made mischievous

(Locked inside to face your fears...)

Looking back in life there are times we are proud of, times we recall with regret, and then there are those that lie somewhere in between. Those moments when we may have caused another pain or suffering and yet somehow we believe it was for the best. Maybe because another found joy in our suffering, vice versa, and you both learned from it. Or, we recognize some cathartic component of playful humiliation. Pushing buttons, so to speak. Becoming so engulfed in emotion that it takes extraordinary effort to see the big picture, to rescue oneself from the sinking ship rocked by raging seas. Great moments you could say, for when else do we have the opportunity to experience such parts of ourselves, and to see what external objects - people, words, actions - are capable of creating such a storm. (Please forgive my personal pronoun syntax - if you do not identify with anything I am saying, simply replace 'we' / 'our' with 'I' / 'my', and I'll take all the blame.)

So what on earth am I talking about? Well, I'll share a couple of stories. First I reach back to a very early childhood memory in my dad's white pick-up truck. The 1991 Dodge Dakota has a fancy swiveling mini-joystick that controls which speakers the radio deck sound comes from. So driving down the road, I would occasionally push the thing back and forth and in circles for a radical swirling auditory experience of shifting surround sound encircling the listener from a new angle every second. Fun for me, probably really annoying for everyone else.

But the real fun began while I sat alone in the car for 10-20 minutes in whatever strip-mall parking lot while Dad was running a quick errand. What could I do to get at him and have an indecorous adventure along the way? By the time he returned to the drivers seat, I would have typically jammed a few cassette tapes under-neath the gas or brake pedal, or both. Me, tame and innocent, twiddling my thumbs and biting my lip while he fumbled to get the car going. He must have gotten used to the trick eventually, but somehow he always seemed surprised as he bowed to free the pedal's passage or as we avoided parking lot accidents by a hair.

Tame, you may be saying, tame. Well this wasn't my last time jamming something between opposing pieces to incite drama. Several years later, I had the privilege of joining one of my best friends and his family on their yearly vacation out west. This friend, who I'll call Carl for confidentiality's sake, had always had a certain phobia. Carl would never use public restrooms, at least to go number 2. So whenever I went to his house for a play date after school, he would be shaking his leg, jittery and antsy as his mother opened the door to their house for him to rush in and make the movement he had been holding in all day.

Well, at the site where we were all camping that summer, there was an outhouse. A well kept concrete and tile tidy bathroom mind you. Each day passed and it went unused by Carl. Eventually something had to give. Maybe three or four days into our stay at the site either Carl overcame his fear, or something inside Carl overcame him, but I saw Carl accept his fate and enter the public restroom.

My moment had come. With the door locked and Carl completely clueless, taking care of business inside, I began to jam sticks between the outward opening door and the wall behind it, and consequently locked him in! Several long minutes went by before Carl's time to exit had come, and when it did... a volcanic eruption shook the place. At first while trying to open the door, Carl must have thought that he had just not unlocked it properly, another try, and another, no immediate reaction.

In time, his confusion turned to rage, and my chuckles to shivers of fear. What had I done? Had my playful trick crossed the line? I had not realized the depth of the button I was pushing and was now honestly frightened for my life as profane cries of rage bellowed from within those walls, threatening shouts of tyrant agony and revenge.

Normally I am a faster runner than Carl, but something told me that the adrenaline pumping in his veins would catch and rips me to shreds if I wasn't careful. So I mounted a mountain bike and one by one, removed the sticks - kicking away the last one as I sprinted away in high gear, feeling the heat of raging flames chasing behind me.

That fire took days to quell, but luckily no real physical injury was incurred, only emotional scars for us both. Scars, or mirrors? I might ask. Maybe a guilt dodging selfish question or maybe a probe into those parts of the self that need examination - for both of us.

Another dramatic time that comes to mind is cutting jalapenos for dad's mean chili and then going to the bathroom and giving pete a shake to complete. Oh the cries of pain no cold water could sooth. Torturing oneself or another, we have to face the consequences of what we have done and take a firm handshake with reality.

My dad used to pitch baseballs at me to practice batting. In the back of is pickup he kept a bag with dozens of balls, so he could throw one after another without interruption. Every once in while, he would peg one right at me and if I didn't dodge, I would get pelted right in the ribs. I soon realized that the baseballs he was throwing at me were not actually hard like the others. Those that hit me were soft and cushy, intended to scare me half whited, but to be forgiving on contact.

So the compassion in pelting. How to dodge a hardball in a real game. To recognize the place hit in the storm of engaged buttons, so that when the pushers come again, we can recognize that the reverberation within comes from exactly there - within. Nothing outside ourselves can cause us pain. Only in our reactions to excited, tickled patterns already deep within us do we generate misery for ourselves.

Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe these snippets I have shared are ways of merely calling attention to the self, inflating the ego, displaying dominance. I think at the end of the day it comes down to intentions. One's volition, will at the moment of action. So admittedly, the righteousness of locking my friend to face his worse fears is a belated intention overshadowed at the time by a mischievous campaign, and one whose moral integrity pales in comparison to the compassion of pegging your son with baseballs.

Not so rapidly through Gillette. from Rapid to Portland. Maybe

"You gotta get off this bus" he told me through a grey beard and browned teath. "I'm sorry sir without a ticket I can't let you on."

"But you sold me the ticket, you see the tag on my bag, you put it there. That ain't enough?"

"Nope. It's not a ticket. It's like money kid, you go off and lose it in five minutes there isn't nothing I can do for you" came the cold, bitter voice coupled with lonely eyes.

With a long, drawn out and suspenseful pause I looked at the old man in the eyes. He could hardly hold mine. No mercy. I knew exactly where my ticket was, I could see it in fact behind locked doors. I also knew there were no excuses and no one to blame but myself. "Okay" I said in a clean, collected tone and took my self and belongings off the bus.

Mind racing....25 minutes till this thing takes off...and I better be on it, or would they let me sleep inside the bus depot and have to wait 24 hours till the next bus?

--------_______------______-----_____----____---___--__-_

Speeding down a pine ridge reservation dirt road in the rear of a pack of three pickup trucks, out of our cloud of dust flies a wheel, a tire rolling down and off the side of the road. Our fleet comes to as screaching halt. I jump out and huddle around nine other men staring at an open axel dug in the dirt. Attached to the rear of this truck is a 15 foot trailer that we were hoping to fill with wood that day. A plan in suspension as we get busy with jacks, nuts and bolts.

In the midst of drawn out repairs and scattered conversation my cell phone goes off full blast. An unexpected call: months ago when I was sketching out a plan for these travels I had applied to do a 10 day silent Vipassana meditation course in Camp Sherman, Oregon. I had been put on a waiting list. Now a spot had opened for me, the course starts June 1st; less than four days to get there.

I slept like a baby with dementional dreams after a full day of haulin wood, fixin trucks and f*ckin around; cherry coca colas and cheesy chips on wonder bread with diabetes jokes in the air, poking fun at reality for most, by the looks of these sincere and generous people, in the yard of a trailer home with spotty running water, tv blaring and black mold in the damp rafters.

I got to the bus station in Rapid City, SD about an hour and half before my 6pm bus was supposed to take off - Portland bound, scheduled to arrive 24 hours and 10 minutes later.

I purchased my ticket and headed out into the streets of Rapid. Spitting rain pushed me into the fist shop's doors. I stumbled around glass boxes of beautiful beaded jewelry, overpriced buffalo jerky, tanned hides, shirts with armed Indians reading "homeland security, fighting terrorism since 1492" and an assortment of commodified cultural cliches - beads, pipes, hides and smudges, bonified spiritual artifacts placed at plastic prices.

On my way out the door I bought a couple of huckleberry chocolattes for the sweet tooth of my friend Jon Edwards (http://illwindblog.blogspot.com/) awaiting my supposed arrival in Portland the next day. Ticket in same pocket as money clip. Transaction. Money clip in pocket. Chocollate in mouth. I'm herded out the door and back into the rain with the corraling "Alright we are closing up here" from the manager desperate to wrap up this drawn out sunday evening.

Back at the bus depot our ticket seller tells me its time to load up the bus and says he needs my ticket. I search my pockets. Nope. I look through my bags. Nope. Again, hands in pockets feel nothing but scattered brain, confusion, quandry. "It must have fallen out of my pocket when I... let me go look for it...I'll be right back"

I ran back to the Native Gift Shop, but it was too late. I pounded on all the doors and all the windows, peered through the thin glass. There it was, on the counter. An arms length away, my ticket taunting me to break in. Was really worth it?

--------_______------______-----_____----____---___--__-_

"I can see it through the damn window," I told the driver.

"And he won't just reprint your ticket?" He asked me with kind, sympathetic eyes.

"He just told me that there is nothing he can do for me. Listen, I could get my ticket when the store opens tomorrow, wait till tomorrow evening's bus, but you know, I got to get where I'm goin'. Listen, n no one but God is looking, we both know I paid my two hundred bucks for that ticket, you see the tag on my bag. If you've got a kind heart you'll meet me around the corner, I'll jump on there." I could tell the driver wanted me on that bus - he had already let me on once and now we were conspiring in the rain, both aware that our only barrier was the old man ticket seller.

"Come on, lets see if he won't reprint your ticket" the driver said. I followed him inside the bus depot and behind the ticket counter. The driver exchanged a few words with the old man. I stood, momentarily filled with hope as the old man stepped into the back office room and reached towards a printer - a big sheet of glass between us I could see his every sluggishg move.

The old man slowly staggered and stalled, simply sipping his cup of cold coffee, stumbling to and fro. not doin much of anything. I exchanged glances with the driver, I could see the concern in his brow. The suspense built. We all just stood there. Waiting. Sipping from white mug, stained like teeth black cofee thick like syrup. It became clear the old man was unwavering, unwilling to lift his head let alone entertain a dialogue.

The driver walked towards me and said under his breath, "come on, get on the bus."

We loaded my bag under the big bus and I boarded, catching eyes with a natrive woman I had explained my situation to earlier. "Yay, good" she exclaimed in a quiet tone. "Yea, this guys' got a kind heart" I said.

My heart pounded as the driver checked his paperwork and walked down the aisles checking his numbers and passengers. Time moved in slow motion as I waited for the old man to come out again and hunt me down like he had 40 minutes before. The driver walked by me counting heads and whispered in a grumbling nearly inaudible tone, "Come talk to me when we get to Billings, we'll get you a ticket there" his conspiring glance caught mine for a millasecond. I nodded, embracing his raspy voice and attitute that made me feel like a character in a fugative thriller flick.

"Ladies and gentlemen," came his voice through the intercom, we'll be getting into Billings, Montana at about one a.m. tomorrow morning..." We pulled away, no sign of the old man, his white mug or stained teeth.

The prairies passed from my window, through thick fog and relentless showers. We watched a fugitive thriller flick - Bulletproof - with Adam Sandler and Damon Wayens. As its credits rolled "Hey there, we are pulling into Gillette, Wyoming. We are gonna pick up some more passengers here and we will be on our way in 5 or 10 minutes" came the drivers mellow voice.

We pulled up and stopped at a sleazy looking motel at about 9pm. The driver came walking down the aisle and gave me a look to get up and follow him. "I gotta go" I said and hung up my phone call with Jon. I had been filling him in on the situation.

"I am sorry bud, but you gotta get off here. I just got my ass reemed by headquarters. I guess our guy back in Rapid called them up and now so yea, I'm sorry bro but you're gonna have to get off here" the driver said reluctantly.

"Well shit, I am sorry to have put you in this situation - I hope its not to bad for you."

"Oh know its cool, I am just kinda new here so I am just figuring out how it all works."

I got my things and met him inside the motel where we had stopped.

The lady at the counter looked like she had been filled in on the situation, "All I need to know is smoking or non, we are gonna put you up here for the night no cost. There is a bus going back to Rapid at 4 in the morning so you can do as you please - go back or find a way to have your ticket come this way on tomrrow's bus...."

"Well that is so kind of you, non-smoking please. I am gonna hold off on the ticket back to Rapid for now, I'll think about it some-more and let you know."

More action flicks that night in the hotel, Halle Berry and John Travolta, and a solid 12 hours of sleep. In the middle of my dreams I called the shop back in Rapid and asked if they would so kindly take my ticket over to the bus depot at around 5:15pm. No problem. The day was mine in Gillette.

In the morning (actually 1:25pm) I couldn't resist Reese's and Butterfingers for just $.25 a pop in the motel lobby and I took out into the town. A sprawling highway langscape. Junk yards and body shops, liquor stores and a railroad. A billboard that reads "Leaving a friend for dead isn't normal, but on meth it is". Whoa, I am just starting my day here...

I found a cafe and had their Green Chili Pork - to die for. I hadnt had such good Mexican fare since Texas. Thank you Wyoming! The place was charming too with mini sombreros on the wall above plastic chilis and a floor littered with fries. When I first walked in I overheard the conversation at a nearby table. A group of men dressed in black hoodies, tatoos crawling up there necks and over their arms about how much they like doing yoga. "Its seriously the best way to get a good work out, and a good stretch of all your muscles..." "My teacher is so flexible..." The best part for me is watching the ladies..." "The best part fopr me is watching the guys..." came a response with a flamboyont yet dead seious inflection; "I like the relaxation at the end the most, it always puts me to sleep..."

I toured my surroundings, phone camera in hand and enjoyed the afternoon, 4 cups of coffee to my head. Check out the photo album here.

As I write this in the Smart Choice Inn, the woman at the desk informs me that they have my ticket at the bus depot in Rapid, my ride should be here by about 8:30 this evening. Let hope so! Portland here I come...maybe

into the hills

Out the backdoor of the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation office, where I am currently residing as a guest, volunteer and house-sitter; a long row of sprouting spring onions has risen through the ground of a newly planted garden. Manure is in small piles waiting in the late afternoon sun to be worked into the earth. I spring over the barbed wire fence, catch on my jeans. No tear. Yet. Pine Ridge sheds many. Thunder Valley is shaking things up. Feeding sprits, harnessing tears to grow gardens of hope.

I follow a shallow gulch hosting thick old oaks with newly budding spring leaves, little green jewels treasured by an orchestra of song birds in full force. The hardened ground is dented and battered by the hooves of cattle. The shade and small bushes of the gully starkly state distinction from the surrounding hills of open pasture.

I run up a steep climb that levels into an open clearing and grades gradually to the top of the highest nearby hill. I run with a sail through a sea of golden knee-high grass, beneath the tall stalks come smaller green blades and clumps of yellow and white wildflowers. Patches of white sage. The occasional cow patty.

From here, open pasture stretches in all directions for as far as the eye can see. The horizon houses low bluffs that drop sharply into the cradle of these endless prairie hills. The buffalo nation and home of the Sioux tribes. The site of the Wounded Knee Massacre is somewhere on the horizon, and still the the hearts of these people - a topic of conversation in fact during this morning's pickup truck ride to get some fencing. A people hunted and slain, great grandmothers with scars, hatred of the white man. The sky opens and collapses on my rear to a clump of trailer homes and a convenience store. One legitimate grocery store on a reservation the size of Connecticut.

Gravity carries me back down the hill at full speed. Somehow my legs fall to the ground before my body can and I stay afloat in rough waters, still sailing in fierce winds towards the next hill and back into the ravine of oaks. The colors are distinct here, vibrant greens glowing beside the dark dampness of thin shadows. Cedar and sage, sacred and ceremonial plants of the Lakota people, grow abundantly here. Horse mint as well, once used to help preserve wasna: buffalo meat mixed with berries and wild rice.

A grand trunk has sent out a thick branch hovering close to the earth. I walk towards this one and get stuck in the mud on my way. Sticky steps stumble upon an outlaying bramble thinly shrouding a collection of bones protruding from the moist earth. Possibly fallen, possibly slaughtered. Vertebrae the size of my coupled fists. Gargantuan femurs a dull dry white, ribs as domes imitating the sky above. Withered and worn, isolated and forgotten. I am reminded of the people here, nearly forgotten in the immense shadows of America's skyscrapers of imperialism. Once a speck on the sea's distant horizon, each modern man's breath sucks the life force from this continent mutilated by centuries of reproachable conquest. Unsettling settlement.

"Mainstream America has forgotten these survivors of government trusteeship, who face nearly insurmountable odds from decades of cultural oppression and material deprivation. Hollywood stereotypes of Indians and the Wild West still persist as ghosts of a dark past. Painful realities of life in neglected, rural reservations have become entrenched. Most of what is known of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation today, found in publications that circulate among nonprofit groups and academic researchers, highlights only the severe distress of structural causes across the economic and structural spectrum... Historical systematic cultural destruction (genocide, outlawing of cultural practices like dance and religious ceremony until as recently as the 1970s, abduction of children to boarding schools to 'kill the Indian and save the child') paint the backdrop for the current reality. Poor diet, lack of access to fresh produce, healthy food choices, and preventative healthcare programs. "Other than Haiti, life expectancy (50 years) is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Incidences of poor health and disease like diabetes are many times greater that the general public, poverty is at developing world levels, formal education is weak, unemployment hovers around 75-85%, alcoholism is rampant, public services are minimal, youth arrest and suicide rates are high. And the list goes on, and from the outside it almost seems like a veritable mountain of staggering odds. Out of context, the census data and sociological reports suggest a lost cause, a people adrift, a dramatic shortage of necessary resources and a sad ending for the once brilliant warriors of the upper Plains of North America."

"But the urgent needs frequently cited do little to tell the entire story of the people that continue today. From the depths of human suffering, the light of hope has been rekindled by the youth, who are living into their vision of the future right now. The strength and tenacity of the Lakota still lives. Public depictions of the Oglala Lakota rarely capture the vitality and determinism of this new generation of young leaders hard at work transforming their world. Embodied in the grassroots community development, capacity building, spiritual healing, deep cultural revival and education that the Thunder Valley Community Develop Corporation (TVCDC) supports, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of today is ripe with youthful energy and new opportunities." (source: TVCDC documents)

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The cattle path continues along the gentle ravine towards a small pond a hundred yards away. Sage and dandelion carpet cradle creation. The shadows of a gnarled yet majestic oak cast themselves shamelessly on a pile of rusted and contorted aluminum - possibly an old water tank of sorts. There is an old wind mill at the foot of an adjacent hill, a few of its vanes fallen, freed from force centrifugal. Those dandelions no longer yellow are translucent fuzz-balls of glowing silver. Winds' wishes blow them into the sky and land as sprouts green to yellow to silver spinning in a daze of time their center.

Picking dandelion greens to be coupled with buffalo steak for tonight's dinner, I catch the shrill squawk of a hawk launching itself from the high branches of a nearby oak. Another swoops in, a deadly duo dances and glides through skies of the gulch's grove. Golden brown wings of majesty parade the sky, their rule no secret to dwellers of the grasses. More scattered bones. Bovine skull.

Turning to face the setting sun there are no clouds on the horizon, only sheer brightness. For a moment my eyes are stolen from me as they leap to my left, swinging my body and arm into their control to find a feather. Brilliant brown and white stripes stacked to the tip, nearly the size of my torso. Pride and Joy.

wait five minute days (part 2)

A couple of miles along, the trail cuts into the woods, up and away from the gentle valley of Ute Creek in the Terryall Mountains of Southpark, Colorado. Here the Ponderosa Pine's have a deep scent of butterscotch and vanilla from their crusty rough bark. Once a rich resource for the Ute Indians who harvested the inner bark for food and medicine, cuts in the trees can still be seen from such inhabitants living here several generations ago.

The heat of the day was temporarily quelled by thick juicy snow flakes falling for five minutes. Genesis minutes. Each like a day of falling crystalline galaxies gravitating to eyelashes and melting on contact with parched ground. I put my sweater on just in time for the sun to break through the clouds again, the tall translucent grasses and tiny wildflowers around me again glistening in passing rays.

Every once in a while Bison Peak, the highest point in the area at over 12,000 feet, would peak through the clouds, catch the light just right and leave me in awe. Late afternoon, folks coming down, my trail is getting nothing but steeper... up. Thinking about my one and only, now half empty, medium-sized water bottle, I asked a group if the trail meets up with the small creek I had been hiking along earlier and saw continues along the trail according to the map.

"Oh no, you left the creek long ago. Why are you planning on camping up here?" the elder gentleman said.

"Yea, a few nights if I can manage."

"Well up at the top of the ridge there are some people camping. About six tents, you won't be alone up there! There is some snow up there if you got a way to make that into drinking water."

"Thanks for the heads up." And I was on my way again- shirt soaked through with sweat, a light breeze sent a spark of chills from my lower back on up my spine, time to get a move on.

I wanted to set up camp as soon as possible and decided I would as soon as two conditions were met: snow to put in a pan over fire for drinking water and a decently flat spot on the spine of this jagged mountain ridge to pitch a tent. I could see the first of my amenities was in sight on yonder mountain but not here on this south-facing slope.

The switchbacks got steeper. The thinning air began to smell of dampness as the waning sunlight was swallowed by thick clouds gathering overhead. Debbie's warning yesterday of "weather" rang in my ear. The ominous clouds unleashed a second round, what at first was a pleasant showering of cool wet snow over my sweaty, steaming self. Within a few minutes however, I could see that this cold and wet would soon cease to be refreshing, and start to be exactly that: cold, wet and dark.

Cresting the steep ridge once more I walked down its spine searching for flatness. None. I would have to settle and sleep on a slant. No gloves, a jacket hardly water resistant, by the time I laid down my pack to get out the tent my hands were already drained of any color. Somewhere in between being numb and frozen is a unique, tingling pain that floods the hands and retards their movement. And so I set up my brand new tent- out of its packaging for the first time in the dark and snow. Thankfully it was a fairly easy set-up. Next, drinking water. I began collecting twigs for a fire, I wanted to get them before they got too soaked. I gave up within minutes, my fingers, frozen like hardened icicles ready to snap, burning in the cold.

Its funny how our minds work. Even when we are completely safe and sound, the mind wanders into fear, doubt, anxiety. With a cliff bar for dinner and a couple drops from my empty water bottle, I went to bed that night, not quite warm and cozy in my summer sleeping bag below the pelting of heavy wet snow, worrying about my basic needs: water, food, shelter. Although not as met in the moment as I might have liked, a part of me was confident that they would be guaranteed sometime in the earlier part of tomorrow. And yet still the worry, why? "Calm down, mind" I told myself... "What is the absolute worst that could happen? Instead of continuing into the mountains tomorrow, I could turn around and go back to the car, to the general store and the nice lady who warned me about the impending weather- I could even pack up the tent and start walking down the mountain right now and arrive before dawn... Calm down, everything will be fine..."

I woke up several times throughout the night with the tent nearly completely collapsed on me, weighed down with collecting snow. I pounded up and recreated my roof, only to last a few more hours before caving in again, bowing to touch my sleeping form.

The morning was only slightly warmer than yesterday evening had been. I packed up my things, rolled up my drenched tent and started up the trail again, sloshing through shallow snow that stuck to the soles of my shoes with frozen pine needles along for the ride. Not too far up the trail I stopped on a steep eastern facing slope amongst small embankments of packed snow and made a fire, melted drinking water and cooked a delicious meal over an open flame. Quinoa, lentils, dried mushrooms, garlic and basil, some olive oil, nettle and sea salt stew. The sun peaked through the clouds, and I shed my layers basking in the glory of radiant forgiving rays, soaking in the feeling I had told myself to embrace the night before - calm, reassurance, its all good. Even the tent got (almost) dry.

Moving onward I summited Bison Pass and continued down the other side of the mountain with Bison peak hovering nearby, occasionally jutting through the rapidly shifting clouds. Bison Peak is a collection of boulders that jut out of the mountain, perched precariously like giant horns embracing a certain rustic elegance. Continuing down the north face of this mountain meant a lot more snow. I curved and swerved away from and back to the trail to avoid knee high embankments and sometimes just had to trudge through with moistening socks in return. The trail lay just where the slope of the pine forested mountain to my west gently leveled into a valley of low lying willow bushes before again cutting sharply upwards as the cliff faces below Bison Peak. The grand overlooking vista of my summit now gone in this narrow valley, a creek reemerged in the shrubby overgrowth, clearly the stomping grounds of elk and bear. Clumps of wooly hair found in branches.

It was nice to filter water at the creek and not have a smoky after-taste with each sip. Instead, the the crispest, clean, clear, cold mountain water of the Rockies. The valley became more and more narrow with high walls of steep forested hills and giant rocks jutting up until the trail became a passage paralleling the bellowing stream. The chute suddenly opened into a brilliant open pasture. Golden grasses and low lying shrubs growing out of flattened earth moistened by snow-melt and the gentle stream. A couple hundred yards in the distance the surrounding hills engulf the valley and highlight the glistening snow capped mountains on the horizon.

A part of me wanted to camp here, find a place where the sun's early morning rays would find my tent as it rose above the eastern hills of this valley, but I knew it was too early in the day to stop. I examined the map and saw that only a few miles ahead was what looked like a similar prairie-like valley, exect several times the size of where I currently found myself.

And the map didn't lie. After falling down into another narrow, winding chute along the stream on the back side of willow shrub valley, the trail leveled into a thick pine forest and hugged the eastern side of more steep hillsides before dropping into another immense valley. The breathtaking vista at the southern tip of the opening revealed more shrubby willows and glowing golden grasses gently pushing and filling the outer limits of what remained flat under a network of dark, forested mountains and ridges falling into this mammoth open space. I found the spot where I hoped to cross the rocky wetland grass, shrub pasture a couple miles in the distance - where the space between two opposing mountain ridges was most narrow and made my way. I rock hopped across where I could and otherwise had to guess where the earth under thick grasses trampled by hooves was most solid in the lowlands of muddy snow-melt.

On slightly higher ground I found a white, thick thighbone on dry earth. Wind was constant from the south - the narrow, deep ravine my trail had followed, surely channeling sinking frigid air from nearby summits. Here, pine trees testing their limits, growing boldly in the flatland before following their brethren up the nearby hills accompanied with mossy rocks and singing birds. Within minutes my tent was erected behind the protection of tall trees. I went back out into the open to catch some sun before it disappeared from the brilliantly lit sky behind peaks I could no longer see, now once more in the belly of a valley.

Within just a few minutes of taking out my little pocket book to scribble some notes, they started falling from the sky. First just one or two, and then a relentless swarm. Pebbles of ice the size of swollen knuckles tickled where they found clothing and stung where they pelted open skin, scalp, cheek. I tried being patient, but again each minute passed like a day, each piece of hail its own hour collapsing on itself and on me. I had to get up and return to the tent - just in time for 5 minutes to elapse and bring along the rising sun of five mornings over.

wait five minute days (part 1)

prelude (through =--=--=--=)

I stopped at the T in the trail first and whipped out my map as quickly

as I could, the three other 14 year-old racers were not far off my tail - within a minute they frantically skidded to a stop around me, blowing clouds of dust into the dry thin Colorado air. Muddy legs desperate for rest yet eager to speed away held thrashed bike frames between them. Empty water bottles somehow eked out another slurp down parched throats, overflowing off dripping chins.

"Which way is it Alden, which way?!" they cried.

"Hold on sec' I am still trying to figure it out" came my response through billowing lungs, eyebrows sternly creased in concentration. No else else cared to study the map, relying on me for the direction of the finish line which now, after hours of peddling Colorado's toughest mountain bike terrain, was only a few of miles away. It was the last stage of a multi-day, multi-sport adventure race. We had hiked, bushwhacking through the backwoods and over tall peaks with no trail - just a packs, map and compass.

We had slept next to a reflective mountain lake glittering under a blanket of luminous stars and awoken with dawn's light glistening in a layer of frost that coated everything including our resting bodies warm in mummy bags. And finally this, everything on the line as one chosen representative from each team gave their all in the race's final leg.

"That way!" I said, pointing down the trail already in the motions of folding away the map. Before I could get my pack squared away, everyone had already started off the trail, eagerly widening the space between us.

I took my time and then headed off in the opposite direction, pacing myself for the win of that day's race - heads on the horizon behind me strained to look behind them at the shocking sight of deception.

Trust is a tricky thing - we can each find truth only for ourselves. Others may tell us where to go and how to get there, but true assurance can come only from one's self. Deception and trickery have their place, as does looking at your own map, finding your own way in the world. grin.

Towler blood biking in the Tarryals, cousin and OWA guide Ryan Sullivan. Me currently being without a camera = although site specific, all photos in this post courtesy of google :(

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Through summer camp at Outpost Wilderness Adventure (OWA), the Tarryall Mountains of South Park County, Colorado are one of the places I became comfortable in the outdoors as a boy. It felt great to go back ten years later just this past week.

After being manually ejected from the Denver metropolis in my sister's Volvo (thanks Hetta!) I made my way along CO-285, a breathtaking scenic drive with the sun setting behind magnificent peaks glowing with freshly dumped snow. I pulled into the OWA driveway at about 9:30 Friday night, May 13th. After deciding it was too late to knock on new ownership's door I turned around and spent a night of numb feet in the same valley under the same blanket of stars, somehow just a little less forgiving compared to so many years later.

I had come here hoping to spend some time at Tarryal Mountain Farm, where former OWA owner-director and family friend David Appleton now spends his summers growing quinoa, beets and greens. It was a shot in the dark heading up there with no replies to my calls or emails but I certainly had nothing to lose besides the city lights. Saturday morning Debbie at the Ute Trail River Ranch (where we used to buy ice cream and granola bars as kids) told me that Dave had left to go back to the Texas Hill Country Friday morning and that the farm wasn't really going yet this early in the season.

"Well then I guess I'll just be doing some backpacking the next few days" I said.

"Yea, we do live in a donut of dryness up here, but it looks like even our pocket is gonna get filled with some weather, this weekend they're calling for snow. If I were you I might think twice about heading out today." Debbie said with a voice filled with compassion and yet a knowing that weather never held back the expeditions at OWA. "And you know what they say, 'If you don't like the weather in Colorado, wait five minutes" she finished.

'Or five days!' I thought to myself remembering relentless days of painful weather."

Even though she was very well right about an ominous pounding of wet and cold, I bought a block of cheese and made my way back to the trailhead where I had spent the night before; eager to to get out, out, anywhere but here, out and away.

confessions of a camper

Last night I forgot to brush my teeth.

A couple days ago i burnt a whole through one of my shoes at the campfire after surviving a hail storm at 10,000 feet, thankfully the thrift store had another solid pair for four bucks. My nose is peeling. They call me Rudolf. Do reindeer noses peel?

It wasn't easy leaving Brooklyn, New York City was starting to grow on me by the time I left in the end of April. There are things and people I miss and others I don't, both long lists but definitely a shout out goes to my roomates, bandmates and duct tape of 260 Moore St. NICE!

A couple days of gardening in Maryland and a few bucks in my pocket brought me west to Boulder, CO where family and friends gathered to celebrate my sister's college graduation. Congratulations Hetta! I got to enjoy plenty of sunshine, hikes, music and bbqs before I took my mom to the airport to return east. Zach and I went north to stay with my friend Andrew in Fort Collins.

Straw-bale raised beds. Healthy chard and lettuce and a lot of frost bitten tomatoes. We had the priviledge of playing a show that night at a venue downtown - jam night. It was a blast being on stage again for the first time in months, this time with a georgeous '59 Les Paul. Andrew of course is a ridiculous drummer and he now makes music with a guy named john who besides being an incredible vibes player is hands down the most high energy person i have ever met, and that is no small feat considering I know this dude named josh lipkowitz - you out there? I witnessed 4 days of hypo-mania, I hear its been like this over a year. Nonstop flight. John and I had to turn around a couple times, returning to the grocery store for items on his mental checklist ignored by a free flow of chatter, beautiful thoughts, and some radical ideas. Have you heard of geodesic domes? If not check it out, self heated greenhouse using sacred geometry built anywhere for cheap. Bananas in Colorado, roses in the arctic.

More good times with Hetta and friends, and recording music with songwriter Steve Boorstein in Bouqlder and then I was back in Denver all by my lonesome, co-conspirator Zach on a flight back east. There was only one place to go, into the mountains, I had an itch and I had to get in them fast. As you'll soon find out I am definitely glad I bought 12 energy bars at the REI checkout line. I was gonna only get four 'till the cashier with a pretty smile told me 20% discount if you buy a dozen. four would not have been enough...

moonlight rider

Easy goes the moment throws itself into flames and rises slowly, low smoke on the high horizon - a ravine nested by owl. Five foot wingspan. Moonlight rider. In the night fire crackles, burning branch breaks and shakes the earth awake. Rake coals to the center as ash falls from the sky.