SOME PEOPLE LOVE cars, and everything to do with them. They love cars for emotional, psychological and practical reasons. Some people love their cars so much they get into them and drive around… not to get somewhere but purely for fun. Imagine!
And then there are people who dislike cars, or who are, at best, merely tolerant of them, people who didn’t learn to drive until their thirties when they emigrated to a nation set up for cars (not for people) and had no other option but to learn, people who would far rather walk… or at least use public transport when distances are too far.
(Then again, when a person has walked across a continent, what distance is too far?)
When I settled in Colorado in 2003 after years of rootless long-distance wandering I had a new opportunity: to put down roots in one place. After years spent forever moving on, at last I didn’t have to. The reality of where I’d moved to meant I had to drive for normal everyday needs, but for the primary part of life – for my daily ‘nature habit’ – driving wasn’t necessary. All I had to do was step out the front door then head uphill. For decades I’d dreamed of living directly beneath a mountain. Finally I did. It was a dream come true.
For most of the next twenty years the vast majority of my walks were car-less. They began at home. Sure, I drove to the high country occasionally – it was too irresistible to completely stay away – but close-to-home adventures were the bread and butter of life. Walking and running and exploring close to home brought unexpected rewards. For one, it changed my relationship with nature. Stepping into it daily straight from home made it less a place ‘to visit’ and instead an extension of home, a part of regular life. It meant immersion was instantaneous. Connection was never really lost. Even when I wasn’t in nature I could still see it through the window. This is something I’ll never take for granted. I still have to metaphorically pinch myself each morning when I step outside and see where I am. I mean: how the hell did a suburban Londoner land here?!
Three years ago, however, my habits changed dramatically: I began driving more. Every week I got into my barely-tolerated car and drove to the high country. I did it because I’d started a new journey: to get to know a big mountain as well as I could. I already knew all my local mountains too well, so had to go further to find one that I didn’t. The extra travel turned out to be worth doing (as One Year One Mountain will hopefully show) but I can’t say I ever enjoyed the driving part. In fact, the hiker rather disdained it.
But now, with the journey done and the book written, I can return to old habits, to keeping it close to home. This I did the weekend just gone. There was no driving. Instead I simply picked up my pack, stepped out the front door (once family duties had been fulfilled), then strode into the foothills. Five hours and thirteen miles later I was in camp, surrounded by an unassuming landscape that most people might consider scrubby and uninteresting but to me was paradise. It wasn’t especially remote or wild. It certainly wasn’t epic in scale. But that doesn’t mean it was of lesser value. For me, nature isn’t about size, scenic drama, or even some illusionary notion labeled ‘wilderness’. Instead, the entire nature experience is centered on the instincts and emotions that are stirred. Primarily, it’s about intimate moments and deep connection, and intimacy in nature and connection can be found from one small patch of land – the patch immediately around me. Even in a landscape hundreds of miles wide the ‘local patch’ is the part that counts the most.
The walk to camp was deeply pleasurable. I followed a trail I’ve followed more times now than I can count. I knew every stretch well. Yet, the route has not grown boring. There is always something new to discover along it. Plus, after three years without a single camp in the area, after 150 nights in the high country, camping here again was a return home. The spot I chose was hidden discreetly where it wouldn’t bother anyone. It wasn’t ‘wilderness’ by any stretch, but it was an undeveloped natural place. It was, as I strongly believe, a birthright home that we all have a natural moral right to be able to access and inhabit, so long as we do it gently, cause no harm, leave zero trace, and treat it with absolute respect.
Conditions for the walk and the camp were ridiculously benign. The sun shone with genuine warmth, birds sang, the trail bore no ice, the forest offered only occasional patches of old snow. The season could easily have been late April, not mid January. There was no need for gloves; it was tee-shirt weather. It was another form of ‘close to home’ – or to put it another way, climate change hitting very close to home indeed.
This winter has been an odd one here in Colorado’s Front Range, by far the warmest and driest I’ve seen in twenty-three years. Climate change critics argue that outlying extremes have always occurred, and that’s true, they have. Climate change is about trends, not ‘one offs’… and the trends in Colorado are undeniable. They do show a long-term warming and drying. They do show diminishing winter snows. This winter has merely delivered an extreme example of the trend – an extreme that, hopefully, won’t become the new norm.
Currently, the high country snowpack is thinner for the time of year than has ever been recorded. Temperatures across the state have been astonishingly high. Through December and early January where I live, twenty-two of thirty days reached sixty Fahrenheit. Several days nudged seventy! The lack of snow, the low-humidity air, the warm temperatures, and frequent dangerously-fierce winds, have elevated the fire danger to extreme. The fire risk was so high before Christmas that our local power company turned off electricity for four days to avoid downed lines sparking fires. (On the plus side, family evenings by candlelight had a magical old-world charm and simplicity. I treasured them!)
The complete lack of deep freezes so far this winter is also a serious issue for ponderosa pines across the Front Range. Millions of majestic pines are at risk from a worsening pine beetle epidemic. Without even one deep freeze, tree-killing pine beetles will only flourish even more. We need weeks of extreme cold. We haven’t yet had a single night. We haven’t even had an hour.
There isn’t much I can do about this, of course, except maybe drive less, and also make the most of what I can’t change. Sitting in camp, feeling comfortably warm, I could at least ‘merge into nature’ without having to insulate myself from it. Learning to let go and live in the moment is a necessary skill, especially these days.
Happily, a brief round of winter passed through overnight. I woke around midnight to the murmur of flakes settling onto my thin ceiling, and dawn arrived with seasonable cold. It wasn’t the extreme cold we need, but it was cold enough for camping! The new snowfall only lay an inch deep, but that was better than no snow, and the walk back home through sparkling pine woods was notably different from my walk to camp. I was close to home, but it was as though I’d traveled far. It was a single-night trip only, yet I’d experienced two seasons during it! In fact, I felt as rejuvenated as though I’d been underway for weeks. There was much to be thankful for.
The familiar close-to-home trail had helped me relax from my very first step onto it. It had given me space to think… and to not think. Both ways were good! Walking is ideal for that, for providing space for reflection, for putting things into perspective, for creative exploration, and also for existing outside of thought. On this walk, both states were inhabited, and both were sorely needed.
At first, I couldn’t easily shake off the heaviness of the outside world. As most of us can see all-too clearly, empathy, compassion, and kindness are taking a true beating – as is a great deal else that we once, perhaps, took for granted. The reality of this change has struck close to home in many ways, including its effect upon people I know, some of whom were, I thought, friends. I’ve seen friends become lost to misinformation and distortions, and although I’ve tried to reach through I’ve discovered – to immense sadness – that some people can’t be reached. Can a friend still be called a friend if they won’t even try to listen, and if they double down on dehumanizing beliefs and language? Apparently, to even question intolerance, is in itself intolerance! The irony of this, tragically, is lost on those who need to understand it the most.
But, fortunately, out in nature this weekend, I found respite and solace. I was only a few short miles from home, but I found the healing power of nature all the same. During the first miles I let my thoughts come without fighting them, and partially came to terms with my own failures to reach others. During a quiet evening in camp, most of the dark thoughts faded away. Peace and acceptance grew. I ‘let go’ and lived in the moment, a necessary skill, especially these days. And during the walk out, through the snow-silvered forest, I was soon lost to pure experience, a soaring state-of-being that exists beyond thought.
As I’ve written before: nature heals. It heals more ills than we even have names for. It does this on big mountains and in far-away wildernesses. The beautiful thing is, it also does this close-to-home.
Close-to-home nature should never be overlooked.
