We spent the last two weekends walking in the Zaleski State Forest backcountry while carrying everything that we thought we would need on our backs. It has been a long time since we did this, so long ago that Will was small enough to be carried in a pack, not yet able even to walk. I remember we plopped him down at intervals so he could crawl around in the dirt. This time he has (mostly) mastered walking and carrying his own pack, however, he still doesn't mind a good crawl through the dirt, but what can I expect?
It would be easy to post nice pictures and say we experienced blissful days communing with each other among the wonders of the nature. There would be some truth to it too but I would be hiding the challenges. For one, I am ambitious when it comes to miles and even though I thought I had tempered my expectations, our (my?) plans exceeded the comfort zone of the party. The youngest, and most inexperienced among us, suffered from his own expectations as well. He did not know his own abilities and was uncomfortable and insecure in unfamiliar terrain from which there was no easy escape, especially when the going got really tough. And some of his fears were realized. There were long hills, snakes, stickery bush-wacking and fallen tree climbing, insufficient trail mix rations, still more miles, and he did finally get stung by one of the many bees he hysterically tried to dodge. As I dug deep through my own insecurities, I asked myself, "He is eleven, is this too much?"
What I find he suffers from the most, which I truly understand, is not the fear of things he can conceive, but rather, the things that he can't. The big unknown. Over the course of both weekends we hiked some good miles (18 and 10* respectively) and on multiple occasions we hiked the same sections of trail. Will often noted that the familiar trail was profoundly more agreeable. Why? "Because I know what I'm in for. I know what's coming up ahead." Ah, yes, there is that... so why are we even here (he asks repeatedly)? Is it not because the mystery holds in its store some of the greatest rewards?
This boy is a smart cookie, with an almost encyclopaedic recall of not only all kinds of facts, but also odd witticisms and other bits of gathered wisdom, the sort of stuff otherwise uncommonly quoted by boys his age, maybe boys of any age for that matter. On several occasions he recited one I've heard many times from my mother: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," which brought to mind some recently-read insight from Yvon Chouinard, courtesy of my good friend at The Hammock Papers: "Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person."
A short list of that which did not kill us (in order as the occur to me):
- "A chipmunk running across my feet"
- "A salamander (red-spotted newt) walking into my hand"
- Bear scat (but no actual bear sightings, though another hiker camped close by claims one snooped around his campsite**)
- Watching stars twinkle through the tree canopy overhead from our cozy hammocks
- Reading new books by the light of headlamp
- Coyote chorus echoing in new moon darkness
- Golden light shining sideways through the trees at sunrise
- Swarms of gnats
- Bees and their stings
- Snakes
- four-leaf clovers (2, which brings the spring/summer count to 8)
- Lack of sufficient trail mix rations...
- ... supplemented by surprise blackberry snacking
- Lava-hot corn dumplings in spicy tomato-vegetable stew (not quite murderous but can cause some wicked blistering on the roof of one's mouth)
- Campfire
- Rain -- the patter of drops on a secure shelter overhead
- Hum of cicadas rising in rounds from encircling hillside trees
- Lllooonnnggg hills (oh, we have some muscles now)
- More miles
- "I can"
- Fear
*"500 mile summer" mileage update: Let's just say I might have to extend my deadline ... Trail miles from both weekends total 28 plus 3.5 badshoeankleblisteringmiles of derecho-felled tree climbing at the Denison University Bio-Reserve (also pictured above) and 2.5 miles of running with my new partner brings my current total to 63. I have some ambitious plans coming up but even if those succeed, I'm running out of weeks. We'll see!
**And for any would-be bear naysayers, some video from nearby Lake Hope. Check out :41, 1:14 and 2:57 (pretty sure it's a bear and not a loch-ness sasquatch)
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