September 30, 2016 Mile 2370.4-2390.6 20.2 Miles Town day. Cold weather. A good night’s sleep. All things that conspire to speed my steps. I hit the trail at full speed, flying up hills like a dirtbike. Roadside is left in the dust. At first light I come up on Blackout packing his groundcloth. “I couldn’t find a spot until after dark,” he says. “I just cowboy camped in the first flat spot I found.” He’s apologizing, I think, for the fact that he camped on vegetation. The flattened grass already shows signs of springing back, though, so I think it counts as a durable surface. He’s far enough away from the trail, too. Leave No Trace principles haven’t been violated here. Still, the fact that he’s concerned makes me appreciate him all the more. In a world of give-no-fucks arrogance, it’s nice to know that someone still has a few to give. A little while later I take a break to eat breakfast and give Roadside a chance to show up. I stir boiling water into my oatmeal and contemplate how I can bring a piece of the wilderness back into civilization with me. It’s not all black and white, I think. I don’t have to choose between subsistence farming and a corporate job. I’ll have to find some sort of job, it’s true, but maybe I can do something more on my terms. Teaching high school marching band left time for almost nothing else. Particularly in the fall, that prime hiking season, my evenings and weekends were so full I barely had time to reflect on how much I was missing. I chose high school in part because I could make better music, but also partly because it was flashy and public. It was a reflection of ego. What if I let go of that? Could I teach middle school instead? Done by the afternoon, no evenings or weekends. Time to spend with Lindsey, time to take weekend trips. I once observed a teacher whose middle school bands sounded better than my high school bands. Maybe, if I wasn’t always focused on the next football game or competition, I could build that type of program. I have two more packets of oatmeal and Roadside hasn’t shown up yet, so I decide to make them. I take in the scene—a couple of sharp but low peaks nearby, and forest that has all the same trees as any other forest that I’ve seen so far in Washington, except that it’s this forest, in this unique arrangement, in this unique place, and I am here right now. That gives it a beauty and immediacy that is hard to beat. It occurs to me that I’ve found something else of the wilderness to bring back with me. Not the forest, but the experience of uniqueness and immediacy. Walking near my house, I can gaze at the trees sashaying in the wind, feel my smallness under the cloud-speckled sky, notice the subtle slope of the land, pay attention to the bird calls. It will take more effort, certainly. It will lack the interconnected ecology and the overawing grandness of the forests and mountains, but civilization is not entirely lacking in natural magic, as long as I take the time to pay attention. Where the hell is Roadside? I’ve eaten two cups of oatmeal, and two cups of granola. I decide to make that rare treat, a cup of coffee. The culture seems designed to keep us from paying attention. Much of television is a Roman Circus, your job and everyone else’s is trending toward bureaucracy and repetition, you better fill up your commute with radio and podcasts, and don’t miss out on social media! You’re allowed politics, but only if you focus on the horse race and not what the government is actually doing. Just enough to make you think you have some control. God forbid you look at the underlying systems or question the economy. Growth, growth, growth! Or else you’re a goddamn commie bastard. There’s no one orchestrating this, of course. It’s a natural outgrowth of the systems themselves. The reason it’s easier to focus on national politics than on local politics is because the TV can reach more viewers that way. The reason they want more viewers is so they can make more money. Even if they decided they didn’t want more money, it doesn’t matter—if another station can make more money, they can buy them out or outspend them on marketing. In the economy, survival of the fittest will always mean the company that makes more money. A business with any other focus will always lose. It might be a little better with the rise of the internet, but attention is still scarce and the big internet companies are entrenched in the same basic system. The biggest difference now is that instead of trying to reach the greatest number of people with the same content, now the media platforms try to reach each person with the content most likely to grab attention. The memes that create fear or anger or excitement spread fastest. Those tend to be the ideas that are black and white, and the subtle complexities that help us understand the world are lost in the clamor. I realize that I’ve stumbled on something else that I need to bring back from the wilderness: quiet and mental space. I will need to eschew the loud, simplifying voices and reject incitements to outrage and disbelief, to seek out the thoughtful voices that appreciate the complexity in the world. It will take eternal vigilance, but I have a feeling that my time in the wilderness has ingrained a love of quiet that will help me keep my wits in the information feeding frenzy of civilization. Roadside still hasn’t appeared. That’s worrying. I doubt he’s injured, but he could have taken a wrong turn. I’m comforted by the fact that there are many others on the trail, both thru-hikers and, increasingly, day-hikers. It’s also not the first time we’ve lost each other for a few hours at a time. I decide to push on toward town. Dayhikers appear in droves. Dogs, too. The dogs make me smile. They are so happy here in all the open space. It reminds me how lucky I am to be free of walls and responsibilities. They make me miss my dog, Deuce. I’m glad he and Lindsey have each other’s company. Cars line a dirt road. It must be a weekend, there are so many of them. The trail cuts across and continues its long descent toward Snoqualmie pass. I can see the highway first, then the small town, tucked away in a deep valley between the mountains. I cut across a broad, treeless slope. A ski lift gives a hint to why the trees have disappeared.
The manager at the one motel in town allows me to hold an additional room for Roadside on my credit card. I unpack, start some laundry in a broom closet at the end of the hall. I sit on a chair in my rain gear and read 1984 until my phone rings. It’s Roadside. “Hey Zigzag, where are you? I just got to town.” We meet at the motel desk. While we wait for the manager, he tells me he took a wrong turn down a dirt road. “I ended up at a creepy building and had to turn around.” “I bet that was the abandoned radio tower those guys were going to camp at!”
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
June 2020
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