Occupation of Independence

What a relief it was to get downriver from the San Juans, and to get away from cliff-like mountains directly in front of your face. Each mile downriver, the valley got wider. Finally I could breathe again, and stretch out my arms to distant horizons, and reach upward to bigger skies. Who needs those giant heaps of static rock (mountains) when there are moving, puffed-up, monsoonal clouds to admire, instead.  Now then, so far, so good. But where was I going? I hadn't really decided. Yes, that happens a couple times per year. I wear myself out on the pro-s and con-s of two or three alternatives. This is great fun. If there is still a stalemate at the moment of decision, I sometimes defer to trivial happenstances, such as 'what lane I'm in' or 'what side of town I'm on.'  Few things could better capture the sweetness of this style of travel as deciding your itinerary on the spur of the moment. And so I headed through an area I hadn't been to, in ten yea

Newbies to either this blog or to my disputer-in-chief, Box Canyon Blog, must wonder why two friends are always being "nasty" to each other on the subject of Beauty. Why can't we just be "nice?"  Well, can't two friends play tennis with each, and each try to win? Just think, the two contestants are hitting the ball in opposite directions. How awful! How negative!!! I've just finished having another wonderful visit with friends in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. The hiking was uniquely good. But don't think that having a good time there was effortless. For one thing, the San Juans are not beautiful. They are merely visually impressive in a freakish and unnatural sort of way. How can we think of natural beauty without first thinking of nature? It is inescapable to me to see nature as the marriage of male and female characteristics. Primarily female. On one hike John Q and I went up the "Stairway to Heaven." It was on t

...So there I was, pushing my mountain bike up a mountain, with little hope of ever being able to pedal it, except downhill where it might be dangerous. I'd never deliberately injected myself into a situation like this, before. But I simply had to make the San Juans a bigger success for my favorite sport of mountain biking. Defeatism had become disgusting. Although Anger was useful at the beginning to getting me going, it soon wore off. Now what? The aerobic buzz was great, but it's not enough: the mind needs something to chew on.  Few things lend themselves to metaphor-mining like mountain climbing. The choice seemed obvious: Christ carrying his own cross up Mt. Calvary. So my mind stayed occupied all the way up the mountain by visualizing the awkward and uncomfortable (and weird) ascent as a type of Noble (voluntary) Suffering. No doubt, the most metaphorical and non-literal allusion to religious tradition is sufficient to send many priggish atheist readers running fo

Hope and Frustration in the high country.

Although this post will begin wrestling over concrete activity in a specific location, I hope to progress to the more general. Is there any better opportunity to take this approach than when climbing a mountain? Human nature loves a physical challenge, but as the viewpoint becomes grander and grander, the climber naturally wants to entertain "bigger thoughts," that is, wider perspectives that transcend the trivial "jostling on the street," that William Blake referred to. The Little Valiant One surmounts a 13,000 foot pass on his 13th birthday. A superstar traveler would come into a place like the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado and "knock the ball right out of the park." He would aim "high" at some completely new level of experience, or at least a completely new sport. But I was aiming at a solid base hit instead of a home run. One of the benefits of becoming wise old men is that we get a little better each year at choosing