Radical Acceptance

 When you're out in the wilderness, there is no air conditioning. No heating either. 

Well, I guess you could say there's both. At night, the temperature does tend to drop. And during the day, it gets warmer. But you have no control over the temperature, and no way to change it. Sure, you can try to stay in the shade for a minor adjustment, but if you're following a trail, there's not always shade to be had. I actually find it easiest to hike when it's just a little bit colder than comfortable, because the work of hiking warms me up. But when it's hot out, that works against me. 

I have to figure out what I can do to adapt. At night, that's the tent and the down quilt and long underwear. During the hiking day, it's get up hella early to hike in the coolest weather possible, and, when it's hot, to simply persevere. Stay hydrated, wet my hat at every opportunity, but it comes down to adapting to hiking in the heat, you just have to accept that you are hot, and you will continue to be hot. 

I'm not talking about ignoring the signs of hyperthermia. But you can be a long way from medically overheating and still be just unbearably hot. Especially when you're on a ridgeline, carrying a pack with over 20% of your bodyweight in it, and the sun is directly overhead, beating into your skull and reflecting off of the ground and right into your face no matter how wide your hat brim is. 

It's not comfortable. It's not super fun. The views, and other things, compensate for this. I certainly wouldn't sign up for a hot, loaded hike with no rewards. That's one way to help yourself through that kind of unfun, by focusing on the good things. 

Another way is to really lean into accepting what's going on. You get a distinct line between things that are in your control and things that are not out in the wilderness. You take care of your gear and it takes care of you. You watch your step and where your steps are leading you. You adapt as best you can to the temperature and the weather. You accept that you can't control the weather, the temperature, the bugs, the condition of the trail, other people you may encounter, animals you may encounter, where the trail climbs or descends, how many times water crosses the trail... 

Knowing what you can and can't do and accepting it allows you to find a different kind of focus. In the time of COVID, I've been experiencing so much anxiety. I've written about it already, and I'll keep writing about it, because I don't want constant anxiety to become normalized. I want to radically accept that I cannot control a whole lot of things going on in the world around me. And look closely at the things that remain. The things that I might be able to change. 

If I'm willing to try. 

Walking and Writing

On my last backpacking trip, I made a conscious effort to write every day. I feel like I've been slacking in the note taking department on my backpacking trips, the ones that I take with other people at least. I don't have problems writing on my solo trips. 

I succeeded in writing every single day on that trip. It wasn't even that difficult. It was like falling back into a comfortable habit. I liked writing down our times for starting and stopping for the day, and just recording things that I might want to remember later. Like seeing a bat at one of our campsites, or reminding myself that I wanted to look up the etymology of bat. 

Although I used to bring a notebook for writing, I now bring loose sheets of unlined 8.5 x 11 paper, which I fold into quarters. I treat each quarter like its own page, with its own orientation. I use a ballpoint pen, carried in the same gallon baggie that holds the maps I write on. Usually a black one, for whatever reason I rarely take blue ink. 

On my next trip, I'll be solo, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting my writing done. I'm excited to be going on this trip, and also excited about writing the book about the trip. The whole process of writing, putting together pictures, and publishing the book lets me relive the whole thing well into the fall and early winter. It's one of the things that keeps me sane in the off season. 

The only problem I foresee is that I typically write on the back of the ICT maps on my solo trips. Trouble is, I also typically travel from south to north. This year, I'll be travelling from north to south. That means that I'll be starting on an ICT map that overlaps with a future hike, and ending on one that I've already started. Worst case, I run out of room. I guess I could go ahead and print out a new copy for the future hike, and use the whole thing this year. 

I'll be happy if the worst issue I have on this hike is running out of room to write on the ICT maps. After all, I'll be carrying more maps, and they're paper too. Sure, they're the topo maps, but we don't ever use the back :)

Floating Free of Anxiety

 I recently took an eight day, seven night backpacking trip with my husband. Eight whole days without internet access, cell phone, work, and, for the most part, other people. 

When we first started hiking, I felt an unfamiliar fear and anxiety attempt to attach itself to something out here. I'm comfortable being out in the Idaho wilderness on the trails by now. I don't usually look around for something to worry about; out there, there's enough that's real to think about without making things up. But this time, it was like I kept grasping for something to be scared of. 

I actually considered not going on my solo trip, because I was afraid that I wasn't ready or wasn't fit enough to do what I planned to do. I had to keep talking to myself about the difference between this year's trip and last year's. Last year, I planned on the aggressive schedule of 20 miles per day on average, which works well enough in the Owyhee desert, but not so well on mountain trails that haven't been getting the kind of maintenance that would make them easy. This year, with respect for both the large elevation changes of my trail and the disrepair of several sections of it, I planned to average 14 miles per day over 7 days - with the first day being only 8. 

It wasn't until the 3rd or 4th day that I was able to let go of that anxiety and start to feel comfortable about the upcoming solo. By the time I finished the trip, I was feeling ready for the solo, but not ready to go back to the electronic world. I even avoided turning on my phone for several hours after I got back home, and I left it in airplane mode for days and didn't open social media. Although I did play games and catch up on some of my favorite websites. 

I just wanted to keep avoiding the world as much as I could. I wanted vacation to last forever, and to forget about the world for as long as possible. 

And while vacation can't last forever, I can at least try and maintain that connection to the side of myself that the wilderness brings out. The side that knows she can hike the hike, and doesn't much care what anyone else thinks. 

Going Back to Work

When I get back from my vacation, I'm going to be actually going into work for my work day for the first time since March. I'm both looking forward to it and a bit anxious. On the one hand, it will be nice to get out of the house again, and I like riding my bike to and from work. I might even do some running home from work as it gets cooler outside and it makes sense to run at 5 in the evening instead of 5 in the morning. On the other hand, I'll be going to work... 

My work place has definitely been proactive about precautions. I'll be issued a couple of masks, and there are expectations that they will be worn indoors when out of a private office area, and outdoors whenever distance cannot be maintained. But no one is perfect, and whenever you have an environment with large numbers of people moving through it, risks of viral exposure increases. 

And I've been asked to retain some of my work equipment at home so that I can easily flex back if I feel a bit ill, but not ill enough to call in sick. Or if the workplace gets shut down in any way. Which could happen pretty easily; it is a school that intends to open in the fall after all. 

Everything feels a little bit crazy. A little bit off. I work without going to work, and I hardly leave the apartment except for proscribed shopping trips and neighborhood runs. Will riding my bike to work each day help me feel more normal? Or will wearing a mask at work make things feel different? Not to mention no socializing at lunch, and the fact that most of my co-workers will be working remotely. And those of us who will be in the office are not supposed to get too close. 

My meetings will still be virtual, but I might be isolated enough in my office to forgo the headphones for some meetings at least. And my ears will be very happy to get a break from wearing them - especially with some of these marathon 4 hour meetings that I've been in to prepare to implement a new software system. Based on the density of people who will be in my office, I'm anticipating that I'll be able to do some singing, or at least listen to music without headphones as well. 

I quite enjoy singing while I work, and my poor husband has had to endure quite a bit of that over the last few months. It's not that I'm a bad singer, but he prefers to listen to non-vocal music. And soon, he'll be able to listen to what he wants all day while I'm at work and I'll be able to listen to whatever I want while I'm at work - except during meetings!