November 2023- Beaver Moon

November 14th: "What are you going to do with this wild and precious life?" - Christi Cook, quoting Mary Oliver, who we met at the Lee's Ferry Campground in Arizona.

I am trying to relax my mind as we lay inside our tent, but we are 20 miles from anyone, in a cold, dark slot canyon. I wouldn't say I'm a catastrophist, but today especially I am trying so hard not to think about all the things that could go wrong. What if there is a rock slide and we aren't camping far enough away from the canyon wall? What if those mountain lion tracks we think we saw that looked old were actually fresh? What if those mice come back and get into our food bag tonight? What if there is an unexpected rainstorm that wasn't in the forecast? What if one of us get really stuck in the quicksand tomorrow or sprains an ankle or my phone that is our satellite lifeline dies or I drop it or we come across someone else that really needs our help?

My mind has been racing like this all day, and I have been trying to stay calm and remind myself that none of this has happened yet. To breathe. Take in the incredible views. To remember that we are prepared and not doing anything out of protocol or that is too risky.

We are currently halfway through a 40 mile hike through the Paria Canyon that starts in Utah and will end in Arizona at Lee's Ferry Campground where our car is parked. We've been hiking for two days and today we have only seen a few birds, a gigantic deer, a mouse interested in our food canister and each other. The hike is through a silt-filled river that sometimes is ankle-deep, but if we aren't careful it can be deeper in the quicksand patches that we try desperately to avoid. We have a system for crossing the river where one of us goes first and announces on a scale of 1-5 how deep it is.

We have successfully found a running spring today where we collect and filter water into our empty bottles. And we haven't eaten even half of the gorp mix we brought and it has already lost my interest. And today Mark and I successfully used our wag bags since the canyon is a strict pack in/pack out area, even when it comes to human waste.

I told Mark that this is the hardest hike I've ever done. Not because it's physically strenuous (the hardest physical feat is our freezing cold toes in the neoprene socks each morning as we start the hike again through the river), but this is a mentally strenuous four day adventure. We've done other backpacking trips, but none like this. You're walking with mostly no trail visible since it's following the course of the river through the canyon, walking from bank to bank or sometimes straight through when the banks disappear. There is no one else here except each other. I feel claustrophobic in a way I've never felt while outside. With the small sliver of sky we see, we've only been in direct sunlight for a total of about an hour today. Yesterday Yermo, our shuttle driver who drove us from our car to the trailhead, casually mentioned how many people had died that spring + summer when conditions were wary. But conditions are fine for us (no heat stroke or flash flood warnings). The worst weather hazard was the cold 17'F the first morning we started. Our shoelaces froze as we started the trail, ice floating down the Paria as we started stepping across. And yet I keep thinking about what supplies we have just in case we end up in an emergency.

Each night it gets cold by 6 pm when the sun goes down and we're ready for our cocoon tent. Before falling asleep each night, bundled up like little caterpillars in our sleeping bags, we read. For comfort, I started re-reading, "Why We Swim" by Bonnie Tsui. It's a book I first read back in 2020 that inspired me to join the USF Masters swim team. Bonnie takes you all over the world sharing epic stories of swimmers, but I especially enjoy the story of Kim Chambers who lives in San Francisco. After a horrific life-threatening accident Kim uses swimming as physical therapy and quickly excels to become a record breaking open water swimmer. Bonnie and Kim become good friends, and Kim takes her out swimming in the bay, pushing her to new heights. After swimming from Alcatraz to SF, Bonnie says,

"The sea is a deep, alien place. There's an energy to it, an element of danger that requires a giving over of the self, that makes swimming in heavy water a kind of sacrament, it is a suitable environment to engage with the deep strangeness of the human mind and its fears. Our feet are taken out from underneath us; there are moments of terror. Safety is restored when we set food on land again in San Francisco. Though I shiver upon emerging with the accomplishment comes a powerful sense of hale and hard vigor, of physical fortitude. And gratitude, quite simply that I get to feel this at all."

This passage gives my fearful mind so much comfort. If Bonnie felt the terror, then so could I. The terror of experiencing our beautiful, natural environments in this way challenges us but also helps us grow. Wasn't that what this whole adventure Mark and I are on is about? We left our home, our friends, our jobs, our comfort to go see new places. To put ourselves in new environments to explore "the deep strangeness" of our minds when those comforts are taken away, and feel the vigor of accomplishing new feats.

The night before we started the Paria Canyon, we met Thomas and Christi at the Lee's Ferry Campground. It's become a fascinating routine, the campground greeting. You don't want to say too much, but some get so excited to hear that this is our honeymoon, and no, we don't know exactly how long we'll be on the road, and no, we don't know exactly where we'll end up, and yes, that is our little tent over there. Thomas and Christi were particularly charming during the campground greeting and then went above and beyond that evening inviting us over for dinner in their RV. Christi's Louisiana accent came out strong when she said, "You need a hot meal before that long journey of yours" after she learned about our plans to backpack and the cold sandwiches we were planning to eat for dinner.

We sat around their bonfire eating deliciously hot pot roast, potatoes, and peas, warming our toes and hearing about their RV journey, seeing photos of Christi's grandkids, and eating cookies Thomas was all too excited about. After sharing more about our plans, thanking them profusely and packing up to get a good nights sleep, Christi said, "Well, what are you going to do with this wild and precious life? You have to make the most of it."

And that Mary Oliver quote stayed with me on the trail. It ran through my head on our umpteenth river crossing, and when I sat in the only patch of sunlight on the bank. Mark and I said it back and forth to each other, and even yelled it into the canyon. This world is filled with so many precious things that beautifully kind people will continue to remind me to see and take advantage of on this wild year we're having.

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life

November 27th: Big Bend National Park, Texas

It is quite cold, but I peak my head out of the tent to look up at that huge full moon shining down on us and I smile.

So far this full moon:

• We've been to Baja, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

• We've successfully completed two backpacking trips. and have a third one on deck.

• By the end of November, we'll have spent 14 nights in our tent, 7 nights backpacking, have completed 95 miles backpacking and 140 total miles on the trail.

• The best thing Mark ate was a breakfast burrito from El Chile Toreado in Santa Fe (so good he ate it twice).

• The best thing Abigail ate was the blue corn donut from Whoo's Donuts in Santa Fe.

• Mark does not ever need to go back to Sedona, AZ or Marfa, TX.

• Jourdan and Blair's home in Santa Fe was the respite we needed, and their dog Ruby is a delight.

• From the list of creatures/plants that Ezra and Max made for us to cross off we've seen a tarantula, a Saguaro cactus, and a bear (no coyotes, wolves or scorpions yet!)