Outlive the Bastards
Rafting - well, getting outside - is good for you.
I have been rafting for two-thirds of my life.
In other words, for a very long time.
My first rafting experience was in the fall of my first year in college. As a matter of fact, after matriculation and introducing myself briefly to my hyperkinetic roommate, Paul Potenza from Las Vegas, it was the very next thing I did. The following afternoon I climbed into a loaded flatbed truck with 20 others and we drove through the night from Prescott, Arizona to Moab, Utah. In hindsight, I am sure the purpose of driving clandestinely in the cover of darkness was to not draw attention from the highway patrol.
The river rafting trip, regarded as my wilderness orientation to Prescott College, was a month long affair on the Green and Colorado Rivers.
One month in the wilderness after having spent the majority of my life in well-ordered suburbs with manicured lawns where my primary contact with the outdoors involved sports. You can imagine it was an eye-opener in a number of ways.
My wilderness orientation, which took place over four decades ago, and which could have consisted of tromping around the Manti La Sal peaks in thigh deep snow, because that was Paul Potenza’s wilderness orientation (and, believe me, I heard all about it), brought me serendipitously to where I sit right now. On an acre of land with a fantastic view of the mouth of Icicle Canyon nestled up close to the foothills of the Cascades.
Overnight raft trips are the single easiest method to 'leave it all behind.' When we were leaving things behind pre-internet, we meant traffic and the stressors of modern day life, ringing phones, the hustle and bustle of humanity and bills coming due, responsibilities to uphold. Now, in addition to those things, we are saddled with the ubiquity of always being connected to what is going on everywhere in the world.
The digital age is inexorably crushing our connection to nature.
Not only by demanding, or competing for, our attention - which, ironically, includes my daily missive - but also by democratizing the great outdoors. Making it simpler to find the gems of the outdoors, making reservations and then sharing them with the world at the click of a button.
River rafting is one of those outdoor activities that can help you find a balance. It is one of the most accessible outdoor activities that also includes a built-in social aspect. Almost anyone can get out into nature via an inflatable raft. And it is way more fun if you do it with others.
I have always found that a river trip centers me and reconnects me to both people and nature and now, it seems, researchers have some proof.
In 2003, researchers Jonathan Haidt and Dacher Keltner published a landmark study on the social and emotional functions of awe. They found that awe appeared to increase people’s feelings of connectedness and willingness to help others. In their study, they wrote: “The consequences of awe should be of interest to emotion researchers and to society in general… Awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.
Over the past two summers we have successfully initiated a program of research to begin to test our own hypotheses that 1) outdoors experience improves physical, mental, and social well-being and 2) the emotion of awe is an important mechanism driving these effects.
On a three week long Grand Canyon trip quite some time ago, one of our participants, someone highly skilled in photography, decided to not only take before and after photos, but a photo weekly of each individual participant. The transformations reflected in the sitting portraits are not just notable. They are remarkable.
It’s as if the “biological weathering” I mentioned in a previous column was reversed.
Studying those photos of 16 Canyon trip members, you might be moved to exclaim we had discovered the fountain of youth. It was clear after 21 days divorced from the outside world our cares, wrinkles and frown lines had dropped away. You could see every face was recharged. We were reborn.
While a day river trip is incapable of delivering your psyche to that stage of unfettered sanguinity, it can still provide that dose of cortisol to help you regain the balance in your life. Add the accompaniment of a coterie of friends, family or co-workers and you could very well find a few connections that were left behind or forgotten.
I’ve always said if there was a government contract to run around checking on the health of the nation’s river systems I’d sign up in a heartbeat.
Or if the societal shit ever hit the fan, I’d disappear down into the red rock canyons and do my damnedest to get in touch with the ghost of Ed Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang and Desert Solitaire. I figure, if he’s anywhere to be found, he’s waiting out eternity on the lower end of Cataract Canyon in the event Glen Canyon re-emerges.
This is a quote from Ed Abbey. Be more like Ed.
One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out.
Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.
While you can. While it’s still here.
So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.
Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators.
I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.
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My sister, Pam, a very alert reader, sent this photo yesterday after my column about whether to mask or not to mask, and the silliness surrounding the practice. This is a photo she took at an organic garden nursery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It says nothing about ‘birthday suits’.
Also, I thought I would share an old video I love of Emma Stone in a lip sync face off with Jimmy Fallon.