Reboot
By Quyen Le
It’s been over two months since Russ and I left our home in Portland, Oregon and headed for the road in our van, Humboldt. We had talked about this lifestyle when we met more than seven years ago and actively planned for it in the last five years. Since then, the world has changed. The pandemic affected every aspect of normal life, ushering us into a world of unknowns and uncertainties. Everything seemed chaotic and the thin veil of social cohesion unraveled. We witnessed a man’s death in the hands of policemen meant to protect us over $20. For the first time some famous men were held accountable for rapes and sexual misconduct. We saw Americans attacking the White House and politicians because they lost an election. Young adults asserted their individuality and sexual freedom by questioning gender norms and demanding more inclusion of those outside the female/male binary. A war waged between two countries, once united with a shared history and culture, sent global energy prices soaring world-wide.
Now we live in a post-truth time where social media platforms feed whatever information confirming one’s biases. Facts and truth seem to matter less as more influencers and media outlets look for ways to manipulate and keep us fearful and craving. Amongst all this we quit our careers earlier than planned. It seems like now is the time to leave this conventional life. To do so is a big jump for me. I need to reboot and get my mind in a place where fear rules less and uncertainty is normal, a part of being alive.
We both had experiences resetting our minds and bodies through meditation retreats and thru-hiking long trails. We knew that to start on this journey, we needed to hike a trail long enough for us to unwind and slow down but also short enough to enjoy the summer before heading to Baja. At 490 miles on the Collegiate West, the Colorado Trail was a fitting thru-hike to transition to an unpredictable but adventurous path.
Thru-hiking is an experience like no other. It is mostly a mental exercise of highs and lows. If time is not an issue, it largely depends on how much discomfort a person can handle whether they will finish it in one go. This makes it sound tortuous, but it isn’t. The discomfort is where the mind has a lot of control. All those who hike long trails have physical pain at one point or another, and some of us feel pain everyday.
So what is it that keeps us going? The views, the connection to nature, the simplicity, the ease of knowing that all you have to do is walk, eat, and sleep. Thoughts that occupy our mind in daily life simply float by as one notices how everything comes and goes. I can walk through a hail storm with wet, cold feet, and two hours later, the sun comes out, warming me up. The dense fog lifts revealing a majestic valley of pines and wildflowers. And we find ourselves pitching our tent at an Alpine lake surrounded by rocky mountains. My mind, then, eases into the beauty, forgetting about achy feet and legs. I see animals like pikas, marmots, long-horn sheep, bears, deers, and so on and notice how they keep a distance but are also curious. Wild animals, like much of nature, do not harm for no reason.
Walking through wild places and looking back at the passes and mountains I’ve climbed gives me confidence and engenders trust…trust in myself, (my body and mind), and trust in nature that it won’t hurt me. I learn that it is the subconscious that plays into my fears of the unknown, imagined, read in the media, or heard through someone. When all is quiet in the wilderness, magic happens. Rainbows emerge. Edible mushrooms reveal themselves. Birds sing. Pikas squeak and run along collecting food for the winter. Marmots forage and bask in the sun. And I find myself a part of this peace and splendor. All that I describe here exists for everyone, mostly free, or at least outside the capitalistic system keeping us fearful and craving.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Henry David Thoreau
Pictures from the Colorado Trail