I love nature: hiking, camping, backpacking, and cross-country skiing—I enjoy it all. I also have a rather poor sense of direction. This means that for most outings, I end up relying on someone else (usually Wes) to do the navigating. I’ve traveled miles upon miles, blissfully tuned in to the view, the trees, the birds, and my own peripatetic thoughts whilst utterly tuned out of tracking where I’m supposed to be going.
Which is all well and good and yet a wee bit disempowering, no? So for our last cross-country ski day of the season, Wes decided to power up the trail in one direction and I decided to go in the other. This was the gentlest of “solo” skiing: I was on trails. There were signs. And other people. And cell phone coverage. I had a map. I was going to ski in a big loop.
We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable.
― Henry David Thoreau,
I skied and found myself reveling in the solitude and the pristine beauty of freshly-fallen snow. It turned out that I could be alone in nature and enjoy myself. I traversed out a trail marked Yuba for about 45 minutes until it met Palisades, then started back toward the lodge.
At a fun spot called “Marty’s Hill,” I even took a little detour to practice my downhill turns. I then checked the time and my location. Google maps told me I was .7 miles from the lodge and that it would take me 20 minutes by foot to get there. Perfect. I was set to meet Wes in half an hour. I figured skiing was faster than walking, so I had plenty of time.
I kept going until I came to an intersection and this sign: Big Dipper to Palisades. Ah, good. I planned to stay on Palisades all the way back to the lodge. I zoomed down Big Dipper and kept going, expecting to see the turn for the lodge at any moment.
After about 20 minutes, I took out my phone. Google maps said I was .7 miles from the lodge and that it would take me 20 minutes to get there by foot. Uh-oh. I looked up. And there was the sign for Marty’s Hill. I had somehow managed to double back in a classic groundhog-day-type maneuver.
So, what do you think? Am I ready to backpack solo through Big Sur?