ABSTRACT

PEAKS AND VALLEYS: EXPLORATIONS IN THE WILDERNESS OF NATURE AND RELATIONSHIPS

The following is a collection of personal essays that uses nature (in the form of the writer’s own experiences in nature, as well as representations of nature as found in popular and literary culture) as a vehicle through which to explore identity, as well as relationships (both human-to-human relationships, as well as humankind’s larger relationship to the natural world).

Gilliann Mar Hensley May 2017

PEAKS AND VALLEYS: EXPLORATIONS IN THE WILDERNESS OF NATURE AND RELATIONSHIPS

by Gilliann Mar Hensley

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2017

APPROVED

For the Department of English:

We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree.

Gilliann Mar Hensley Thesis Author

John Hales (Chair) English

Steven Church English

John Beynon English

For the University Graduate Committee:

Dean, Division of Graduate Studies

AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER'S THESIS

I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship.

X Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A great many people have been instrumental in helping me along in my journey toward completing this collection. First and foremost, I’d like to thank the chair of my committee, John Hales, for his guidance and feedback throughout my writing process, as well as for encouraging me to pursue a creative writing path in the first place. I’d also like to thank my other committee members, Steven Church and John Beynon, for their feedback and support, and for being amazing professors from whom I’ve learned a great deal. I’m grateful, too, to all my peers in the MFA program, whose comments both inside and outside of the workshop environment have been incredibly helpful in developing these essays into what they are today. And, of course, I’d like to thank my partner Matt, for being incredibly supportive both emotionally and creatively, and for helping me over many hurdles during the writing of this manuscript. Finally, I’d like to thank my family for always encouraging my artistic endeavors over the years, and, in many ways, for helping my passion for writing to take root.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PART I. RISK ...... 1

ON RISK, OR A COMPLICATED LOVE AFFAIR ...... 2

VICARIOUS SURVIVAL ...... 12

UNIMPEDED ON THE TRAIL ...... 23

OVERNIGHT IN THE GRAND CANYON ...... 33 CONNECTION AND DISCONNECTION IN NORTH AMERICA’S LOWEST GEOLOGICAL POINT ...... 49

PART II. SALVAGE...... 60 TOP 5 OUTDOOR DESTINATIONS FOR ATTEMPTING TO SALVAGE YOUR FAILING RELATIONSHIP ...... 61

CLUTTER ...... 77

WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND ...... 86

PART III. SURVIVAL ...... 100

CONTEMPLATING THE AUTHENTIC IN THE MODERN ZOO ...... 101

ON GLAMPING ...... 114

GOING IT ALONE ...... 123

PART I. RISK 2

ON RISK, OR A COMPLICATED LOVE AFFAIR

In the early-evening light of my living room I watched Emile Hirsch, playing Christopher McCandless in Sean Penn’s 2007 adaptation of Krakauer’s Into the Wild, as he flipped hurriedly through his field guide, looking from plant- to-guide, guide-to-plant, slowly coming to the realization that he had, in fact failed in his mission to survive alone out in the Alaskan wilderness. That he had eaten the wrong thing. He wept loudly in the rusted blue and white Fairfanks City transit bus he’d called home for a little over four months. I sat close to my then-husband Fernando on our sandy-colored couch, my legs tucked under me, the black and white tuxedo cat, Artemis, curled up into a warm, vibrating ball of fuzz by my feet. The soundtrack of the film and Emile’s voice filled the room. “What a dumbass,” Fernando scoffed, breaking our silence, his light brown face faintly illuminated in the pale glow of the television screen. “Wait—what?” I glanced over at him. He reclined there next to me, with his feet kicked up on the glass-topped coffee table in front of us, a beer in hand. “McCandless, he was an idiot. Totally unprepared, had no idea what he was getting into. No plan, no map. NO MAP! You always bring a map.” His scruffy, normally boyish face was set in a seriousness amplified by the shifting shadows from the television’s light. Turning my head away, I gazed at the screen for a moment in thought, watching Emile-as-McCandless, his figure gaunt and frail from lack of food or the ability to keep it down, drag himself across the ground of the bus site, determined to carry on. Hopeful, perhaps, that he might make it out after all. 3

“I dunno. I kind of admire him,” I replied, my eyes fixed to the screen. “He had convictions, dedication and stuff. Something he needed to work through, a goal he needed to accomplish. I mean, he spent all that time on the road and out in the wild doing shit pretty much on his own. He just messed up. It could happen to anyone.” Fernando shook his head firmly, taking a long draw from his bottle while staring at the screen. “I have zero sympathy for the guy,” he finally said, glancing at me with his dark brown—almost black—eyes. “You just don’t take risks like that. You don’t go into a situation like that unprepared. And he was not prepared for Alaska.” * Though I could understand Fernando’s perspective—since he always advocated for the use of checklists and preplanned routes, of maps and emergency kits and back-up plans—part of me, just like that night, refuses to agree with his assessment of McCandless’ actions. It seems too easy to dismiss the death as the result of mere stupidity or naivety, without at least considering his willingness to put his life at risk—to throw himself so completely into something so he could come to some deeper understanding of himself, and the world, and his place in it. After all, life involves a certain amount of risk, and we dedicate so much of our time to the act of assessing that risk, weighing the odds of any given outcome. And, for the most part, our gambles work out. But it bothered Fernando deeply, it seemed, that the young man had died—at least in his mind—a needless, avoidable death. Then again, it would appear that way to him. My ex-husband religiously watches programs like Survivorman and Man vs. Wild, prides himself on his ability to troubleshoot and problem-solve, is careful and meticulous, and might forget his wallet on an average day, but would double-, triple-, quadruple-check 4 the hiking packs and gear before setting out on any sort of wilderness excursion. The kind of guy that wouldn’t even take off on a road trip without a carefully crafted itinerary—no room for spontaneity. But not me. I just don’t have the patience for all that. That isn’t to say that all his preparation and planning went unappreciated, or that I’ve some kind of death wish. I like to think that I have some sense of self- preservation. Besides, I’ve spent most of my life in relative safety, never worrying about all that much. Yet the very idea of risk carries with it a seductive quality, a high that many people—myself included—chase and chase and chase. Each risk a challenge, each challenge a gamble. People don’t gamble because it’s a safe bet, after all. With gambling comes risk: play well and the reward is pure pleasure, and more money than you began with, but play badly and you’re shit out of luck. And I think that every hike into the wild is a similar kind of gamble, a similar kind of risk, no matter how prepared—just as poker is as much a game of chance as it is of skill. If I do everything right—if I play well—then I survive. If not, well, we know how that turns out. But Fernando, in all our time together, never really gambled, with his life or anything else. Even in the few visits to Las Vegas that we made during our marriage, I could only coax him into the most cautious of gambling—never more than twenty dollars, nothing more than slots. He never seemed to see the point in risking anything more, content to sit quietly, drinking, smoking, and feeding dollars into the glowing, ringing machines. Safe. Boring. And I'd sit there, watching poker and blackjack players through the smoky haze of the casino, with an urge to just say fuck it, to walk over and throw money down and see what happens, despite my complete inability to play any of those games. I simply want to give in to the urge to risk it all, though I never have quite given in. 5

But it's the same kind of urge I get when I think about venturing out into the backcountry, where real dangers might present themselves. In those moments, I never think of how ill-prepared I might be for such an endeavor, or of all the possible outcomes of my decisions. I simply want to throw myself into something—to buck against what is expected and test myself in some way. To see what I can endure and what I cannot. And what better way to test that than to put myself at risk? * Not long after our night with Into the Wild, Fernando and I headed up to Stanislaus National Forest in the Sierra Nevadas to hike the Crabtree Trail, with a small group of his friends from work, to a series of backcountry lakes. They'd planned it all out: Meet up at the trailhead in the late morning, hike in together, set up camp, relax, explore, and hike back out in a couple of days. Since the drive would only take a few hours, we set off in the early morning, more than enough time (or so we thought). While the drive up through the California Central Valley went more or less without incident, a series of setbacks—bumper-to-bumper traffic on CA-108, unclear directions and spotty GPS putting us on the wrong road, the stop at a ranger station for a proper map—kept pushing our estimated time of arrival farther and farther back, each hour wasted on the road ratcheting up our stress levels, the car pregnant with a silent tension that had replaced our excited chitchat, my own annoyance growing with every delay. “We should’ve left earlier,” I said, finally breaking the quiet. “You're the one who wanted to leave at ten,” he replied, as he shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Remember I thought we should leave sooner.” “Whatever,” I snapped back, rolling my eyes. “Leaving when we did should've been more than enough time. How was I supposed to know there'd be a 6 fucking four hour traffic jam? Or that your friends would give us the shittiest directions ever?” “Always plan for the worst,” he said, passing me the cigarette he'd recently lit. “Always plan for the worst,” I spat his words back at him, letting my aggravation get to me more than I should have. “What good does that do us now? God knows what time we're going to get there now. Your friends already decided to leave without us. This is total shit.” Fernando sighed and glared stonily at the road ahead, but remained silent. I sat there, fuming, wondering why he wasn't more concerned, wondering why he couldn't just say something—anything—that would help alleviate my worries. I knew getting so mad wouldn’t really help make anything better, but the anger made it hard to think clearly. Moments ticked by until I couldn't stand the quiet any longer. “Well?” I asked, staring at him hard with a look of irritation. “What do you want me to say?” He asked back, exasperated. “If you're so damn worried about it let's just stop and find some place to stay for the night. Head out early in the morning.” “Nope. We’re not doing that.” I stubbed the cigarette out hard in the ashtray as I spoke. “Look. I’m not saying we go home,” he said. “Let’s just find a campground, it’s starting to get late.” I tried to explain that knew he had a point, but I’d been waiting too long for this trip, that we were finally so close. That I needed to decompress at the end of a stressful semester of graduate school. And that if we hiked at a decent speed we’d be able to do the 3.9 miles to the campsite at Bear Lake in no time. 7

As I went on I watched his face, serious and pensive, tinged in the deep orangey-yellow of the late afternoon sun, as he kept his eyes on the winding road ahead. “And anyway, the guys are waiting for us at the lake already! And we all have those walkie-talkies, right? It’ll be no big deal—we can do it.” “Fine,” he’d sighed. We spent the rest of the ride in silence, and eventually, despite all that transpired in the car, we stood before the trailhead with our loaded overnight packs on our backs. The sun had already begun its descent toward the horizon and the tall, old pines that lined the roads and that were scattered about the campground at the start of the trail cast long shadows all around us. A small group of campers nearby watched us from their positions around a fire pit. One of them, peering at us from under the brim of a dirty camo-patterned baseball cap called out, “Late to be hitting the trail.” “We know.” I nodded at him, and he studied us for a moment. “Well, good luck,” he said. We nodded our thanks, wished them a good evening, and crossed the little bridge that dumped us onto the trail that would take us into Emigrant Wilderness and, eventually, to our group waiting at the lake. Though it was the last weekend in May, the days already growing longer in the march toward summer, we knew that we had only a couple of hours of decent light until the sun slipped behind the western peaks of the Sierras and the darkness of the evening forest engulfed us, obscuring the narrow path ahead. * The hike, of course, took longer than I had figured in my head. I’d insisted that we’d have little problem with making it to the campsite within the couple of 8 hours of daylight left. But I’d failed to consider the elevation gain. An average backpacker can cover around 2 miles per hour on flat, level ground—but a 1k gain in elevation results in slower movement, decreasing the amount of ground that can be covered in that time. The total amount of rise on the Crabtree Trail from the start to Bear Lake is approximately 900 feet, which hampered the speed of our progression. I walked point, trying to keep our pace as quick as possible as we wound our way through towering pines, the only sounds our heavy breathing and the light crunch of boots on dirt. After nearly an hour of hiking, I glanced back to make sure that Fernando hadn't fallen too far behind. “Everything good?” I called out, slowing my pace a bit to allow him to catch up. “Yeah,” he replied, panting heavily, body bent over slightly under the weight of his pack. “Sure. Just. Can we stop a minute?” I looked over to my right, toward the horizon through breaks in the trees, and raised my hand, positioning it between the bottom of the sun and the mountain peaks in the distance, as I tried to gauge how much longer we'd have light—each finger representing a quarter of an hour’s time. We had, at best, an hour. “I guess,” I said hesitantly, as I sat down on a nearby rock. “But not too long, okay? There's not a lot of time left and I have no idea how much farther to the camp.” Fernando pulled out a bottle of water, took a swig, and looked around, before adjusting his pack on his shoulders, running his hand over his head. “Probably a couple of miles.” Already our surroundings had grown dimmer, the weak light from the setting sun barely piercing through the trees, the path ahead already less clear. I 9 heard the faint whoo-whoo of an owl somewhere off in the distance and looked around nervously. “We need to get moving then,” I urged and stood back up. “We haven't been making the time we need to…and I don't like how dark it's getting.” “Right.” He nodded. “I'll start checking the radio.” As we continued our hike, I could hear the intermittent chirping of the walkie-talkie attached to the shoulder strap of my pack, as Fernando hit the call button, listening carefully for the returning chirp from our waiting party. Since the walkie-talkies have a range of up to a mile, we knew that any response would mean that we were close. The sun sank lower and lower in the sky, the only sounds on the trail the huffing and puffing of our exertions, the occasional call of some unknown, unseen bird, and the chirping of the walkie-talkie as we waited for the responding call. The light dimmed rapidly, the dense trees blocking out what little remained. “Well, anything?” I called out over my shoulder, my voice rising slightly on the last syllable. “Uh, you can hear the radio too,” he pointed out, irritation in his voice. “Have you heard anything?” “No,” I admitted. “But we have to be getting close…right? It's getting really dark? What are we gonna do if it gets too dark?” “Look, calm down,” Fernando urged. “Getting upset won't get us there any faster.” But I couldn't calm down, and panic began to set in as we continued forward. I’d never gone on any kind of night hike, though I was aware that people engage in such activities. I’d felt sure that we’d be able to make it, the two of us decently experienced with upward hikes. Words I’d read in survival guides flashed 10 through my mind: Don’t get caught in the dark. It is important for safety to know how many hours of light remain. Don't make any rash decisions. Accept the consequences of your actions. And I thought about all those episodes of survival T.V. I’d watched with Fernando, and how often the participants made sure to set up a place to stay for the night, the risks of continuing far too high. Should we stop? Is it too late to stop? Should I say something? The sun slipped below the horizon, the granite and pines surrounding us bathed in ever dimming blue, until the only light on the trail came from the small LED lamps held on our foreheads by stretchy elastic headbands. The clearly defined trail eventually gave way to granite slabs of rock with no clear direction to follow, and we'd cast our small circles of light right and left in search of the signpost or cairn that would show us the way. “Fuck,” I yelled, coming to an abrupt halt. “What, what is it,” Fernando asked as he stopped beside me, his headlight shining in my face. “I don't know where to go,” I said, panic in my voice. “I can't tell which way. It's just a big fucking rock. It looks like the trail could go either way!” I gestured with both arms and felt the hot sting of tears in my eyes. “What if we never hear from them? What if we go the wrong way? Should we just set up camp? What do we do what do we do what do we do!” Fernando put his hand on my back as I bent over, taking big gulps of air through sobs, trying to get myself under control. 11

It was then—mid-sob, mid-doubt, mid- ohmyfuckinggodwhydoIdothesethings—when I heard the crackle of a familiar voice over the walkie-talkie. “Fernando, is that you?” * Several months after the hike out to Bear Lake, I found myself engaged in my normal Friday evening ritual of Netflix browsing. Genre: Thrillers. The category titles scrolled past on the screen as I searched for something that caught my interest. Critically-acclaimed thrillers. Action thrillers. Crime thrillers. Foreign thrillers. A French film, a nature-based thriller called High Lane, seemed to me as good as any, so I loaded it up and snuggled next to Fernando on the decidedly uncomfortable pull-out bed of our couch. Bathed in the eerie blue glow of the flat screen TV, we watched as a group of friends set out on a mountain climbing trip that, based on its classification as a thriller, we knew could only end badly. We watched as the friends expertly climbed the sheer surface of a ledge of rock, moving carabiners and inching along the pre-established infrastructure—cables and handholds and footholds. “Oh my god, I want to do something like that! How fun does that look?” I looked over at Fernando, curious, waiting for his response. Before he could answer, everything began to go terribly wrong for the characters on screen—the cable ahead of them broken, the climbers stuck. Suddenly very much in need of an emergency plan that they did not have. “You still want to do something like that?” Fernando asked, a slightly smug tone to his voice. I said nothing, my only response a broad grin in the ghostly glow of the screen. 12

VICARIOUS SURVIVAL

I can’t get enough of reality television. Not just any reality television, though. I couldn’t care less about keeping up with any of the Kardashians, or about the domestic drama of the very real housewives of Atlanta (or New Jersey, or Orange County, or wherever else). And I don’t tend to concern myself much with the dancing abilities of celebrities, or the goings-on of whistle-making dynasties, or even the outcomes of singles competing for the hand of a bachelor or bachelorette. I admit to a fondness for fashion-oriented shows, where contestants compete to become the top model, or top designer, or for watching aspiring young chefs show off more cooking talent than I could ever hope to possess in a lifetime. But what really draws me in is survival T.V.—that ever-expanding sub-genre of reality television that situates men and women against nature and, for maximum drama (and therefore maximum entertainment), often against each other. Survivorman. Naked and Afraid. (And its sister show Naked and Afraid XL.) Dual Survival. Man, Woman, Wild. Ultimate Survival Alaska. I’ve watched them all, sometimes marathoning entire seasons over a series of days, held in rapt fascination over the things that people will put themselves through. Over the variety of skills necessary to make it out there in the wild. Over the dynamics of power and gender and personality that play out time and time again—the clashes, the egos, the drive to prove something to the self, the lengths people go to come out on top. 13

But it isn’t just the drama or the thrill of mere competition that pulls me in. And it isn’t just because I’m some kind of sucker for anything and everything outdoorsy, however much that might play a role. Really, I’m most interested in what I can learn from survival T.V.—what it reflects about nature and our relationship to it—or perhaps, more importantly, about our relationships with each other, about what it means to survive in the world beyond the structure and convenience of civilization. About what my personal preoccupations—with the wild, with hiking, with this survival T.V.—say about me. Take Naked and Afraid, for instance. Each season this Discovery Channel gem pairs men and women together for twenty-one days in various remote wilderness locations. Think the dense expanse of the Amazonian rainforest, the cold desolation of the Himalayas, the swampy sludge of a Louisiana bayou, or the harsh plains of the Serengeti. Any place as far away from the familiar as possible. No simple jaunt into the Sierras, no laid back overnight to some lake-side campsite. The location must present the maximum amount of challenges, even for a seasoned survivalist. As the title suggests, each pair go into these locations naked, left with only a couple of tools. Perhaps a knife or a mosquito net. A kettle for water. A map. This adds a layer of complexity to the challenge of survival, as competitors are exposed to the elements—the heat of the sun, the cold rain or snow, the relentless onslaught of mosquitos and ants, the constant threat of injury or animal attack. And over the course of the twenty-one days they must navigate the terrain in their state of nudity, to eventually make their way to an extraction point, where boats or planes or land rovers wait to carry them back to their normal, everyday lives— assuming they don’t tap out first. 14

Throughout the season, the competing teams of survivalists face a number of obstacles. They hunt and forage for their own food (roots, insects, fish or game if lucky), build their own shelters, acquire an adequate water source, and figure out the best way to make it to their end goal—marching over miles of rugged terrain, feet bare, or perhaps wrapped thinly in leaves or grasses. Their ability to accomplish these things determines what the writers of the show call their “Primitive Survival Rating”—a score on a scale from expert to novice, calculated based on their overall skill set and physical fitness coming into the competition, and how well they perform over the course of the season. The scope of what they have to consider overwhelms me, the experience outside any I’ve ever known or even imagined. Can they kill enough food to meet minimal dietary needs? Will they even have a reliable source of food? How long can they realistically go without? Will one of them sustain a life-threatening injury from the slip of a knife? Will the pressure of the challenge be too much? Can contradictory survival tactics work in some kind of harmony, or will the team fall apart? Just how far will their knowledge of the outdoors take them? Will they fail, on national television, in front of millions of viewers? It’s a lot to ask of a couple of naked people, but most of them, amazingly, manage—though not without strife. You’d think that, in the interest of survival, everyone would be able to put aside their shit and work together. That everyone would want the team to do the best they possibly can, to come out with the highest score. But it doesn’t always work out that way. So often, the men and women let their own personal baggage get the better of them, even if they know they shouldn’t—a theme that plays out often in many intimate relationships, and one not altogether unfamiliar to me. 15

Their enemy isn’t always the landscape. Isn’t always the most obvious thing. Sometimes someone will become annoyed at their own inability to provide, at their inability to successfully navigate the land, especially if their partner more successfully accomplishes tasks. Assumptions about gender and appropriate roles sometimes come into play. They become short with each other, wound each other with words. Communication breaks down. They complain about each other during the video diary, forget the value of teamwork. Someone feels inadequate, another feels under-appreciated. They fight. And fight. And fight. They’ll get through it, sure—at least most of the time. And they’ll reflect on how they conquered the landscape, about how nature didn’t win, about how all their accumulated skills paid off, and how they’ve shown themselves that, when put to the test, they can “do what it takes” to survive. But it’s hard to get over just how much more difficult they made the ordeal. If they’d just communicated more. Tried harder to work together. * During the more pleasant moments of our relationship, my ex-husband, Fernando and I, often watched Naked and Afraid together. We’d sit back on our worn old brown couch, passing a bowl of marijuana back and forth, feet up on the glass-topped coffee table in front of us, and pass judgement. “If I were that guy I definitely wouldn’t expend all that fuckin’ energy during the hottest part of the day,” Fernando would say, a faint wisp of smoke curling up from the pipe in his hands. “I know, right? Like, you gotta conserve your energy. Sure, do stuff. But like you gotta know when to chill,” I’d reply, taking the lighter from his hand. Or 16

“I just don’t get why they can’t stop poking at each other,” I’d sigh, pausing to take a drink from my cool pint of IPA. “It’s not really helping anything.” “You have to keep your cool. But I mean it’s tough, right?” he’d ask, glancing up over the top of his keyboard as he multitasked—an important deadline keeping his attention divided. “It’s hot. You’re hungry. You’re grumpy because you’re hungry.” “I guess…” “But still. You’re right. It doesn’t exactly help.” In those moments, in our minds, we were always the best at survival. Always knew exactly what to do, or what not to do. Always knew exactly how to react and how to interact. Never bickered or argued or caused ourselves extra grief, despite the fact that the reality of our situation tended to reflect a different outcome. And, at the same time we’d never found ourselves in any kind of similar situation. We’d never had to rely on our own abilities outside of setting up a tent, or reading a map, or securing a pack in a tree—so the idea that we would have owned outdoor survival is a laughable one. We never had to be naked out in the bush, though certainly we’d been afraid—or at least I had. Afraid of getting lost on the trail, stuck in the Sierra wilderness, surrounded in darkness, unable to find our way through the black. Afraid of threats to our health. Afraid of the outcome of run-ins with bears—the rush of panic and adrenaline, fight and flight battling it out in your head. Never afraid of dying though, not really. And never afraid of not knowing when we’d get our next meal. So, it’s easy enough to judge when you aren’t the one trying to survive, because, in reality, we weren’t at all the best at survival—or at the very least, definitely overestimated our theoretical abilities, particularly when it came to 17 handling stressful situations as a unified team. Out on the trail, things so often go wrong, and problem-solving requires cooperation—something we hadn’t managed for quite some time. But we’d been lucky in all of our excursions into the wild, never had to deal with any Survivorman-like scenarios. Which is good, because, if anything, survival T.V. has shown me that I’d be woefully unprepared for pretty much anything other than your typical, uneventful, multi-day trip—both in ability and, perhaps, in temperament. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be prepared enough. After all, who has the time? Graduate school. Divorce. The endless stream of student writing that comes from a career in teaching. Deadlines and upsets always getting in the way. * The contestants on shows like Naked and Afraid aren’t your everyday hiker or camper, either. Each and every one of them has spent their lives honing sets of skills that will best suit them in survivalist programming—or, let’s be real, any situation requiring them to return to the basics and live off the land. They might be wilderness EMTs or rock climbing instructors or backpacking guides or even some kind of ex-military. You won’t find a lot of graduate students of creative writing who mostly sit around reading books all day, drinking too much craft beer and smoking pot. In fact, the list of things I know—how to make a fire (fire-starting kit required), how to read a compass, how to read a map, how to judge the time of day by the sun’s position in the sky, how to handle various wildlife encounters—no longer seems like much to brag about. 18

Because look at what it takes. Useful Skills for Not Dying in the Wild, As Seen on T.V. 1. Know the Local Plant Life. If survival T.V. has taught me anything, finding a reliable source of food isn’t always easy. People might assume that killing some kind of animal is the best bet—but how many of us know how to set traps, or how to make weapons, or how to dress an animal once it’s dead? (When put to the task, I couldn’t even clean a fish on my own, let alone prep a fishing line, the act of threading the worm’s wriggling, slippery body along the length of the hook too much for my stomach.) So, odds are, I’d be stuck eating plants, and would need to know the edible from the inedible— an investment in time and money gobbling up field guides and taking practical courses in wilderness foraging. And even then, as Chris McCandless of Into the Wild discovered, when he poisoned himself ingesting seeds he should not have, the possibility of mistake hangs over everything you eat. 2. Figure Out Creative Ways to Get Water. Next to food, water holds an incredibly important position among survivalist needs. When I hike, I tend to carry water with me, and hope there will be more along the way to filter. And, more often than not, I intentionally seek out lakes or rivers, making water the least of my worries. But what if you’re lost in a desert? What if the nearest lake sits miles and miles away? I don’t have the slightest clue about how to make a solar still, or how to clean and filter stagnant pools of water, or collect condensation on the leaves of plants. I’ve only dropped iodine pills into pans of boiled water, or attached microfilters to bottles to help leach out all the bad—so if tasked with anything beyond that, I’d probably end up dead from dehydration. 19

3. Become a Proficient Shelter-Builder. Exposure to the elements takes a lot out of a person. The unrelenting rays of the sun suck energy dry, not to mention the constant, often painful onslaught of creepy, crawly, buzzing insects. It’s why we bring tents, tarps, lightweight hammocks to cocoon ourselves in throughout the night—that desire to remove the self from the elements. So, the ability to build a shelter is a boost to morale—a means of bringing some measure of comfort and security while trying to make it out there. But there are all kinds of shelters, and all kinds of considerations, each consideration adding another layer of difficulty, another required skill. Should it sit off the ground? Will a simple lean-to suffice? And never mind survival in the snow. Building an igloo seems like a whole other ordeal that I never want to have to think about. The extent of my own experience with outdoor shelter consists of merely fumbling around with tent poles and wrestling with a tent fly in the rain, or a windy day. 4. Knots. Not Just for the Sea-Goer In You. I’ve always associated knot-tying with boats, for the most part. But it turns out that knowledge of knots can be useful in many situations. Square knot. Clove hitch. Bowline. Figure 8. Fisherman’s Knot. Timber hitch. Sheepshank. Tripod lash. So many knots for so many purposes: hauling, suspending, connecting, securing. Each knot allowing for a different thing. To learn them all takes time, takes instruction, takes hours and hours of practice. And to build a shelter or a raft or even a trap for food, knowing how to lash things together can be a life-saver, something I’ve never really gotten the hang of, despite careful study of Fernando’s book of knots. After hours of flipping through the pages and numbered diagrams, my only real takeaways were confusion and a dizzying headache. 20

5. Basket-weaving: Who Knew? I’ve often heard people belittle skills such as basket-weaving, considering it some kind of waste-of-time activity that doesn’t have any uses in the modern world. But some rudimentary basket- making knowledge seems to have its place; is nothing to laugh at. You can catch fish, for example, if you know how to weave a basket. Or carry food. Or even, if skilled enough, to carry water. But you need to know the materials that will work, have to know how to weave them together to suit your purposes, have to dedicate the time to all of these things. I barely have the patience for knitting. My short foray into the hobby yielded a few colorful scarves and little else—dreams of blankets and beanies lost among piles of papers, stacks of books, asset settlements, bills. 6. Don’t Get Hurt. Or at Least Know a Little First Aid. I’ve learned a little bit of basic first aid. How to give someone CPR, how to clean and tend to a superficial wound, how to set a tourniquet. But that’s about it—and it’s not really enough. And it’s been years. These things require constant update, a new class and certification each year. The first rule—try not to get hurt to begin with—can’t always be avoided. Shit happens—a slip of the knife, a wrong step on a trail, the bite of a snake. But it’s knowing how to deal with that shit that really counts—knowing how to keep your cool, knowing when not to panic (a skill that I just haven’t gotten a handle on yet, if I’m being completely honest). There’s no 911 out there. Just you and maybe your partner and whatever the two of you know. 7. Speaking of Partners—Better Find a Good One. I find it difficult to deny that part of what makes a show like Naked and Afraid so entertaining comes from the human drama of two people thrown into a stressful situation, but at the same time, all the fighting can get frustrating to watch. 21

Survival out in the wild requires the kind of level-headed thinking and decision-making that arguments and heated tempers can impede—there’s only so much time to waste on bickering over the best location to set up camp, or over the best method of conserving resources. The real magic happens when couples seem to work seamlessly, laying out a plan of action and executing it, dividing up labor and allowing each to play to his or her own strengths, working together without getting in each other’s way. And in the end, I think that should be the goal in any relationship, no matter the situation—because a good partner makes life go so much easier. It’s a lesson I’ve taken a long time to learn. * In many ways, I think our cultural preoccupation with survival—the very idea of it, and our disconnection from and need to reconnect with it—mirrors my own. A show like Naked and Afraid allows for a glimpse at a way of life that we know is always lurking, ever at the periphery. It allows for viewers to imagine themselves having to survive—like really survive—if they found the everyday routine of their lives disrupted, thrown into upheaval. And it allows for a kind of study of the benefits of mutual cooperation—for the best kinds of practices, perhaps, for two people trying to make it through something difficult, together, without everything totally going to shit. What does survival mean, after all, to a bunch of modern citizens, especially those in highly developed nations? It means finding a job to pay the bills, avoiding a car accident on the freeway, keeping our fridges well-stocked, trying our best to get along well with the people in our lives—just trying to maintain. We have no need to spend our time thinking about how to run down our next meal, or making sure we have dry wood night after night for fires to keep the 22 critters away. But we understand that the only thing keeping us from a legit survival situation is the thin thread of civilization. We know that we’re missing something, that we’ve disconnected from something, that we’ve lost something. Something essential. Something we try to tap into whenever we tune in. 23

UNIMPEDED ON THE TRAIL

I’m way too exhausted to be walking down a mountain barefoot. After a long previous day of psychedelics-fueled wandering through a part of the Cordillera Central with friends and an uncomfortable night shacked up in El Guayabal with Fernando on a thin mattress only meant to hold a single person, I can barely manage to keep my body moving toward town. When I put my feet down, step by step, I can feel the cracked surface of the rocky dirt trail hard against the soles of my feet. I take careful steps and realize— picking my way around the sharp stones and rounded pebbles that make me slip and stumble—that to a passerby I probably look like some kind of lost drunk who took a wrong turn, but kept lurching forward without aim—a thing out of its element. I look like an idiot, a pair of shoes dangling from my hand, barefoot on this blisteringly hot trail. But I don’t care how I look, because all I want right now is to get the hell off this mountain. Fernando points and remarks, “See? You should’ve brought better shoes.” It seems cruel. But he has a good point. I’d only brought a pair of flip flops and a pair of sneakers. And for some reason, no socks. Everyone else—Lenny, Lenny’s cousin (who we all simply called “El Primo”), Junior, and Fernando—had come prepared. Had worn shoes that would not torture them with every step, that they would actually be comfortable in. And the thing is, I’d known that we would be doing this—hiking in the low mountains near the town of El Guayabal—during this particular road trip my first summer in the Dominican Republic (where Fernando lived) in 2006. But on that day, I’d chosen to wear the sneakers (sans socks), because I had not known that 24 we’d end up back in the mountains. I thought we’d be going for a short walk, taking it easy before our long drive back to Santo Domingo. Yesterday had gone fine. I’d worn flip flops. I’d also broken one the night before, the strap finally tearing loose after years of wear and abuse, the sneakers my only other option. When he says this to me, about what I should have done, I’m annoyed, but I know that he is right. All I can do in response is shrug. To concede, as in the old cliché, that “it is what it is,” and to suck it up—to accept what I had brought upon myself. The insides of the sneakers, moist from where we’d crossed a stream, humid from the sticky heat of the tropical summer day, had rubbed and rubbed against the sides and tops of my feet, leaving tender blisters that burst, exposing the raw skin beneath. Taking them off seemed only logical, a way to avoid further injury. Or at least less painful. But I didn’t really have a lot of experience with hiking up to that point. It just wasn’t something that my family did. So, I had no idea about ideal footwear for this particular situation. Had no idea that a pair of Vans just wouldn’t cut it, or that they make special bandages just for this kind of situation. All I know is that I am hating every minute of this, that my feet hurt with every step I take, and that I just want to get off this god damned mountain. We’re out here because we wanted a last day of exploring. And I need to finish what I’ve started, despite the pain. I need to overcome this challenge, because nothing else but my own two feet will get me through it. * It’s the middle of August, later that same summer of my trip to the D.R., and all of the California Central Valley bakes under the intense heat of the summer sun. Everything is hot, searing hot. Every surface. Even the shade offers no real 25 escape from the relentlessness of it. It’s the kind of heat that builds up in your car and bowls you over in one hot wave as you open the door, that makes plants droop under its oppressiveness, that makes you want to do nothing and sleep all day. Despite this heat, I walk barefoot. A lot. Shoes become a kind of afterthought. As in: only after I have dashed from the apartment to retrieve the mail, or something from the car, and felt the heat of the cement on the bottoms of my feet, does it register that I’m not wearing any. But I don’t bother to go back. I also become preoccupied with feet—with the risks and benefits of barefoot walking, with the risks and benefits of wearing shoes. I do a lot of reading. A lot of Internet browsing. Commonly associated risks of barefoot walking include: stubbed toes, glass, rocks, blisters, nails, frostbite, as well as possible calf pain or even achilles tendinitis brought on by transitioning too rapidly to a state of shoelessness. Commonly associated benefits include: no bunions, corns, or “fallen arches,” and a significant reduction in impact collision to ankles and knees. Or so they say. Nevertheless, for people who prefer barefoot walking, it seems that the benefits outweigh the risks. In fact, barefoot walkers report a relatively low amount of injuries associated with the activity. For the most part, the major appeal of barefoot walking is that it results in a more “natural” gait—something that cannot be achieved with the kinds of shoes that we wear on a day -to-day basis. While reading, I discovered that shoes force a walker to land heel-first, which results in a higher level of impact. When barefoot, though, the walker lands on the fore- or mid- foot, resulting in a smoother rocking motion that does not stress joints. 26

In order to address the assorted risks associated with barefoot walking, individuals and companies have, of course, capitalized on the growing embrace of barefoot activities, in the form of the minimalist shoe—a simple, lightweight design that fits like a toe-sock, with a durable rubber that covers the bottom and extends up to protect the toes and soles of the feet. I learn that, for a not insignificant price, I, too, can experience the pleasures of barefoot walking, with none of the risk that barefoot walking might entail. Years later, after that painful day in the cordillera, in an effort to satisfy my growing curiosity, I will find myself running out to my local REI and buying myself a pair of these minimalist shoes—pink and black, with a design suited for outdoor trekking activities—in preparation for an upcoming backpacking trip. In the months leading up to the Grand Canyon hike, I will spend days slowly acclimating myself to the minimalist shoe, wearing them everywhere, slowly at first, in order to avoid those risks associated with too rapid a switch from normal footwear. It will be strange at first, taking a certain amount of effort to wiggle and prod each toe into its separate compartment, each digit free and moveable. But this strangeness will recede, and the Vibrams will become like a second skin—comfortable, familiar—almost as if they weren’t there at all. * I will love hiking barefoot. I cannot tell you with any precision when this will happen. This will be a new pleasure that will develop unexpectedly, and it will be hard for me to figure out why. Hard for me to trace it back to the exact moment. But one day I will be on the trail, hiking my way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon with Fernando, leg muscles tired and burning from the effort of it all, and I will be incredibly glad to be so light on my feet. 27

The hike will be the kind that takes me down steep switchbacks—a narrow, dusty trail lined by, for the most part, canyon wall on one side and a nasty fall on the other. Our descent will be a slippery one; the hard rock surface of the trail covered in a layer of fine dirt. There will be rough stairs hewn into the ancient stone, and large stones to navigate down and around. The descent, and subsequent ascent, will be a challenge. But none of this will bother me. I will find that the grip of the rubber soles with the added ability to use my toes allows for me to find better footing. I will feel less clumsy without the added bulk and weight of a hiking boot—better able to maneuver down rocks, slipping my feet into spaces that boots would never allow. I will find freedom in this sure- footedness, being able to feel the ground beneath my feet, but at the same time knowing that my feet will be protected from jagged rocks and prickly burrs. And I will take great pleasure in the strange looks and assorted questions and comments that I will receive from other hikers along the way. “Hey you’ve got some’a them toe-shoes,” an older gentleman will comment, squinting at me from under the brim of his hat, salt and pepper hair peeking out along the edges. “How’re those things?” Or: “How can you hike in those shoes,” a young woman will inquire, leaning on her trekking pole and pointing down at my feet. “Aren’t you afraid that you’ll hurt yourself? Twist an ankle or something?” Or: “Oh awesome! You’re using those Vibrams! My buddy uses them for jogging. I gotta tell him I saw someone hiking in them. What a trip.” My responses will naturally be positive, perhaps even informative. I will tell these fellow hikers that they are the most comfortable shoes that I’ve ever 28 walked in. I will laugh and tell them that hiking in them is no problem, perhaps even better, easier, than in a normal pair of hiking boots. And I will tell them that I love how the shoes have allowed me to rediscover my feet—to find that toes hold a purpose other than that of mere balance—and that there is something very satisfying in that. I will want to tell them more—how much more intimate the hiking experience is, how much closer to nature I feel—but I don’t want to come off as strange, or perhaps too Muir-like in my (admittedly over-the-top) enthusiasm. It’s just that I will have developed a new passion that I’ve never had before. It’s there, filling me up, bringing me new, pleasurable sensations—and I just want to share my excitement about my new-found foot freedom with everyone I meet along the trail. I think I always imagined that over the years, as I matured and grew older, that I’d abandon my proclivity towards obsessions, the way I’d walk away from some broken down car on the highway—and I have in many ways become less prone to acquiring them. But I never could’ve predicted that I’d get so caught up with new obsessions as the years went on. But this one. This new obsession with barefoot hiking, this new fascination I’ve found. I believe I can trace it back. It begins on that hot, miserable July day in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. * I am not alone in this interest in barefoot walking. Hundreds of thousands of like-minded people throughout the U.S. and in other countries around the world share an enthusiasm for what they consider to be a more natural way of getting around. Here in the U.S., there are clubs—Barefoot Hikers of Minnesota, Seattle Barefoot Hikers, East Bay Barefoot Hikers, Barefoot Hikers and Grass Walkers of 29

Greater Kansas City, and Barefoot Hikers of Connecticut—where people hike and walk barefoot together for the pure pleasure and challenge of it. In European nations, such as Austria and Germany, there are parks specifically dedicated to barefoot walking, hiking, and other outdoor activities. And I read that in Seoul, South Korea, there are over 100 barefoot parks that people can enjoy throughout the city. Countless people around the world have embraced the barefoot walking experience in both urban and non-urban settings. The reasons for this vary, and may not be all that easy to pin down, each person having his or her own (perhaps complex) motivations for participating in the activity. For some it is a matter of health—they see the alternative, wearing shoes, as damaging to their bodies, and are in search of some alternative, something more natural. For others, it may be for the challenge of it—walking around in shoes a much easier task, with less careful attention required. Barefoot walking means actually having to deal with the elements, with the ground in all its many forms against the skin. Yet even here there seems a common thread—this pursuit of a connection to something more natural, a search for some other way of experiencing the world around them. The kinds of shoes that we wear from day-to-day are viewed as unnatural, as some kind of constraint that we’ve placed upon ourselves for the sake of fashion over function—something that removes our feet from the immediate environment. This reconnection to the environment, to function, to nature, is something that the barefoot walker searches for in the rejection of sneakers, of hiking boots, of sandals, of all manner of footwear. This desire to connect to back to nature in even the smallest of ways seems to pervade so much of human existence—the longing for green spaces, traveling to national parks and the wilderness of the back country to escape the confines of the 30 city, the multitude of activities that take us out of buildings and out onto lakes and mountains and oceans and deserts. All of this I could well understand. I could understand the desire to shed the restraints of society and civilization, if only for a short time, if only in the smallest of ways. I could understand the enjoyment found in the simple pleasure of the hard, bare earth beneath the feet, the soft tickle of grass between the toes. I’d experienced it myself, after all. And I could begin to understand how part of it did stem from the challenge; the way walking barefoot requires a different kind of walking, poses a different kind of demand on the feet. Yet there is a satisfaction in the undertaking of it. * I used to think people who walked around barefoot were simply crazy, exposing themselves to the harm that can come from sharp edges, from the elements, from abrasions and diseases and all manner of things. In fact, years before I found myself embracing the barefoot way, I knew a girl—the on-again, off-again girlfriend of a guy I used to fool around with—who would walk barefoot all the time, summer or winter, fair weather or poor. I’d be critical of her, always questioning her decision to forego shoes, always wondering how she could stand the cold, wet, dirty ground underfoot. I’d even be shocked when she mentioned, as if it were the most normal of things, that she’d go shoeless in shopping malls and restaurants and all manner of businesses. To me, at the time, this was something unfathomable. I’d relegated barefootedness to the realms of beaches and pool sides and running in the backyard in childhood. We see signs in storefronts telling us things like NO SHIRT NO SHOES NO SERVICE, and so there must be a reason for 31 that, I figured—something related to health, to safety. But when I researched health and workplace codes for places of business I found nothing related to feet, no laws stating that shoes must be worn. I discovered that signs like these in the United States didn’t make a popular appearance until the 60s and 70s, in reaction to the counterculture movement—an attempt by businesses to keep those “dirty hippies” out of their establishments. Today, it’s more a matter of practice than anything else. We’re raised to believe that shoes are the norm when out and about, and, on the whole, we accept that, never bothering to question otherwise. At the same time, I’ve always experienced a kind of discomfort when wearing shoes—found them too restricting, often contorting my feet into positions that just didn’t feel right. Positions that result in soreness of toes and arches—a soreness that builds until I can no longer stand it, until I pull off my shoes to give my feet a respite, however brief. In these moments, I often find myself wondering why we put ourselves through so much trouble just for the sake of looking good. But, I’m going to be honest, I haven’t totally taken the plunge, haven’t totally made the break from long-term habits. I still wear shoes—flats or high heels—whenever I’m out on the town. I don’t always concern myself with how functional a pair of shoes actually is, and instead worry more about how good a pair of heeled anything makes my legs and ass look. Worry more about coordinating and accessorizing and being fashionable. I know that I will always be uncomfortable on these occasions—but sometimes I think I am just too afraid to completely leave shoes behind. I wonder if I will ever be able to go barefoot full-time, if I will ever feel comfortable in all situations without footwear. Perhaps I still haven’t gotten over the fact that shoelessness isn’t seen as terribly socially acceptable in every situation. Perhaps I haven’t gotten over thinking such a thing strange. 32

For now, all I know is that I haven’t quite let go. * When we finally got down off that mountain and back into town, I felt relief—and something else. Back on the hot, rock-covered trail, as I winced my way along, I’d silently cursed every moment. But now that it was over, now that I’d finished what I’d begun, I couldn’t be sure that I had hated it entirely. I know it might sound strange, but that day in the Cordillera Central I experienced some kind of pleasure. As I moved my feet over the dry cracked earth, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit satisfied. Every step forward was a step closer to my destination. I felt a connection to my body and to the landscape around me unlike I’d ever felt before. Perhaps I felt something begin to take shape—the tickle of an obsession, the thrill over the intimate proximity of bare feet to ground, a concrete reflection of my preoccupation with the natural—and I understood how suddenly new passions could arise. I was hesitant to think about it, worried about what it might say about me, this delight that I’d taken in the pain of each step—the bruises and aches some kind of badge of courage, celebrating a part of myself I hadn’t known was there. 33

OVERNIGHT IN THE GRAND CANYON

“For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars.” —Mary Austin

“You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which the curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil… through its labyrinths.” —Major J. Wesley Powell

In the summer of 2012, Fernando and I decided to embark on a cross- country road trip, an experience we considered to be a quintessentially American rite of passage—a product, perhaps, of over-exposure to Hollywood productions and other media. Our journey would take us through the south from California, up through D.C. and NYC, then back along a northern route, where we'd stop to see a friend in Minneapolis and hit a few national parks. Since the drive took us through Arizona, Grand Canyon National Park seemed the logical first stop for two geology nerds on an easterly course with minimal experience of the vast and varied American landscape, so we made plans to camp at the South Rim for a couple of days. Throughout the drive to Arizona the air of the car seemed filled with a kind of charge—an electric hum of excitement mixed with nervousness and wonder of what the road ahead would hold for us. We spent our anxious hours in the car in rabid consumption of information about our destination, reading out loud to each other extensive articles on the geologic history of the region and the local flora and fauna—hungry and eager to fill ourselves with whatever knowledge we could about our destination. 34

“It's crazy to think that water can do something like that,” I remarked, after Fernando had read through a section on the process of erosion on the canyon. “Well,” he paused, adjusting the glasses on his nose. “Wind, too. But yeah, water's more powerful than people realize…hey, says here there's a layer of petrified sand dunes.” “Wait,” I said. “Like you can actually see the dunes preserved on the canyon walls?” “Yup.” He nodded his head as he scrolled through the text on his tablet screen. “Holy shit that's crazy,” I exclaimed. By the time we arrived, late in the afternoon, we had worked ourselves into a kind of frenzy, the goal of setting our eyes on the canyon the only thing on our minds. Our more immediate physical needs, such as our hunger and the necessity of setting up the tent that served as our home on-the-road, took a back seat to the overwhelming need to head to the rim upon arrival. And so head to the rim we did. As I approached the rim, the ponderosa and pinyon pines thinned, eventually giving way to canyon that stretched on and on for miles. I saw before me a chaotic landscape of plateaus, layered in deep reds and browns all the way to the dusty horizon—seemingly endless—a dizzying display. I struggled to understand the landscape in front of me as I walked right up to the rim edge. I hate to say something as tired and (perhaps) clichéd as “I laughed, I cried!”—but to be perfectly honest that’s exactly what happened. Standing there, I felt small and insignificant in the vastness of it all, and for a moment I could almost understand how humankind could gaze upon the many and prodigious manifestations of nature’s processes around the world and imagine gods carving and molding, designing and creating. It seemed almost impossible that the great fissure in the 35 earth in front of me, mere inches from my toes, could have been the result of water and wind, of time and tectonics. “Wow,” I said, as I pulled my hoodie tightly against by body in response to the chilly breeze. “Like, you see it in pictures or whatever but this is insane.” “Right? I've always wanted to come here.” Fernando took my hand and tugged gently. “But we should get to our campsite. It's been a long day and we need to set up.” I nodded and we headed back to the car, hand-in-hand. Later that first evening, we sat at our campsite, drinking beers and watching the sun slip slowly toward the horizon—hues of orange and red shining through the dusty desert air. We passed a cigarette back and forth across the picnic table, and listened to the crackle of our campfire. “So, I know that we don't have any real plans while we're here,” I began, taking a slow drag. “But I kinda wanna hike in the canyon some, explore a little. See it up close.” “Sure,” he said, pausing to take a swig from his can. “I was just thinking that. Great minds, eh?” Fernando nudged my arm and winked. We sat for some time more, chatting about our plans for the upcoming days, the route we would take, and possible stops along the way. Eventually we turned in for the night, tired from the long day on the road. The next morning, we stood before the South Kaibab trailhead, joining the throngs of other backpackers, campers, and tourists making their way down the first set of switchbacks into the canyon. The hike that day took us through what had to be the most crowded section of the trail. (The National Park Service, wanting to avoid more heat and water-related problems than necessary, advises the 36 less experienced day hiker to remain on only the first three miles of the trail.) People littered the dusty, winding path—a mere two feet wide between the safety of a solid wall of warm rock and a potentially deadly tumble over the edge—both ahead and behind, making the trek down slow and cautious. We passed through grayish-white layers of Kaibab limestone and grainy, buff Coconino sandstone and wove our way down into the deep, rich red of the Hermit shale to our previously agreed upon turn around spot, Skeleton Point, three miles down from the rim. The crowd had thinned considerably at this point, most hikers content to relax in the shade of Cedar Ridge, a mile and a half back on the trail (if they had bothered go to so far), before turning back to escape the increasing heat of the inner canyon for the more inviting coolness of the rim. But me, I didn’t want to turn around. The closer we got to Skeleton Point, rather than satisfaction, I felt the ache of a slowly growing disappointment deep inside, because we'd have to turn around, when I simply wanted to continue on— to experience more and more of the canyon. My prodding attempts to convince Fernando to agree to “just go a little farther” fell pathetically flat. In the end, his sensible observations about our lack of water and the increasingly oppressive heat within the canyon won out, and I grudgingly turned to begin the three mile ascent back to the trailhead. On the trip back up, I trekked mostly in silence, my thoughts caught up between my attentiveness to my surroundings and how much I had loathed turning back. I knew that I had only gotten a small taste of what the canyon had to offer, and I wanted more. I wanted to see the silver snake of the Colorado glinting in the desert sun, unviewable from the short distance we hiked in. I wanted to hike deep into the canyon, engulfed by the hot, silent air, far removed from the crowds of tourists above. Our short trip on the South Kaibab had played the role of a teaser, 37 that first taste, exciting my senses for more. That’s when the idea to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and camp along Bright Angel Creek began to materialize and take shape in my mind, an idea that would become an obsession, an obsession that would grow and grow until I knew that the only way to ease this newfound need would be to actually do it, no matter what it took. Near the end of our hike, we sat along the dusty red canyon wall, out of the way of other hikers, for a short rest. I pulled a water bottle out from my pack, took a swig, then offered it to Fernando. “Hey, so,” I began. “We should totally hike all the way to the bottom someday.” “That's a lot of hiking,” he noted, passing the bottle back. “We wouldn't be able to do it in one day.” “Well, no,” I replied. “We could camp out, stay the night, spend some time exploring down there.” “I could go for that,” he said enthusiastically. “We should research what we need to do, we could get on it when we get back to our site, even.” As we continued our way up to the canyon rim, I smiled to myself, happy that Fernando was willing to undertake this future adventure with me. Unlike Thoreau, my enjoyment of nature does not depend on going solo. While the possibility of solitude and disconnection from the drain of everyday city life is an alluring feature of being out in the wild, I enjoy company and sharing experiences with others out on the trail, in spite of conflicts and setback that we might experience together. And, as every wilderness survival guide ever advises, it’s always better to hike as a pair, just in case something should happen to go wrong. * 38

Roughly one year later, I stood again at the trailhead by Fernando’s side, this time with everything on our backs we’d need to survive for the next couple of days. I felt that same excited energy running through my body as we began the familiar route down the South Kaibab—only this time, I wouldn’t have to stop. The late May morning air felt crisp and cool on my face and arms as we walked among the few others starting out. As we started our way down, the trail was firm and dusty beneath my feet, the canyon walls intermittently cool and warm—the sun beginning to take its toll. Once again, I found myself amazed by the sheer enormity of it all—the way water plays the role of nature’s chisel, carving deep into the hardened layers of schists and shales. The way wind and time further erode the exposed rock. At Cedar Ridge, a mile and a half from the top, we decided to stop for a short break. We took shelter from the sun under the barren branches of a very dead cedar tree, one of the many that dotted that area. I could see the trail as it snaked down toward Skeleton Point, far below in the distance. Here and there a raven sat perched on a gnarled branch, passively observing the humans and their packs. Fellow hikers sat scattered around the area, though we had not yet run into anyone else going as far as us. I headed toward the edge of the ridge to get a better look below, and when I turned to signal to him, I saw a raven standing right on my pack, tugging at a zipper with its beak. I jumped and ran back to the tree, waving my arms wildly, sending the raven into a lazy flight to a neighboring tree. “What a little shit,” I said, laughing in disbelief. “Ravens figured out zippers?” “They're very smart,” he replied. “I've read about it. They even use tools like sticks.” 39

“I guess we'll have to be a lot more careful, keep a better eye on things,” I remarked, as I hefted my bag back onto my shoulders and adjusted the straps. “Mhm,” he agreed, heading back toward the trail. “C'mon. We've still got a long way.” We continued on our way, amused at the craftiness of the raven (and many other creatures) when it comes to their ability to foil the schemes of humans to hide their precious food. We made good time, light-footed in our minimalist shoes, carried on by the momentum of our excitement and the assistance of the persistent downward sloping grade. We passed Skeleton Point, and the trail grew steeper, with countless switchbacks winding us slowly toward the canyon floor. I started to notice that the constant downward motion had a profound effect on my legs and joints, and the thirty-two pounds of gear and water on my back became increasingly physically obvious. On top of that, the heat of the day had grown more oppressive the farther we traveled into the canyon and the walls acted like a giant oven, the rocks soaking in the rays of the sun and radiating the heat back out. After the steep descent from Skeleton Point, we walked along a wide-open desert-scape dotted with unfriendly, prickly looking plants and cacti, with no place for any reprieve from the sun. Despite the heat, I covered myself in a thick black hoodie I’d brought for the chilly evenings. I would have given anything for a cloud or two—anything that would have brought some relief. By the time we reached the Tipoff, about five miles down, we were both visibly exhausted, faces red and glistening with sweat from the heat and exertion. We stopped to rest before heading for the bridge, still a couple of miles down the trail, taking time to admire our clear, oh-so-close view of the Colorado running fast below. We tried to make light of our final leg—the steepest set of switchbacks on the South Kaibab—but we weren't very happy about all that vertical space 40 between ourselves and the canyon bottom. We pushed through the pain in our legs and hips and headed off, eager to finally get to camp. We made our way slowly down the first of the remaining switchbacks, when Fernando mentioned that he felt ill, and needed to stop. We found a shady spot by an outcropping of rocks and sat, taking sips of water in silence. When he finally felt ready we started off again, the river getting closer and closer at every turn. Then, a few feet behind me, I heard him make a curious sound. I turned around to find him hunched over, vomiting off to one side of the trail. “Ohmygod, are you okay?” I asked, hurrying over to his side as he continued to vomit water. “I dunno,” he mumbled, bent over with his hands on his knees. “I feel really bad.” Though I haven’t always handled high-stress situations well, on this occasion I tried not to panic or get worked up. I didn't know what puking water meant—not dehydration, surely—but it couldn't have been anything good. Possibilities raced through my mind, but I knew we needed to find a way to stop the vomiting, and fast. “Do you need something?” I asked as I began quickly rummaging through my pack, pulling things out, unsure of what to do. “Water? Are you hungry? Is it sugar? I have some gum.” Fernando held out his hand and shook his head as he took slow, deep breaths. “Salt,” he finally muttered. “Gimme a salt packet. I really want salt.” I dug through our food bag, located a couple of packets of salt and handed them over. He opened them as he sat down in the middle of the trail and dumped the contents into his mouth. 41

After a few minutes, a look of relief came over his face, and he stated he felt ready to push on. “As long as you're sure,” I said, running my fingers in his curly black hair. “We're pretty close, so we can take a bit more time to rest—” “No I'm fine,” he interrupted, running his hands over his sweaty face. “Let's just get there. I'm tired of being on this damn trail.” We managed to work our way down several more switchbacks when I heard the familiar sound of vomiting a few feet behind me again. Though the salt had served as a temporary solution, I started to wonder if we would make it through alright, and if it would be possible to get help if we needed it, as we hadn't seen another person for some time. Fernando seemed set, though, on making it down and so he pushed through his feelings of nausea, refusing to let his body drag him down. Through sheer force of will, we made it down from the Tipoff, passed through the small tunnel bored into the canyon rock, and reached the Black Suspension Bridge that spans the Colorado, over six and a half miles from the rim. The bridge shuddered and vibrated under our every step, while the undoubtedly cold, deadly water swept by far below. It was then that I realized that hiking the Grand Canyon had become a brutal challenge for my body—by the time of my bridge-crossing I was all but yelling at my legs to “keep going forward, keep going forward.” For the last few miles, I'd tried to ignore my aches and fatigue, reassuring myself that it would soon be over and I could finally relax. Once on the other side, however, we still had a short hike to Bright Angel, where we’d make camp, and those last few hundred feet were some of the hardest I'd ever walked. We dragged ourselves along until we finally found a spot beside the well-shaded creek. 42

We threw our packs onto the ground and sat down heavily at the wooden picnic table. “Feeling any better?” I asked after a few minutes, my chin resting in my hand. “Eh…a little,” he replied. “Mostly just glad to finally be here.” I nodded and we sat for a few more moments, then started unpacking our gear. While pulling out the MRE kits we'd brought as an easy fire-free alternative to dehydrated food, Fernando noticed the powdered juice packets contained electrolytes, and hurried off to find more water. As I continued unpacking, setting the tent and sleeping bags off to one side, the creek across the way caught my eye. The water looked cool and inviting, well- shaded by cottonwoods and other small trees. I picked my way through the ground vegetation to the edge of the creek. I stepped in, and the icy cold water covered my tired feet. I continued out into deeper waters and then sat, letting the water soak into my clothing and wash over my legs. My overheated body cooled and I scooped up palmfuls of water, splashing it onto my face. I watched the water glide fluidly over and around stones, dispersing among the grasses that lined the creek. Down the way, fellow campers sat at the water’s edge, engrossed in conversation. I closed my eyes and thought about the battle fought against the trail and how satisfied I felt. A rustle from the nearby tamarisk lining the creek jarred me from my thoughts, and I turned my head as a mule deer emerged slowly from the shrub. She stopped and stared at me, as if trying to determine my threat level. She then proceeded into the water, toward a dense clump of grasses on a rocky rise mid- creek in front of me. I watched quietly, still as possible, as the deer picked slowly 43 at the grass. Then another joined her side, and another. I snuck back up to our site, trying not to disturb their grazing. By the time I got back to the campsite, Fernando had returned with plenty of water, and mentioned he'd done a little preliminary exploring. “So, that resort they have down here,” he began, as he mixed a juice packet into a bottle of water. “Phantom Ranch. I found it. And they have a cafeteria and a store and even electricity.” “That's sounds kinda weird,” I remarked. “Something like that down here, yknow? I might wanna check it out later, if that's cool.” “Sure,” he took a long drink and offered it to me. “Someone up there told me a lot of campers hang out at the cafeteria at night. Play cards. They even have beer.” “A beer sounds amaaaaazing,” I said with a smile. We made quick work of the tent, then started setting up dinner in heating pouches. I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that we'd gained an audience. A group of four or five mule deer gathered around the campsite. We sat eating our packaged meals and watched the deer pulling at leaves and other foliage, while keeping an eye on us. “They'd rather have what you have,” Fernando pointed out between bites. “I guess so,” I chuckled, motioning to the tall hooked poles nearby. “I guess we know what those are for huh.” After dinner, we headed for Phantom Ranch. The cabins around the cafeteria seemed out of place, like they didn't belong, and something about their presence bothered me. For most of our journey, evidence of human civilization had been absent—and yet here, nestled deep down in miles of ancient, aged rock, we found buildings. In hiking to the bottom of the canyon, I'd attempted to get 44 away from these features of human life, to experience nature on a more basic level—without everyday comforts. “Why the hell would you come all the way down here only to stay in a cabin,” I demanded, gesturing toward one nearby. “Not everyone likes sleeping on the ground, you know,” Fernando replied. I scoffed and rolled my eyes, kicking at the dirt with the toe of my shoe. “Whatever,” I finally said. “I still think it'd be cooler if we didn't have to build shit absolutely everywhere.” Fernando let out a light laugh and grabbed my hand, urging me forward. Despite my displeasure, I marveled at the disorienting effect of the high walls of rock surrounding us, our view of the sky confined to a brilliant blue steak overhead, with no discernible horizon, only the twists and curves of the canyon as far as I could see. While we walked, we admired the silence, broken only by the gentle rustling of leaves in the warm slight breeze. It began to grow dark, as night falls fast in the canyon once the sun dips down below the rim, so we headed to the cafeteria, joining others trickling in, and took our place in line, got our beer, and found a spot on a bench near a couple playing cards. Despite the warmth of the beer, I felt happy, and even a little victorious. We had good cause to celebrate, after all. For two moderately out-of- shape smokers we hadn’t done half bad. While we drank our beers, we chatted with the other hikers around us, and enjoyed listening to them talk about their experiences on the trail, sharing stories and jokes, and their reasons for being there. “We just came down from the North Rim this morning, fourteen miles,” mentioned one man, as he adjusted a dusty bandana that covered his messy blonde hair. “Hard work, but I like to push myself.” 45

“I just love how peaceful it is,” added a slightly sun-burned woman across from him, glancing up from her hand of cards. “Far away from everything, no worries, and the land is just beautiful. It's my third time.” “This is our first time,” I said, trying to suppress a yawn. “Well, at least to the bottom. We came like a year ago, but just had to see more.” “How long you here for?” the man asked. “Just the one night,” Fernando chimed in. “We head back out tomorrow.” “Oh man,” he shook his head as he spoke. “That's not enough. There's so much to see.” We chatted a while longer while Fernando and I finished up our beers, but soon headed back to our tent, the both of us hardly able to keep our eyes open any longer. Darkness blanketed our walk back to camp. As we crossed a bridge over the creek, we spied glowing eyes peering out from the brush along the canyon wall—perhaps a fox, or coyote. A chill ran along my spine as the wind kicked up, rushing down and between the canyon walls, the sound like ocean waves crashing on the shore. We turned in for the night and fell quickly into a heavy sleep, without a thought about the hike out the next morning. * I could tell you all about the hike up Bright Angel Trail, back to the top of the South Rim. That the nine-mile side canyon took us along the Colorado until it broke away, leading us once again through an arid desert-scape, full of prickly plants and an unrelenting sun. That we'd slept in, none too eager to move, let alone hike back out of a canyon. That by the time I could see the canyon rim growing closer and closer with every turn, I was sick of being there, that every step was torture, that I ached in places I didn't even know I could. And that once again 46

Fernando vomited water the last few miles up the canyon, refusing help, stating he would drag himself and his pack out of that canyon on his own or die trying, that anything else would have been cheating. But then, you've heard it all before. I'd hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to address an obsession, but had not considered the physical toll that it might take, my urge to experience something overpowering every other consideration. And at times throughout the hike up, I wondered about own abilities, whether the pain would be too much, if my legs would hold up, if Fernando might need some kind of medical attention despite his insistence on finishing. I had come to the canyon because I wanted to enjoy the sights, to unwind a little, but I could only think about my body—skin sunburned and knees wobbly, each step less and less sure—and the dusty trail ahead of me. Toward the end of my hike, I was no longer enjoying myself, and questioned whether or not we'd actually make it to the top. But as tired and beaten as I felt when I finally made those last few switchbacks to the top, the cool rim air hitting my body, my misery gave way to something else. I sat down at a bench near the trailhead and Fernando sat down beside me a few moments later, unclasped his pack and let it drop to the ground with a heavy thud. “Holy shit,” he panted, wiping his face with a dirty green bandana. “We made it.” “Barely,” I said, a little smile crossing my face. “I thought I might have to drag you out a couple times there.” “I told you. I started, so I'm damn well going to finish.” He opened a bottle of water and poured the remainder of the contents over his head. “Well,” I started, fanning myself with a small notebook I'd pulled from my pack. “At least we know we can get shit done when we put our minds to it, huh?” 47

I realized, as we sat there, that despite the pain and misery, I had managed to accomplish something, and that Fernando had played an important role in that accomplishment. Out on the trail, we’d worked as a team, something that didn't always happen in our day-to-day lives, which had turned into arguments and discord more than anything else. But out here we left all that shit behind, in the face of risk, in the face of injury and uncertainty, and focused only on our goal— making it through. Alive. Safe. Together. I left the canyon rim that day feeling optimistic, as if I had discovered some kind of key, a way for us to mend the fissure that had grown within our marriage for the past couple of years, a way for us to come together and try to realign our lives, to stop from drifting farther and farther away from each other—however naive that thinking may have been. I stood up and stretched in the late afternoon sun, staring out toward the canyon, watching dark specks way down on the trail zig and zag their way up and wished that we didn't have to leave the next day. For all the aches and pains, I wanted more. I wished we could still be down there, exploring, meeting new people, rather than preparing to return home to all the work and stress. “We should have reserved the site for more than a day,” I sighed, adjusting the dirt smeared cap on my head. “Weren't you just saying that you're over it?” Fernando asked, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah well, now that it's done I just kind of wish it wasn't yknow? Like I just wish we could've done more hiking.” “You're crazy,” he laughed. “You can barely move, and you want to keep going.” He shook his head. “But nothing says we can't come back some other time.” 48

I picked up my pack, and slung it over my right shoulder, finally ready to head back to the car and then back to the campsite we'd booked for the night. “Okay but, we should do something different. Like a different route, to see stuff we haven't seen yet.” “We could try rim to rim, like that guy at Phantom Ranch was talking about,” he suggested. “But not in a single day, please. I think I'd die.” “Nah,” he shook his head again. “Over a few days, nice and slow.” “I'd like that,” I replied, as a rumbling rose up in my abdomen. “But right now, I'm hungry as hell.” We shuffle-waddled back to the car, like some kind of crabs, unable (or unwilling) to bend our knees or lift our feet any longer, and discussed what kind of gear we'd need for a south-to-north rim hike and back. 49

CONNECTION AND DISCONNECTION IN NORTH AMERICA’S LOWEST GEOLOGICAL POINT

My black, dirt-crusted Ford Focus rattled and shook violently, the never- ending downward slope into Death Valley taking its toll on my under-maintained brake system from the continuous application of foot to pedal in an effort to fight gravity’s pull, the constantly increasing velocity. I gripped the wheel, tense and nervous, Fernando in the passenger seat, keeping an eye on the maps app open on his screen. “Careful, watch your speed,” he remarked, glancing up from his phone over at the speedometer on the dash. “I know, I know, I’m watching,” I snapped back, eyes glued to the road ahead. “Chill.” “Just reminding you,” he replied, irritation in his voice. “I wouldn’t push the brakes too hard.” I felt a slight wave of annoyance come over me. I wish he’d back off, I thought angrily. If he wanted to drive, then he should drive. But nooo, he didn’t feel comfortable driving, so he should just let me do that. The brakes let out a shrill squeal as I pressed down on the pedal. “You’re the one who said we should be fine,” I reminded him, as the car let out a rough shudder. “When I asked if the car’d make it.” “No,” he began. “I said I wasn’t sure, but left the final decision to you. You insisted we couldn’t cancel the trip.” I furrowed my brow and opened my mouth in protest, but then shut it, not really wanting to argue anymore. Sure, we’d talked about the need to get the car looked at, but I didn’t remember it going down that way. True, I hadn’t liked the 50 idea of calling the whole thing off, the idea of spending Spring Break at home an unattractive one. And Fernando had mentioned that we might be taking a risk. And maybe I had waved him off as overly cautious. But I also hadn’t thought about how hard the trip would be on the car. Thankfully, the descent from the dark, sunbaked Panamints would be our final that day, following countless miles of mountain and valley—cutting through the southern Sierras, up the Owens Valley along the eastern side of the range, snow-capped peaks of Mt. Whitney gleaming in the early morning sun. As we drew closer to the bottom of the Panamints, I breathed a sigh of relief. The long beige strip of valley loomed large before us through the dusty haze, particulates of dirt and grit colliding with the car as we sped down the lonely highway. Other travelers on the road that day had been scarce, as had been any real sign of civilization—the landscape largely unsuitable to sustaining human life and enterprise, a fact hard-learned by the various settlers and miners who’d endeavored to set up shop and found the environment too hostile, the remoteness from everything else—cities, rail, adequate water—too much to overcome. “Look.” I took a hand off the wheel and pointed. “That’s it. Almost there. Ol’ Bob’s gonna make it.” I patted my hand on the dash of the car. “Sure,” Fernando replied, unplugging his phone from the car charger. “Still have to make it home, though. I can’t even imagine what a tow out here costs.” “Can we just not worry about that right now?” I asked, trying to put myself into a better mood. “Like how crazy is it to practically be in the middle of nowhere?” All around us, as far as we could see, was desert and very little else—it seemed strange at first, almost alien. But by the time that we entered the park that day, I had grown accustomed to the emptiness, the solitary road carving a dark line 51 through the broad flat land, thinning and eventually disappearing into the jagged, mountain-lined horizon ahead. The distances between towns (if you could even call them towns) increasing until there were no more towns at all. So accustomed, in fact, that to see the buildings and shops around Stovepipe Wells and within the national park itself was strange. They seemed so out of place, much like the cabins way down at Phantom Ranch, scattered sparsely about the largely barren valley— though part of me was glad that they were there. * Death Valley National Park rests along the eastern border of California, in a zone between the Mojave and Great Basin deserts; a dusty, isolated basin valley situated 282 feet below sea level at its lowest point, surrounded on all sides by rugged, weathered mountain ranges—Panamint, Funeral, Amargosa and Black—a product of subduction and volcanism, crustal uplift and stretching. The violent push and pull of the shifting lithosphere eventually forming the sunken oblong, sediment-filled bowl of the current desert-scape. What now holds an arid biosphere of life battling for what little rain falls, once range after range has sucked the moisture from the sky, was once a lush space—an inland lake born of and sustained by a series of glacial melts. Over time, deprived of the icy liquid run-off, the valley dried up, the disappearing waters leaving behind evaporates and minerals that are common features of the valley floor today. Due to these millions of years of mountain-building processes, slowly nudging the coastline westward, Death Valley inhabits a “rain shadow” region, geographically—storm systems must pass two major ranges, and smaller ones, before they finally hit the valley. This, coupled with its distance from the Pacific, as well as its low elevation, plays a role in its extreme dryness. These factors 52 interact, resulting in grueling summer temperatures (with July’s average high of 115° F and average low of 88° F), as well as an extremely high rate of evaporation (150 in/y at the lowest point, Badwater Basin). The valley receives a yearly average of a measly 1.9 inches of rain, making water a constant concern. The life that does manage to survive in this seemingly inhospitable wasteland is well-adapted to these harsh conditions. Small tufts of creosote bush and cactus pepper the gritty landscape. In the spring, Death Valley blooms—desert gold, golden evening primrose, indigo bush, purple sage. Coyotes howl in the cool night. Lizards and other reptiles scurry over surfaces, leaving faint trails of tracks in their wake. Shiny black beetles trudge purposefully through the light, fine sand of the dunes. Even pupfish cling to life here, having adapted to the hot, shallow, salty waters of Salt Creek. And tribes of humans such as the Timbisha Shoshone have, historically, managed to make their existence possible in this place. But their survival is no easy thing. * As an attraction for vacationers, Death Valley National Park pulls in slightly under a million visitors per year—with 951,972 visitors reported in 2013, the year of our visit, according to the National Park Service. Compared with the over 3.6 million visitors to Yosemite that same year, for example, this number seems small, the difference in tourist density immediately apparent, with only four campgrounds at sea level or below. Our own campground, Texas Spring, holds a total of 92 sites for camps, complete with fire pits and bathroom facilities with handy charts, by which you can judge, based on the color of your urine, your level of hydration. We made camp within this small, ephemeral community dotted with well- stocked Land Rovers, SUVs, and the colorful domes and peaks of tents at a spot 53 adjacent to a family from Southern California—a woman and her children preparing to spend a couple of weeks waiting for other family members to join them. The dirt-floor sites, sparsely populated with brush, each included a rickety, weathered wooden bench-table and a fire pit. While her kids (a daughter and an older son, both fair-haired and tanned) pulled items from the back of the family vehicle—camping pads, sleeping bags, and big plastic bins—she hovered around the site table, pulling things from lidded containers. As we all moved busily around our respective campsites, Fernando working hard with a small, lightweight plastic mallet to get the tent spikes into the hard, baked ground, the woman watched him and eventually came toward the edge of our site with something in hand. “Do you guys have something to pound those in with?” she inquired, squinting at us from under the brim of her hat in the sun. “Yea…but it doesn’t seem to be helping,” I responded, walking toward her while slipping my phone into my pocket. “Well. Here.” She passed a large, rather heavy mallet over to me. “Use this. Works better than those smaller ones.” I thanked her and passed the mallet to Fernando, who’d wandered towards us during our conversation, and now stood by my side. “So, she—oh ha! I didn’t even get your name. I’m Gilliann.” I held out my hand. “Alice.” She took my hand and shook it, then offered her hand to Fernando. “Fernando,” he said, giving her hand a firm shake. “Nice to meet you folks! This your first time in the valley?” She smiled at us from beneath the shade of her baseball cap. 54

“Yea actually,” I replied. “We’ve never been and I’ve always wanted to visit. Love a desert.” I laughed. “Oh sure, this place is great,” she said. “We come every year—sort of a tradition. We’re all sort of spread out all over, the family. So this is like our yearly reunion.” “What a neat idea,” I replied, as Fernando excused himself to once again take up his struggle with the tent spikes. I stayed with Alice, listening attentively with my arms crossed, while she told me that her family wasn’t the only with such traditions—that she had talked to many people in her successive years of visits who also made a habit of returning to Death Valley year after year. “If you’re in the park at the right time, you’ll see whole sections of the campgrounds partying together.” She glanced over at her kids as they set up their tents under a large mesquite tree. “Hard to imagine.” I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand and looked around. “It’s so quiet, so isolated.” “Yeah,” she said as she nodded. “That’s why people like it so much.” As we continued talking, before she returned to her children, she told me about the best places for hiking, the best places for stargazing, the ideal spots for watching the sun sink slowly from sight, the cool night air following closely behind the dying dusk light. And she informed us that (in her experience) our site wasn’t a particularly good one, that its location would catch a lot of wind, and advised us on how to tend to our fire in such circumstances. Her warning would prove correct, and we struggled every night to keep the flames going over our three days there. 55

It took longer than we’d thought to set everything up that day. I had wanted to throw everything together, don my pack, and get in a few good hours of exploring before the immense darkness of the desert evening prohibited it. However, I found myself intentionally lagging—taking more time than necessary to get our gear in order, asking more questions—preferring instead to pop one satisfyingly cool PBR after the other and continue my conversation with our neighbor. It wasn’t every day that I took the time to talk to random people back home, outside of school or work, generally too busy rushing about day-to- day to connect with new people around me, or holed up in my apartment working on my master’s thesis while Fernando shut himself away, programming for long hours into the night. Our social life having withered significantly over the past few years. Yet here in this place I found people eager to chat, eager to share. It was a refreshing change—the peaceful surroundings, the pleasant conversation—from the hectic interactions of a more urban-based life. Civilization turns out to be not- quite-so-civilized, people turning into something else entirely when set behind the wheel of a car, or when wrapped up in the worry over paychecks and mortgages. So, it felt good to be in a place where others had set all that aside as well. Out in the calm quiet expanse of the desert all of that melted away and the outside world and all its concerns and responsibilities and stresses ceased to matter. In this moment, all that matters is the immediate: wispy, fleeting dust devils twisting about on the flat valley floor; the full moon, big in the sky, throwing a ghostly glow over every surface; the others like myself who were drawn so inexplicably to this place. Disconnecting from one life only to connect in another. * 56

To really get the full experience of Death Valley—the immensity and isolation of it—I knew I must trek out into it, away from all the signs of civilization within the campgrounds. The national park offers hikers and nature lovers a number of trails and loops, by which the more adventurous park-goer can explore scenery and points of interest. We spent our first full day in Death Valley hiking the Gower’s Gulch loop—a four mile journey that took us through a sparsely-peopled terrain of canyons and badlands. We began our hike at Golden Canyon, a corridor cut by muddy, sediment-filled waters acting like sandpaper, the debris later deposited into the alluvial fans and bajadas that line the various ranges of the valley. We hiked surrounded by layers of rock tilted roughly by the movements of earth’s plates, mineral-y reds, yellows, and oranges gleaming brightly in the early morning sun. The echoes of our own voices blended with the faint, far-off voices of others in the canyon, and though we could not see anyone, it was comforting to know we weren’t entirely alone. Here and there, as we walked along the canyon, we found breaks in the towering walls, crevices cut by wind and water, some large enough to climb into. I stopped next to one and peeked my head inside. “We should totally climb up,” I suggested. “Smoke a bowl maybe. It’s the perfect spot.” “I don’t know,” Fernando replied hesitantly, looking around. “What if someone comes by?” “Oh c’mon, there’s barely anyone out here,” I exclaimed, and tugged at his arm. “We’ll be fine.” I slid my body into the crevice, my pack scraping roughly on one side, and picked my way up along the chalky ground, careful not to dislodge any of the large rocks strewn about the path. Fernando followed close behind. A little way 57 up, the narrow opening widened, so we could both sit comfortably. I pulled out a glass pipe and lit it up, passing it back and forth, trying to stifle our coughs, until we heard the sounds of voices approaching. I peeked around the bend in the crevice and saw two women in baseball caps standing close to the opening we’d climbed up. “Do you smell that?” one of the women asked faintly, and the other shook her head. “Someone’s smoking something around here,” she added, as she turned her head toward the opening of our hiding spot. I pulled my head back around, sat back down and suppressed a giggle, then put my finger to my lips, mouthing sshhhh, as Fernando looked at me, wide-eyed, stuffing the pipe and lighter into the pockets of his cargo shorts. After a moment, the women continued their way up the canyon and, giving them time to get out of view, slipped out from our spot and continued on as well, finally able to let out high-induced giggles at our crafty evasion of detection, glad that there were so few people around. At Marker #10 we veered off from the canyon. The crevice that breaks the wall in that location spills hikers into the badlands of Death Valley—dried mudstone banded dark and light browns, beiges, and reds—stretching as far as the eye can see. This trail through the badlands zigs and zags through a landscape dotted with spiny brush, the fine mudstone crumbling underfoot. For a long while, we found no trail markers—only precarious stacks of rocks, known as cairns, that let us know that we were not lost, that we’d not taken a wrong turn. The steady, lonely climb through the badlands ends finally at Zabriskie Point, easily accessible from a single road that runs nearby. 58

Up at Zabriskie Point, I could look down across the whole of the badlands, the diagonal bands that make up their composition thrown in sharp contrast. The endless ridges that jut up at sharp angles were all I could see. I put my binoculars to my face, searching for something—anything—moving in the distance. (And though surrounded by other visitors—tourists bused in in groups taking the easy way to the sights—I preferred to pretend they were not there.) A dark speck that turns out to be another person wandering the badlands ignited a spark of excitement—though I cannot quite define what it is that fills me with such feelings. The return through the gulch was even lonelier—the wide, empty, water- shaped corridors blanketed with stones of varying shades of black and grey caused Fernando and I to stumble as they shifted and slid beneath our every step. The rock cairns, once more, the only signal we were on the right track. The pathway of the gulch branched off here and there, these tangential pathways causing confusion as to the proper way to turn. This trek through the gulch ended abruptly, the trail disrupted by two distinct drops that, in wetter times, would have played host to torrents of water cascading down. At this end, the valley floor opened up far below, engulfing our field of view. Gazing into the distance through the delicate rays of sun piercing the clouded sky, I thought of the stories I’d read of tourists lost. Of the Germans who foolishly thought to cross from Death Valley into the Sierras, but took a wrong turn and, ill-equipped, disappeared. Their lonesome vehicle stranded in a wash, tires blown out, the only sign of them. Their bones found years later, bleached by the sun, strewn about by scavengers, by the water that can wash over the valley surface in times of flood. 59

During the climb down from the falls, in that moment, I longed to be back at camp. I had enjoyed the several mile hike that took us through that rugged, twisted terrain of canyons and badlands—but I’d had enough for that day. I wanted the comfort of a fire, the security—however meager—of my tent, one of the ice-cold beers stashed in a cooler in the trunk of my car, and more casual conversation with others around the camp.

PART II. SALVAGE 61 61

TOP 5 OUTDOOR DESTINATIONS FOR ATTEMPTING TO SALVAGE YOUR FAILING RELATIONSHIP

Are you and your partner having problems? Therapy not working out so well? Below you’ll find a list of our top destinations for couples looking to revitalize and reconnect while enjoying some of the best nature that America has to offer. Maintaining your relationship isn’t always easy. Many obstacles often stand in the way: your partner’s workaholic tendencies that keep him shut away for hours in the home office, your own personal baggage that keeps you anxious, angry, and on edge; the daily, seemingly never-ending stress of work and finances and graduate school that wears you down. You have less and less time for each other, spend less and less time with each other, preferring instead the seclusion of your respective work spaces. And as time goes on, under the weight of all those obstacles, you can find you and your partner growing apart, the paths of your lives no longer crossing in the ways they once did, your interests evolving and taking you each in new directions. Maybe the two of you no longer discuss any grand plans for the future, 62 62 and, when you do, it just ends in argument. In time, you begin to feel like you hardly ever talk anymore, and can see the way that the silence takes its toll—the sneaking suspicion that you’ve failed, the anger, the drinking to dull the anger. So, you go and see a therapist—to help you work through your problems together, to help you work toward communicating again without fighting over every little thing. And maybe that helps, at least for a little while, but you begin once again to slip into a pattern of distance and silence, scattered with rounds of fighting, that you can’t see leading to anything good. But just because conventional therapy hasn’t worked out doesn’t mean there’s no hope for you and your partner. The two of you can harness your mutual love of the outdoors into a productive tool for strengthening the bond you once had. Far removed from the stressors of your everyday lives, natural spaces allow couples a place where they can relax under wide-open skies and find pleasure in each other’s company. In the list below, you’ll find a few of the best locations in the Western United States for couples like you, complete with highlights, bonding moments, and possible hazards. * * *

63 63 5. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Destination Highlights: The Power of Plate Tectonics on Display In a state of constant magma-powered activity, Yellowstone National Park offers an array of geologic features—including the park’s famous geysers and hot springs—giving you and your partner a chance to bond over a common interest in fumaroles, mudpots and sulfurous emissions. Scenic views of waterfalls and lakes and mountains and meadows populate the park, providing ample opportunity for you to practice your happy-couple-smiles in photographs taken by fellow tourists. Many species of animal, such as bears and wolves and mule deer and bison, make their home in the park, and with a little patience and a lot of waiting, you and your partner can delight in watching through a pair of shared binoculars a momma bear and her cubs forage in a field. During your visit, set up camp in one of the many campgrounds conveniently located all over the park, and make sure to check out some of the park’s dining options, where you can try out new things together, like elk, and where you can introduce your partner to the bison burger, as you know he’s always up for new foods. Bonding Moments: Cushy Chairs and Cold Beers While it might seem to hold the potential for disaster, Yellowstone’s inclement weather can be a source of bonding potential. Though temperatures are warmer in the summer, late spring snowstorms, coupled with snow in the summer months, means that you and your partner may not always encounter the most ideal camping conditions. You might arrive at your campsite only to find a large square space carved into a bank of snow five feet high, a damp wooden picnic table set at an angle nearby, fire ring nowhere in sight—just snow and trees and more snow. Fight the temptation to lash out in annoyance and frustration and use this as a chance to 64 64 bring a little creative problem solving into your lives. Wander together among the trees collecting fallen branches of pine needles to create a kind of floor to keep your tent off the damp. Sink your gloved hands into the soft snow and dig and dig and dig, in an attempt to find a place to start a fire, and joke together about the absurdity of it all. Spend the rest of the evening with your partner by the large roaring fire in Canyon Lodge, kicked back in large plush chairs and sucking down bottle after bottle of beer from Snake River Brewing. Congratulate each other on the wise decision to give up digging and find a nice warm, dry place for dinner. Remind yourself that it’s one of the few things you’ve been able to agree on in a long time and find hope in that. Possible Hazards: Sulfuric Odors and Disappearing Husbands While weather and wildlife might seem like the most obvious problems to look out for during your visit to Yellowstone, you may find that other popular features—such as the very geysers and hot springs you’ve come to nerd out over together—won’t always work out to your advantage. Maybe you plan to spend a morning wandering around Norris Basin, one of the hottest, and therefore most thermally active areas in the park. You look forward to what you’ll find there: Emerald Spring, Black Hermit Cauldron, Vixen Geyser, Blue Mud Steam Vent. You know that this kind of stuff really gets your partner going—that he’ll take pleasure in pointing to various muds tinted pastel shades of blue and pink and green, in explaining the processes that result in wailing vents that spew gases from the ground. This is why you came, after all, and you want to see as much as you can in your short stay. When you arrive at the start of the short trail, though, everything appears blanketed by a heavy fog, the blurry silhouettes of other visitors moving within it. 65 65

You and your partner shrug and walk into it, and immediately start to gag. The smell of rotten eggs overwhelms your senses—although you can practically taste it, you persist. After a few minutes of walking, your partner grabs your arm, shakes his head, tells you he can’t take it, that the sulfur is making him sick, that he needs to head back. So, you let him go—though you’re annoyed to do so—and you finish the trail alone, leaving him waiting on a bench for your return. * * *

4. Badlands National Park, South Dakota Destination Highlights: Miles and Miles of Rugged Beauty Once the location of a shallow sea surrounded by lush vegetation and populated by a variety of now extinct species, the Badlands exist today as an arid region of peaks and gullies and buttes and prairies composed of loose, crumbly sediments such as silt and sandstone and shale. A number of trails cut through these prairies and curve and bend among the buttes and spires, allowing you and your partner to adventure until the sun casts 66 66 long late afternoon shadows. One of the nation’s less-visited parks, the overwhelming feeling of isolation that you’ll get out on the trails, as the dark silhouettes of vultures cut across the clear blue sky above, will provide just the thing you and your partner need to kick-start conversation. Bonding Moments: Live Out Your Fossil-Finding Dreams Due to the delicate nature of the sedimentary rock that makes up much of the Badlands’ features, the park provides a chance for the paleontology-inclined to stumble upon (and responsibly report) any number of fossils. Erosion from rain and wind, coupled with repeated human activity wear at the layers of earth, exposing bones that can be easily missed, easily trampled, easily ignored. Caught up in the very idea of it, you and your partner can spend time paying extra-close attention to your surroundings, calling out to each other when you think perhaps you’ve found something, wiping your fingers delicately against the dusty ground, skin brushing lightly against skin. You’ve made it your goal to find a fossil, memories of your childhood obsession with the human search for the remnants of life long dead only fueling your search. Your partner, too, wants this, shares in your enthusiasm. A kind of excitement that has long been missing. On the final day of your stay, when you’re at the brink of discouragement, you see something that looks like a tooth lodged in the crumbling beige ground near your boot. You lean down close to get a better look and then jump up, hollering your partner’s name in excitement. He runs toward you, asks what’s wrong, but you’re lost for words, can only point to the ground. He squats down, looks from one angle, then another, adjusting the wire-framed glasses on his nose. Nods his head and rises, throwing his arms around you, before the two of you squat together to figure out just what kind of animal it might have been.

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Possible Hazards: Rattlesnakes and Over-Explaining The secluded nature of the Badlands, leads you to believe that its solitude and emptiness will be just the thing to get you and your partner talking again. There won’t be the ding and buzz of device notifications, or the distraction of other hikers that might tempt you into socializing. It’ll just be you and him and all that grassy, rocky space. But you soon find that talking here is impossible, because you just can’t stop thinking about the snakes. You’d seen the sign along the trail warning you of the presence of rattlesnakes, but you couldn’t have imagined that the sound of them—a faint noise rising up from the tall grasses, seemingly from every side— would hold your attention the way it does. You couldn’t have known that you’d spend so much time straining to listen, so much time trying to locate the sound’s source, so much time jumping at every rustle of grasses in the wind. And hardly any time talking to each other at all. When your partner does talk, he wants to explain again and again to you things you already know—the logistics of a snake encounter, how to react, what to do—even though you’ve dealt with them plenty before. Like that time you relocated a baby rattler from the cabin drive in Ontario, hooking its long, writhing body with the end of a tree branch. Or all the other times you’d had to avoid them as they slithered across some trail or another. So mostly you just want him to shut up. You tell him so, even. Use your desire to stay vigilant as an excuse to keep silent, rather than fall into fights you’d come out here to try to escape. * * *

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3. Stanislaus National Forest, California Destination Highlights: Clear Lakes and Stunning Vistas Located just a couple of hours north of Yosemite, Stanislaus National Forest features over 890,000 acres of mountain wilderness perfect for camping and hiking and other forms of outdoor recreation. If you’re willing to obtain a permit, the trails that zig and zag among forests and ridges will take you and your partner to sunny valleys and systems of glistening lakes where you can kick back in the clear mountain air. The many backcountry campgrounds, such as those found in the Emigrant Wilderness region, provide the perfect opportunity for you and your partner to work together, to practice your survival skills, surrounded by pine tree speckled granite peaks. And what better way to bring the two of you closer than that? Enjoy quiet, star-filled nights by a crackling fire joking and laughing, happy to be in the company of each other.

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Bonding Moments: Red Wine by a Warm Fire It isn’t every day that you and your partner get the chance to escape for a few days into the backcountry, so take time to enjoy the little things. Even though your trek to the Bear Lake campground wasn’t exactly an easy one, take comfort in the fact that you made it there, even in the darkness of the night, and that your collaborative efforts kept you both on the right track. After setting up camp in the dim light of your headlamps, you and your partner can relax by the warmth of a fire and share a poorly rehydrated meal of chicken and beans and rice in a spicy, smoky BBQ flavored sauce. Between chalky bites, pass a dromedary bag full of Shiraz back and forth while huddled close together near the flames. Sit by the fire long into the night, ignoring the chill in the air, until the licking tongues of orange and blue have died down to glowing embers of charred wood. Listen to the leaves rustling in the wind and the faint whoo-whoo of an owl in the distance as you finish off the last of the wine, your woozy grin searching out his in the dark. Possible Hazards: Late Starts and Night Hiking Many outdoor-types report that the ability to “leave it all behind,” if only for a few days, is one of the most attractive aspects of backcountry camping. You, too, believe that stepping away from the stresses and worries of the everyday might help somehow, that the neutral space of the wild might allow the two of you some kind of perspective. But it can be hard to leave all your relationship baggage behind when you hit the trail, to just stop poking at each other over every little thing. Maybe you plan to get to the trail early, to have plenty of time to get to the campsite. You find the best route, make sure everything is ready the night before, 70 70 try to hit the road in the early enough in the morning, just in case traffic or accidents or detours set the two of you back—and you’re rarely much of a planner. And all that planning will break down, the bickering and fighting increasing as you encounter delay after delay during your drive up. So you spend a significant portion of your five hours together on the trail taking it out on each other. And your partner’s laid back, “no problem” attitude only serves to set you more on edge. You blame him for not being concerned enough: about your late start on the trail, about the sun’s location vis-a-vis the horizon, about how you don’t deal with the dark well, and you’re not ready to be stuck at night on a trail. He accuses you of worrying too much, of always making a big deal out of nothing. You spend most of the hike a good ten feet ahead of him. Silent, fuming in your thoughts, panic rising as your surroundings grow increasingly darker. * * *

2. Death Valley National Park, California

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Destination Highlights: Miles of Pristine Desert, Miles Below Sea Level While the name might give some nature-goers pause, Death Valley is not as formidable a place as it might seem. True to its name, the temperatures here can reach life-threatening levels during the summer and fall months, but the spring offers mild temperatures and wildflower blooms that can seem almost surreal—the dry, crumbling desert surface covered in purple sage, rose sage, golden evening primrose. In addition to the local wildlife, you and your partner can once again nerd out hard on geology, while hiking through the scenic Golden Canyon, or wandering around the salt-encrusted flat of Badwater Basin. During your visit, be sure to camp down below sea level at Furnace Creek, where you and your partner will get plenty of practice playing happy couple, pretending at a trouble-free relationship, while interacting with the camping community around you. Bonding Moments: Teamwork Through Fire-Making Death Valley’s many hikes and geologic features can offer you and your partner a plethora of chances for bonding—its stretched and sunbaked landscape a strangeness that you both marvel over. But it may not be its other-worldly qualities that hold the magic for the two of you in this space. Instead, be on the lookout for moments that may not seem like much at first, but that hold the potential to bring you together in interesting ways. Like trying to light a fire. It might seem like such a trivial thing, lighting a fire. Logs of dried wood piled against each other, small wads of newspaper stuck here and there between them. But there is a certain art to lighting a fire—a certain stacking of the wood, a certain placement of the kindling, and the two of you just haven’t gotten it down yet. Add to this: sometimes the wind whips up in the cool 72 72 desert evenings, seeming to come from all directions, making fire-starting extra- tricky. Work together, moving the fire-stuffs this way and that, trying shredded paper over wadded, and rolled up paper over shredded. Throw up your hands and say “fuck it,” drive to the nearest park market and buy charcoal and fluid, more beer. Finally get the fire going, crack open a couple of cans, and toast to your mutual ineptitude, to the clear moonlit night, to the steaks sizzling over the flame. Possible Hazards: Travel Fatigue and Short Tempers As with any trip, the mere act of travel from one place or another, whether by car or plane, can really wear you down. Driving through miles and miles and miles of desert, for example, is no picnic. And so, the high of a new place, as excited as you are for it, fades, either from heat or exhaustion or that nagging anxiety that you just can’t get under control, opening up the potential for anything—any little old stupid thing—to set you off. And it does. In your head, you try to remember exactly why it is that you’re currently having a full-fledged verbal fight with your partner outside of your tent. All you wanted to do was have breakfast and get ready to hit Golden Canyon in order to beat the midday heat, but at some point that broke down. Maybe you were upset that you couldn’t get the portable grill going. Or maybe you just woke up grumpy, irritated, and had no one else to take it out on. You still go on the hike, of course, and eventually you and your partner will put it behind you—at least for the time being. The distance between the two of you on the trail will grow shorter and eventually, timidly, you’ll point out a giant slab of slanted earth and make some comment on the tectonic processes responsible for such a thing. You manage to make some kind of nice with each other, though the morning’s events will hang heavy over the rest of the day. 73 73

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1. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona Destination Highlights: A Warm Beer After a Long Hike Arguably America’s most well-known national park, the Grand Canyon offers both breath-taking vistas and challenging, yet rewarding hikes. Descend into the canyon along South Kaibab Trail, past layers of ancient limestone, sandstone, shale; down and down seven miles until you and your partner reach the canyon floor, the Colorado, the campground along the cool flow of Bright Angel Creek. Take some time to sit together in the cool waters of the creek and watch mule deer munch lazily at the tall grass along the banks, brown ears twitching away flies. Don’t forget to make a stop at the cantina at Phantom Ranch, where you can enjoy a can of beer—room temperature at best—and where you can sit with your partner, marveling both at the ache of your bodies and at the very fact that you made it all the way down to begin with.

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Bonding Moments: Dehydration and Problem-Solving Though temperatures at the rim tend toward the milder side in the spring and summer months, they grow increasingly hotter the deeper and deeper you and your partner descend into the canyon. It’s important to stay hydrated, to maintain your intake of salts and sugars and liquids so that your body doesn’t fail you, to stay cool. And if it does, well, what could possibly bring you closer than a potentially life-threatening situation? Perhaps when five or six miles down, your partner’s pace begins to slow, perhaps he begins to complain of nausea and a blurring of his vision. You ask if he wants to stop for a while and, mid-nod, he leans over and vomits water in the middle of the trail. You’re not entirely sure, but something in the back of your mind tells you that this isn’t a good sign, but you don’t exactly know what it means. You take a seat next to your partner on a dusty boulder along the trail’s side, cast worried glances at him as you pull things out of your pack, hoping something that you’ve brought along might help. Scared because, at five or six miles down there is no possible help in sight. Eventually he takes a salt packet from your hand, rips it open, downs the contents, begins to look less green in the face. You smile and throw your arms around him. Consider the way a medical emergency can bring people together, make them grateful for each other, make them cast all other worries aside. Possible Hazards: Impatience and Aching Bodies Hiking the canyon can be a strenuous task, even for seasoned hikers in good physical shape. The constant upward or downward movement coupled with the oven-like qualities of the canyon walls exhausts you and your partner, neither of you seasoned hikers in anything even approaching good physical shape. 75 75

But you’re still more used to this kind of activity than he is, and on the hike back up to the rim on Bright Angel Trail he gives out. Throws himself under the shade of a rocky outcropping on the canyon wall, pants heavily between swigs of water. Tells you to keep going, that he’ll catch up. Part of you wants to stay—to make sure that nothing bad happens—while another part of you wants to go. You’re tired. It’s late. It’s hot. You just want to get the hell out of the god damned canyon. You’re annoyed that you’re in this situation to begin with, that you have to make the choice at all. You wish that he was better at this hiking thing, that he didn’t feel the need to stop and rest after every single switchback wasting time, wasting daylight. All you wanted to do was have an adventure, to try to bring some fun back into your lives, to get the two of you doing something together. Instead, tired of the constant wait, you hike to the top of the canyon alone. * * * Disclaimer While not all outdoor excursions will yield the same results for everyone, if you and your partner can avoid the various pitfalls and hazards detailed above, and maximize those moments for bonding and teamwork, you may find it possible to work through your marital problems. However, results are not guaranteed, and the rejuvenating qualities of nature might prove an insufficient remedy. It may be that you just can’t escape the weight of the years of unresolved arguments and finger pointing and blame. It may be that you find you no longer care enough, in the end, to salvage what remains, that the damage has drilled deep down into the core of your bond, that there is no turning back to a time before everything went so wrong. (Though nature can serve a therapeutic purpose, some wounds may show themselves resistant to those landscapes found most conducive to healing.) In that 76 76 case, you and your partner may need to consider more drastic measures, may need to call it quits and cut your losses while you still can at least stand to look at each other. 77 77

CLUTTER

I collect things. Books, mostly (an office-full, plus the fifteen boxes in the Dominican Republic that’ll cost me a small fortune to ship back). Magnets from wherever I’ve been—the Badlands, Yellowstone, Death Valley, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the National Archives, Dublin, Seattle, Spain. My refrigerator a kind of cheap-o souvenir shrine to my various travels. Patches for my pack to ensure that fellow hikers know the trails I’ve walked. Scarves and shawls. Buttons and stickers and bookmarks. Artwork and other local crafts. For a time, I even collected bottle caps—beer bottle caps, specifically—in an effort to help Fernando with his grand plan to one day make a resin-filled table top o’ caps for his future man cave (as he lovingly called the space he hoped to one day call his own when we became homeowners), going so far as to enlist the assistance of beer-loving friends both foreign and domestic in the endeavor. We had literal buckets and boxes of beer caps. And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say: everyone collects things. Or if not everyone, a great many people, possibly the majority of people in the world. Nothing that you’ve mentioned is all that remarkable. In fact, it’s downright mundane. Which is, of course, fair enough. You’d be right. People collect all kinds of things—baseball cards and other kinds of sports memorabilia, shot glasses, stamps, coins, action figures, postcards, comics. You name it, people collect it. For one reason or another, and with varying degrees of fervor. But I’ve started to think that I have a problem. Because while much of my collecting is of the intentional variety, carefully curated to reflect my interests and experiences and very identity as a person, I 78 78 have a habit of a kind of unintentional accumulation of miscellaneous odds and ends, often storing things away to deal with at some later time. But I don’t always make the time, of course, and so the clutter in my life grows and grows until I have no other choice but to do something about it—to face the mess and decide what’s worth keeping and what just needs to go. That’s not to say I hoard things—though hoarding and collecting can and do have some overlap. But a person who hoards does so out of compulsion, out of a total inability to throw things away, and without careful, discerning selection. Hoarders will collect and collect and collect, no concern for how unlivable their residence, or how unhealthy their obsession. When faced with the very idea of throwing things away, hoarders experience intense discomfort and anxiety, and require therapeutic intervention to help them deal with the shock of purging the mess, to help them develop organizational and decision-making skills they often lack. And they’ll often go to great lengths to avoid finally facing the mess of their lives. And, so while I don’t really consider myself a hoarder, when I look around, I can see the way that so much of my clutter reflects my reluctance to get it together and face up to the things in my life. The way it reflects a tendency to let things build and build until they border on out-of-control. * Once Fernando finally moved out in March 2015—though we’d made the decision to split at the end of the previous year—I began thinking a lot about collecting. About the accumulation of things—objects, memories, problems, people—and the forces that compel us to accumulate. The psychology of it—what the things we collect reflect about our lives and motivations and what we value in the world. The reward that it brings the brain when we add yet another thing, and 79 79 another. When it comes to collecting, some people theorize that its widespread appeal can be linked to evolution—that the hunting and gathering instinct so vital to our survival continues on through the drive to search out and display meaningful objects. Collecting brings us joy, and fulfills a need to categorize and organize and remember. In a way, the very act of collecting allows us to create larger meaning in our lives and of the actions that constitute those lives. Collecting should make us feel happier, healthier—but there comes a point in which it doesn’t. So, I wonder about the emotional benefit to my own life. Or maybe the emotional cost. And if anything can make you take stock of your life—the accumulated possessions, the memories, all the things said and unsaid—it’s a good old- fashioned divorce. This thought strikes me as I wander through my apartment once he’s gone, realizing that not a whole lot has changed, aside from a barren side of the walk-in closet, a few scattered holes in the rows of books lining shelves, his guitar, his computer, and all those god damn bottle caps. Fernando didn’t take anything that he deemed mine, even if we had acquired much of it during our marriage. “I’m not taking any of the stuff your parents gave you,” he insisted, when we’d discussed how to split everything. “But don’t you need things?” I’d asked, not really sure how to proceed with such matters. “I’d feel bad keeping everything. You don’t even have a bed. Or a table. Or dishes!” “Nah, I don’t need much,” he’d replied, shrugging off my concern. “Clothes. Work stuff. I’ll buy a bed, the essentials. Don’t worry about me.” 80 80

And that had been that. No long hours spent sitting across from each other hashing out the details over the glare of fluorescent lights, no detailed lists accounting for what would go to whom. Nothing at all like I’d imagined. In the end, it was just me and my overstuffed drawers and piles of books and the overwhelming task of figuring out what to do with it all. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve realized that I have way too much crap. And that I have a difficult decision to make, as if the decision to shed off a seven year marriage wasn’t enough. I’m faced with the decision of whether to move or to stay. But the very idea overwhelms me. It results in a wave of thoughts: Moving could save me a hell of a lot of money. A two bedroom seems a bit much. Where would I move? What could I sell? What am I going to do with all this shit? Rent a storage unit? Find a relative willing to take on some boxes? Whatwhatwhat! You get the picture. I find myself staring at the waist-high chest of drawers in my bedroom—a good, sturdy wooden piece, with three small drawers at each end and three longer ones in the middle. I pull the drawers open and panic hits. Drawers stuffed with scarves and beanies, the artwork I’d cut from all my Threadless brand shirts a couple of years ago (with the intent of turning them into an art project at some mysterious future date). An entire larger drawer stuffed with a jumbled mix of junk mail, receipts, jewelry, hotel keys, plane ticket stubs, seashells, birthday cards, coins—a strange collection of things thrown together without thought. Or at least, without much thought as to what I’d do with it all in the immediate future. Because on some level, I know that part of what drives my hesitation to get rid of it all lies in the objects’ strong ties to memory, to the experiences of my life. I dump the whole drawer onto the dirty beige carpet and begin the work of sorting through it all. Of deciding what to dump and what to keep. 81 81

When I look back over the past seven years, I can see the ways in which I’d allowed problems to pile up. While much of the clutter I’ve accumulated over those years represents the many good times Fernando and I had together, so much is overshadowed by all the shit. Recurring arguments left unresolved, each time growing more and more severe. The name-calling, the shouting, that time I punched a wall. The shifting of blame and pointing of fingers. The stubborn, hard- headed inability to own up to our own mistakes, our own faults, our own weaknesses. The long nights spent in separate rooms, rarely talking, rarely engaging. Existing within the same physical space but no longer really living together. But like those drawers this can only go on for so long. There’s only so much space for all the crap, all the junk. The space fills and fills until the drawer becomes difficult to close. No matter how much I shove my hands down on the contents—pushing, prodding, stuffing—things keep springing back up, keep spilling out. It’s all such a mess. And the thing is, I don’t even understand how it got to this point. But every drawer is the same. A Spanish newspaper from 2012, an Irish Times from the same year, left over from an anniversary trip to Europe. Flyers acquired during Coachella 2010. National park maps, balls of yarn, some condoms from a Pride parade in D.C., subway passes (STL, NYC, SF), stacks and stacks of un-filed paper, ancient balled up receipts. So. Much. Clutter. I pull out a big plastic trash bag and start throwing things away. * Clutter: n. A collection of things lying about in an untidy mess. Its verb form a variant of clotern (circa 1400)—“to form clots” or “to heap on.” 82 82

An untidy collection of things that a person heaps on. It’s a word that’s stuck with me, a concept that I just can’t get out of my head. I meditate on the personal implications, the way that the heaping on of material possessions can so often mimic the heaping on of more and more problems in a relationship. The way that I accumulate and collect until the weight of all that heaping on begins to suffocate, begins to drag me down. And how it feels so damn good to just throw it all off, to chuck it all out, to breathe again, to have space. It's so fucking cathartic. I've spent a lot of time in my own head in search of a way to understand. I begin to think of my life in terms of clutter—everywhere, everything is clutter, just needing to be cleared—and how much it informs so much of both my past and present. I begin to see the way that so much of what I've been doing has been an act of cleaning house, of purging all the accumulated crap that causes me distress. Like this: It's a chilly December evening and I'm standing outside smoking at the back of Gem City Grill (locally known as "Gem Shitty"), my go-to dive bar in Monrovia, a little SoCal town at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains, not too far from Pasadena, where I'm visiting my parents over Christmas. The cold night wind brings with it the muted sounds of Billy Idol's "White Wedding," and the laughter and shouts of the patrons inside. I've been playing pool all night—sinking balls and talking shit with my small collection of LA friends—and I've had more than a few drinks. My brother and the latest girl-he's-trying-to-bang stand nearby, enveloped in a thick, sickly sweet cloud of vapor. I'm squinting at my phone through the blur of inebriation scrolling leisurely through Facebook when it vibrates, a notification from Fernando appearing at the top of the screen. I tap it and the apps change over. Hey. How are you? 83 83

Ok. Out playing pool, drinking. You? Dunno. Doing a lot of thinking, spending time with the folks. Oh… Have you been thinking about what we talked about before I left? Had I been thinking about it? (It being what course of action we'd take once he finally got back from his trip to the Dominican Republic for his sister's wedding. The decision to actually split and cut our losses, or to make an earnest attempt to work through the wreckage of our marriage.) And honestly, I hadn't thought about it all that much, had been ignoring it as much as possible because I knew what had to be done. But isn't this always the case. I've never been good at ending things, at facing problems. At letting go. On top of everything, I'm drunk. Like, really drunk. Not exactly the best time for a conversation of this sort, one that demands clear minds and calm tempers. So, I'm annoyed that he's bringing it up. I stab the butt of my cigarette hard against the wall and reach up for the one that I have tucked in the lip of my grey beanie, lighting it up. I guess… You guess? I'm going to be back soon, you know. Yeah…I mean, obviously we're gonna need to talk. Something on your mind? I roll my eyes and take a long drag from my cigarette, unsure of my next move. Of course I’ve had things on my mind—how could I not. I want to say a lot of things—about how much I’ve been enjoying this time apart, how the distance between the two of us has allowed me to realize just how over it I really am. But none of this was stuff that I wanted to talk about right now. 84 84

The phone vibrates again in my hand and I realize I’ve been staring out into the parking lot for several minutes, turning over and over in my head exactly what I want to say. It’s hard to think clearly with all the booze working its way through my bloodstream. Hello? I’m here. Sorry. Thinking. Well? Clearly, he wants some kind of answer, isn’t willing to let it go, or to wait until he gets back. I’m feeling pressured (and I don’t react well to pressure at all). I start to feel a weight bearing down on me that’s all-too-familiar. I get angry. Irrationally reactive. I don’t think things through before doing them, or saying them. I dunno. I guess I’ve just realized some things. Oh? Yeah. Like it hit me that I haven’t really missed you. Ah. So you’ve made up your mind then. Yeah. I suppose so. Well. I’ll start looking for a place when I get back then. And then, after a long pause. Gotta go. Can’t deal with this right now. I let out a sigh and stick my phone in my back pocket. I know he’s upset— and why shouldn’t he be? I’d basically just ended everything officially over Google-fucking-Hangouts. I should probably be upset, too. We’re supposed to be upset when we finally end a relationship, right? But I’m not. Because in that moment I feel incredibly light, like throwing off a heavy pack after a long hike, the weight of carrying it no longer bearing down on my frame. In one fell swoop 85 85

I’d cleared the clutter—or had at least finally worked up the nerve to begin the process of cleaning house. Maybe all of this makes me sound like an asshole—looking at my marriage as some kind of mess that just needs throwing out, cleaning up. As a burden that needs to be shed. But there’s only so much you can heap on before the collection of things in your life becomes too much to manage, before the untidiness of it all overwhelms you and dealing with it in the easiest way possible seems the only recourse. I smile and turn to my brother. “Hey man, wanna go play some pool?” I ask, my hand resting on the door handle. He looks up at me with his dark eyes from the glow of his cellphone, where he’d been texting like a maniac the whole time. “I dunno, bro. I’m kinda broke and was thinking of goin’ back home,” he says, sort of gesturing with his head toward his latest catch. “Pfft, whatever, sis,” I reply, bumping my shoulder into his playfully. “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.” He nods and I open the door to the bar to let him and his girl in. I follow, feeling light, unburdened, and (at least for the moment) uncluttered. 86 86

WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND

August, 2016 Visitors to Cape Kiwanda State National Area in Oregon capture, via cellphone, footage of a group of young men knocking over a sandstone rock formation known as the Duckbill—an iconic coastal landmark that had, until one summer day, stood for millions of years. In the video, which lasts a mere six seconds, three young men rock the Duckbill side to side—a final rough shove sending it over. It crashes to the ground, the delicate sandstone layers shattering, at the feet of a long-haired friend in a dark blue (perhaps black) hoodie sitting close by, back turned to the bystander taking the video. We hear “holy shit!” as the ancient formation falls. The three vandals jump back, and a victorious “got ‘im!” comes from some off-camera source. The videographer, David Kalas, in recounting his story to the Associated Press, said that, when he encountered the group, they told him the rock was a “safety hazard.” That a friend had broken his leg on it. That they had done both Oregon and the world a favor. Kalas called it their “weird little revenge thing.” All because a friend had broken a leg. Because he had taken it upon himself to climb up on top of a 7 by 10 foot hunk of rock perched precariously on a narrow column of stone—had, perhaps, slipped and lost his balance, the tread of his shoe finding no good grip on the salty slick surface. Tumbled to the hard-packed sand below, the impact cracking tibia, or maybe fibula. An act of carelessness, an accident—but one that countless others had been able to avoid. And, if they hadn’t, at least they’d gone on with their lives, no one else to blame but themselves. Besides, who the hell takes out a revenge fantasy on a rock? 87 87

According to an Oregon State Parks and Recreation spokesperson, vandalism carries a “presumptive fine” of $435, though, depending on the extent of the damage, can be much more. Such acts are not, however, always or immediately considered crimes. In the case of the Duckbill, the Parks and Rec Department assumed the pedestal had collapsed on its own—wind and waves and time finally bringing it down—until video popped up on Twitter, alerting them to the actions of the unidentified youths. Everything remains under investigation. After news of the video spread, many took to social media outlets, such as Instagram, to post photos they’d taken of the Duckbill, set against the frothy aquamarine of the Pacific, hazy blue sky as a backdrop. Photos where they stand on top of it, doing yoga-esque poses. Or perhaps seated atop it, backs to the photographer, as they stare pensively toward the sea, toward the horizon. Photos accompanied by expressions of loss, anger, disgust. We will never have you back… RIP, Duckbill rock. A long time ago — 2016. In remembrance… #RIP Tnks fr th mmrs ☹ ☹ ☹ Fucking. Douches. * October, 2013 Three Boy Scout leaders visiting Goblin Valley State Park in Utah film themselves destroying a centuries old hoodoo, and upload the footage proudly to Youtube. In the video, a heavyset man named Glenn in a red ball cap and grey shirt pushes on the large boulder, bracing himself against another boulder nearby for leverage. The man behind the camera, acting as narrator, sings “wiggle it! just a 88 88 little bit!” But this is no simple wiggling. Glenn shoves and shoves until boulder breaks free from base and crashes to the ground below. Glenn and a neon-shirted friend nearby high five, dance in victory. They give Glenn the nickname “Muscles.” The narrator’s face comes into view as he speaks directly to the camera: “We have now modified Goblin Valley.” Another man cheers. “Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die…Glenn saved his life…So it’s all about saving lives here at Goblin Valley.” When contacted for comment by journalists from the Salt Lake Tribune, Glenn, great savior of America’s youth, maintained he and his friends had “done a civic service,” though noted, in hindsight, that perhaps he should have notified a ranger of his fears. He claimed he put his hand on it and it moved. Claimed he didn’t even have to push very hard. Knocking the hoodoo over had been simple, so why not? Large of build, it seemed to me, from the video, like he had to put in some amount of effort, that he’d had to strain quite a bit to finally get it to fall. Amidst the public relations fallout, the Boy Scouts of America, in an official statement, expressed disappointment, stressed that the men’s actions ran counter to their commitment to conservation of the earth, ran counter to their beliefs about humans’ responsibilities as stewards of the planet. The organization also stripped the three men of their leadership titles—the least of their worries, a carefree nature outing turned to criminal investigation. They reached a plea deal with Emery Country, Utah—no jail time, but a year probation, required payment of court and investigation costs, as well as an “undetermined amount” of money to pay for signs in the park warning visitors not to vandalize formations. When pressed for comment on the nature of the vandals’ punishment, the deputy county attorney noted that “there is no way to determine the value of the 89 89 rock or the natural resources in the park.” He further added that any attempts to restore the formation would be “cost prohibitive—even if it could be done.” What’s done is done. And how to determine the cost? How do you restore the earth to its former state once the destruction is done? Nothing to do but move on, hope it doesn’t happen again. Put up signs that visitors simply ignore—like the time I watched as a man in Yellowstone stepped gingerly over the railings of a boarded walkway to the slimy ground below, despite the postings of STAY ON PATH and DO NOT MARK. BACTERIAL MATS. Or visitors to Yosemite who, year after year, ignore signs in rivers and lose their lives. We do what we want to do, ignore what we don’t like. It’s just a rock, a tree, a river. Who is anyone to tell us we can’t? * Whenever I come across these stories of vandalism of public lands on my Facebook or Twitter feeds I want to be outraged. I scoff at the screen, throw up my hands, wonder what right do they have to destroy nature simply because they fear harm? I fight the urge to hit COMMENT, to write long ranting responses to no one in particular about the importance of taking care of the planet, about the trouble with disrespecting our surroundings, about the ways in which they’ve deprived future generations of enjoyment of certain features of the landscape, about the selfishness and thoughtlessness of their actions. Such clichéd, hypocritical bullshit. Because it rarely is so simple. We’re always altering our surroundings in one way or another, for our comfort, for our benefit, often with little thought of the damage to flora and fauna we may cause. We dam off rivers, drain lakes, clear cut forests, fill in land to make room for homes, roads, businesses—to make more room for us. We build levees to hold back the sea, cover the sides of mountains 90 90 along roadways with thick wire netting—all in the interest of keeping us safe, of keeping accidents at bay, of stopping nature from causing us serious injury or even inconvenience. We bend nature to our will, for better or for worse, and enjoy the fruits of this bending always—commutes on roads and highways and sidewalks, seemingly endless power supplied by mining of the earth’s resources, holes blown in mountains, dark networks of tunnels full of choking gasses, risks of cave in. Networks of pipelines running beneath our feet, transporting oil across the nation, the reality of spills ever present. All in the name of civilization, in the name of progress. So why get all worked up over some big rock? * June, 2016 This past summer, 23-year-old Casey Nocket of San Diego pled guilty to seven different misdemeanor charges for defiling rock formations in seven different national parks with graffiti—Death Valley, Rocky Mountain, Canyonlands, Zion, Crater Lake, Yosemite, and Colorado National Monument. Created over a twenty-six day period in 2014, from September to October, the photos of her works were posted to Nocket’s Instagram and Tumblr, where users immediately chastised her over her use of acrylics. “I know, I’m so bad,” her cheeky response. In one photo, in a view I recognize from my own hikes around the park, a sliver of the blue of Crater Lake bends slightly with the curve of the hazy, cloud- speckled horizon, where the jagged lip of the crater breaks the effects of blue on blue. Hills cover the mid-ground, sunbaked grasses dotted and lined with dark clusters of trees. In the foreground, the flat reddish edge of a large rock peeks into the frame, showcasing Nocket’s art—the face of a woman in profile, eyes closed, 91 91 skin ghostly white. Along the side of her face a wisp of blue-tinted hair falls, the rest done up in a bun high on the head. The words “Creepytings 2014” border the top of the drawing. In another, on the smooth reddy-tan of a canyon wall, a woman’s face in simple black outline, turned ever so slightly to the viewer. A cigarette dangles from her lips, wisps of smoke drifting up from the tip. In this drawing, so much like the one at Crater Lake, the woman wears a thick scarf around her neck, the bun in her hair hangs low. The familiar signature, date and all, sits off to the right. These paintings came to widespread attention—as things these days so often do—via the social media site Reddit, when a member of a hiking community shared a picture of one he’d spotted while hiking around Yosemite. More followed. Discussion grew. Netizens dubbed Nocket the National Park Vandal. Soon, screenshots of her social media postings would appear on the website Modern Hiker, inspiring a slew of internet detectives to search out whatever information they could on the culprit. National Park Service investigators became involved, an official investigation launched. As punishment, Nocket received two years of probation—during which time she is forbidden from setting foot on 524 million acres of public land. She’ll also have community service, a whole 200 hours of it. Add to this a formal apology to the National Park Service. And a requirement to pay for the cost of cleanup—an amount of money not yet known. Even two years after the incidents, work is ongoing at Death Valley and Crater Lake. Ironically, the sandblasting and chemical stripping required to remove acrylics is also likely to damage formations. In an official statement, acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert remarked that “the defendant’s defacement of multiple rock formations showed a lack of respect for the law and our shared national treasures.” Online, among members of 92 92 nature-loving communities, the sentiment was much the same. “The American national parks are really, really special,” noted the owner of Modern Hiker. “For a lot of people, visiting these parks has a very deep impact on who you become as a person. So, for a lot of us, seeing these places vandalized feels like a kick in the gut.” * Perhaps it’s hard to fight the urge to leave some kind of mark—to carve a name into a tree, to trace a wish into the sand before it’s washed away by frothy ocean waves, to write I <3 So-and-So on the cool face of a rock after a romantic walk in the woods. It seems to me that humans certainly have a long history of leaving their mark. Of wanting to leave some kind of trace, however brief, however temporary. A hello, I was here to the universe. Though some of those marks last longer than others. We see this kind of impulse to leave something behind in the cave paintings of la Cueva de las Manos in Argentina—the silhouettes of hands in reds and black and browns created by blowing pigment on the walls. Or la Cueva de Altamina in southern Spain, with its polychrome paintings of mammals, human hands, created some 14,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic by early man. And we see it here, in the U.S., in the petroglyphs of Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park, created roughly 2,000 years ago by native cultures such as the Anasazi, Pueblo, and Navajo. On its surface, the reddish shapes of buffalo, deer, human footprints stand vibrant against the dark patina of the desert stone. The Navajo call the rock Tse’ Hone’—or “rock that tells a story.” Perhaps Casey Nocket simply wanted to leave her mark, wanted her art to last throughout generations, wanted to tell her story for some future peoples. Because that’s what it’s all about, right? We talk so much about what humankind 93 93 will leave behind, create programs that explore how long that mark will last once humans are gone. That explore how long before nature takes it all back, animals reclaiming cities, slender blades of grasses breaking through cracks in the streets, trees and flowers taking root wherever they will. But even if leaving a mark is so common, I still struggle to fully understand the drive to deface such well-known landmarks. * August, 2016 Jonathan Bourne, an anesthesiologist from Mono County, pleads guilty to two felony counts connected to his looting of various Native American artifacts from Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest and Death Valley National Park. Glass trade beads, sheep-horn tools, and etched stone tablets (considered sacred by the Timbisha Shoshone tribe) taken from these locations were found in his home among over 20,000 other relic and artifacts and fossils he’d collected for himself over nearly two decades. When interviewed about Bourne’s excavation endeavors by The Los Angeles Times, Greg Haverstock, an archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management, remarked that “collecting artifacts on public lands is not harmless fun…it damages archaeological records and the shared heritage of our nation.” He further added that such activities “[impact] tribal members who regard the removal of such items as sacrilege.” As part of his plea bargain, for violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, Bourne agreed to pay nearly $250,000 to curate and store the collection he had amassed. And, while he’ll escape jail time—each count carrying a potential of two years in custody of the state—his sentence carries with it a ban (for an as yet undecided period of time) from all public lands falling under the 94 94 purview of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. News of his activities eventually reached the above agencies through the website of a Fresno man who regularly catalogues the California hiking adventures he enjoys both alone and with a hiking club. When blogging about a particular group hike into the High Sierra, he mentioned that, when coming down the mountain, Bourne, excited, alerted them all to his discovery of a bow sticking out of the rocks and ice. The site owner noted that, when asked about the find later, Bourne only claimed, with a sly grin on his face, that he must have been mistaken. That it had only been a stick. In the photo, taken by a hiking companion, he stands over the bow, bending over, hiking gear strapped to his back, one gloved hand braced against a large hunk of granite nearby. One grey-panted leg extends straight, the other bent at the knee, helping him to keep his balance. In the other hand, Bourne holds a rectangular piece of stone, his arm frozen in mid-air, about to strike the dirty glacial ice entrapping the slender piece of juniper. Though mostly obscured by sunglasses and a baseball cap (complete with neck-shade), his face—what showed of it at least—seems steely, determined, totally in-the-zone. During the legal proceedings, his attorney claimed that Bourne had only intended to hold on to the artifacts he’d stolen temporarily, made sure to stress that he hadn’t collected them for any kind of financial gain. He told his legal counsel that he’d fully intended to turn them over to a “well-known and respected” archaeologist for assessment, that he merely wanted to determine who was most deserving to receive them. But how to account for the thousands of other artifacts he’d stored away for himself? And when did he plan to finally get around to handing them over? 95 95

* June, 2012 Fernando and I had decided to make one more stop before our departure from Badlands National Park. We’d spent the previous day hiking around rattlesnake-infested prairie grasses and the signature buttes and pinnacles and spires that make up its public lands. Tired from both physical exertion and the hundreds of miles we’d traveled over the days before, we simply wanted a leisurely stroll during our remaining time in the park. We sat in my dirty little Ford Focus, still parked in the campground, looking over the thin dotted black lines on the park map designating trails, complete with corresponding entries informing hikers of length, of difficulty, of sights found along the way. “What about this one?” I asked, jabbing my finger lightly at one of the lines. “Hm…Fossil Exhibit Trail,” he mumbled as he read from the page. “Pretty easy. Shouldn’t take long. Remember we have a lot of ground to cover.” “Plus, it says people sometimes find fossils while walking around,” I added, trying to sweeten the deal, my need to stay on schedule far less strong than his. “Wouldn’t that be rad?” “Sure,” he replied, as he folded up the map and shoved it into the storage compartment on the side of the car door.” Probably pretty unlikely though.” I rolled my eyes and shifted the car into reverse. “Doesn’t mean I can’t keep an eye out or whatever.” When we arrived, though still early, people wandered the boardwalk-style trail, singularly or in groups—families, couples, trios of friends. I pulled on my light grey hoodie and jumped out of the car, eager for one more chance to stretch 96 96 my legs before the miles and miles of road that would take us to Minneapolis, the next stop on our eastbound journey home to California. “Let me just grab some water,” Fernando said, shutting the car door behind him. I nodded and hugged my arms close to my body as I made my way over to the signpost at the start of the trail, the morning breeze cooler than I’d expected. Fernando quickly caught up and we stepped onto the boardwalk past a woman zipping up her child’s jacket. Our path ran straight, then curved into a bend around a gritty beige line of buttes, a clear blue sky all the way to the horizon throwing their jagged tops in stark relief. As we walked along, I noticed wooden cases sealed with a plexiglass top here and there along the sides of the trail. Each case contained a layer of dusty earth and fossils—either in pieces or as intact as a fossil could possibly be—of now-extinct life that once roamed the region: Subhyracodon, a hornless rhinoceros; Archaeotherium, a pig-like mammal; three-toed horses, tiny saber- toothed cats. We squatted down next to each other, heads close, peering into the cases, taking time to read each placard detailing information about these creatures from so long ago, before moving on to the next sight. Or we pointed to the formations around us and talked geology—the dull grey layers of deposits of volcanic ash, black shale left over from an ancient inland sea, thick tan bands of sandstone in between. Within a short period of time, perhaps only thirty minutes or so, we reached the end of the boardwalk. Rather than head immediately back to the car, we lingered, wandering around the area off-trail—like so many others around us—no signs around to deter or warn against such actions. Fernando and I headed off in 97 97 different directions—he to get a closer look at some of the layers of a nearby formation of small hills and spires, while I made my way toward what looked much like a wash, recent rains having created rivulets and alluvial fans of small rocks and stones. After a few minutes of walking, I felt the familiar slap-slap of loose laces against the sides of my boot, and went down on one knee to tie them. As I went through the familiar routine of throwing one loop of lace over the other, I glanced over at the ground nearby and noticed what appeared to be, at first glance, at pattern of red-tinged rocks, in a kind of oblong semi-circle, lodged in the crumbling dirt. I leaned in closer for a better look and realized I was looking at a jaw, complete with a few remaining teeth. I reached my hand out slowly to brush the loose clumps of earth away from the jawline to better expose what I’d found. Catching myself, I yanked it back and jumped up and looked around from side to side, searching. “Fernando,” I called out, spotting him in the distance ahead, already headed toward me. “C’mere! Hurry!” He raised his hand to acknowledge he’d seen me and picked up his pace, quickly closing the distance between us. “What is it,” he asked, finally reaching my side. I pointed to the ground where the jaw lay embedded in the beige-colored earth. “Pretty sure it’s a fossil,” I nodded my head toward the ground as I spoke. “Like…doesn’t that look like a tooth right there?” Fernando knelt down and inspected the spot from different angles. “Yup. Top jaw…probably the top of the skull’s under there, too,” he said as he stood back up and dusted off his jeans. “Good eye.” 98 98

I felt excited and something else—like I’d accomplished some long-lost goal connected to my fleeting childhood dream of living the life of an archaeologist. I thought back to the years I spent clipping articles about digs, or collecting rocks and fossils found in museum shops or gifted to me by relatives. I felt cool as hell, and part of me wished that I could take it—even a piece of it—for my own. But I remembered the hiker’s motto I’d read in so many guides and seen on so many signs (in one form or another): Take Nothing, Leave Nothing. Easy enough in practice, though I’d never before been faced with a decision quite like the one in front of me. “What do we do?” I finally asked, taking out my camera to snap some photos of my find. “Tell someone? Maybe a ranger? Your guess is as good as mine,” Fernando replied, lifting his jacketed shoulders in a slight shrug. “I guess.” I let out a little sigh and dug my phone out of my pocket. “Too bad, that’d make one hell of a souvenir, eh?” “Yeah but…I’m almost positive that’s illegal,” he reminded me, crouching down again next to the fossil. I looked at the park map for a contact number, thinking about what Fernando had said. While I didn’t know anything about the legality of messing with fossils on federal land, I was sure he was right—though I’m not adverse to breaking laws. Besides, I wouldn’t be the first person to help themselves to a concrete reminder of their national park trip, and I felt sure that park researchers had no shortage of fossils from the area to work with, having once teemed with life. But I just couldn’t give in to the temptation. Slowly, I dialed up the visitor’s center to inquire as to the protocol for such a situation. The booklet supplied to us upon entry to the park had only warned to avoid disturbing the fossil, as any 99 99 movement could destroy important scientific information, though it didn’t really specify exactly what that meant. In the end, I had to fill out a form with enough information to help park researchers locate the fossil for collection and study—geographic coordinates, personal contact information, even a rough sketch of the area if possible. As we pulled away, I thought about all the fossils we’d seen on display and wondered if the one I’d found differed in any way, if they’d actually contact me—given the case of a significant find—like the form claimed they might, or if it would simply be boxed away among dozens of other dusty specimens, never fully appreciated. And I thought once more about turning back, about taking it, even the smallest piece, and leaving the rest for some other lucky visitor. But, instead, I left the form with the rangers and left the fossil, and South Dakota, behind in the dust, nothing to remember the moment by other than a few pictures and a slight tinge of regret at my strict adherence to the rules.

PART III. SURVIVAL 101 101

CONTEMPLATING THE AUTHENTIC IN THE MODERN ZOO

A few years ago, while searching through the disorganized clutter of envelopes-in-a-drawer that makes up my photo collection, I came upon a discolored old polaroid of myself—perhaps five or six then—at the petting zoo at the Fresno Fair. In the yellowing picture, I’m doing a kind of half squat in my dusty sneakers next to a small, dirty-white sheep, wisps of tawny brown hair falling in my face, my mouth locked in a big toothy grin somewhere between happiness and nervousness. My small blurry hand hovers just above the sheep’s back, action frozen in film. I tried to remember exactly what the girl in that photo would have been thinking then—excited at the proximity to an animal I had no daily interaction with (we only ever had cats), yet an uncertainty that I could see in the eyes. Had I worried over the possible outcomes? That the animal might hurt me, or I scare it in some way? Regardless of the truth of that moment, I like to imagine that I enjoyed myself, that I relished the chance to get up close and personal with this particular farm animal—that any worry I read into my young face comes from my more conflicted adult self. Today, I know that petting zoos cause me a sense of unease, seeing all those animals cooped up, on display for our entertainment. But, on visits to the fair each year, I can’t help but grin at the smiling, laughing children interacting with the animals. Back then it was a lot simpler. * The L.A. Zoo, consisting of 166 acres and founded in 1966, sits in the NE corner of Griffith Park, nestled on the eastern end of the Santa Monica mountains. The city of Los Angeles owns the park, and as such, has been subject to the many budget woes over the years. In 1995, the zoo nearly lost its accreditation due to 102 102 terrible conditions resulting from years of neglect—inadequate and run down exhibits, leaking sewer pipes, deteriorating and unusable infrastructure, multiple citations from the Department of Agriculture for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. However, the city and other donors have invested a great deal of money to bring it back, by scaling back on animals, enlarging and redesigning enclosures to better mimic natural environments like rainforests and savannas, and bringing infrastructure up to safety standards, as well as improving efforts toward the conservation of endangered species. It had been years since I’d last been to a zoo of any sort, so I decided to make a trip to the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens (hereby known as the L.A. Zoo) one clear Saturday at the end of March while visiting family in Southern California. Given the changes the zoo had undergone over time, it was strange to return, everything so unfamiliar. Entering the zoo, the first exhibit I happened upon—the Sea Life Cliffs, hardly cliffs at all—did not make a good first impression, the grey seals in the first section a no show. In a second section, Harbor seals swam in tight circles in a pool of murky water. Watching them, I wondered what they felt about being restricted to such a small space, the rest of their habitat dry, dusty, and uninviting. A bit ahead on the opposite side of the broad, shimmering walkway (bits of glass mixed in with the cement), Reggie the alligator lay sunning himself against the chain-link fence. Totally motionless, I wondered for a moment if he was even alive. I continued past the shops and concession stands lining either side of the walkway close to the entrance, until it finally felt like we had truly entered the zoo. In an exhibit directly in front of me, perhaps a dozen meerkats stood on their hind legs in a begging stance, staring up with longing at the gawking humans, waiting for tossed out bits of food. I could’ve sworn I’d seen signs about not 103 103 feeding the animals, yet I noticed small children out of the corner of my eye throwing popcorn to them. People pushed and shoved at each other to get a chance up front—trying to get as close to the animals as possible, whereas I hung back, standing up on my toes to try to get a good look, rather than deal with the crowd. Toward the left loomed the massive aviary, a giant cage jutting into the clear blue of the sky full of a variety of trees and other plant life, the chain-link walls keeping the birds inside. While walking through the exhibit, trying to locate the birds the many signs claimed lived within, I overheard someone say “I can hear them, but where are they.” And it was true, I could hear the songs of birds above, yet only ever caught the briefest glimpses as they flitted from branch to branch. I found myself rather disappointed as I made my way through the structure—but I don’t quite know what I expected. After all, even out in the world, we largely only experience birds through their song. At the center of the zoo sits the largest habitat, the Elephants of Asia, with bars and wires everywhere. However, on this particular day, the open area of the environment was empty, with no elephants in clear view. One hung out in the shade, chewing lazily, content to remain partially hidden. As I stood there on the wooden deck of the viewing area I heard, coming from speakers mounted on alcoves above, the sounds of birds. “Oh my gosh mom, an actual elephant,” a fair-haired child nearby exclaimed, tugging at her mother’s arm. “Mhm. And look, over there,” the mother replied, as she pointed to another throwing dirt on itself at the far end of the enclosure. “Think she’s playing?” The little girl laughed and nodded her head, leaning against the railing to get a good look. I watched for a few moments more before moving on, noting the intense interest she took in the elephants, and could almost picture myself in her 104 104 place, the excitement and wonder at seeing something she’d perhaps only seen before in books, or on television. Eventually I made my way past some of the smaller room-sized enclosures situated at the far eastern side of the park. An Andean condor paced along the edge of the inner wall of its cage—wings spread, seemingly nervous as it moved—and I wondered how it could stand to have such little room to move around, thinking of my own anxiety and discomfort when stuck in a tight space. In another area, a sea otter stood against the inner wall of its exhibit crying like an angry cat, cornered. I moved along quickly, to avoid having to consider their constricted mode of living. Farther along, the crested capuchin cage at least struck me as a bit better— several of them swung from artificial branches together, in what looked a lot to me like playing. And then I saw the jaguar, its normal habitat closed for renovations— the mighty cat pacing its enclosure, sometimes rubbing its cheeks against things as he passed. Such a feline, I thought, reminded of my own cats’ habits of rubbing their faces on everything in the apartment. Around and around he paced, forming tight circles in the cramped cage. It made me sad to see a creature so used to traveling large distances confined here, as I watched parents read informational signs to their children and navigate their excited questions. “Can I go in there?” A boy of perhaps nine or ten asked his dad, who merely gave his son a stern look in reply. “How fast can it run?” An older girl with her family leaned in to better hear her father. As I continued through the park, I noted the numerous closed-down exhibits—renovations everywhere—and the general inability to gaze upon the animals that we’d all come there to see. I heard a child ask, annoyed, “where’s the bear?,” the animals not capitulating to the desires of humans to view them. The 105 105 chimpanzee enclosure reminded me a lot of a compound, but at least a good-sized one, all steel and concrete, though I can see how they’ve attempted to recreate a more natural habitat within the walls—a large rocky structure with what looked like cave entrances, lots of trees and tall branched poles for climbing. “Look at its butt,” shrieked a child to my right, pointing his sticky finger at one of the chimps. “Yes, yes…we all see it, you don’t need to point that out.” The irritated mother tugged him along, glancing around in embarrassment. When I heard him, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself out loud, able to appreciate his amusement at the ridiculousness of their little pink bottoms, forgetting, for a moment, my previous preoccupation with the condition of the animals’ environment. Toward the end of my zoo excursion I came upon the Western Lowland Gorilla habitat—another rather spacious exhibit, this one with levels the gorillas can move between. I watched as one of them peeked over the edge of a fake rock wall, up on its toes, its movements so human-like. They looked back at the gawking visitors with eyes that seemed so familiar. As I watched them watching those of us outside their enclosure, I felt unnerved, even a little judged. At this point, tired from walking around and navigating my way through crowds of people, I felt ready to leave. Mulling over the afternoon on my way back to my car, I realized that everything I’d seen had bothered me in some way, but that the trip hadn’t been all that bad. I’d enjoyed seeing the different kinds of animals (when I could, of course) but, more than anything, I’d enjoyed watching the people watching the animals—the delight that children and their parents took in seeing and learning about them, the way they moved from one habitat to another, chattering excitedly about bears and monkeys and reptiles. (Though part 106 106 of me wondered if any of them had felt any discomfort mixed in with their enjoyment like I had.) * The capture and display of animals by humans extends far back in human history. In Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo, Nigel Rothfels notes that within many ancient civilizations—Babylonian, Chinese, and Greek—rulers and aristocrats often accumulated a wide variety of “exotic animals.” These collections were known as menageries, and moneyed individuals kept various exotic animals from around the world as symbols of their status and power, as well as for entertainment and profit. Alexander the Great, Nero, Charlemagne—all kept menageries. Menageries could be located indoors or in outdoor gardens, with animals kept in cages or in open-air enclosures, perhaps among plants from their native regions. Up until the beginning of the 19th century, the menagerie set the model for how animals were displayed for both public and private viewing. By the mid-19th century, human thinking about animals began to take a more progressive turn—in part fueled by advancements in science, and works such as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species—away from the cages that made up the dominant mode of displaying them. A much different view of animal collections took hold by the beginning of the 20th in the form of the zoological park—and with it a desire to “watch living nature” in its more natural state, and an assumption that collections of animals could become “centers of emerging environmental and animal protection movements,” while at the same time fulfilling a human need for nature amid an urbanized, highly industrialized way of life. This change, known as the “Hagenbeck Revolution,” resulted in large part from efforts of the “father of the modern zoo”—Carl Hagenbeck—with his vision of animals freed from cages and allowed to roam in more realistic versions of their 107 107 natural habitats. The public had grown weary of seeing animals in “unnatural” spaces, particularly when those spaces were so often miserable, dirty, and inadequate to the animals’ needs. Thus, the model for exhibitions sought to recreate a more authentic experience, a façade of the natural—perhaps more for their own mental and emotional well-being than for that of the animals. Today, the term menagerie carries largely negative connotations, conjuring up images of animals in chains, confined to small barren cages, staring at us from behind metallic bars. Other terminology is preferred—wildlife parks, conservatories, animal sanctuaries—that invokes more pleasant imagery, of happy animals properly cared for. While it could likely be argued that today’s zoos and wildlife parks are far better environments for animals than their older predecessors, it is also likely that this is not always the case, that some animals around the world are still kept in less-than-ideal environments. Cages still exist in zoos today, and menageries weren’t always, it seems, as horrid as some might like to imagine. * In attempting to understand my own mixed feelings about zoos and their role in modern society, I decided to contact PETA, to gain some insight into the more extreme perspectives vis-a-vis zoos. Sitting in my living room, I glided my finger over the touchpad, clicking my way to the “E-Mail PETA” page where I can “Ask PETA a Question” by simple means of filling out a form. After a couple of weeks, I was finally contacted by a Mr. Kenneth Montville, the “College Campaign Coordinator”—according to his email signature. He told me that he would be pleased to discuss zoos with me, asked if I had any specific questions, and directed me to some e-literature about zoos on their site: “Zoos: Pitiful Prisons.” I rolled my eyes at the rhetoric. 108 108

I read over the page, searching for some information that might guide my conservation with Mr. Montville. Not surprisingly, given the title, the general message of the information on the page was a rather negative one—explaining that the concern isn’t really for the animals, but rather on human entertainment, and not really even education. That last part seemed strange to me, as the L.A. Zoo clearly had educational facilities and programs for kids (as well as adults) to participate in. The page went on to explain that claims about the protection of animals from extinction are largely false, and that zoos at large don’t care much for locally endangered wildlife, concerning themselves in only the exotic—another piece of information that struck me as quite false. And it mentioned that the focus needs to be on preserving the actual natural habitats of animals, and on changing the habits that lead to the destruction of land and ecosystems. While I could very much agree with that last part, it struck me as a problem without any simple solution. Sure, we can try to mitigate the damage we’ve already done, can try to avoid destroying more of their natural habitats, but that doesn’t really do much for the animals already affected. After reading this, I still had questions. In spite of my misgivings, I found myself feeling defensive about zoos. I wanted further clarification on their stance on zoos, as some of what I’d read led me to believe that there are some instances where PETA might find them acceptable. I wanted to know, also, how we could satisfy the human need to have experiences with animals. I wanted to know about how zoos could be made better, and the morality of them, in this man’s mind. Mr. Montville finally responded that PETA definitely opposes zoos, because they “exist for profit, rather than being a safe haven for animals.” This struck me as strange, seeing as, to my knowledge, many of the animals in today’s 109 109 zoos consist of rescue animals and those that have been bred in captivity. He went on to say that “zoos have created a sense that people are entitled to be able to see live animals,” but that there are other ways to educate people about them, such as CGI “documentaries” and the like. Our latest exchange only left me with more questions, and a growing annoyance with this faceless man and his heavily biased stance. It had hoped that he would have given some more nuanced perspective, but he merely seemed to regurgitate the exact same shit I’d read on the website. I hit reply and typed up another series of questions: What is it, exactly, that makes a zoo, and what makes one different from a “wildlife park?” Are some of these places better than others? I hit send and waited. A few weeks later Kenneth finally responded again, apologizing for his delay. He informed me that “there is a huge difference between sanctuaries and zoos, zoological parks and wildlife parks.” The difference, it seems, is the focus— caring for animals vs. entertaining people. He felt the need to stress that “most animals in zoos are not endangered.” He told me that there are sanctuaries—like the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee—that don’t allow visitors, or rarely allow them. Places like the sanctuary in Tennessee offer their twenty-seven elephants 2,700 acres of wide open land in which to roam free, whereas the San Diego Wild Animal Park offers such a measly amount of space. In the end, Kenneth’s solution for saving the animals was to “protect their habitats, not lock them up for people to gawk at!” Once again, like his earlier emails, nothing that he told me really differed all that radically from what I’d already read on the PETA site, and I felt that these answers ignored the nature of human behavior—our profound need to experience animals up close, the way it helps us build empathy and understanding for the other inhabitants of the planet, 110 110 and how it connects us to something so much larger than our busy urban lives. And as for the damage already done, it’s easy to just say “protect their homes!,” it’s another thing to achieve the global cooperation to do such a thing. In the meantime, I suppose, at least many zoos and parks around the nation and the world do what they can to rescue and conserve, even if there will always be room for improvement. * A couple of weeks following my trip to the L.A. Zoo, I had a chance to get together with Nick, a friend I’d met through my sister. Nick had worked at the zoo as a volunteer in his pursuit of certification in exotic animal handling. When I arrived at his home on a Friday evening, a few cans of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in tow, he greeted me with a big grin and a warm hug. Skinny, with a punk rock style and a love of classic horror reflected in the many tattoos covering his body, Nick has an infectious, fun-loving personality that always makes me smile. His brindle- coated Pit Bull-Shar Pei mix, Lydia, stood by his side as he asked me inside and I took a seat on the couch. After exchanging pleasantries and catching up, I sipped my open beer and took a mock-serious tone. “Okay Nick, I’ve got some questions for you. Zoo questions. I need answers.” “Shit. I hope I have them,” he laughed, his baby blue eyes reflecting his amusement. I leaned back on the couch, crossed my legs and looked at the list of questions that I’d prepared prior to our meeting. Already aware that he worked at the zoo as an unpaid volunteer, I asked for clarification of what, exactly, he did when he was there. 111 111

“Everything. Fuck.” He opened his eyes wide as he said this, and held his arms up slightly, one hand gripping his beer. “Rebuilt shitty exhibits from, like, the 60s…and took care of animals,” he finally said. “Okay, so then. What are your impressions of the zoo, having worked there? I went a few weeks ago and it was like…whoa, what.” I watched him as he moved into the kitchen, and heard the sounds of cabinets being opened and closed. “Well…places like San Diego with a lot of money are generally better,” he replied loudly, compensating for the distance between us. “The workers there— like the volunteers—are amazing people. They know the animals are fucked, so they try to make their lives better.” I nodded and asked him to elaborate on what he meant about money, and the kinds of problems that funding might cause a zoo. He stood in the area between the kitchen and the living room, a skillet and spoon in hand, looking at me. “Money is a big issue. And trying to get money to rebuild stuff,” he explained. “The zoo is city-run. Like it’s technically a city park, so it gets the same public funding as any regular public park. They live off of donations and shit— and it’s L.A.—the city is terrible.” He paused. “I’m not really good at saying things…” “No, no, it’s interesting.” I waved my hand dismissively at him as Lydia nuzzled up to my side. “So why exactly do you love working with animals?” In the time that we’d been talking, Nick had finished preparing his late- night meal and stood in the living room once again holding a black plate of sautéed vegetables and a fork—the inked montage of screaming women, Michael 112 112

Meyers, Jason in his mask—that covered his forearm in clear view. He chewed, clearly thinking. “I guess because I have compassion for…perfect things? Helpless things?” He looked around, as if for the words. “I mean these aren’t wild animals anymore. Lots are rescue animals. You can’t just throw ‘em back out there, they need caring for. And we have an advantage over them…so we should use that to help them. What is that, nurture?” I took another long sip of my beer, giving the can a little shake after, to judge its level of fullness, and nodded. “Mmm, yeah…sorta seems like that to me. Then of course we don’t always make it easy for them to live, either…” I trailed off, my conversation with Kenneth Montville coming to mind. “Oh man, did I tell you I was emailing with some PETA guy?” “No,” he laughed. “PETA are pieces of shit. They aren’t actually interested in the well-being of animals—it’s all politicized bullshit. And they hate zoos, right? But like the L.A. Zoo and San Diego helped to bring back the fuckin’ California condor. Zoos are still important, y’know for kids. I didn’t give a shit about an elephant until I saw one.” He went on to tell me a story about something that PETA had done— gesticulating as he spoke, lively in his faded black BAD SEED shirt and tight blue jeans, cuffed at the bottom. How they’d worked to get the name of feeder fish changed to something else, because they had problems with the name, even though the fish are still used for the same function. Apparently, they call them comets, now. As I drove away at the end of the night, I thought of everything that Nick had told me that night, about PETA, about the things I’d read and my own 113 113 personal experiences. About the idealism of activism and the reality of the world in which we live—where the destructive effects of human activity touch every form of life—and the potential importance of zoos. I began to think I’d been too quick to judge, and that as much as I don’t much like the idea of caging up living things, at least we try to do what we can. And maybe that’s good enough. * Not too long ago, I happened upon the Charles Siebert essay “Where Have All the Animals Gone: The Lamentable Extinction of Zoos,” originally published in Harper’s in 1991. In it, Siebert reflects on the gradual replacement of the more traditional zoo environment (particularly in urban areas such as Manhattan and the Bronx) with new, larger, more natural habitats, where sometimes the animals are not even visible at all. And, much as Beasts and Savages did, he questions the idea that the change in environment design is primarily for the well-being of the animals—instead framing it as a way of making ourselves feel better. And I think there is some truth to that, even if the animals end up better off as a consequence. In the essay, Siebert writes that “the only meeting place the civilized world has negotiated between the absence and presence of the wild is the zoo.” I think that’s what makes places like the L.A. Zoo so fascinating yet so troubling for me—the juxtaposition of the urban and the wild—perhaps because it is an experience of the wild on our terms, orderly and convenient, just the way we like it. 114 114

ON GLAMPING

“With glamping, you don’t just visit the destination, you experience the destination.” —Some content writer at glamping.com

Instead of spending the weekend roughing it within the walls of your cramped little tent—only an inch-thick layer of air and padding between you and the ground, tossing and turning in the rather claustrophobic confines of your hopefully-warm-enough sleeping bag—you could be camping another way, living a weekend of luxury and comfort on par with that of a four-or-five-star resort, while still experiencing the calm and seclusion of nature. Perhaps a getaway in a yurt in Utah, in Goblin Valley State Park, surrounded by towering hoodoos of sandstone, siltstone, shale, blanketed by a clear blue sky that stretches for miles. Each yurt supported by a railed wooden deck, each deck equipped with lounge chairs and tables for your leisure. Inside each yurt: Cushy bunk beds, tables and chairs, lamps and outlets for every electrical need, control over heating and cooling, refrigeration. Nature without the nuisance. Or perhaps a weekend in Wyoming in a large, sturdy safari tent surrounded by trees, thick beige canvas walls and ceiling pulled tight over thick wooden logs, bark stripped and buffed smooth, hardwood floor—complete with area rugs— covering the ground beneath. Inside, well-lit by standing lamps and hanging lanterns, a cozy scene: A queen-sized bed—frame and all—adorned with lush- looking sheets and an abundance of plush pillows. A long table at its foot, dark wood surface populated by candles (pine-scented, perhaps?) and a well-placed bottle of red wine. Cabinets and side tables. Some kind of plant in a tall pot. Even 115 115 a rocking chair. Outside, tucked off to one side, a small dining table, complete with charming matching chairs, topped off with a vase full of roses. Across the way, two cushioned chairs await beside a crackling fire ringed by stones. A real first class escape. * I first learned about glamping over the summer of 2015, while indulging in one of several guilty television pleasures, Project Runway, with Matt, a close friend from university with whom I’d recently started a relationship, and who I’d met while working as a tutor at our school’s writing center. We sat together in my living room, while I streamed through seasons of the show and he engrossed himself in keeping track of baseball games and his fantasy team. In one episode, “Let’s Go Glamping!,” the contestant-designers were tasked with creating a fashionable look based off the inspiration gleaned from an overnight trip into nature—an announcement met with a mixture of excitement and groans. They packed the eleven of them into big, shiny, black SUVs. Drove them to upstate New York, where the fabulous Tim Gunn, camouflage suit and all, awaited to fill them in on their task. It didn’t look like anything I’d call camping. Sure, they were out in the woods, surrounded by towering trees, a gently flowing stream nearby, no towns or cities in sight. But the elaborateness of it all! Safari tents and couches and the most inviting looking beds. Electricity and luxurious chairs for lounging and catered meals served on a long cloth-covered table arrayed with all the trappings of a fancy meal—wine glasses, metallic silverware, an elaborate and colorful flowered centerpiece, brought in via caterer. I shot up from my prone position on the couch. 116 116

“What the hell is that?” I demanded, leaning forward toward the screen in front of me. “Huh?” Matt looked up from his tablet. “That,” I stressed, pointing my finger at the glow of the television. “Apparently, they’re camping.” “Are you surprised?” Matt’s eyes glanced up at the screen, back to his tablet, back to the screen, before finally resting on my face. He must have noted my incredulity, because he smiled widely, amusement showing in his grey-blue eyes. “Yes. No. I mean, I guess not,” I sighed, leaning back again, hands aloft, moving along with my speech. “It’s just not camping. They aren’t even doing any work. That’s stupid. It’s cheating.” “Why do you say that?” * You wake to the sound of drops of rain hitting the taut synthetic material of your tent’s rain fly, the gentle intermittent thuds signifying a light drizzle, nothing more. But it’s 6AM and you hadn’t planned for rain. But you should have planned for rain. Or at least the possibility of rain, summers in the Sierras sometimes temperamental, unpredictable, even in years of drought. You lie there, watching small splotches appear here and then there, turning the fly a darker shade of orange, hoping that it won’t get any worse. But it does, and you know if you wait any longer you’re going to be sorry. More sorry than you already are, your trip cut short, not even a raincoat to shield you from the worsening downpour. You take a deep breath and pull yourself up and out through the vestibule of your tent, everything already covered with a slick coat of damp. You see the 117 117 dark clouds rolling in, claps of thunder sounding the storm’s advancing approach. Your sense of urgency grows and you run to the car, sleeping bag and pillow in hand, as the rain comes down in earnest. At this point, everything is rushing. Back and forth, back and forth, from campsite to car, car to campsite. You just want to get out of there, to keep everything as dry as possible—an impossibility, of course, but you can’t really think about that. You pull the rain fly off the tent, quick, unthinking, beads of water flying from its surface, landing in your hair, on your face, on your clothes. A cool breeze raises goosebumps, sets your teeth chattering. You keep at it though, pull the whole thing down, pack it all up. You sit in the humid interior of your car watching the windows fog, watching the rain fall so hard now that you can barely make out what’s in front of you. Drenched. Sweating. Miserable. Lamenting your ruined weekend. * In that “Let’s Go Glamping!” episode, the competing designers all expressed varying degrees of enthusiasm when first informed about the camping component of their latest challenge. Their reactions ranged from excitement to ambivalence to vocal distaste for the outdoors. I’m sure they imagined what we all might when thinking of setting up camp—putting up a tent, sleeping in a little bag on the ground, or on some kind of inflatable pad, arranging firewood and kindling, lacking bathroom facilities, maybe even dealing with local wildlife. When Tim Gunn told them not to worry, that they’d be camping “the way fashion designers camp,” many were relieved that their experience would be much more luxurious than they’d originally thought. 118 118

They spent their time canoeing and zip-lining and relaxing around the glampground, socializing and sketching out design concepts. All the catty competitiveness that permeated the workroom at the Parsons School in Manhattan melted away, and they took time to enjoy their surroundings and simply relax and, more importantly, to enjoy each other’s company. Or was left behind, ready to be picked up again by members of the show’s staff once the glamping was done. * The modern term glamping is a portmanteau, the bastard child of glamour and camping. People also call it boutique camping or luxury camping or posh camping or comfy camping. Anything, really, to distinguish it from what many people normally envision when they think about camping—stuffing everything you’ll need into the trunk of a car, or into the sparse space that an overnight bag or multi-day pack affords, lugging it all with you, and putting in the time and effort to set up camp, only to pack it all up again. I’d never heard of it before that summer full of streaming, at least as far as I can remember, but it’s really nothing new. A quick Internet search reveals a tradition dating back to the European and American safaris of the 19th century. To 1836, when William Cornwallis Harris—military engineer, artist, hunter—led an expedition to observe and record landscapes and wildlife and created the model we know so well today: the leisurely morning spent waking up, travel during the day, followed by an afternoon of rest and formal evening dinner, by fireside story- telling over drinks and the occasional cigar. The wealthy wanted a taste of adventure, a taste of the wild, a taste of the hunt—but did not want to forego the comfortable surroundings their privilege generally afforded them. Think Hemingway in Africa. 119 119

A monarch and his hunting party. Thoreau at Walden Pond, in his comfy cabin with its rain-shielding roof. Fast forward a few hundred years or so and things haven’t changed much. For a not-so-modest-fee, anyone with the means can take part in their very own glamping experience. In fact, you may have even glamped without even realizing it. Accommodations include (but are hardly limited to): safari tents, tipi, eco-pods, bell tents, RVs, yurts, tent cabins, normal-everyday-run-of-the-mill cabins, treehouses. It seems as though almost anything can be glamping, just as long as it doesn’t fall within the bounds of more traditional camping, just as long as there is comfort and luxury. And as little roughing it as possible. A camping experience without the camping. * In his book, Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey laments, among other things the increasing demand for more and more roads (and thus more and more cars) in America’s national parks. Laments the need to carve up nature for the sake of accessibility. For the sake of convenience, for an experience without too much hassle. He remarks that, while most people would agree that although “wilderness is a fine thing, certain compromises and adjustments are necessary in order to meet the ever-expanding demand for outdoor recreation.” Certain compromises—like building a resort retreat at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, or an oasis of a golf course in Death Valley. Certain adjustments—like ensuring that campgrounds provide electrical hookups for RVs and the technologically-inclined, or that, even in the backcountry, no one will be inconvenienced by having to shit in a hole. Not everyone affords nature the same reverence that Edward Abbey did. Not everyone longs for a taste of “the primitive and remote,” only the bare essentials—food, water, maybe a sleeping bag to ward off the chill of the night. 120 120

Not everyone wants to sweat and toil and hike and climb for their nature—but they certainly want to see it. They certainly want to escape the hustle and bustle of urban living, even if only for a day or two, in order to experience something of the wild, to experience that perhaps nameless something that only natural spaces can supply. But, of course, not everyone is willing to abandon all comforts of civilization to do it. It’s nature, but on our own terms. Now, I’m sure that you’ll object. That you’ll say “but, wait, isn’t every nature experience ‘on our own terms?’ Isn’t all camping just that?” And in many ways, you’d be right—we’re always manipulating the environment to suit our purposes. But that doesn’t make all forms of camping equal. Certain kinds of camping can be a huge pain in the ass—tedious, full of hazards, prone to disturbance due to bad weather. Certain kinds of camping require a significant amount of planning, a significant amount of time. Require a knowledge of particular skills such as fire-making or shelter-building or plant-identifying. Require a certain degree of work. And sometimes all that work is so, so worth it. * I stared at Matt, Project Runway in the background, and the question— why—hung between us momentarily, while I tried to work out exactly how to respond in a way that might make sense, in a way that would capture exactly what I found so frustrating about glamping. “It’s difficult to explain,” I finally said, as I slumped back onto the cushions of the couch. “They should get their hands dirty a little. At least set up a tent or something. Y’know, camping.” 121 121

“Well, they are fashion designers,” he teased, smirking a little. “Besides, you telling me you wouldn’t enjoy something like that?” “Nah.” I crossed my arms and looked back at the screen. “Well, I mean. Maybe. Probably. But then I’d just as well stay at some hotel. If I’m going out into the wild then I’m gonna do it right.” * You wake in your tent on a chilly morning in late May, pull on your hiking boots, don a hoodie, and step outside into the clear mountain air. You take a deep breath and gaze up at the sky, a startling blue backdrop to the pine-speckled expanse of jagged granite peaks and ridges that surround you. You stretch, taking a moment to absorb your surroundings—the backcountry site in the Emigrant Wilderness hosting several tents belonging to friends, the mirrored, rippled surface of Bear Lake before you, reflecting back mountain, sky, broken here and there by the sodden trunks of trees long dead. Surroundings that you hadn’t had the chance to see before this moment, given your late-night arrival the previous evening. You kick at the wet ground at the side of the lake, thinking about what it took to get you here—the late afternoon start at the trailhead, the fear and panic that you fought back with every step, watching the sun sink closer and closer to the horizon of mountaintops, the worry you felt as the daylight slowly faded, as the night engulfed you and you thought more than once about turning back. You smile to yourself and begin to walk, crossing giant blocks of granite, no real trail to guide you except the route that looks clearest. Only knowing that, up ahead, somewhere beyond the rise of ancient rock, sits another lake, rumored to be the most breath-taking member of this system. 122 122

You zig and zag your way across the mountain terrain, following the stream of water that meanders down to the lake that hosts your camp, where it tapers off to a kind of trickle. Climb the final crest of granite. Find your boots hitting, not rock, but the soft crunch of snow. You pull yourself up, using a nearby boulder for leverage and realize you’ve reached your goal. Below, glistening white snow leads down to the mirror of Granite Lake, its still surface reflecting back the snow-patched swells that surround it, clumps of pines scattered here and there. You take a step forward and your foot sinks, an icy wetness fills your boot, gives you pause. You sit on the boulder, pull off your boot. Dump out the snow. Gaze off into the distance. Sweating. Shivering. Glad you didn’t turn back. 123 123

GOING IT ALONE

I stared down at the dusty, hard-packed trail in front of my boots, my body bent over, hands on knees, taking deep, ragged breaths, as I tried to calm myself, as I tried to ease the tightening in my chest and the slight waves of nausea rising up from within. Between breaths, I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t about to totally lose it right here out in the middle of nowhere, with nobody else in sight. That what I felt wasn’t the slow spread of panic causing my hands to clench and unclench into tight white-knuckled fists, fingernails digging into my palms. That I could get a hold on the thoughts beginning to race rapidly through my head, heading toward out of control. Inhale. Just get it together. Exhale. You got this. Inhale. It’s no big deal. Exhale. After a few minutes, I stood up slowly, the weight of my heavy pack shifting against my waist and shoulders, and took a swig of water, swishing it around in my mouth. I looked around and took in the views—the clear blue sky, the forest of tall pine, the granite peaks of the Sierras on the hazy horizon, the beige twist of the trail before me. I took another deep breath and returned my water bottle to its compartment on my pack and started on my forward trek once again, working my way up a slight rise as the mid-August sun beat down on my head. 124 124

“Holy shit, it’s warm,” I said to absolutely no one, breaking the silence that had surrounded me for the duration of my hike so far. A slight breeze rustled through the boughs of nearby trees. I kept a steady pace and, as I walked, I thought about the last time I’d hiked this very trail, only a few months ago with Matt—one of the few trips we’d been able to make earlier in the summer, though that time we’d only gone as far as Weaver Lake, a spot that marked a sort of half-way point on this particular trail. I thought about all the people we’d run into along the way—groups of friends with camping supplies and fishing poles, couples with their children, men and women either alone or with their dogs. And I thought of how nice it was to have someone to hike with, someone to talk to, someone who could keep me from getting too much in my own head. Someone who could be around in case something went wrong, in case I broke a leg or an arm or suffered a terrible fall, in case I ran into a bear or shit a mountain lion, in case I ran into someone unsavory, in case of whatever. And I thought back to all that survival TV I’d watched in the past, and how, even if the contestants were naked, even if they were afraid, at least they didn’t have to be alone. I began to think about all of the things that worried me, the fact that today I’d seen no one, heard no one. I heard the echoes of friends’ words—mostly female, mostly non-hikers—in my head. “OMG. You’re going alone? Are you crazy? What if something happens?” “Just be safe. It’s not safe out there all the time for women alone.” “Aren’t you worried that you’ll be completely cut off from the world?” “DON’T DIE.” The sharp snap of underbrush somewhere among the trees off to my left jarred me from my thoughts, and, stopping in my tracks, I looked around rapidly. 125 125

“HELLO,” I yelled, the sound of my voiced carried off into the distance. I strained my ears, waited for the sound to come again. And, once more, my mind began to race: What was that? A bear? Could I handle a bear? Are bears more afraid if you’re in a group? Why did I think this was a good idea? Why did I think I could do this? I can’t breatheI can’t breatheI CAN’T BREATHE. I stumbled forward a few steps and took a seat on a nearby log, taking big gulps of air, as a wave of dizziness washed over me I rocked back and forth, rubbing my hands up and down the top of my thighs, trying once again to get it together, trying once again to keep moving forward, to stop wasting time. But just the thought of moving forward sent me dry heaving to the point of tears. I can’t do this. I can’t I can’t I can’t. Why did I think I could do this? I need to get out of here, I need to get off this trail. And so, I did. I turned around and practically ran the mile and a half or so back toward the trailhead, something made easier by the downward slope of my path. Never mind that Matt would be long gone, never mind that the remote trailhead meant a possible four-mile hike back to some place with cellphone service where I could call him to come back to get me, unless I lucked out and ran into a ranger. * In the weeks leading up to my overnight trip to Jennie Lake in Sequoia National Forest, I spent a lot of time preparing both logistically and mentally. I combed through all my hiking and camping gear, stuffing dehydrated food and utensils and clothes into compression sacks, securing tent and sleeping pad and bag with the outer straps of my pack, hanging odds and ends—camp stove, mini- lantern, sandals, drinking mug, bear bell—with a system of carabiners and twine. 126 126

It looked a little intimidating, but I felt ready for anything that the wilderness could throw at me. I pored over the relevant literature: the slim wilderness survival guide tucked into my bookcase, online advice on how best to hang your gear from a tree to keep it away from critters (something I’d never actually done on my own), step- by-step illustrations on how to start a fire in case of emergency, the instructions for my newly purchased ultra-light water filter, trail information and park service warnings and alerts. But mostly I spent a lot of time talking to friends and acquaintances about what I planned to do and about the excitement and worry I felt over what I’d set myself on doing. It was like some kind of compulsion—and every time I received a similar reaction. Most people couldn’t believe that I’d throw myself out there alone, especially given I’d never done such a thing before, and, it seemed, especially given that I am a woman—a not altogether surprising response. After all, we receive routine reminders of just how unsafe we can be when alone, both through all-too-common assumptions about our physical capabilities (or, rather, incapabilities), and real world incidences of assault, harassment, and even death at the hands of men. Given the prevalence of violence against us, it’s hard to avoid buying into the narrative that solitude means danger, that we need someone around to protect us. And it’s hard to avoid letting the fear over that possible danger color so much of our perception of the world around us. The week prior to my hike, I’d gone out for drinks and karaoke with two of my oldest and closest friends, Diana and Jessica, with Matt as our trusty designated driver. At one point in the evening, three of us stood outside the bar, Diana and I smoking while we caught up. 127 127

“Oh, yeah. So, I’m going camping on my own,” I mentioned, as I flicked the ash off the end of my cigarette. “Like, car camping?” Diana asked, brushing a few loose strands of blonde hair out of her face. “Nah. Like hike out there and camp. Like in the backcountry, y’know?” Diana’s eyes widened (in shock? alarm?) and she blew a cloud of smoke out with some force. “By yourself,” she half-exclaimed, half-asked. She looked at Matt then looked back at me and then back at Matt before punching him right in the shoulder. “Ow! What was that for?” Matt said, rubbing the spot on his shoulder where Diana’s fist had connected. “Why would you let her do that?” She demanded, more worked up about it all than I thought she’d be. “What do you mean? She’s perfectly capable. She knows what she’s doing,” he replied, as he gestured in my direction. “Yeah!” I chimed in, grateful that at least someone had confidence in me. “But…aren’t you worried?” Diana asked Matt, concern in her voice. “Not really,” he responded with a shrug. I explained to Diana that it really wasn’t any big deal, that it was just a six or so mile hike to the Jennie Lake campground, that the last time we’d gone we’d seen plenty of people, and that it wasn’t up to Matt anyway. That this was something I wanted to do, something I needed to do. That I wanted to challenge myself beyond the mere physical, to see if I could do something I’d never done before, even if the idea of hiking alone had never struck me as particularly appealing—despite our prevailing cultural narrative of the enjoyment of nature as 128 128 a solitary pursuit. Besides, as one friend had pointed out, how could I know if I’d like it or not if I didn’t at least give it a try? She took a long drag from her cigarette and stared at me in silence for a moment, as if contemplating her words. “Okay but…I don’t like it,” she finally said. “So, you better come back or else I’m gonna be really upset.” I laughed loudly. “Well, don’t worry. I plan on it, obviously.” We both stubbed out our cigarettes and the three of us headed back inside to wait for our names to get called up to sing, and perhaps play a little pool. And as much as I tried throughout the night to put Diana’s words out of my mind, to laugh them off as the words of an overprotective friend, I kept thinking of them. I started to wonder if I could really call her overprotective when our concerns over the safety of our bodies are so often justified by the grim reality of what can, and does, actually happen. And, even if, taken as a whole, the number of attacks on women in the wild is relatively low—so what? The story we are told, the story we tell ourselves, is not if, but when—making an attack seem inevitable, every instance alone opening up a door to potential danger. Such thoughts did little to assuage the questions that I had in my own head about my own mental readiness, or about the likelihood— however small—that something really could go wrong out there. * During the drive up to Kings Canyon National Park with Matt, I spent a lot of time voicing the fears and self-doubt that had nagged me in the days before. “Matt, I dunno,” I sighed, looking up from the trail guide resting open in my lap. 129 129

“You dunno?” He asked, as he glanced over at me briefly from the driver’s side. “What don’t you know?” “If I can do this. I’m so used to having other people around, y’know, like you,” I explained. “Like…at least there’s someone else…just in case.” We turned a bend in the mountain road and the early morning light shone bright through the trees, the smell of pine filling the car and I looked over at Matt, who seemed to be thinking as he stared at the curving road ahead of us. “You’ve got this,” he finally said, glancing over at me with a little smile. “You’ve done this how many times before? And it’s only for one day. And I won’t be all that far away, either; it’s not like you’re stuck out there if you hate it.” I stared out the window and sighed, and Matt reached over and set his hand on my thigh, giving it a little squeeze. “Hey. It’ll be okay,” he said, trying to reassure me. “You live for being out here, look around you. This right here is your wheelhouse, and we both know it.” I knew, on some level, that he had a point. I’d hiked plenty of trails of all level of difficulty. And I’d never run into any truly serious problems of my own— the misfortunes of dehydration and altitude sickness always fell on others. Sure, I’d had to hike down a mountain barefoot once, or had to work through my fear of the dark while caught on the trail at night, or had to deal with close calls with bears. But I loved backpacking. I loved camping. And I’d always gotten through everything just fine. How different could hiking on my own be? As we entered the park I felt a renewed sense of excitement, and put my worries away, hoping that some positive thinking would be all I needed to get me through the next couple of days. Our conversation turned to our annoyance at the traffic delay at the entrance booths, and the drive we still had ahead to the trailhead. 130 130

* When we arrived at the parking area for the Jennie Lakes Wilderness, I saw several cars parked around it. Matt helped me get my gear together and walked me over to the trailhead, marked only by a small wooden sign with the word “Trail” and an arrow. “Well, this is it,” I said, smiling weakly. “I still wish you were going with me.” “I know,” Matt replied. “But you’ll see me tomorrow. I’ll be right here waiting for you.” I threw my arms around him in a tight hug and a kiss and turned to make my way toward my destination. “Oh, wait,” Matt added. “Let me get a picture first. You know, document the moment.” “Sure. Good idea.” Matt pulled out his phone and raised it up to his face, while I smiled the biggest holy-shit-am-I-ever-stoked-about-this smile I could muster, holding my hands tightly together in front of me. Looking at this photo now, it all looks a little forced, as if perhaps I wanted to remember this moment, later on, in another way. As if I’d wanted to hide my nerves and worry. After taking the picture, we hugged once again and I took off, turning back every so often to throw my hand up in a wave to Matt until I turned a bend in the trail and could no longer see him. As I walked, I thought about the logistics of the trail, about whether or not I wanted to stop at Weaver Lake for a short break, or just head straight to Jennie Lake. And I thought about how nice it was to get in one more trip into the Sierras before the start of the semester. 131 131

I crossed a small wooden bridge and, within several minutes, reached a wooden board with trail information next to a weathered metal box meant to hold backcountry permits, to allow rangers to keep track of who’s out there, because bad things can happen, even if only accident-induced injuries. And if no one knows you’re out there, then no help will come. With this in mind, I filled out my card with the nib of pencil inside the box and slid it inside, keeping the carbon copy for myself, as instructed. Taking a deep breath, I patted the top of the box and continued on my way, looking forward to a nice afternoon by the lake. * In Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed recounts her experience hiking alone—more-or-less—through 1,100 miles of desert and mountain, from the Mojave in California to The Bridge of the Gods in Washington. When she does run into other (mostly male) individuals on the trail, they tend to express surprise and even admiration that she would undertake such an endeavor by herself. Others wondered if she had fears, worries, doubts—and she certainly had her moments. Most of Cheryl’s interactions with the guys she meets turn out just fine, at best pleasant, at worst merely annoying. But then, one afternoon, she runs into a pair of hunters, and, after parting ways, one of them follows her. She begins to set up camp for the evening, but there he is, watching her. The tension of the moment hangs heavy in the air—she has no idea what will happen. The moments tick by until, called from afar by his companion, he slowly leaves. Cheryl hastily throws together her things and runs and runs and runs until she can run no more. Reflecting on her struggles and what it took to overcome them, she remarks that “fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told.” Easier said than done— 132 132 though her own story seems to validate the usual stories—but she makes a valid point. When I look back at my own failed attempt at hiking alone, I can see the relationship between my fears and those very same stories—stories that I’d normally shrug off as overly paranoid. After all, I don’t regularly walk around fearing for my life at every turn. And, at least on the street, there’d be someone to hear me scream. Not long after that August afternoon on the trail, a friend asked if I planned on trying to hike alone again. I couldn’t really give them an answer, because I just can’t say for sure. And, on some level, I’m not sure I care enough to try again, at least not any time soon. I challenged myself and I failed—and maybe that’s okay. Maybe I’ve never really wanted to go it alone anyway. Besides, having someone around is a hell of a lot more interesting. Why go on my own when I have someone like Matt to experience things with? And what, exactly, makes the mere act of hiking alone so important, anyway? Thoreau and Muir and countless other male writers may have valued solitude in nature, may have seen it as the only real way to connect with the wilderness around them. But they also didn’t have the same concerns, didn’t have to wonder if every encounter might put them in danger, didn’t have constant worry distracting them from enjoyment of their surroundings. Nature may have allowed Muir’s cares to drop away like autumn leaves, but it certainly only compounded mine. Fresno State Non-Exclusive Distribution License (Keep for your records) (to archive your thesis/dissertation electronically via the library’s eCollections database)

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