Tag: backpacking

Increasingly, “Once in a Lifetime” Probably Applies

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20222 Comments

Dear Will:

Several months ago, Dana and I decided to celebrate our vaccinations by throwing on our masks, venturing out from our pandemic bunker, and going to a movie. In a theater! It was both disorienting and exciting to be doing something so familiar that nevertheless seemed new and foreign after so much time away. We were welcomed by a freshly trained, chirpy kid at the ticket counter who asked if either of us was over 60. I assured him that we were not. “Actually,” my wife corrected, “we both are.”

Wait. What?

It gets worse. Soon thereafter, I tried to justify this brain-lapse to my daughter Bryn. “I wasn’t trying to pretend to be younger than I am. It’s just that I’d never been ‘carded’ like that before and it caught me off guard. There has never been a time when the answer to that question could possibly have been yes. And since when did they make the senior citizen cut-off so low, anyway? I thought it was 62, or 65, or whatever.* Besides, I turned 60 only a few weeks ago, so it’s an innocent mistake.”

“Actually,” my daughter corrected, “you’re 61.”

So, to recap: Apparently, at some point during the pandemic, I became (ahem) a “senior.” It’s like something out of a Hemingway novel: How do you become an old guy? “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.” Your head goes bald and your beard turns gray one hair at a time, and before you know it gray is white and you can’t remember how old you are.

Sixty-one, or so I’m told. Barring a tragic encounter with a deadly virus or a moving bus, that means I’ve got maybe 30 more years to play with (give or take). I still have thousands of meals left to eat and untold hours of television and movies ahead of me. Cut back on those hours a bit and I’ll be able to read hundreds of books as well. There’s plenty of time, in other words, to choose both bad restaurants and good ones, true art and mindless entertainment, classic literature and low-brow page-turners. On those fronts, I can still be sloppy with my choices and no big deal.

But I have only so much adventure currency left in my account. Realistically, how many more backpacking trips will my knees and back let me get away with? Eight? A dozen maybe? Twenty if I’m really, really lucky? Likewise, between now and the last one, how many far-flung vacations will we be able to eke out of our savings and creaky joints, and which ones will they be? Every choice to invest time and resources and energy into something memorable also represents countless alternatives that we simply will not get to.

So, no pressure or anything, but when it comes to those extraordinary, “you should have been there” experiences, increasingly the term “once in a lifetime” probably applies. If I follow my urge to one day walk across Scotland, it might ultimately mean that I will have to skip the Fjords altogether. I’d better choose wisely, is what I’m saying, lest I squander one of my remaining adventures on something kind of lame. I would hate to get to the end of my life and say, “Well, I never made it to Waikaremoana, but that week in Fresno was . . . well, it was kind of a dud, wasn’t it?”

I don’t mean to pick on Fresno. I’m just more aware now of my diminishing opportunities, and I want to get it right. Even at this moment, I’m pondering my options for this summer. Do Bryn and I follow through on our threat to hike the Sawtooth Wilderness Loop? Can I also take Seth up on his offer to return to Mineral King so he can see firsthand what Bryn and I loved so much during our backpacking adventure there in 2019? And what about that trip to the UK that Dana and I had to postpone because of the pandemic? For now, the primary limitations are time (I do still have a job) and money. But sooner than I like, my spirit may remain willing for this kind of thing even while my flesh is becoming too weak to tag along.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing the voice of the poet Mary Oliver in my head, and it’s getting louder: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Such a good question. Ask me again in a couple of years, and I’ll show you pictures. By then I’ll be [checks driver’s license] . . . 63!

PW

* Turns out that the actual cut-off at our favorite theater is 55. We’ve been overpaying for years and didn’t know it. No doubt because we look so young and nobody bothered to ask. Right?

A Letter to Myself

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2010Leave a comment

Dear Will:

You know that feeling you get when you are working too many hours and getting too little sleep? When you have too much to do and too little time to do it? When you do none of the things that matter particularly well? When you arrive at the end of the day—day after day—feeling as if you haven’t accomplished half of what you needed to or any of what you wanted to?

That’s how I feel.

I’m reminded of a backpacking trip I took several years ago over Piute Pass in the High Sierras. We were planning to stay for a week beside the Golden Trout Lakes, a breathtaking spot some 11,000 feet above sea level. Because of the length of our stay, we were all carrying 35-40 pounds of gear and supplies. The hike in would take most of the day.

It wasn’t so bad at first. Fortunately, the incline was not steep, so we never found ourselves working extra hard. We stopped frequently to enjoy the view or refill our water bottles, none of us in a great hurry to “arrive.” The trouble was that some in our party were not in especially good shape. Their stops became more frequent, and as the “sweeper” in our party I couldn’t go any faster than our slowest hiker. Consequently, the load on my back began to take its toll. By and by, I wanted nothing more than to drop my pack.

I remember the almost out-of-body experience I had when we finally arrived at the Golden Trout Lakes. When at last I could remove my heavy load, I felt like I might float away. I felt almost like an astronaut on the moon, so light was I after carrying that load for hour after hour. What a relief! What joy! What ecstasy!

I have often thought of how many lessons on the Atonement were contained within that hiking experience. Above all, I have thought about how Christ’s suffering for us is in very fact a promise to carry our burdens for us—as if he were offering to shoulder our pack, to give us the gift of relief. His life and death embodied his eternal invitation: “Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Ultimately, it was Jesus’ compassion—his willingness to suffer with us and for us—that best expressed His great love for us.

These lines from a favorite hymn also come to mind, offering good counsel to one such as I who is weighed down by life:

How gentle God’s commands! How kind his precepts are!
Come, cast your burdens on the Lord and trust his constant care.
Beneath his watchful eye, his Saints securely dwell;
That hand which bears all nature up shall guard his children well.
Why should this anxious load press down your weary mind?
Haste to your Heav’nly Father’s throne and sweet refreshment find.
His goodness stands approved, unchanged from day to day;
I’ll drop my burden at his feet and bear a song away.

Hmmm. That’s excellent advice for someone like me. Perhaps this time I should mail this letter to myself. . . .

PW

This Is Why We’re Here

On By Peter WatkinsIn 2009Leave a comment

Dear Will:

Last week we returned from one of the greatest family adventures ever. Among the greatest for us, anyway. Along with another family of friends, we took our two youngest for a backpacking trip in Zion National Park. Specifically, we hiked from one end of the Narrows to the other.

If you have never visited the Narrows, here’s a snapshot which, even in its beauty, doesn’t begin to capture the spectacular scenery.

Now if I tell you that it took us two days to complete the 16-mile hike, you’ll probably think, “No big deal.” That’s sort of what we thought as well. But it turned out to be much more difficult than we would have guessed. For starters, the hike is 16 miles long if you walk it in a straight line—which you can’t. To hike the Narrows, you must crisscross the Virgin River repeatedly throughout the hike, which turns the 16 miles into 25 or 30 instead. Further adding to the challenge, as you proceed downstream, springs and streams continuously add volume to the river, so it gets deeper and swifter the farther along you go. Consequently, as you grow more tired, the invisible terrain on the riverbed becomes more treacherous: the boulders are larger, slicker, and more irregular, the currents stronger, the rapids more frequent. What’s more, as this picture suggests, there are long stretches in which there is no riverbank whatsoever, meaning that you have no choice but to hike in the river itself.

That’s not that bad if you are carrying little more than a water-bottle and some trail mix. But since we spent the night at the river’s edge, we were all wearing backpacks, some of us laden with 30 pounds or more of gear and food. That’s not the sort of load that makes it easy to stay balanced while maneuvering over algae-covered rocks in a swiftly-moving, muddy river. In fact, there were many stretches in which we had to cross the river in pairs to keep one another from being swept downstream. There were many areas in which the water was too deep for Seth, my 10-year-old, one area in which all 11 of us were required to swim with our packs strapped to our backs.

It was hard—so hard that we often fell into the trap of focusing strictly on our footing. Periodically, someone in the party would admonish us all to stop and look up—to take in the amazing beauty that can only be seen if you go there on foot. “This is why we’re here,” we would remind ourselves. “This is the point of our ordeal.”

Toward the end, Seth (wise beyond his years) speculated that this would turn out to be the sort of experience that we would look back on with joy, relishing both the difficulty and the magnificence of the experience. But, he added, “right now I’m not enjoying it much at all.”

Ah, life. Strewn with boulders, fraught with peril, harder than we would wish and often not much fun. All the more reason that periodically we should stop and look around, marveling at the miracles around us and relishing the privilege of being here, now, wherever and whenever that might be. In many ways, the ordeal is the point, a challenge for which we should all be grateful.

God has said: “Peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; and then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high” (D&C 121:7-8). May it be so.

PW