We’re all seasonal creatures. Try as we might to insulate ourselves from the reality of winter, patterns change, and with them our habits and routines. Many of us chase the seasons from place to place, as if they are beholden to a specific location.
Every spring for the past ten years, I’ve rolled down the same small canyon in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. And every fall, I stumble back, penniless and parched for powder.
As the nights begin to cool and the days begin to shorten, my thoughts look forward to the winter ahead. But before the faceshots, before the early mornings and frozen toes, comes the migration.
For most, this routine is little more than a brief inconvenience, packing belongings into a car or truck and making the drive to their winter homes. But for my partner and I, this time of year poses both a challenge, and yields an opportunity.
Transporting all of our ski and climbing gear, as well as personal belongings across several states with no vehicle is a creative task. While we’ve simplified drastically, we still rely on friends and freight to ship our more fragile and cumbersome objects: my father’s guitar, our computer, a haul bag of clothes.
We’re not exempt from the paradigm of industrial travel, this is the world we live in, the point is to make as honest an effort as possible, an often hopeless, thankless, and disillusioning endeavor. While we rely on trucks and buses to transport our gear, and sometimes our selves, we’re left with our bicycles, some climbing gear, and a few weeks to spare before work begins again.
As hard as it can be to orchestrate these moves without a vehicle, once they’re under way its one of the most liberating times of my life. When we’re preparing it’s easy to question our ideals as everyone around us moves with ease and convenience, but when we’re on the road it’s pure freedom, autonomous traveling in it’s most essential form. Free of our everyday restrictions of time, need, and responsibility, we’re open to roam wherever we want, and follow our noses for adventure.
As this time nears once again, my stomach turns in anticipation, at once I’m scared nervous restless excited and curious for what’s ahead. There’s so much unknown and so much to discover. There’s so much left to do before we depart and so many more opportunities once we’re underway.
The desert is calling, I can feel its warm red stone flowing on my back, I can hear the empty and hollow wind. I don’t know if we’ll make it, the unknown is staggering, all I can hope to say is this:
I will see you soon my friend, and I will return slowly, with understanding and awe permeating my every step.