Courage and Solitude | Ch. 1 | Oct. ’23 – Dec. ’23

Sundown, somewhere on I-80 between Winnemucca and the Idaho border I was on my 13th hour of continuous driving.  I had left Santa Cruz at 1am in an effort to get through Orange county before the morning traffic on my way back to Montana. After two weeks of visiting a friend from High School, I was ready to be home.  The smooth twang of Mathew McConaughey’s voice rolled and hummed with the wine from my old pickup as I plugged along the freeway.  “…the sooner we become less impressed and more involved with these things- the sooner we get better at them,” he mused. It was my second time listening to those words that day. 

Kelly, an ex Army combat vet and coworker at the Forest Service had recommended it to me five weeks earlier.  “Ever read Greenlights?” he had asked me.  “No, I haven’t,” I responded. “I think you should, you remind me of Mathew McConaghey” he had replied.  At the time I brushed it off, all too concerned with the existential crisis I was battling to think about reading another damn book.  

Two days before leaving Montana for California I saw Kelly at the gas station. He came over to say how great it was working with me, a strong sentiment from that kind of man.  Near the end he prodded- “did you look into Greenlights?”  “No,” I said.  “I really think you should, ” he added with a twinkle in his eye.  “I will” I squeaked as he gave me a big bear hug, his short and stalky frame wrapping me in a full embrace.  He cupped me on the shoulder and looked deep into my eyes before he stepped away. “Keep it McConaughey,” he said.  I waved goodbye.  

My last night in Santa Cruz I was in full blown existential panic mode.  I had no plan for my life or my future, and had no idea where to start looking for answers. The reason in fact for that trip.  Sitting in the Safeway parking lot at 6pm that evening something reminded me of Kelly’s sincerity. What the hell I thought as I started trying to find an audio copy.  With a new Audible account I was given one free book token.

From the first line I was hooked: I listened to the first half of the book right there in the drivers seat of my truck in that parking lot.  I couldn’t break away- the story, the struggle, the soul searching spoke right to me. Words I had not known I needed rocked their way into my desperate soul and settled, like a smooth, flat stone at the bottom of a deep well.  I listened to the rest of the book the following morning on the drive- the trance continued until sunrise.  Once finished I rewound and started again around 10am, soaking up every line and verse just like every bump on that freeway. 

Soon enough the day had passed- the sun was setting over Nevada. “Who am I?  Who am I not? What do I want to become?” They ran full steam through my head. The kind of questions that usually sit like a patient grizzly bear at the back of your conscious mind, ready to jump out of the bushes and give you the fight of your life at a moment’s notice. But now they rambled without weight, winding their way through my head. A welcome byproduct of that smooth Sothern drawl.

You ever had that feeling? Like this, these words, this conversation, this moment- like something bigger than you put you here for a reason? Two words was all it took.  Two words slammed the featherweight locomotive plowing through my synapses to a stop and halted the world clean flat.  They cut deep into me:

man enuf.

The last two words of a poem. In a scramble I rewound the book: 

19 years of a drifting soul, the pain, the shame, the suffering.  It all came into view.  I started weeping. In that moment all that I had been missing: the courage to meet myself where I was, the courage to lay aside what I was supposed to be and find the man inside I needed to find, the courage to be me, all came whooshing in.  I often credit the next two years to that moment. That moment of perspective and absolute courage to challenge of the notion of being me. 

The deer and elk I hallucinated jumping into the road ahead of me the last two hours of driving did little to pull me away from this newfound sense of becoming.  At 1:30am after 22 hours of driving I unwrapped myself from the truck seat and curled up on the couch of my parents’ rented studio apartment.  I pulled out my fresh new journal.  For the first time in my life I fully felt and embodied what I was writing:

I think I need a change. To turn the page, give my arrow another nudge, give the target a heads up.  
What kind of change? 
What kind of challenge? 
I think trying to find myself is a good place to start.  Getting uncomfortable; away from my support systems so I am forced to forge my own.

I laid down my pen and drifted off into deeply needed deep sleep.

During a quiet moment the next morning I turned the last page of Into The Great Solitude, a book that I had been slowly consuming most of the summer. It chronicled a man and his solo canoe expedition through the Canadian arctic along the Back river to the arctic ocean.  I remember being enthralled with the philosophical shift he experienced throughout his time alone, coming closer to personal truth and reconciling the direction of this world and his struggle to concede with mainstream society.  That personal shift resonated deeply with me, and I wondered if I could stimulate the same for myself.  My challenge? I decided that a stint of scare me shitless solitude was the answer.

But where to go?  I certainly could pack a bag tonight and be in the Lee Metcalf wilderness (where I had spent the last two summers clearing trails) tomorrow. No, too close to home.  I need something new.  How about the Olympic coast? My boss at the forest service had fondly described its utter beauty, power, and solitude.  But it was November, and cold rainy coastal winter storms sound a little rough. 

Ah, I know.  Hell’s Canyon.  I had been on the Snake multiple times fishing on my Uncle’s Jet boat so I knew the canyon, just not from the shore. And it’s low enough to not get snowed in during late November storms. 

I packed up my truck and made a rough plan. I would spend Thanksgiving at my grandmother’s house, a three hour drive south of the canyon, do final food prep, and finally spend 8 days alone wandering through Hell in search of truth.  Yeah, good plan.

I remember being terrified. On the drive to the canyon I was as tense (but definitely not as puckered) as a moose’s asshole during fly season (I have no idea where I picked that up, but I’ve been so patiently waiting to use it). It was one of the first times I was truly stepping outside of the bubble, that sphere of philosophical influence dictated by my parents, in a newly grand way.  A weather front was moving in on day four of the trip and had shortened my trip itinerary to six days.  Arived, I started hiking.  

Day 1: ~6 miles to Kirkwood Landing from Pittsburgh landing.  An easy jont for a young lad in trail crew shape. I set up camp and wandered over to the guard station which had smoke swirling out of the chimneystack.  The volunteer at the house waved as I approached, her German shepherd sprinting joyfully out to meet me.  “Leia!” she called to no avail.  I stopped and let the pup come to a screeching halt in front of me and stood patiently as she gave me a heaving inhaled once-over. I passed the smell test and she took off again back to the cabin. 

I made my way over to the stoop, exchanging a warm greeting with the woman standing under the eaves.  She also gave me a once over- took a moment to contemplate, and said: “It looks like you’re on a journey”. I fumbled for words as I told her that yes, I had just spent the last month between California, Montana, and now was going to spend a week on the trail that led up the canyon behind her cabin. 

“No,” she said, “it seems like you’re searching for something.”  Maybe it was the way she said it, but my knees got weak and my already frozen toes got a little bit colder. Although she didn’t say it, the phrase ‘soul searching’ screamed across my mind and bit synonymously with the words she did.  I didn’t have a good response.  I mumbled something about maybe feeling lost, a sentiment she saw that I’m sure prodded her initial statement. She told me to stop by for coffee in the morning before I headed up-canyon, if I wanted to.  

I wandered back to my tent and cooked dinner.  I ate in silence as that big river slowly slid its way past, the rumble of distant rapids filling the void.  I remember missing the feeling of being around family.  Not lonely, just missing the uplifting company and constant humming of thanksgiving two days prior. I peeled off a layer, emptied my pockets making sure to keep my pen close, and slid into my down bag to journal:

“Kirkwood Diaries” I wrote.  “Today was a lot of things. Stressful and worrisome yes, but also grand. I know that I wanted this, but I’m really wondering what I’m searching for out here. Meaning, maybe? I’m really proud of myself for doing this.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to back out because of the fear, but I am here.  Yeah, proud. I’m hoping that being here will give me clarity.”

Coffee the next morning was quick but needed.  The cold in my toes had woken me up before my alarm and the hot oats I wrangled down my neck did little to stave off the morning’s chilly breeze.  After a short but profound conversation about the healing power of solitude in a wild place I bid adieu to the warm cabin and its current inhabitants as I headed up canyon.

The next couple days were filled with three beautiful hours of sunlight overshadowed by the deep cold of the canyon the rest of the day (the canyon is so deep that late in the year it only allows the sun to penetrate for a few hours at a time).  Every night I laid down to journal, recording the wild dreams and in between sleep and conscious visions that occurred as I pushed in the discomfort of the canyon.

The third night of the trip, just as I was slipping into comatose a vision struck me.

I was lying in a bed in an apartment I owned in a building I didn’t with a woman I had met the evening before in Dubai. The room was modern down to the last detail, made for the occasional stay as a bachelor pad. She lay in the crook of my arm, her long, vibrant, flowing hair caught in my fingers.  The daylight, only a mid-morning glow, slipped into the room through half opened curtains.  Her one visible hand was tracing its way back and forth across my bare chest. She pauses, looks up to meet my eyes and says perkily, “these are nice sheets.” 

They were.  But I didn’t care. After a second of thought I blurted out a little too incessantly “that doesn’t matter- why, why, does it matter?”  I continue, naming object after object in the room and repeating- “it doesn’t matter”. I finally come to a pause and say “only the relationships we build in our life are what matters.  That is how I got this,” as I gesture to the apartment.

All that I had gained up to that point in life was by focusing solely on building stronger relationships, and the rest had come.  Money was not the focus and never would be.  People came first and anything after that would be a bonus.

I slipped back into consciousness and reveled.  

After day 3 I had had enough.  Clouds were building, I was having trouble staying warm, and made up my mind to walk the 15 miles out of the canyon the fourth day.  Waking up at 6 am, three hours before daylight, I ate breakfast in the stillness of my headlamp on the beach.  I started breaking camp, but for some reason that cold morning air sliding down my neck persuaded me to crawl back into bed and wait for sunlight.  “Lest I meet a mountain lion on one of the narrow cliff faces and fall a few hundred feet into the drink,” I thought.  I set my alarm and drifted back into a deep sleep.

Mid paragliding, my phone buzzed under my head. I swiftly pulled myself from the dream, quelled my alarm, and tried to slip back into the cold and gentle breezes of the alps for one last swoop to no avail.  The first feeling I had as I slowly rolled into consciousness was of the cold rock cradled next to my feet. “Curious,” I thought, “my tent isn’t set up next to a rock.”  A quick peak at my feet confirmed and I pondered the feeling.  A cloud of white billowed from my lips in the soft morning glow as I came to. 

Sitting up, my tent was sagging heavily, the only light peeking in from the top third.  “Oh, shit” I said aloud.  In the time I had gone back to sleep, two inches of snow had fallen and a dense cold had settled in numbing out my feet to the point I thought in my sleepy haze that my other foot was a small boulder.    

I scrambled madly to unzip my sleeping bag. I shoved my pad and all my effects into my backpack, dropping my journal and book into the sand as I fumbled.  Wiping the snow off my tent I wondered what the small ledges of the trail would be like on the way out- most of them on the edge of hundred plus foot cliffs plunging into the cold water below.

I hiked in complete silence, the snow squeaking under my boot soles was the only other sound besides the gentle wind in the canyon.  After a while the clouds parted and the sun appeared, draping the new white and tan world in a brilliant frosty backdrop as I sweatily ambled up and down the fingers and cliff faces of the canyon. I made excellent time even in the slick snow, treading carefully over the ledges, getting back to Kirkwood just after noon.  I dropped by the cabin to let the volunteer ranger know I was on my way out and gave Leia another pet.  After a quick goodbye and a swallow of ibuprofen to help along my painful ankles,  I sped the last six miles back to the trailhead.

I was just in time too- I had neglected to use nature’s facilities that morning in my rush to get out, and just never stopped to relieve myself along the way.  I was hurtin and desperately needed a hole in the ground. Once in sight of the john at the trailhead I started running, my full pack bouncing side to side and digging further into my hips as I quested with all I had left to make it to that outhouse.  I almost didn’t make it.  Ten yards out my hiking poles went flying. Five yards out my pack hit the dirt. Two yards out my belt was flapping in the wind and those drawers were coming down. Oh, sweet relief.

I knew I wasn’t ready to get home to Montana just yet, so I landed at a childhood friend’s house south of the canyon for a couple nights that soon turned into a couple weeks.  A perfect buffer zone, I spent my time swimming early morning laps at the local pool, reading, soaking in the wood fired hot tub, and contemplating.

In the canyon I had found a stillness.  After the second day, my mind had run out of baggage to pick through and was left to its own devices. I had cleaned the slate and now had access to an unfiltered and stripped down sense of identity like I had never had before. I was able to contemplate those questions, who am I, what do I want, who do I want to be, without the societal voices muddying the waters.

 It was 4 am a week and a half after exiting the canyon.  I had spent all night feverishly pondering my next move, and as of yet had reached no conclusion. Job? School again? Travel? I had no idea.  I knew that what I had done up to that point wasn’t it- few things beyond working on my motorcycle and being in the wild places of Montana had yet to tickle my fancy.  Life laid out and evaluated, no obvious next move was coming to mind and it was freaking me out.

I desperately didn’t want to go back home as I knew that I would find the same old pattern of falling into a depressive slump.  I didn’t have the capital to travel internationally, and didn’t know where to even break into maybe starting a business.  But I did know one thing: the courage I summoned to spend those four days in the canyon had been a mind altering experience.  Freedom, gratitude, and a sense of identity had now found me like never before.  

I have to admit, in that moment, at 4 am on the living room floor next to the simmering wood stove that morning, I pulled some David Goggins out of my ass. “What are you going to do?” screamed inside my head. Standing up and beginning to pace in front of the fire I bickered with myself. “I don’t know.” “Better figure it out, gotta stay hard.” 

And maybe that was it. Another opportunity to find courage. Something to get me really, really far outside of my comfort zone and into a spot to allow for randomness.  Meet some new people.  See where it takes me.  Yeah, that’s it.

So, point blank, I asked myself: “what’s the hardest thing I can do?” And immediately, nothing scary enough came to mind. A big job? No. Travel? No. School? No! “There has to be something” I thought. 

Then I had an idea. A coworker from my first summer working trail crew had regaled story after story with amazing amounts of passion and fondness of the summer he and a group of friends had taken old clunker bikes, rigged them up, and ridden across the US from coast to coast. 

At 4 am that snowy December morning, pacing in front of the fireplace, my chest tightened and my brain hit a wall. My nervous system sat in shock from the thought: maybe I should bike across the US.  A completely confounding thought, a feat that boggled my mind in magnitude and scale, that I had no true reference point to judge.  

At the time, after hearing my coworker’s stories I remember thinking “I’m headed to college and there’s no way I’ll ever have the time. And the courage man, I don’t know if I could ever do that.”  Those thoughts came rushing back to me, slowly cascading down the wall that had abruptly appeared in my mind. 

A million other things trickled in as well.  What will my parents think? What will the kids I went to high school think? Will I be that kind of person who does these kinds of things? (I looked up to these people and often regarded them as larger than life figures growing up but never considered myself to be one of them, mostly of the need to fit in) 

But I also heard another voice.  Another more knowing and sentient voice from behind the corner say:

“But what if you were? What if you had the courage?  What if you found it in yourself to start, stick to it, and see where it goes?  What if you are that kind of person?”

And I knew it was right.  A make or break moment of character defining courage. One that left me stunned, grasping for a handle on what I was about to do.  One that was so terrifying that in the preceding days I would have deep troubles knowing even where to start because of how terrified I was of doing it.  One that has shaken me to my core, stripped me down to bone, and spit me out the other end.  But one that also has built me back up.  Given me a sense of identity as vast and strong as the base of that wall I looked up at that night.  One that has given me a lifetime worth of stories and blessings, as well as a proudness that I fear few truly feel in their lifetimes.  

More to come.