Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25234
Our mobile homes are hand-tied backpacks made from military-issue ponchos wrapped around a wool blanket. Together they are string-bound like bakery cakes. The bundle is carried by one long section of seat-belt strap woven through the parcel and around both shoulders, then tied around your waist. Everything you carry has to have as many functions as possible, ponchos and blankets outshine backpacks, which are only good for carrying things- well. .. 1 guess your dog could sleep in there. We ration the supplies for the next five days. Carrots, corn-meal, garlic, lentils, millet, potatoes, powdered milk, pepper, onion, salt and vegetable boullion-plus a cloth bag with enough peanuts and raisins to stuff a kitten. But before going nomad again, we attended a forest- debris shelter review that felt like a Better Homes and Gardens tour for the survival set, where we shared our feelings about our self-made temporary homes. In wilderness show-and-tell, each builder stood before and critiqued his structure. Then the instructors pointed out strong and weak points-such as being aware of about-to-fall "widowmaker" trees dying above. By the way, the only advantage to playing house on a sharp hillside is assisting a running start from visiting beasts. After discovering the designer animal in each of us, we dismantled our abodes and like completed Indian sand paintings, scattered the evidence and moved on. I'm struck by the impermanence of man versus nature. Off we march into terrain morphing between mountaintop and jungly creekside, slickrock and towering ponderosa forest. We dodge through riverbank willow trees, rivers, dry washes, cliffs, hard clay and series of mesa flattops and benches. Thinking our hard days are behind us, I begin to sense more of this place. The aromas shift from juniper to armpit to sage, to people battling digestive gas wars with vegetable protein. Living like a hunter-gatherer tribe, we now have the luxury of making conical sleeping bags-the poncho snapped closed around the wool blanket and tied off on one end like a burrito womb. Up here in the thin air of a high-wooded ponderosa plateau, shaved down to your humanity, the only apparent hazards seem to be campfire smoke inhalation, being relaxed to the point of collapse, or getting a whiff of someone's breath (only baking soda is permitted to clean teeth) . The group splinters for a long downhill hike with light gear on a mesa saddle-road flanked by dry mountains. At sunset, a warm breeze from canyons on both sides lifts the moon. Now we're on vacation. While getting your PhD in nature, priorities change. One morning, I caught the Iowa guy drooling while looking at guides' abundance of bedding mulch, after he'd spent the night sleeping on cold ground. Following a topographical map lesson we climbed down through sandstone cliffs and slot canyons for several pant-wetting moments for the ex-footballer. Seeing the tough guy frozen with fear was mildly satisfying. Another day of sweat, the BOSS acronym has evolved to denote Boulder Outdoor Smelly School. At sunrise, no bother that my canteen of mossy agua was nearly frozen solid. THE FIRST THING YOU PACK IS YOURSELF. The boot camp on sheep jerky continues but now its just God and me. My two new concerns: 1. While doing laundry naked by the river I sunburned my butt-cheeks. Must sleep on stomach, face down into ant ranch. 2. Once the stomach unbloats, an amazingly small amount of food suffices and you must find other things to consider-peacetime to ponder the chasm between modern and ancient living. something that was written with a finger in wet cement that is now a concrete block in a Manhattan intersection: The fastest way ta leave childhood is to have one. There are points of no return, both in the human psyche and in the desert. Typically in their 30S, people swap their once strong desire to mature with cumbrous longings for youth. A comparable phenomenon transpired in the midst of my Solo when my mind-set shifted from looking back on the course-and my life-to wondering forward, about both. Seizing this flash is my now. While simulating sleep, burrowed deep in my poncho burrito, hat pulled down completely over my face, listening to my breath .. . a large-footed animal, possibly a human linebacker, encroached. The sound of legs pounding against brush started and stopped abruptly ... my adrenaline flooded as it drew close. It stood above me; I lay stone-still. The steps became more erratic as my heart raced. SURVIVAL SCHOOLS THE SURVIVAL ' INDUSTRY- IS NOT REGULATED BY ANY AGENCY . SO CHOOSE A SCHOOL WISELY. BOULDER OUTDOOR SURVIVAL SCHOOL (BOSS) CONSIDERED THE TOUGHEST AND MOST REWARDING SURVIVAL SCHOOL. THEY HOLD 7. 14 AND 28- DAY FIELD COURSES. 800- 335 ' 7404, WWW.BOSS- INC.COM TRACKER SCHOOL LEARN SURVIVAL SKILLS, ANCIEIlT ART OF TRACKING AND NATIVE AMERICAN PHILOSOPIIY. A SIX· DAY COURSE OPENS THE DOOR TO DOZENS OF ADVANCED TRACKER SCHOOL COURSES. THE STANDARD COURSE, 6 DAYS, SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY 908-479 - 4681. WWW.TRACKERSCHOOL.COM I remember NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL (NOLS) Of FERS WILDERNESS EDUCATION WITH A FOCUS ON LEADERSHIP 307 -332 -S300, WWW.NOLS.EDU OUTWARD BOUND FROM -YOUTH AT RISK" TO BELEAGUERED OFFICE WORKERS, PROGRAMS FOCUS ON SURVIVAL AND SKILL BUILDING 888· 882 -6863, WWW.OUTWARDBOUND.ORG shits) ... What to do? Adamant, I stood up and assumed the unshaven, hunter-gatherer stance ... My savage reawakened, I brave the hours either reapplying a body mud-sheen to repel bugs, or refiguring high time for a bug snack. I froze, waiting for the intruder to decide my fate. It just stood there. I blinked. It stepped. Blink. Step. The sound of my heart thudding against my eardrums overtook all clamor. I held my breath-then realized that the nervous commotion was indeed my eyelashes whipping against the inside of my hat. Reclaiming philosophy mode, the sediment of consumerism sunk to the bottom and cleared my vision. I ponder "customer service" but still think microwaves are a bachelor's best friend. Eating uncooked food has blessed me with gas and diarrhea rivaling something I sampled in India. So I'm mellow, slow-moving, like a patient So-year-old Yoga devotee. Time is irrelevant. Perfect plodding and rethinking the period from sun-up to sundown. Question: Is engaging in a relentless verbal soliloquy while alone weird? How come abbreviated is such a long word? Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? As surely as cottonwood trees and animal tracks usually lead to water, germinating love handles have vanished and been replaced by skin stretched over my lower ribs. My fire machine (bow-drill) wouldn't behave. The ointment cap I used to clamp the top of the spindle burned through and the spindle cut into the palm of my hand. Now I have no fire or cap for the ointment. Matted hair, scalp crusting, involuntary fast (the Your Solo is a sort of vision quest. A traditional Native American vision quest which is experienced in isolation usually gives the questor a direction, a plan, a dictum, or a purpose for their life from that point on. One quest can change everything and every quest should try. The psychological and emotional impact could depend on what you do with your spare time back in civilization . A fisherman is used to quietude and self-entertainment. An office executive likely is not. My senses are alive. I smell the pinecone breeze, see the dry earth crackling under my feet, and feel the precious seconds ticking. At this point I know that I've had a life-changing experience-one very much worth the effort. The scope of the experience is still not clear because I'm consumed with suffering from ant-fly madness and widespread body and scalp itchiness. Food fantasies wane behind a hot shower daydream that will sooth skull-dermis decay and cactus attacks. My inspiration bears an idea ... 1 decide to spend a week with my parents upon my return. A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. Knocked out by the liquid gold sputtering from my bowels, I amuse myself by watching an ant war and wonder how the ages revolve, rockwise. Night birds conduct low flybys, a lizard bursts away on lightning- speed legs. But I'm too tired even to create indents in the sand that will prevent my hip and shoulder from falling asleep. Through a process of elimination (eating only sheep jerky) I link sheep jerky to diarrhea. ~" ,,,. 36