It's Not the Destination, It's the Journey

I'm getting ready to head to the desert for some rock climbing. (That is, after I ski the 18" of snow that fell overnight here in the San Juans.) I hope to have better luck this trip than last time I went out, about a week ago...

Philippe and I planned to get in our first days' rock climbing for the season at Indian Creek (about an hour southwest of Moab, see photo). I had visions of writing about my transition back to rock climbing, the feel of taped gloves on my hands, the grit of the rock embedded into my clothing. But it turns out that the Creek wasn't my meaningful experience of the weekend.

But before I begin, let me just share that I hate driving at night. First and foremost, I don't see well at night. Next, things jump out in front of your car (e.g., deer, cows). Typically, I plan so that I don't need to drive at night. That said, sometimes the schedule doesn't accommodate daytime driving. Headlights it is.

There isn't much on this drive. Lots of open range and beautiful scenery (Paradox Valley?!?), and very little in the way of infrastructure. One gas station in 3 hours' driving, two grocery stores, and a bakery (that is worth the stop). But that's about it.

Near the Colorado/Utah border, something popped unexpectedly in our headlights - two people walking in the snowy, cold night (weather that had us questioning our plan to climb rock so soon after this storm... call it determination, or perhaps denial). Although the woman waved us down, instinct stopped our car more than anything.

Lest you think this was my strangest late night hitchhiker/rescue/ person to wander in front of my headlights.... I'm afraid the grim reaper in Boulder Canyon may always hold that title (i.e., 7 foot tall man with long hair and big black jacket). Did I mention he was on mushrooms?

Anyway, back to last weekend:

"We need a ride to Salt Lake City."

"We aren't headed that way at all," replied Philippe.

"That's okay. Anywhere is fine."

Um,... first of all, we are about 6 hours' drive from SLC. And not only are we not headed to SLC, the 'anywhere' we are headed has no hotel, no restaurant. Hell, there's no water, no phones, and the only building for miles is the one outhouse shared by all the climbers. Hardly someplace you'd hitch a ride to.

As Philippe pointed out later, a woman who wants desperately to get into your truck (with no real backseat, mind you) to go 'anywhere' is a big red flag.

I should describe these late-night hikers a bit further.... a woman in her thirties (Jen), with an eight year-old daughter (Anna), and their cat. Anna was frightened, crying, and cold. It was as if the mother and daughter slipped out of their home in the early evening hours to wander on an empty road, headed towards Bedrock. Another red flag.

Ever seen Thelma and Louise? Bedrock is the store where they stop to use a payphone.... Brad Pitt's there, which is usually how women remember the scene. Anyway, I'm sure there was plenty there as they filmed, but without Brad Pitt there's no nuthin' in Bedrock.

Well, we piled mom and daughter into our backseat, settled the cat in the truckbed, and motored off to...? Well, we'd figure it out as we got going. As we drove west, Philippe did his best to figure out what this woman had going on. Yes, she smelled like alcohol; but she didn't seem drunk or on drugs so much as she just seemed completely overwhelmed and unprepared for a journey into the night and away from whatever she left behind. Somehow Anna had a backpack with schoolbooks, gloves, and a bucket of change; but Jen had no cell phone, no credit cards, no cash, no plan, and not even the phone number of the sister in SLC to where she was supposedly running.

We didn't get many answers on the drive... The couple left Ft. Lupton, CO a week earlier to live on Boyfriend's 70 acres of land. He had no job because he broke his hand in some steel accident. She hadn't worked in over a year, and they were living on social security provided for Anna because of the death of her father. Or something like that.

My dad used to call me 'oily' when I wasn't straight with him. This wasn't oily so much as it was like trying to see through a big bucket of mud. Or like opening a 1000-piece puzzle box and trying to mentally put the puzzle together. It wasn't so much lieing as it was a series of seemingly poor choices and unfortunate circumstances that just didn't add up to anything coherent. So much for a clear backstory.

As for the night in question, after living a week in nowhere-land, Boyfriend kicked them out because she wasn't helping enough as he fixed a broken sink? It was as if Jen just kept throwing new puzzle pieces into the picture, stirring them around a bit.

Giving up on mom and their story, I focused my attention to Anna. She was warm now, less frightened, and began showing me things from her backpack. We discussed the new school she had started in La Sal Junction (which I thought was just a post office, but apparently there is a school around there somewhere). I couldn't help but wonder how many therapy dollars would be required to deconstruct the damage being done to this girl. Made me sad. I suppose we all have experiences that effect us in positive and negative ways. That's what makes us who we are. At the same time, I couldn't help but wish to alleviate the life lessons imprinting her at this very moment.

We eventually called Sister in SLC from our phone, but got no answer, Jen left a cryptic message, 'we need a ride. we'll try to get to Moab tonight. answer the phone if you don't recognize the number.' The number of times Anna called Sister crazy made me wonder if Sister would even respond to their cry for help. And this was their only hope?

So the moral question is..... what do you do? I am a big believer in the Kindness of Strangers, but once you step in are you fully committed? If not fully committed, then where do you draw the line?

We considered taking Jen and Anna to Moab (first city in their direction of travel), but with no plan and no money; where would we take them? We decided the best option for them was a place to 'camp' for the night. We thought of a Rest Area (behind Hole in the Wall) where they would have lights, heat, water, bathrooms, a phone, vending machines, and a chance to find another ride to get to Moab. What a sucky best option.

I gave them some dinner and helped them move Bluie the Cat out of the truck. And then we pulled away... feeling completely unsettled and uncertain about whether we were right to leave them there. But what else should we do? Where else should we take them?

Where do you draw the line on helping others? Was our help tonight enough? Was it help at all? Again... what do you do?

Philippe was the one who found a solution to our moral dilemma - he decided someone needed to look in on these two. In his opinion, the responsibility did not rest with the next passerby, or some restaurant waitress after they found a ride into Moab. In Philippe's view, this was the function of the police - to protect. I can't articulate why, but my first feeling was that calling the police would be ratting them out. Without a better idea, I decided to embrace Philippe's optimism about Utah's State Troopers. Then I said I hoped Jen wouldn't be angry with us.

We made a call to 9-1-1 and got patched through to local police, who thanked us and promised to send a trooper to check on them immediately.

I wish I had some further information about what happened to the family; but I am only left to speculate on 1) what kind of policeman showed up... a helpful one I hope, 2) what situation they actually left behind.... I can assume it was something bad, but who knows, really, and 3) what situation they will find ahead of them.

I am not optimistic for Jen. Makes me sad to admit that, but that's what my gut tells me. More than anything, I hope that Anna will survive the next 10 years with her head and heart intact.

So my question to the universe is... what would you do?

And the Creek? We finally made it out there. It was cold and muddy. I got sick that night. And to top it all off, the rock was too wet to climb in the morning. I'd like to believe we were where we needed to be that night.... helping out some strangers and their cat.

We Love You, Dolores

While I've been more motivated to climb this winter, the recent weather provided some incentive to get my butt out on a couple of waxed planks. Let's just say that if Dolores LaChapelle were alive today, she would be totally psyched right now.

If you are not familiar with her legacy, here is an excerpt from her book Deep Powder Snow: 40 Years of Ecstatic Skiing, Avalanches, and Earth Wisdom:

Often, I'm asked: "How did you get into ritual?"

I did not get into ritual. What happened was that ritual engulfed me before I had a word for it or knew anything about such a process. For years, I had been skiing steep, deep powder and fully knew the bliss of such interaction with snow, gravity, and the humans in the group. But all that seemed perfectly understandable at the time and I needed no explanation. The first event which caused me to really wonder was a day at Alta when it was snowing graupel....

We had been up and down enough times to know how really good it was and that it would continue for a while, so on this particular ride up the chair I had the chance to ponder about what in the world was going on here. Looking at my friend on the chair ahead, clutching the metal rod, head buried deep between his shoulders, I thought that if someone watched a film of this scene; they would think we were suffering unbearably, when actually this was sheer bliss. Why? Well, I couldn't figure it out, although I knew it had something to do with the effortless flow of all of us together each time down the mountain. No thinking was ever needed; no concern as to whether that turn could be done before hitting the tree. So all are moving together with no thought. And of course we aren't doing it at all. All of us had agreed that none of us could ski this good - ever. So the mountain and the snow were doing it for us. These are the actual words many of us used.... the others were either on the lift crew or ski patrol; so this kind of group would not be speaking poetically; they meant it when they said the mountain and the snow were doing it...

Now, much later, I know where this feeling comes from. In ritual, it's called tuning. From the neurobiological point of view it has to do with the older brains in us: animal (limbic) and reptile, as well as other factors. Bonding develops out of this tuning, and bonding is the real basis of all society - both human and animal. When one experiences this tuning and the bonding that grows out of it, there is a feeling of deep gratitude, or grace. And you always know it's not just you - it's the more than involved. ...

It was some years later, when I found this sentence [by Josef Pieper] concerning the overflowing Goodness of nature: Joy is the response of a lover receiving what he loves. This is the joy we feel when skiing powder. All this is a gift for us, now at this moment! This overflowing gratitude is what produces the absolutely stupid, silly grins that we always flash at one another at the bottom of a powder run. We all agree that we never see these grins anywhere else in life....

This is at the heart of powder skiing and of all nature festivals. One experiences during that time the universal goodness of nature.

So, what does all this mean to me? To you?

While the silly grin may be unique to a run filled with face shots, I don't think the experience is limited to limitless powder. I've had similar experiences connecting with something larger than myself climbing rock on Yosemite's Half Dome, ascending Mt. Rainier's Sunset Ridge in a whiteout, SCUBA diving in Little Cayman with groupers who thought they were puppy dogs, and practicing yoga with my mentor.

That said, I can say for certain that I never experienced joy writing a status report, or (worse) sitting in a status meeting. I can't think of a situation in which I would use the word gratitude in the same sentence with any Microsoft product.

What I can also say for certain is that my day yesterday conjures up the experience Dolores describes. I feel thankful for the experience, even if the day started with calculations of where we could ski to avoid the howitzers doing control work.

So here's my hypothesis, more collective moments of joy would make the world a better place. I'm not saying everyone needs to quit their day-jobs to bus tables after a day at the slopes. I am suggesting that we can increase our happiness by increasing the ratio of time we spend connecting with nature instead of connecting with a Blackberry, the television, or Cloud Technology (whatever that is).

I had an experience on my last work project, shortly after I started. Someone in the group said to me: "You love your life, don't you?" I didn't know how to respond to this. Taken without any intonation, my answer was easy: "Yes, I do." What was less easy to respond to was the implication that it was somehow wrong or unacceptable to love your life.

I think this person needs more turns in their day. More joy in their life. We all do. This video may not help you experience the joy of powder skiing, but it may make you laugh. (FYI, we skied the couloir on looker's left above this shot.) I never fall when I ski. The video will prove me a liar, but it had to be said.