Date: 2013-01-09
To: Flashback - My introductions to the outdoors
Miles today: 0.0

Experiences from childhood to high schoolA yearning for the outdoors is not something that runs through the entirety of my history. My upbringing was one in the suburbs of New Jersey. Experience with anything approaching the outdoors in youth was merely fishing. My earliest real exposure to the wilderness was through literature. Admittedly I did not read very much, and that reading fell mostly between a few authors. Jack London was one of these authors, and the two others I read much of were Gary Paulsen and Jean Craighead George.The last writer was the one that really gave me a spark to get into the woods and escape from everything. I imagined how cool it would be to be that kid, living off the land in the mountains of New York. Like many children with much fantastic and little realistic imagination, I concocted elaborate plans to ride my bike up to this area and live off the land. While my family visited relatives in central New York, I would be off scrounging for materials and building tree houses in the woods around nearby farm fields. I fancied the notion of spending the entire visit in the woods, foraging for blackberries and improving the tree houses with scrounged wood and rusty nails. A funny thought just occurred to me - now that I have begun using a hammock tent, I will be in the trees full-time, much as I strove to find myself there in youth!Move a little into the future, in my early and mid-teens when I had a mountain bike and would take it everywhere. This was a very limited everywhere, as any excursions had to first start at my house. I would usually ride no further than the two local parks, though further into high school I would ride farther out in every direction. I thought about bicycle camping, but back then I simply did not have the resources to perpetrate this.Introduction to hikingI did not get a driver's license until almost the end of high school. Being able to drive really changed my approach to the outdoors. Now I could reach out farther than central New Jersey, and interact with more distant environments. Here is where I shifted from biking and fishing toward hiking. I didn't need to stay in the same boring parks. Naturally one of the first places I checked out was the Delaware Water Gap. This remains one of my favourite spots to visit in New Jersey, more than any of the more obscure sites I've encountered while working on the state's roads. When I have a day or two - enough time to really enjoy a site a couple hours away - this is still the most likely site for me to visit.In 2007, I participated in my first mission trip through my church. This is a trip they run once every two years in Maine. The bulk of the trip involves home repairs and improvements for folks in a rough spot, that could otherwise not afford the work. My church sends a large intergenerational group - usually over 100 people - and this overwhelms the group that coordinates volunteers there. In order to keep the work groups manageable, the church builds a hiking experience into the mission trip. Each day of the trip, a different group goes on a hike.Every single time, the hike is Tumbledown Mountain. It is an absolutely beautiful place. Nestled between three peaks there is clear, cool pond. There is an island in the pond, and wild blueberries everywhere. This hike spoiled me - I was on the first day's hike, and I think I tagged along for the third and fourth days' hikes too, which included a more challenging hike up a different trail. With the peak of Tumbledown just breaking 3000 feet, it is not a tremendous hike, but this began my attraction to Maine and its mountains. I still don't get there quite as much as I would like, but I will definitely be spending quality time in its woods this year!First "backpacking" attemptMy first attempt toward backpacking came in the summer or fall of 2008, or maybe 2009. I call this an attempt because it turned into a long (back then I considered it long!) day hike, and I don't remember when this happened on account of not having uncovered any photos from that trip.I wanted to camp overnight in the Delaware Water Gap, so I barely squeezed a tent, a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, and some food into an old grade school backpack. I made drive up to the Delaware Water Gap, probably starting at the I-80 trailhead, and did a loop around Mt. Tammany before heading up to Sunfish Pond to set up camp. I pitched my tent, ate a canned somethingorother, and then realized I had nothing to do. My justification for leaving was that I had forgotten to bring a book to read before going to sleep. I must not have quite appreciated the silence and stillness of the empty woods at night.As the sun set, a younger and less patient me picked up my camp and set off back down to the trailhead. I had an awful flashlight at the time - one of the Maglite types, where the tungsten bulb didn't sit well in its housing. The bulb kept wiggling loose, and I kept making the delicate, blind operation of removing the protective cover and reseating the tiny bulb. Eventually, I gave up on this endeavor and walked in the dark. It was a clear, moonless night and I had nothing but starlight to guide me. The process was much less one of walking down the trail, and more one of pointing myself down the less-dark area between the two more-dark areas.Closing thoughtsFortunately that is a very easy section of trail. I reached my truck before midnight, and spent my first attempted night of backpacking sleeping back at home, a couple hours' drive away. I have definitely progressed since then. I have not perpetrated as many backpacking trips as I would like, and they are never more than long weekends. I never feel done when I get off the trail. Maybe I won't feel done when I am atop Katahdin this year. Either way, it will be considerably more difficult to go home from Georgia than from the Delaware Water Gap. I want to say, "I have to give it my best effort," but I don't feel like I have to reassure myself of my words. I feel like everything in me is ready to be uncaged and released into the wilds!Peace,