Just Us

For our 10th wedding anniversary, my wife and I decided to take a camping trip. It was early October, COVID-19 was still raging just about everywhere, and she and I love the outdoors, anyway. Camping seemed like a responsible and safe thing to do for fun. We had talked about taking a trip down to Moab, UT, but the state of the virus suggested that we should stay more local and not potentially put stress on the community that we would be visiting. So, if were not going to be traveling far, it became a matter of finding the right, nearby location for us.

The week before our anniversary, we had taken the kids for a day hike in Lost Creek Wilderness. For those of you not familiar with Wilderness designations, it is the highest level of land protection provided by the US government. That means, among other things, no mechanized transportation (except for health and safety), a lack of improvements (like restrooms), and - because of the former two - little to no crowds.

Maybe it was the beautiful autumn colors we saw during that day hike. Maybe it was the fact that we saw only one other person the entire time we were in the Wilderness. Maybe it was the granite formations that offered endless climbing opportunities. Probably it was all of it. We immediately feel in love with a location just below Observatory Rock. We talked it over, and Moab was definitely out. This was going to be our spot for a three night camping, hiking, and climbing trip for our anniversary celebration.

After spending much of 2020 dealing with video calls and online banking and ordering of basic needs, we wanted to completely unplug. We needed to get away from the phones, computers… all the screens. We wanted to go somewhere that fostered a connection to the season and the land. We find that connection when we have to work with the land. And as much as any outdoor experience can allow you to commune with nature, a Wilderness experience demands it. Not that I would choose to, but it would be an option for me to gaze upon El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite National Park only from the perspective of Tunnel View and without ever leaving my car. There are no such options in Wilderness areas. In fact, the Wilderness Act of 1964 (which created Wilderness designations and the commensurate levels of protection), defines wilderness as a place with "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.”

That’s us. That’s what we like.

So, we sorted through the clothing layers, the camping gear, and the climbing gear. We figured out how to divide up the loads that make a three night excursion possible. We locked down the house and set the “out of office” notifications to “on.”

Upon arriving, everything slowed down. I could feel the stress leak out of my toes as I trod the trails to camp. We weren’t rushed. We didn’t have to get from place to place like the pre-COVID world. We didn’t have to get from task to task like the whirlwind days of online work and online schooling. We didn’t even have to get from camp to camp, like a backpacking trip.

We spent our days working climbing problems on the nearby rocks, cooking camp meals, and exploring a reasonable radius from camp. Our nights were crisp, but comfortable.

In the less-than-a-week between our day hike and this camping trip, the golden leaves had fallen from the Aspen groves, blanketing the ground with a surreal, resplendent carpet that - in my mind, anyway - put to shame the finest silk rugs found in the corridors of the world’s economic and political powers. What it also did is remove one of the last remaining reasons for someone to come into the Wilderness - the fall colors of the Aspen groves can be quite a draw, at least when those leaves are still clinging to their hosts.

We had come to the Wilderness to remind ourselves - on our 10th anniversary - of what had helped make us “us.” We slowed down and reconnected to the land and to each other. We worked within the few constraints that temperature, weather, and geologic formations demanded. We talked of remembrances… and plans for the future.

We came to find “us,” and we ended up finding “Just us.” Outside of our little troop, we didn’t see another soul… for four days.