"Once more I am roaring drunk with the lust of life and adventure and unbearable beauty."
-Everett Ruess
Tomorrow I leave for FreezeFeet, a gathering of canyoneers in North Wash, Utah. When Jason and I were saying goodbye this summer, he was like, "It's just four months. It will go by quickly." That was definitely not the case!
I am seriously questioning my sanity at this point, because it is going to be COLD. Like, in the single digits at night. I am thankful for my friend Ray, who lent me his military sleeping gear. I am also worried about my Phoenician friends!
Anyway, I am SO ready to get back in the canyons. I'm going to rock Middle Leprechaun on this trip, the canyon that has 1.5 miles of sustained stemming. And you know what else is cool? I'm always down on myself, thinking that I'm not a real canyoneer, that I'm not a real runner. But some of the people joining us at Freezefest are people who have never done Utah canyons before. And Utah slot canyons are totally different from Arizona canyons. By the end of my summer trip, I was becoming more adept at using friction and my whole body and was rocking some of those downclimbs. So I'll actually have a slight advantage over some of the other canyoneers! I just hope I remember everything I learned. And I'm sure I'll still freak out just as much as ever! That's just me; I can't help it.
I am once more pondering Everett Ruess as I get ready for this trip. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Ruess). I read the book "Finding Everett Ruess" on my trip this summer. He lived in California in the early 1900's. Every summer he would buy a few burros and set out into the wilderness. At first he did Yosemite and the Sierra Nevadas, but that was too tame for him. He discovered the wild desert and fell in love. He was an artist and traveled to discover beautiful things. (I would love to have some of his artwork for my apartment!) He's been dubbed "a vagabond for beauty." He kept diaries and wrote letters, and his writings really resonate with me. I think we would've been BFF's. One of the best parts about reading this book was that the places he loved are the same places I love. For example, the town and canyons of Escalante are central to his story, and most people don't even know where Escalante is. We've hiked the same trails, seen the same things. When I read his descriptions, I think "Yes, that's exactly how it is!"
Everett never came home from the last trip he made into the desert when he was 20 years old. What's interesting is that his disappearance is still a mystery; his body has never been found. A few years ago, a Navajo man found a body, and it was thought to be Everett's. (The circumstances surrounding this story are fascinating.) However, that was proved to be untrue, so no one knows what happened to him.
There are so many quotes of his that I love.
This first quote has been on my mind a lot lately. This is exactly how I feel.
“I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a lone wanderer of the wilderness. God, how the trail lures me. You cannot comprehend its resistless fascination for me. After all, the lone trail is best…I’ll never stop wandering."
Living more intensely and richly? Yes.
"I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?"
Not once this summer did I feel lonely. While I loved my time with Kristin and Jason, I loved the solitude, too.
"There is a splendid freedom in solitude, and after all, it is for solitude that I go to the mountains and deserts, not for companionship. In solitude I can bare my soul to the mountains unabashed. I can work or think, act or recline at my whim, and nothing stands between me and the Wild."
“I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.”
Nice general quote about the beauty of wilderness:
"I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrand life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading to the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty...."
Here is a picture of him taken by the great Dorothea Lange. I will be thinking of Everett as I look for beauty in the desert this week.
-Everett Ruess
Tomorrow I leave for FreezeFeet, a gathering of canyoneers in North Wash, Utah. When Jason and I were saying goodbye this summer, he was like, "It's just four months. It will go by quickly." That was definitely not the case!
I am seriously questioning my sanity at this point, because it is going to be COLD. Like, in the single digits at night. I am thankful for my friend Ray, who lent me his military sleeping gear. I am also worried about my Phoenician friends!
Anyway, I am SO ready to get back in the canyons. I'm going to rock Middle Leprechaun on this trip, the canyon that has 1.5 miles of sustained stemming. And you know what else is cool? I'm always down on myself, thinking that I'm not a real canyoneer, that I'm not a real runner. But some of the people joining us at Freezefest are people who have never done Utah canyons before. And Utah slot canyons are totally different from Arizona canyons. By the end of my summer trip, I was becoming more adept at using friction and my whole body and was rocking some of those downclimbs. So I'll actually have a slight advantage over some of the other canyoneers! I just hope I remember everything I learned. And I'm sure I'll still freak out just as much as ever! That's just me; I can't help it.
I am once more pondering Everett Ruess as I get ready for this trip. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Ruess). I read the book "Finding Everett Ruess" on my trip this summer. He lived in California in the early 1900's. Every summer he would buy a few burros and set out into the wilderness. At first he did Yosemite and the Sierra Nevadas, but that was too tame for him. He discovered the wild desert and fell in love. He was an artist and traveled to discover beautiful things. (I would love to have some of his artwork for my apartment!) He's been dubbed "a vagabond for beauty." He kept diaries and wrote letters, and his writings really resonate with me. I think we would've been BFF's. One of the best parts about reading this book was that the places he loved are the same places I love. For example, the town and canyons of Escalante are central to his story, and most people don't even know where Escalante is. We've hiked the same trails, seen the same things. When I read his descriptions, I think "Yes, that's exactly how it is!"
Everett never came home from the last trip he made into the desert when he was 20 years old. What's interesting is that his disappearance is still a mystery; his body has never been found. A few years ago, a Navajo man found a body, and it was thought to be Everett's. (The circumstances surrounding this story are fascinating.) However, that was proved to be untrue, so no one knows what happened to him.
There are so many quotes of his that I love.
This first quote has been on my mind a lot lately. This is exactly how I feel.
“I have been thinking more and more that I shall always be a lone wanderer of the wilderness. God, how the trail lures me. You cannot comprehend its resistless fascination for me. After all, the lone trail is best…I’ll never stop wandering."
Living more intensely and richly? Yes.
"I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?"
Not once this summer did I feel lonely. While I loved my time with Kristin and Jason, I loved the solitude, too.
"There is a splendid freedom in solitude, and after all, it is for solitude that I go to the mountains and deserts, not for companionship. In solitude I can bare my soul to the mountains unabashed. I can work or think, act or recline at my whim, and nothing stands between me and the Wild."
“I am always being overwhelmed. I require it to sustain life.”
Nice general quote about the beauty of wilderness:
"I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrand life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading to the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me? It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty...."
Here is a picture of him taken by the great Dorothea Lange. I will be thinking of Everett as I look for beauty in the desert this week.
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