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So in a lot of ways I'm like any
25-year-old whose at working
don't even know a minute for good
and now I'm and I'm on a long journey to
one on my way back home and I'm pretty sure that home is not going to be
anything like the one on the left
but here I am standing in that change channels
surrounded by 17,000
19,000 but peace at a mountain pass
near the Chinese border behind me
24 months that service in the Peace Corps
east to siberia yeah basic this
and and in in the
as the northernmost Peace Corps volunteer surviving two winters there
there are a hundred stories I can tell you that time
all of them in said covered concrete
and in isolation that makes you truly
believe that there is not and external world
outside rushing
a little closer behind me is this summer transition
shaking of that time coming home it was my mountains and rivers meditation that
took me to the volcanoes that can chaka
brought me to Central Asia crossing mountain ranges from
kasich's down in the cutest and and here I was near the
ended this summer going toward a
goal up climbing he hunting re
and easy seven thousand meter heating
but I'd missed the last the last
train about business going to the base camp so with my hand drawn map in kind
of John Muir style some
T several handfuls buckwheat and some
garlic I took II took I took off one
on basically a six-day overland try to
connect with this team alpinist so that I can climb hunt angry
and here I was in this mountain pass six days into the high
feeling so strong and so
your role in my 25 year old solo hikers spirit
that in this mountains and rivers meditation I've been reading
a lot of things but I was reading Krishna Murty in got to this one place
where
he's talking about stealing the chattering minded
I'm like so when the PLO I don't even know it a chattering mind
is I'm just I'm just in motion so I buried at
book side at beside a small creek the day before
well and I i mean
I'm really feeling like I'm moments away from becoming a body sup parcel
where and I look I look before me
at an epic you the email check play shoulda
the largest the largest and
would nonpolar glacier in the world
and I'm seeing hunt angry way up above but you know what I've taken Krishna
Murty
so too hard in the spirit of the journey that where a bunch
reasons that's no longer my destination:
and i'm looking out where the glacier turns to *** her
and I but my pack back on
and I start look at my map and I start heading down
in the map says now if you want to get back to base camp
which is where I want to get this playing you should go upstream cross the
glacier and go down on the other side
but as I'm walking down that hill
and heading down this pass and you know the value way down
these go trails that had downstream shoe seem well
war in the world no ones in
thing and I'm and being a capper corn who wears it I follow the doctrine
I am involved for the rest of the day and some the most torturous
taking it only brings me about five or six miles downstream
but I am dropping down all the way to the river's edge
going along up going along San baked until I can't go anymore
wasting myself up some steep let's like it takes more go trails
were way above treeline but they're 40 bush's everywhere that her
you know ripping me to shreds I'm I'm making progress and I'm finding my way
and picking my way down because
I know I'm a hand-drawn map there's a bridge down there
and I'm going across the bridge in a key to this base camp in be done with this
particular attention
well I get to a point that no what seems like no
return the canyon really brings itself and
I I can't see going up I can't see
going around I'm a few days further than I expected to be in this trip and I'm
really down to my last
its nourishment and so on faced with the decision
am I gonna go all the way back to the hardest taking another pitcher
to get across the nation come back down the other side which my ticket and
urging person across this thing
this glacial River flowing like concrete it just has a few ripples at this time I
had no sense
he second when
but it looks doable and I said I hop menus my smarts
on or wait until morning in all cross because surely the glacial melt in the
night reader here somewhere that thing the low
decreased so I stick it out to this measure how much
for the river is going to be down by by sign up and I'm a camp
and I sleep and I have the most fitful night of sleeping and just
images dream images are flashing through my mind it's
it's it's like you know what you imagine experiencing at
thats at death write these images your life Cassie
for your mind well I i wake up at at sunrise
and the the river is the same and Tom
and along the way I fashioned I fashioned that you think
a couple walking sticks because I'm gonna need to charge through this
give myself enough distance maybe a hundred and fifty yards
just a few strong strokes that middle section it's going like this
and I should be able to design any out before the Canon
art well I'm reading I've got my stick
I stepped in three steps no further than my need to force the river Yanks this
stick
out it's this one or bloody knuckles I reaching
okay I cannot feel my legs my hands bleeding
that force is incredible I was in the river for probably three seconds tops
I am totally defeated this river has
on but I don't see any other choices
along I don't see any other choice
so I have to psych myself up and boy who is this something
30 minutes jumping up and down screaming like a wild man I mean I
I have been seen people in six days
exceptional one Qt's mountain hurting party it was about four days back
and on and this is I just got to do it so I psych myself up ice
where I I do what I need to do and I go back in again and this time
I've gone a little too far I'm in all my brain to say
Retreat Retreat retreat but I went in a bit too far and i cant quite
retreat and I'm trying to and I'm getting swept downstream and I feel my
heels
hitting the bottom and and I didn't quite
make it and I am on my back going head-first
downstream in this slot canyon and it is
so in unbelievably hold that really
my limbs are useless I can even sure got my backpack
and that cobalt blue sky on
is closing in in all I'm thinking is can't believe I'm going to die
in this river in cuba stand I haven't even really told anyone away
%um that and home
and it's really stupid that I'm gonna die and history
and so that's that's really the mantra in in my
but he thought the mine where
as as the sky in a rose it just becomes a very simple mantra
I'm dying and
I'm and I style
and the river is rushing over my chest
I see I've been lodged against iraq I'm on the same side of the river
but I can tell of I can tell I'm
through the canyon ICS of shoulder there
and it's one rock and then that to date to the beach
and so I explain a crawl out of the other
strip off my clothes 860 things that in my backpack
have holders space think it's I wrapped around me
and they really work and i kind if I'm
I'm in I'm in it I'm in a space I mean I'm clearly and shop
and hypothermia and on you know I
maybe been in the river for total the I don't even know to this day
thirty-seconds the minute it was in a long time
and I started at dawn and by the time I actually get my head together
my back not together and say I am going to make it
downstream to that bridge that I know is on that paper map
its thing 12:30 in the afternoon I'm really kinda lost it
on but ID now I make my way down
sure enough in 45 minutes pretty easy walking
line my cell at the bridge in
I slumped down lead against the bridge it's desolate
wearing and when whether the
whether the transformative aha moments this point
whether the obvious ones just
a recognition the preciousness in precarious this
like on a profound sense of gratitude for
some higher power that must've been watching over me
but even in that moment there was a more specific recognition I was a recognition
that
that the reviewer was very much part
at this store the river was
a major character in this event that just happened
river as high mountain sage River
as mentor river as sense a River
as and
river as intolerant element to
arrogance in the heart and ignorance in the mind
ok but one who is also an arbitrary judge in on that day
shows to spit me out with
a request that I heard and so was i sat on that bridge
yes you know which on
I looked and I nodded at that river which was joining at the bridge
into it with the tributary and was gunned down
cascading loans that on
I made about to the river on that day a very quiet and some
about and to this day
I think about what if I had taken the other work in the road
the one that would have taken me around the glacier walked
down to the base camp met some European alpinist and found a bus the day later
then
what would have what would but it wouldn't change well I probably would
have come back home in
gone to graduate school and studied ecology and nonprofit management can
community organizing it probably would have been a successful
a contributor to movements and remain an active this
but I am quite sure that if it weren't for my relationship that river
and the conversation that we had I would not have found my way
home to Yuba River and then the executive director
circle that leading advocacy group in California for the protection
nor would I be here is the executive director can initiate is there a lot of
factors that
rem 12 a place that for me
that experience and that story and now River
is in many ways responsible for implanting what it did
and allowed me to beyond names thank you
the
K
them okay
I think that if you had gone the other path you may well be
executive director international later
that's needed to
of