Rolling down the highway, nearly alone and with my stomach tied in knots, the miles & minutes tick down until the trailhead.
The air in the jeep is thick with angst & doubt. The window goes down, and the sharp cold floods in - snapping my attention back to the moment.
The sun has started to light up the sky, rising behind me but making the horizon glow in front of me.
The whole point of this hobby is to snap my mind and my body into better alignment. While my thoughts wander, my body simply lives in the moment. The cold air swirls between my thoughts and my condition, drawing attention to the need to take in a deep breath and settle down.
Today I will travel on my feet, my world on my back, and my wits laid bare. I will capture moments & memories with my eyes and my cameras. I’ll sleep on the ground and stare at the stars.
Every time I go out I bring along troubled thoughts, scatter them along the road to the trail, and then submit to living in each singular second, punctuated by my laboring footfalls.
Most of my friends and peers don’t understand why I choose to scoff modern comforts and submit myself to a dangerously indifferent environment like the Allegheny Backcountry in the start of winter.
However, if they could see the poison that I’m shedding along the side of these two lane roads I travel to the trailhead, they’d never ask again; there would be no need.
We all do it for different reasons. This is mine.
A random, photo heavy series of impressions from an unsettled mind
