Why “Wildness”? I’ll get to that at the very end (patience). First apologies. It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything. Sorry. Been busy. So, hi again! We could spend time backtracking on experiences had, but reflecting accurately months later is like remember an evening with a lot of wine. It’s a bit fuzzy. I could post some old pics from the previous time, and may that will happen at the end of the post… for now, let’s be in the now.
I’m solo again. (Much to Matt’s chagrin as his jealously seeps into the “so happy for you” when we chat while I’m on a hike and he’s putting toothpicks in his eyes working 15 hours on a work project at home.) It’s exciting, empowering to be out traveling on my own. Okay, admit it, you are thinking, “is it safe?” Now, would you ask Matt the same if he were solo? No, you say? No, because he’s a male? Bigger than I am? Let me remind you that Matt and I are not far off in the weight category. Weight aside, his punch might do more damage than my punch, but the key is to not need the punch. Just saying, it’s just as safe for me as it is for a male. If a cougar attacked, the outcome might be much the same. If a crazy wanted to hurt you, again, much the same outcome. Of course Matt does have his usefulness. He knows the ins and outs of every part of Plato (the car) and Aristotle (the trailer), so when you come across a sign saying, “danger low hanging (insert danger)”, his reaction may be different than mine. I saw the sign (below) and was struggling to remember Aristotle’s height as a barreled down the road towards the lines that would fry my hair ends. This was after turning onto a road where “the pavement ends” and there are signs of restricted activity everywhere around you. Was I going to disappear from making the wrong turn or burn up into nothing? It did cross my mind. Like Aretha, I said a little prayer, and kept driving.
There was definitely a pot of gold at the end of the journey – one of the best spots I have ever had while camping! I arrived at Jug Hollow Dispersed Camping at Flaming Gorge, picking a fine spot in a bay near a few other campers. I was originally happy with spot, and then an hour later a huge RV, I mean a small city on wheels, showed up and camped in my viewshed. Kinda ruined the experience. A bit depressed I went for a run down the road and found an isolated spot a mile further down on a rocky beach. Ran back, packed up, and made the journey there. It was worth the effort.
Yes, I found the most perfect spot at the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area. I had a private beach, save a few boats once in a while. I was going to make some comparison to the movie, “The Beach”, to be clever, but I just watched the trailer and it’s not really the same.
Next stop was Goodenough Creek Campsite in McCammon, Idaho. A BLM (in other words, public land) campsite. Instead of the normal open range, find the best spot possible, this was more organized campsites. If you have not been to Idaho, it’s really beautiful and has great, diverse geography. The area had only a few campsites and I was lucky to get one, even luckier to have back-up into the campsite without incident. I spent the next four days working, hiking, eating, reading, and just being. I did make a friend, another woman out on her own for quite some time, working from the road and seeing all the beauty our west offers us.
So, now to the point of wildness. It’s really a reference to a book Matt’s cousin gave me. The book is The Abstract Wild by Jack Turner. Essentially it’s a bunch of heady essays on deep ecology. One of the chapters talks about wildness. Wildness is that encounter with nature where you are truly part of the ecosystem as prey or predator, not a consumer of the experience. The thesis is that we really don’t have wildness anymore, we cannot experience what our ecologically minded early settlers experienced – direct interactions with mountain loins, bears, all sorts of top of the chain predators. I’m an environmentalist, but I have to admit, I don’t really want to meet up with a mountain lion while I’m alone on a trail. It’s not a badge I’m looking to earn (post mortem). But, that doesn’t mean that traveling solo, hiking solo, getting out there isn’t a form of wildness. Man, I’ve encountered some pretty wild folks – or at least they smell wild. And, I’ve still had visual and real encounters with the nature around me that stick in my mind.
Last stop for trip was a place I’ve already been, Twin Falls, Idaho. I’m camped in a county park on a creek preparing to store Aristotle and fly home.
