10、Why go into the desert? ...
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Why go into the desert?
This is the question which I had been asked or asked myself since the first day I heard about AWE.
Athenian Wildness Experiment (AWE). Carrying 50+ lb backpack, be in Death Valley National Park for 26 days, completely out of civilization for a month with no cell-phone, no internet, no electronic lights (except head lamps if that counts), no shelter, no fresh food, no shower. Stay with another 10 classmates and 2 instructors for 26 days, hiking among peaks, drainage and ridges. Wake up when sun raise, camp when it dark out. Everyday, when you think you've pushed so hard that you can't stand the tiredness anymore,you have another 4 miles that you have to go. Everyday, when you are exhausted from the weight you are carrying, the hard sandy or rocky land you are sleeping on, the dirt you are breathing in, the saddle you just climbed up, the rain, the snow, the wind...from all the suffer and all the pain, and you finally got to the campsite,you think you have been pushed to your limit and can do nothing but sit on the dirt, but, the second day is even harder. All you can eat is instant powder food, cheeses (which will be gorse after burning sun), and salami. All the dinner tastes the same before you put different spices in. You will constantly find small rocks or sand in our bowl,you will find the food you had last night mixed with the breakfast and lunch because you can't wash it clean, or too tired or too cold to wash it. You woke up at the middle of the night and need to get out of your sleeping bag because you need to go "bathroom" which could be somewhere behind a bush or a rock, but you find it just too cold and windy at night that you can hardly feel your fingers and toes.
116 miles in total, without switch-back and elevation.
8 miles run-in.
2 days of rock-climbing.
3 days of solo. no talking, no people, no books...nothing but your clothes,your tarp,your journal, 3 letters,your food, rocks, sand, stars, the moon, the sun, and yourself.
It was hard. It was painful. But, I did it. I made it. Now I'm back.
It sucks sometime, but it was amazing as well.
You see the stars in the night sky, shadow from moon light, snows on top of the mountains, rains in the desert, springs went through the canyon along with bushes and trees, wildflowers, birds, bugs, even snakes and rabbits. Here is the desert. Here is the nature.
Our instructor read this article to us at Day 11, the day before fixed line. Why go Into the Desert, by Edward Abbey, and I found the answer of all the questions about why I need to go through this pains.
He said:
“Why go into the desert? That sun, roaring at you all day long, the fetid tepid vapid little waterholes slowly evaporating-full of cannibal beetles, spotted toads, hairworms, liver flukes-and down at the bottom, invariably, the pale drowned cadaver of a ten-inch centipede. Those pink rattlesnakes down in the Canyon, those diamondback monsters thick as a catskinners’ wrist that lurk in shady places along the trail, those unpleasant solpugids and unnecessary Jerusalem crickets that scurry on dirty feet across your face at night. Why? The rain that comes down like lead shot and wrecks the trail before you, those sudden rock-falls of obscure origin that crash like thunder then feet behind you in the heart of a dead-still afternoon. Why? The ubiquitous vultures, so patient-but only so patient. The ragweed, the tumbleweed, the Jimsonweed, the snakeweed. The scorpion in your canteen. The barren hills that always go up, which is bad, or down, which is worse. ”
“Why goes to Death Valley?”
“Why indeed go walking into the desert when you could be strolling along the golden beaches of California or camping by a stream of pure Rocky Mountain spring water in colorful Colorado or loafing through a laurel slick in the high blue misty hills of North Carolina?”
He said:
“There was nothing out there. Nothing at all. Nothing but the desert. Nothing but the world.
That’s why.”
Be in the present.
Be as yourself.
That’s way.
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第10章 Why go into the desert?
