place I’d rather be in this moment.

The wilds are my cathedral. The world around me remains indifferent, immortal, imbibed with its own flowing spirituality.

This place simply is. Simply exists. Simply does as it has always done and will always do. The elk herd on a distant ledge across the valley munches contentedly on mountain grasses. The birds sing. The leaves sway. The clouds come and go, shape shifting as wind currents carry them across the sky.

Here, my tribulations remain rooted in survival and existence as a part of the Wild. And there’s something so deeply right about that.

I rejoice to be here. Coming out here feels somehow like coming home.

Healing.

I have been in battle these past few years waging war on an invisible, pervasive enemy. This depression creeping out from unknown lands deep within me, leaving craters in my sense of self, coming and going on a whim.

I lost a part of myself, and I have been trying to find it for a long time. Not knowing where I ran off to or how to ever find myself again. I got lost, went away somewhere far and important, waiting patiently for the rest of me to catch up.

Every time I leave the gardens of the “civilized” world and wander to the Wild places, I hear my self calling out through the trees and the mountains and the bubbling streams. Like I’ve been here all along waiting to be found, but I’ve only just begun to recognize the sound of my own soul echoing through everything around me.

Many people wander to the Wild to escape, to run away. There was a time where I wondered, was asked, what I might be running away from.

I think about it now and realize maybe I haven’t been running away at all. Maybe I’ve been running toward that long lost part of me.

Magnetically drawing me home.

Back to my joy in the midst of struggle, Back to my strength to accept and overcome, Back to my primal human will to survive. Back, again and again, to the classroom of the Wild.

The trees have taught me endurance in the face of adversity. The mountains have taught me raw, untamable strength. The skies have taught me appreciation for transience and readiness for change. The ground beneath my feet has taught me to anchor myself in the glory of the present, even as I reflect on what’s behind and anticipate what lies ahead. That long-lost part of me finally reuniting has taught me my own infinite power to overcome.

Depression seems small in the face of these lessons, this glorious classroom, this strength within me that grows and grows like the roots of the oldest trees. Surviving in the Wild with only what I carry on my back and in my soul has taught me that I am capable of anything.

And I can’t imagine anything more powerful.

Ode to Wild Places.

The Wild is vast and intimate

Spiritual and unyielding.

It flows to deep, distant waters

Roots deep into earthy soil

Branches high toward the light of the sun.

It is silence and solitude

Communion with the trees.

It is the indifference of the mountain

And the soft embrace of mossy earth.

Always there

Always humming and overflowing inside of me

Singing through my veins

Nestling safe within my soul.

It is courage and curiosity

An irresistible call to adventure

Waiting, beckoning.

It is ribbons of dusty trail yet to be explored.

It is meditation, minimalism

Mindful existence in this moment.

It is happiness, contentment

Everything love should be.

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.

Eleonora Duse

What does the wilderness mean to you? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments section below.