2020.10.20 -- Open Landscape of Central Washington

That smell of sage, oh how it pulls me to a sense of place. I am not sure why I didn't find it as vibrant as when I was in the Desert SW, but here in the Coulees just off of the Columbia River it is effervescent. I collect a few handfuls smelling them against my skin and then shove more into my pockets. I have turned to full on collection mode, and will have a 10 Liter Stuff Sack full by the end of the trip. It takes me back to a moment before I started this last decade of my life, when I regularly hiked in this landscape. Coming out to Frenchman's Coulee to climb the bolted routes then, paddling along the shorelines between Vantage and Wenatchee. I remember coming out to concerts at the Gorge Amphitheater.  Making random road trips like the one after the 2016 Election, to escape and grieve in this open landscape. Now it pulls me back again, reminding me of the open desert landscape that I just left, and the woman that I lost to it. To look out after miles and miles of openness, ones heart is set bear before the sun, wind and rain. It is there that is begins to find wonder again. This is a landscape that can heal.

I headed out with two friends, and their sons. It was a small backpack, only 3 miles in to camp, but once there we all set to wonder about the lakes, coulees and open grasslands with curiosity in our hearts and keen eyes. To scramble up the columnar basalt towers and over look both Ancient and Dusty Lakes, feeling the wind almost pass through you as the PNW weather moved across the mountains and onto the Steppe of Central Washington. This reminds me almost as if this place is fresh to eyes, yet all around are tell tale signs of modern and past presence of hunters and travelers. I listen to the metallic tink of the rocks below my feet. The presence of iron in this basalt is a sharp contrast to years of walking on Sandstone and Limestone of the Colorado Plateau. Yet the openness to the sky is there, and as the clouds open up, a radiant warmth seems to abound and reach into the coldness that has enclosed me lately. And yet always the smell of sage in the air, carried as the winds lash the fields and pull it up to the heights which I sit perched. Inviting as any, a smell that pulls me home. 

In the evening, collected in a camp surrounded by willows, we share what we found on our walks. To listen to the two boys talk about frogs they tried to catch, or old caves they explored brings that youthful first view into my mind. An openness to explore and learn, rather then cling on to past experience. We sit making food together, making me realize it has been along time since I shared a meal with others. The stars and the planets come out, and we begin to trace out the arc of the Milky Way and the Ecliptic orbit of the planets chasing the setting sun. Slowly that sense of the beginners minds starts to seep in, that openness to experiencing the moment. watching two fathers foster it in their sons makes me understand and regret that such moments have passed me by. Yet to be present, gives me the gift of the moment.

Dawn rises and I set upon the task of making a full backcountry breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash. It seems to rise the spirits and we all enjoy these moments. Soon we head off in our own direction to make one last exploration. Myself I head to a waterfall, scrambling along loose talus fields to get there. Once below the Falls, I sit there just to listen letting the sound and the vibration soak in. I do not need to get into the water to bath in its energy. For when any element transitions or moves through another, it gains and gives. Water through Air here, reverberates like a drum in me as I sit below its course. This is the cleansing that I seemed to have needed this day. It is an invitation to explore places that I once roamed through in a new light...

2017.08.21 - Fall Rain Retreat (i.e. The Practice of Study)

2017.08.21 - Fall Rain Retreat (i.e. The Practice of Study)

I find it interesting that as Fall approaches I am pulled to the idea of sitting before books and page and taking on the idea of study. Here I am in my 40^th year and I am feeling this urge to do so again. I walk the rows of buildings through the university of this town and feel the surging need to begin educational times. I seem to get this way each year around this time. I guess in many ways it is in my nature to pursue learning. It is something deep within me that keeps me going. I have had a hard few years, and yet this keeps being the way in which I preserve that which is good within my own soul. To enrich the mind, to learn topics, to debate is to enliven the Soul.

I usually title this time as the Seattle Rain Retreat. It stems from old ideas of the Rain Retreats in which the Buddha would collect his Sangha and begin his teachings. At the end of the rainy season they would go out from the "parks" and monasteries in which they collected and learn from the practical experience of everyday interaction of the world. Yet these Rain Retreats would be times in which they would learn, debate and practice their arts. While working through my three encounters with higher education, it seemed that these times and my practice would match this. To call this a Rain Retreat, seems odd, as the Monsoons will soon be over an the dry period of the Fall will begin again. Yet this Autumn contemplation seems to be similar, and is pushing me forward.

The topic of interest these days is Law. It is odd and I am not sure were it is going. It began with conversations and listening to current political affairs. Also a state of personal chaos in the mind and relationships seems to also be leading to study a sense of order and logic in the affairs of man. That on top of looking back at the History of the Americas and of how we got to where we are at. It will be interesting to see where I go from here as I progress down this path...

Beginning with the Federalist Papers as a foundation of the ideas of legal reasoning and about the intention of the framers of this Union. So far it is opening my eyes to the current state of the world. Are we slipping from where we once where? Or are these the growing pains of a larger Republic that technology and communications are pushing forward faster then we can comprehend. In the end, it is definitely a period of strain, unrest and question. We need to look back and present to understand who we really are. We need to look forward and wonder if the natural progression is what we want to be. In the end, we are similar passionate people to those of the past. We are mindful at times, yet harshly forgetful in others. With rational discourse win the day, or the force of wild opinionated passions...

To sit in a cozy cabin, looking out into a ponderosa grove while a stack of new books, fresh bound paper and the crackle of a fireplace, brings a comfort to this practice this year...

I guess I will read on...

-- Ridgewalker

Bear's Quest 3 - The Valley of the Yellowstone

It has been awhile since landscape has surprised me, yet this is what the open vistas from Mt Washburn looking over the confluence of the Lamar and Yellowstone Rivers did. To look upon the rolling grasslands of the valley, golden with August tint reaching up to the sides of the Abskorba-Beartooth Range seemed to crack open my soul to such place. Not since I first gazed at the open realm of the Grand Canyon earlier this year have I been layed so bare before a view. It was like being present on the first day man awoke. I could see why those who passed through here long ago made it our first of many National Parks.

The approach out to the Valley of the Yellowstone from Bozeman, makes it's way from the edge of the Plains at Livingston, through a crack in the battlement walls made by the towering Abskorba-Beartooth Range. The peak tops obscured by clouds enveloping their true heights,  the River meanders and races from flood plain to gorge, with each turn building the travellers anticipation. Finally,  bringing one to the Arch at Gardner and enterence to this Temple of the Wild. There is a ambiance of Pilgramage found there at the gate. People with far off license plates all flock to this place to bare witness to what is one of the national tradition of what "Americans should see before they die..." I think about this as we round through the roads towards Mammoth Hotsprings, about these iconic places upon our land. Great parks of the Wild like Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. Reminders of our tragic past Gettysburg, Arlington and Manzanar.  Symbols of our greater hope like Cape Cannaveral, Lincoln Memorial and Great Arch of the West. All these places have a story to tell, and even more nooks and side roads of America paint the texture of this experience. Needless to say I am overwelmed by the thoughts of how many views and lives have followed through these places...

We follow the tourist road, deciding to leave the Wild Backcounty for another time which we can probe her inner depths. Along this route we seem to see the same people from stop to stop. Mammoth, Washburn, Canyon Village, Yellowstone Lk, Old Faithfull and Grand Prismatic Springs. Each have a grandure to them, yet I am caught more watching how these fellow travellers interact with the Natural World that surreounds them. For many, they are children of a city life, taken to the road on the classic family endeavor. Maybe this is there first experience with what I find common day life in my world. Such as sleeping upon the ground with only the stars ar your ceiling, or watching elk graze the field, feeling the resonance of a great waterfall plunge in a canyon or seeing a squirrel steal your lunch before your eyes. This state of discovery effects all of us differently. But in the end, the result changes us in fundamental ways. To watch as thousands gather before Old Faithful, and absolute silence fall over them as the geyesr springs to life. This unanticipated reaction draws me in closer to understand the human side of the interaction with the Wild.

At my side in this journey is my partner, a soulmate that sees and feels the same Green Fire. Our conversations weave back and forth on topics of society, the wild and our own course in life. We grown closer with each bend and stop as she drives the roads along the  Yellowstone River. Gazing out from the switchbacking road ascending to Dunraven Pass, her golden hair seems to blend into he horizon, a smile showing from deep within. I realize that I will likely spend the rest of my days following long trails, rivers and roads with this woman. Taking from each place our own point of view, yet sharing the experience together. To feel a love of life and the wild spirit within, I drink deep in the moment.

My final glimpse of the Yellowstone is while sitting along the Madison River. Watching the river flow by, paitient fly fisherman in a tranquil zen-like state, casting 10 and 2 over and over again, while flys dance at thw waters edge, trout bounding. A golden eagle sits atop a stag tree overlooking the bend in the river. The moment seems to have a clarity of peacefulness, where the world seems to be vital and real to the very touch. Traffic slows behind us as travellers gaze off at the Madison, wondering what it is that we see, is it bear, bison or elk? Yet it is all that lays before us that has caught our attention.. I wonder as they leave the Valley of the Yellowstone,  what it is that they see, what will they bring home and will it draw them back again desiring more? I know it will myself, and gaze at a map with the spell sweeping over to go deeper...

Bear's Quest 2 -- The Grand...

About a month ago I walked up to the Kaibab Rim for the first time at Lipan Point. I am not sure what I expected... Having gazed over countless ranges and fiords in my life, I had grown accustom to that great gulfing sense of  scale and open space.Here which Mountains and Waters bring to the heart of a follower of John, that enduring sense to return homeonce moe and explore the hidden places. At first it seemed almost comon place, yet as I descended the Kaibab, Toroweap, and Coconino, the textures and spell of this place began to weave its magic into my soul. I was drawn deeper towards a formation of hoodoos made of the Mavu Limestone rich in green above a fan of Bright Angel Shale... The wall of the Palisades of the Desert across Tanner Wash was an ever constant reminder of the depths in which we descend.. For that old naturalist within me had grown stagnet and stale.. Yet here within these desert canyon walls I had been surprised again by the overwelming ability of Nature to inspire and wake up those who had been asleep in there Suburban Lifestyles.. This ws the wisdom of John preaching itself with each foot fall.. By the time I had reached Tanner Rapids of the Colorado River, I had been awoken again...

I spent a week following lines and formations with my old soulmate found again. Scrambling over rock traverses of Unkar bend, exploring broken slabs of Red Wall towering hundreds of feet high, descending throuh bending slots or Shinumo Quartzite, only to argue over the nature of formation of swirls of iron red and calcite white bands of rock that only brought images of the clouds of Jupiter and he Great Red Spot... And always, the mirids of stars of the Night Sky... So many a man could not count. To look aloft and see the subtile colors ofthe Milky Way Core. Arguing about the contellations deep into the night, while Jupiter holds commanding presence behind Castor and Pullox, renamed through late night attrition the Dragonfly Cluster...

This is where the soul of man is mean to rise up and meet the dawn.. I walk each day, exploring the folds of the canyons. Looking deep and longing into the Black Rock of the Vishnu Schist that paints epic pictures of Gandoff at The Bridge of Kazadom. The word... Balorok rolls though my mind like dwarven drums.. I look deep withing he twisted quartzite fissures.. Something calls low and dedp to descend, yet knows to do so would be to test fates.. I shall return, and tempt the underworld.. This place calls to something which is reverse of a Mountaineers sight, to crag around and get low... To taste the deserts depths and returnto the Rim, telling idol standing tourists what lies just beyondthe edge of comfort...Just beyond, whre they dare tempt and test there very mantle... Then saunteron towards Campers Services and that fabled $2 - 8 min shower all hikers dream of...

So now 3 weeks later, I await a flight to return. To explore a new reach of "The Grand"... as a fellow Thru Hiker once said,

"The trail has ruined me. For how could any person who has lived true freedom, and seen the nature of the World as it stood before you be able  to return to a "Normal Life"..  You can't! Your RUINED! I'M RUINED!"

And so I walk happily into my Lover's Arms... One  Landscape that inspires, and the second a womanwho dwells there combing her silent calling into the depths of the canyons folds.. Lost by Nature's spell...

Let another week within The Deep Begin...

Mountains And Rivers Without End,

Ridgewalker

Bear's Quest 1 -- Year of the Wild Horse (2014)

In the last year I have been working on an experiment in a lifestyle based on Human-powered travel. Spurred on by outside factors, I parked my Volvo XC70 and took up the challenge of making my daily commuting based on the miles pedaled with my Novara Safari, a steel framed touring cycle produced by REI.

Over the course of the year, I put in 8200 miles biked, hiked and walked. In the end I fell short of my goal of 10Kmi. But through it all, I learned a great deal about myself in the time spent behind the Handlebars. I had anticipated that I would return to driving once the beginning of 2014 began. But as time grew closer, I could not find within myself a reason to begin driving again. I had made a change in lifestyle that I anticipated would take me well into the next year..

While riding one morning along a snowy trail for my morning commute,  listening to the hum of snow crunching below my tires, I made the commitment to work towards the same goal of human-powered transport with Mass Transit to major destination. The idea of keeping out of the personal car while seeking to connect with landscape, people, and my own tempo of being became more apparent. I had gone through a lifestyle change, that while thrusted upon me the past April. I felt it had the power to change me for the better as I rode each day. Each time seeking connection to the landscape which I traveled through..

Within Chinese Astrology, 2014 is know on as the Year of the Wild Horse.. My Safari, which I have deemed Bear's Quest, has taken me 8200 miles about Washington/Oregon... My challenge is to reach out farther with its twin tires keeping time... I seek to connect to the West as a fellow Thru-hiker (Ben) did this fall. To make it to the canyons, beaches and mountains which Westerners pay our homage to... Riding my steel horse bearing saddle bags as the ol' lone horseman once did...

Mountains and Rivers Without End,
Ridgewalker