From the Vault: Night Before Duge La

Night envelops camp, carrying the first bite of winter. The old woman begins to chant and her leathery voice reverberates off the large boulder that is our shelter. She rocks forward on her sit bones and back again, arms clasped about her knees. The shadows dance across the valleys of her face as it sails in and out of the fire’s light. Fat flakes of snow fill the air around us, falling thick to the ground. My anxiety about the next day’s journey is dispelled in the aura of this pilgrim’s song. The three younger travelers join in the mantra and the vibrations saturating the air are intoxicating. My lids flutter as I finger my prayer beads and gaze into the fire. In the darkness above lies the high pass Duge La, the portal that will take us into Tibet and around the sacred mountain Kawagebo.

The four pilgrims hail from the small village of Yongdri, on a tributary of the Mekong River in Yunnan Province, China. It is the gateway for the circumambulation of one of Tibet’s four holiest peaks, a village I had left that morning with blessings and warnings of the journey ahead. Beyond the buildings tendrils of water snaked down cliff faces and the subalpine forest burned bright crimson, flush with fall.

Higher still sits a giant boulder amidst a braided stream. Reams of prayer flags join features of the landscape, marking this stone as exceptional ground. Fluttering green. Flickering blue. Orange waving and yellow wafting. The stone is charred from the fires of many pious passersby and broad Tibetan script is scrawled across the overhanging face in charcoal. All now draped in darkness.

Under its generous cover huddle five pilgrims. Elder mother, son, wife, cousin, and me, our gear cluttered around us. Their belongings bundled on pliable wooden frames, lashed down with twine. Thick bedding wrapped in a tarp; a sack of pulverized roasted grain called tsampa; balls of yak butter; a bag of loose black tea; several bowls and one large kettle. With these provisions they plan to trek for eight days, from pre-dawn to dusk, crossing two 4500 meter passes to earn the blessing of the mountain, Kawagebo.

The humming dissipates and I materialize in this world once again. Over creamy spicy yak butter tea I am invited to join the family, to navigate Duge-La as a team the following day. I warmly accepted and we retire for the night.

Dawn. A foot of snow and unease in camp. My morning haze turns to disappointment when I see little movement from the others. It’s over and we haven’t even started. I fidget in my sleeping bag while the snow falls harder. Suddenly there is chatter in the air as a festive party of ten more Tibetans approach camp. Greetings and laughter are exchanged.  I am poked and prodded as my nylon and Gore-Tex is examined, ridiculed, and promptly dismissed. With a few shouts and shoves, we pack up and climb into the storm.

Bangkok by Night

Plane and train deposit us in the heart of Bangkok. It is a massive sprawling city. Its arteries are eternally clogged with clots of cars, clumps of trucks, clusters of two-, three-, and four-wheeled vehicles. The anticoagulants that usually keep traffic flowing are grossly ineffective. Stop lights, stop signs, traffic wardens; all ignored, broken, or entirely absent from the scene. The result: extreme hypertension.

Tuk tuk drivers hassle us as we hail a taxi and immediately get absorbed into the gridlock. Motorbikes weave recklessly through the miniscule spaces between vehicles. Sidewalks turn into optional lanes. There are more honks per minute than rotations of the wheels on our taxi.

Annaliese and I stare out the windows in disbelief as the mayhem unfolds around us. We wonder at the law that clearly requires drivers of motorbikes to wear helmets but not passengers, and why the extremely law-abiding citizens seem to discard logic regarding the safety of their noggin. The dodge and weave of the bikes between lane changing cars seems to be quite an art. How many of those artful dodgers acquired their finely honed skill through broken mirrors and broken bones, ridicule and road rash? The stand-still traffic gives me plenty of time for due contemplation.

After snaking our way along six-lane roads, through twisting back alleys, past massive, gold-framed photographs of the beloved Thai king, we arrive at an impossibly crowded pedestrian walk. To my amazement, the driver begins plowing through the bodies where it seemed to me a vehicle clearly did not belong. Based on the throngs of farang surrounding the car, I infer that we have arrived at the infamous Khaosan Road… not our destination. I inform the driver that we are heading to Soi Rongmai, quite near Khaosan, but undoubtedly not here.

Our driver is perplexed. He nods as if he knows the location I speak of, then rolls down the window and begins shouting “Soi Rongmai! Soi Rongmai!” out the window. He appears to expect people to respond to this form of request, and eventually someone does. But they don’t know where it is. So we roll slowly down Khaosan’s packed streets as our driver continues accosting pedestrians.

With his attention clouded by multi-tasking, our driver rolls over the flip-flopped foot of a poor foreign girl in a white dress. A Thai man starts banging on the car and yelling at us. I lock the door. The driver apologizes profusely (he is really sorry and almost looks as if he wants to cry). The girl looks startled but not severely damaged. Some more shouting and pointing and arm waving. Eventually we are cleared to proceed, and the conflicted parties go on their ways.

Being the geographer that I am, I unsheathe my trusty Lonely Planet map and find our street. It takes some convincing of the driver, but he eventually succumbs to my determined pointing and we arrive safely at the hostel.

Clothes changing, bag dropping, dinner eating. Several hours pass.

After nightfall, Annaliese and I are strolling alongside the Grand Palace, gazing at the golden parapets and spires rising up from behind great white walls and illuminated by floodlights. In the foreground, miniature geckos scramble along the vertical surfaces, scooping up unsuspecting insects. In the back, unbelievably beautiful structures jut into the sky. The Grand Palace complex includes several large Buddhist temples and the former residence of the royal family. The architecture inspires visions of an alien empire, as the impossibly thin and dagger-like adornments climb glittering into the night. The brilliant gold and rust red glowing as from an unseen fire or lava pit below. At any minute I expected one of the towers to open up and a spaceship to rise up and take off to do its regular rounds of terrorizing its citizens. Or at least see Indiana Jones swinging amongst the towers with his trusty whip.

The Marble Temple, Wat Benchamabophit

Disregarding my fancies, I am inspired by the magnificence of the place. The craftsmanship and architectural style is so unique and stunning, and unlike anything I have ever seen before. Much of the decorative flare is reminiscent of a flame’s flickering edges, passing spontaneously in and out of existence. The essence of impermanence. Seemingly fragile yet enduring in what it represents.

These Buddhist inspired structures are symbols of peace and understanding and the royal family is widely respected across the country. Of course, Thailand’s political situation is considerably more complex than this. There have been several large protests over the past few years by the pro-democratic “Red Shirts” and the pro-monarchy “Yellow Shirts,” some of which have ended in violence. The largest and most recent was in March, April and May of 2010, when Red Shirts held massive protests in Bangkok which ended in military suppression. I am not well read enough to tackle this topic here, but in searching I have come across some good articles for those that are interested:

Democracy in Thailand, by Leo Horn. December 2, 2008.

Whither Democracy in Thailand?, by Tim Meisberger. April 8, 2009.

Chatting and walking, walking and chatting, Annaliese and I circumambulate the Grand Palace and all its amazing structures. She’s got a few hours left before her flight takes her back to the States, so we keep exploring. We wander our way further through the streets and come upon a bustling night market with sizzling food stands, dusty relics, and raw meat hanging from stalls. The sights and smells are invigorating, overwhelming, and some are pretty much just gross. Many sensations sandwiched into a brightly light, tightly packed place.

Through the market, down an alleyway and onto a pier, we stand with a large river stretching on in both directions, the Mae Nam Chao Phraya. The choppy dark waters coursing through the city absorb all light, and are a stark contrast to the brightly lit buildings on its banks. Illuminated high rises and temples inhabit the opposite shore. Though the river is dark, we spy outlines of boat traffic working on through the night. As we stand on the floating pier, listening to the city and to the water, a deep rumbling crawls upstream to our ears.

I glance left and see a small tugboat chugging slowly toward us. Its stature doesn’t seem too diminutive until its looming load lumbers into view. An enormous barge, black and oily seeming in the darkness, manifests in my field of vision, as if it climbed up out of the depths to settle on the surface for a brief bout of air. The entire structure is dark save a small porchlight on the rear deck, where squinted eyes can also make out the tell-tale blue flashes of a television set. But no human form do I see. Watching the barge troll by brings a coldness to my chest, with its empty windows devoid of all color and life. I expect some band of ancient, long-dead pirates to swing off its flanks and take us for all we are worth.

Annaliese and I watch, eyes wide, as the barge pulls past, only to notice another, and … yes! A third! All being hauled by that tiny beam of light, the tug boat torch in the void. And these vessels are just as creepy as the first, with their eerie silence and sole, lonely porchlights. A massive hulk cutting through the waters with such stealth. Discomforting.

The beast fades into the upstream dark. I have been so enthralled by the bizarre aura of the passing freighters that I don’t notice the small crowd gathering on the pier. I glance around me and wonder what they are doing here. My questions are quickly answered as a water taxi sails like a dagger out of the distance directed at its target: us. It looks like a mere sliver at first, but as it quickly gains ground I see it is quite large and not slowing down. The boatman pulls the equivalent of an aquatic e-brake and drifts into the pier, which is now rollicking in the massive wake. I’m holding onto to anything for dear life, so I don’t topple into the Mae Nam Chao Phraya and become a crew member of some ghostly midnight freight hauler myself. The other people shoot humorous glances at me and board their taxi, which is off as quickly as it arrived.

The rolling and rocking slows and then is gone. I look toward Annaliese and smile. So this is Bangkok?

Happy International Women's Day!

Greetings to all the women I have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing!

I want to wish all of you special people Happy International Women's Day! So many women have had such a profound impact on my life, rounding off my rougher edges and creating a more complete human being, the human being that I am now. I am extremely grateful for the feminine touches I have had in my life. I am also gladdened by the wider understanding and appreciation of women that is happening across the globe. I am currently reading an incredible book, Half the Sky, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, which brings to our awareness the many crimes committed against women across the planet. The chapters in the book address different problems in different regions to inform the reader, and then each one finishes with a positive experience of change: a means for the reader to participate and change the world. To lift up and empower women across the planet.

I also recently read an article in National Geographic about women in the "untouchable" caste in India who are at the bottom of the bottom of the social ladder. They are not allowed to wear shoes, to pump their own water, or to own more than one article of clothing. The article highlighted Jamkhed, a program working to educate women in the untouchable caste to be health care workers in the poorest villages throughout India, improving their own lives and also vastly improving the quality of life of the people in their townships. They have drastically reduced infant mortality, spread of disease, and increased water quality. And now these previously outcast women are becoming respected members of their community.

These changes are inspiring, and the stories even more so.

"Women hold up half the sky." - Mao Zedong, former leader of China

So I want to thank you all and encourage you to continue to affect those around you and make changes in your everyday lives. The power for change lies in our hands.

Two Weeks on Tonsai

Tonsai. Just uttering the word makes my fingers tingle. Imagine white sandy beaches crawling out of the jungle and kissing the azure waters of the Andaman Sea. NOW imagine giant towers of limestone thrusting out of the ocean and reaching toward the sky, everywhere, with vegetation covering and spilling off of the walls and spires. Sound like a climber’s paradise? It is.

Phra Nang Beach, from the Defile.

But for climbers’ eyes only? No! Normal people can soak up the beauty too. And they do. Nearby Koh Phi Phi (where the movie “The Beach” was shot) consistently earns “one of the most beautiful islands/beaches” of the world status. And the Phra Nang Peninsula, where Tonsai and its sister beaches are, displays the same natural wonder. In fact, southern Thailand in general is covered with beautiful coastline on both this side and on the Gulf of Thailand, where the famous islands of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan are located. This kind of beauty attracts notice. Phra Nang and Railay Beaches are covered with tanning hard (and soft) bodies, rich and famous, or just rich, from all over the world speaking languages of many origins floating on the ocean breeze. Tonsai Beach, just across from Railay, is more the climber and budget traveler hangout… erego, that’s where I was at.

So the climbing: It’s by far the steepest, strangest, funkiest, most overhung, and downright alien climbing I’ve ever done. All kinds of weird stuff to grab onto, scum up against, stick your head into, paste your foot upon, and generally stare at and wonder, “how the hell am I going to use that?” Then there’s the green stuff. Trees and their kin hug the steep slopes, edging a sylvan elbow into any habitable zone on the mountainside. Vines and roots and runners leap off the tops of towers, dangling down the walls and cliffs to find nooks and pockets and crannies to bed down in. One way to tell how steep a wall really is, is to gaze up at the plant matter hanging down at dead vertical from its top and then measure the angle at which the wall steadily creeps away inward. Yeah, it’s steep.

The impressive karst topography is the combined result of bedrock (limestone and dolomite) and the erosional power of the ocean and the tropical monsoon. Check out these sites to get a better understanding of the process: Wikipedia, Answers. A loose way to imagine it is to think of the water flowing through the porous rock and dissolving, transporting, and then depositing minerals in new, down gradient locations. This essentially causes the rock to flow like a liquid, and create stunning and bizarre formations like stalactites, pillars, stalagmites, tufas, and “flowstone” (read, everything else) for climbers to play on. It also creates massive underground cave systems. The world’s largest cave was discovered in Vietnam a couple years back in the same kind of landscape. On Phra Nang one tunnel traverses under the massive Thaiwand to transport climbers through the dark hollow, over rickety bamboo ladders and ledges, from Phra Nang beach and Escher World to Railay and the Thaiwand’s north face.

Up on Monitor Wall. The Thaiwand and Railay Beach behind me.

Getting back to the steepness. Your shoulders and arms are nearly always pitched back with your feet in and below you. This kind of climbing is intensely physical and pumpy (where your forearms fill up with blood, muscles and tendons and ligaments tighten, and you can no longer grip anything), and forces you to get creative to try and work reasonable rests into your progress. Given the featured nature of the rock, the rests get pretty funny-looking. One of the best is the crotch-tufa-squeeze, where you straddle each side of the flowstone and squeeze with your groin muscles to hold you in place and shake out your arms. Others involve sneaking into small caves, which are then typically pretty dicey to get out of; shoulder scums against tufas, which can be tenuous if you’re slippery with sweat; and the notorious “ride the pony,” where you get to wrap your legs all the way around a free-hanging stalagtite and lock your feet on the other side. You don’t believe it works ‘til you’ve done it. It’s an adolescent-minded climber’s dream.

Annaliese loving life, Tonsai Beach behind her.

The physical nature of the climbing also triggers another physiological response: profuse sweating. This is the tropics, on the ocean, and although this is the dry season, you remain perpetually wet. Being the monster sweater that I am, all I had to do was peer at the rock and think about climbing and I was drenched. Just slipping my feet into my flip flops in the morning caused beads on my brow. So when I actually got on the rock, I was a veritable waterfall. I constantly apologized to Annaliese for sliming up all the holds for her. I think every climb we did was one grade harder for her since everything was so thoroughly slick from my passage. But the rock wasn’t the only thing that got slimed. December through February is the high season here, and the crags were often swarming with people. Packed in densely at the base, one may or may not have been liable to be hit by my rain of sweat pouring off the wall from above. Thankfully, stalactites will drip consistently throughout the year here, so unexplained droplets never drew me any unwanted ire. What they didn’t know didn’t hurt them.

Inspired by our constant grungy tropical funk, we sought out and found a new word in Thai: kee klai. Body grime. It seemed fitting, as the sweat inevitably mingled with dirt, chalk, sand, vegetation, dead bugs, etc. to form a mosaic of grossness. Most evenings (well, more like some evenings), a nice cold shower would cleanse me of my filth, while I conversed with the resident toad that lived in our shower drain. He was a climber too, so he understood.

After two weeks of climbing it was hard to leave. Tonsai is a kind of vortex that you easily slip into and fall out of the time-space continuum. You climb awesome routes, eat amazing Thai food, drink cheap beer, meet cool folks from all over the world, sleep and repeat. Sometimes, you mix it up with swimming, lounging on the beach, reading, shooting pool, chess, the occasional Thai massage. But that’s basically it. Wear as little clothing as possible and soak up the incredible natural beauty of this peninsula paradise.

My main gnome, Hinnie Fumbeggins, with
Happy Island in the background.

Our second to last night, Annaliese and I figured we would investigate the night life a little. For most of the trip, we had focused exclusively on climbing our heads off and relaxing accordingly, have a beer or two, go to bed early. But Tonsai does have an evening scene with fire spinning, dancing, and all kinds of tropical cocktails. So we decided to give it a go. 

Well, our festive natures revealed themselves that evening, as we cocktailed, shot pool with Norwegians whose names we couldn’t pronounce (Svehdreh?!?), drank beer, talked smack, engaged the bartender (Mai) and his brother (Wee) in some solid whiskey slapping (intrigued, aren’t you?), watched Wee perform some incredible slack-line fire-dancing-and-spinning, partook in LOTS of hearty laughter, watched John the Brit cheat and repeatedly beat Muay Thai Kickboxing Wee at arm wrestling, then agree to get whooped a little in some street Muay Thai to help Wee recover some face, which inevitably turned into Wee knocking the crap out of a German judo master Franky, who just wanted to observe this foreign martial art and didn’t expect to get whalloped (I don’t think anyone expected that), and then John, Annaliese and I intervened as moderators to prevent an all out brawl as Franky expressed his discontent (severe), Wee acted confidently cool that he had done nothing wrong (and could take Franky, no problem), and Mai lifted up his shirt in bravado, threatening to knock Franky once more (Franky would have judo-chopped the drunken Mai). With our international social mediating powers combined, the three of us were able to diffuse the situation enough that beers were bought and hands were shaken and no large quantity of blood was spilled. Exciting multi-cultural exchange, no?

But such a minor skirmish couldn’t sully a truly wonderful experience. Since I have left Tonsai, I have dreamed of returning for more of that intoxicating lifestyle. The tropics and the beach just go so well with… well, really anything. But especially climbing. It has been delightful to meet many climbers since then that have yet to visit Tonsai, and to regale them with the sheer excellence of the place, and watch their goofy smiling anticipation grow dramatically.

A note from 18 January in my journal: “Today Annaliese and I parted ways. After a spectacular two weeks climbing, chilling, eating, sleeping, swimming, whiskey and rum slapping, and billiards-ing on Tonsai, Railay, and the greater Phra Nang, our adventure has ended and the next phase begins.”

Indeed it has.

Transit

Heavy lids lap against glazed eyeballs that stare out of a groggy mind filled with numb space. Cloudy thoughts give substance to giddy realizations mingled with temper flare ups in the timeless void. Sibling banter across digital fiber keeps smiles growing, laughter grumbling, keeps extreme fatigue at bay. Fiber has just enough space for more words of love, filling the heart, making heavy body feel lighter. Food  not digesting, lack of movement slows metabolism, slow flow begs shut down, but lacking horizontal space, waxy eardrums battle gravitational siren song. From hyper space time zone leaping to solitary sedentary sitbone indulging, senses know nothing. Remain confused. Body grossly upset yet mind serenely satisfied.

Painful bliss. The juxtaposition of transit.

The Touch of the Desert Goddess

The stark night surrounds me. The humming starlight casts its glow on sand rock and sage. Black massifs lean in from the skyline. My breath clouds vivid shadows. A smiling crescent moon climbs gingerly over the canyon rim and crawls into the night. I cough to make sure I am real. Erin moves close to me and I know I am real. Cows moo in the distance. We have arrived in the desert.

---

There's sand everywhere. Under my nails. Clogging my nose. Thickening my eyebrows. Flossing my teeth. It has ground itself into a permanent paste in the threads of my water bottle. Red blankets the car, the tent, the shoes, the gear, the cookware, the food box. The landscape is swallowing us...

Every evening there is another centimeter of sand atop our bags in the tent. It doesn't matter that it was zipped and secured. It doesn't matter that the wind didn't blow. We breathe red. In the mornings, the horizon blazes burgundy, more than the day before... is it the sun or is it... my eyes, saturated?

My skin is desert varnish.

---

I kick my feet in rhythm off the front and back of the crack as Laurelyn leads off on the next pitch. She talks to herself, keeps herself company. So I take the liberty of leaning off my perch and glancing down to the base of the tower, a hundred feet below. I smile. It feels good to get off the ground. I bang my feet some more.

I glance back up to her. Not sure which crack to take... left or right. She goes right. She starts cursing so I pay more attention. Looks slippery. Calcite can be a boon or a bane. The white mineral was deposited on the sides of geisers a little while back that used to pepper this landscape. The hard white stuff is harder than the sandstone bedrock, so it kept these spires and narrow mesas around longer than the rest of the land. One of the results is the fine piece of stone we find ourselves perched upon.

But, man is that stuff slippery. On the last pitch I puzzled for many a minute before figuring out how to hump my way up a slick calcite squeeze chimney. My mouth goes dry thinking about it.

I follow Laurelyn up and the pitch is exciting, for sure. Now my turn for the crux offwidth crack. I warble the pinon jay call to get my energies revving as I start up (imagine a toothless old woman standing on a precipice. She begins to lose her balance and is about to fall in, but steadies herself at the last minute. This is the noise she makes. This is the pinon jay call). It's my signature call.

Offwidths demand creativity. They are cracks too big to get a reasonable hand or fist jammed in there, and too narrow to squeeze your whole body in and use chimney-climbing technique. You have to use ridiculous maneuvers. Some of the more popular styles are the chicken-wing, the arm bar, and the heel-toe. Of course, much of what you do is your own. Some of "my own" were: the head stuff, the curse-and-scoot, the shuffle-and-slip, the pull-push-clench, and my favorite, the triple pirouette.

Grunting and thrutching, I make it to the top. I then have the pleasure of watching as Laurelyn laughs and narrates herself up the pitch, styling nearly everything I struggled on. Since I watch through the wide crack itself, her peals and commentary echo off the walls and into my smiling ears.

She dances the next pitch, and we are on top. We laugh and smile and hug. We talk of the Desert Goddess.

---

"The damn hooker got away from me!"

The flaming log sails through the air. Fortunately it lands where no one is standing. Scalding coals burst out from underneath the fireball and sputter into the dirt. I make a silly face, part bewilderment and part beguilement, and hook the escapee back into the fire ring.

The hooker is my new favorite toy. It is a beer-brewing carboy brush, with the brush tips melted away. After a slight adjustment in the L-shaped tip, the hooker was born. It is a semi-flexible fire hooking device. It is quite unlike the standard poker we are all familiar with. It requires precision and tact. With a flick of the wrist one can whack a log and precisely remove excess coals to free up more burning surface area. It is also capable of hooking, scooping, and lifting flaming logs for repositioning within the fiery furnace. Maximal burning efficicency is the hooker's code.

Unless of course you start to jettison missile-torches at the rest of the party. This is less efficient.

---

"Rowan, you need to go lower." Laurelyn looks nervous.

"Yeah Rowan. Lower." So does Jen.

Erin isn't saying anything.

None of them are looking at me.

I am hanging off the side of Morning Glory Arch, a rather massive landbridge that hovers eighty or so feet off the canyon floor. A canyoneering adventure has brought us to the top of the arch, and a simul-rappel is to be our finale. But it's not going right.

A simul-rappel is when two people rappel off opposite ends of the rope. In this case we have two ropes knotted together and draped over the top of the arch. Rowan is lowering off one side, and I am on the other. The key is for both of us to weight the rope and descend at the same rate. Otherwise we risk pulling the other off and both falling to the bottom.

After committing to the rope and sending my rear over the edge, the girls instruct me to stop. I keep my hand on the brake but I continue to descend in fits. I lose sight of Rowan as rock rises up to my face. I am not asking questions and I am not getting answers. I can guess why they aren't looking at me.

"Rowan, you need to go down NOW." Laurelyn is getting more assertive, and more anxious.

Jen and Erin stare intently off the other side.

I drop lower.

My heart races.

I watch the girls but my internal strings continue to tense as their faces get tighter and their pleading voices waver more. My white knuckles chafe against stone. I lean my forehead against Morning Glory and close my eyes. The darkness is overwhelming at first. I breathe deeply once, twice. A swirling fit of lights ignites behind my eyes and I watch the patterns ascend in a spiral. They leave me again in black. I suddenly feel deep comfort in the darkness. I listen to my accelerating heartbeat and find amazement at its pace. Breathing. I understand for a brief moment that I will die, and it may be now. And it is completely out of my control.

I don't know how long I hang in my reverie.

When I open my eyes, the girls are looking at me again. They are talking to Rowan in a more relaxed tone. I can go down. I lower myself fifteen more feet and look across to see Rowan's smiling face hanging in space.

---

We pull into the lot as the sun slips down and out of sight. Erin and I read the description and stare up the wash. The route is unmistakable. A massive left facing dihedral on the edge of the buttress. There is nothing else around it. It stands firmly on the sun-shadow line, and we watch the shadow grow. The Heart of the Desert.

We are running and laughing our way up the wash. A wide sandstone bed acts as a trail in this part of the canyon and small curves and dips and bowls still hold water from the last rain. Cams and carabiners swing from my harness and clang and jangle against themselves. I look back and Erin smiles. We are out of breath, and we are walking.

The corner looms large above us and we ease our way up the fragile slopes to get to the base. Don't bust the crust, bonehead! I can't resist and run the last few steps. The Heart of the Desert.

We rack up and rope up. I huff a couple times and look toward Erin for moral support. She gives it. The sun has started to climb the wall at my side. I decide to climb with it.

The crack in the corner is perfect. It undulates and performs. Narrows and thickens. Grows sandy then firm. Takes blood. I sweat and I breathe. I balance and pull. Thrust and jam. Take rest. I smear and it smiles. I'm at the top.

The sun has left the corner and I don my hat as the cold creeps in. I settle into a comfortable stance and proceed to watch Erin climb with such grace and style as I have not yet seen. I admire her form silently. She moves fluidly up the crack, and I mentally contrast my brusque technique with her feminine strength. She comes to a difficult section and works and hangs for a while. I can see she is getting frustrated. Then a lightbulb. An "aha." She steps back into it, breathing steadily, moving rhythmically. She works through another hard part and is at the top.

We smile and kiss and go down. Walking out my heart is full. Erin makes fun of me for my ginger elf-stepping when I must cross the crust. I tell her it works. We walk down the wash holding hands.

The Heart of the Desert.

---

I stand naked.
She stands next to me.
My hand is around her waist and hers around mine.
The brisk air blows through us.
It cleanses, replaces our dust.
I kiss her moonlit shoulder.
She shares her radiance in return.
We have warmth though our teeth may chatter.
Sand covers our toes,
A patina, our skin.
We breathe the desert.
It chokes us with beauty.
I smile, she nods.
We walk together.

---

The Touch of the Desert Goddess

Goodbye Boulder

Boulder, Colorado. The formidable Flatirons. The bountiful beer. The insane fitness that seeps from the air of the place. The infinite sunshine. The beautiful people. The rock, the trails, the snow, the scene. The center of the universe. Boulder, my home.

The blue skies, red rock and soil, steep and forested mountain slopes, and expansive plains have been the backdrop of my life for the past six years. First as a geography student at the University of Colorado, stumbling through life trying to figure out my passions, my sports, my loves. Confusion and excitement, raging parties and all night school projects, backcountry skiing and avalanche education; just a glimpse of my life as a student.

I worked for CU's Outdoor Program, guiding and teaching and learning. Through the OP I met Hallie, my girlfriend of three and a half years. My first love, my climbing mentor, backcountry skiing partner, soul mate. We explored Boulder and Colorado together, grew together and challenged each other until our paths veered apart and sent us on new adventures, much stronger for what we shared.

After graduation I fell into a spectacular job as a research assistant on Niwot Ridge, forty-five minutes outside of Boulder, nestled against the Continental Divide. Skiing, hiking, hauling, and soaking up the beauty of the place occupied my last two and a half years. Alpine stream sampling, snow surveying, winter-time lake coring, and permafrost seeking with ground penetrating radar; just a taste of my tasks.

The people of Boulder have always kept me company and kept me interested. And entertained. So many spectacular people from all walks. Climbers, skiers, geographers, recyclers, partiers and barhoppers, musicians, scientists, beer brewers and beer drinkers, students and teachers, triathletes, hikers, gamers, meditators. I continue to meet exciting people with amazing things to offer even in my final days here.

Two months ago I met an incredible girl, Erin, who has shared so much with me in our short time together. We quickly discovered a special connection between us which has been growing stronger since. Our story continues...

Boulder has molded who I am. I have given to this place and it has given so much back. I have learned a tremendous amount about myself in my time here. Who I am and who I am not. What I am capable of giving. Where I am headed (at least a general direction). When to listen and when to speak. Why I react with conditioned responses. How to begin living a life of gratitude.

Several weeks ago I ran most of the Boulder skyline traverse, a trail run that summits the five major mountains that form the city's western skyline from its southern end to the nearly northern limits. Being in somewhat poor form that day (I blame it on spicy Italian sausage, pu'er tea, and sleep deprivation) I ran out of juice before climbing Mount Sanitas, the final peak of the traverse. Of course, I couldn't leave the skyline unfinished so I ran through the mists and rains this afternoon up the rocky trail to the summit in the clouds.

The views from the top of Sanitas are usually spectacularly clear and distant, crisp crystal blues touching down on deep evergreen slopes, and an eastern horizon so vast you can nearly see the curvature of the Earth. So it seemed appropriate today on my last run in Boulder that unusual and unique be reality, that the mountain be swathed in thick cloud. At the top, I could hear the sounds of the city below but see nothing. The easterly wind pulling livestock odors off the plains wafted up to my nose as the saturated air kissed my skin. Unseeing and unknowing, I felt comfort. I did not need to see or to know what was beyond, just out of view. I felt content with what I have at present, what I have experienced here.

My next step is a step into the fog. I do not know what awaits me in China, and yet a growing calm is settling on the summit of my mind. I cannot foresee what will happen in that land, I only know that I have a great amount to learn. And often times that wisdom comes when seeing and knowing is most difficult.

Thank you Boulder, for being my home. A home that has grown into me, into the man I have become. My legs are now stronger and my lungs fuller than when I arrived. My feet more nimble and my hands more deft. My smile still wide and my mind better trained. My red nose now perma-tanned. You will always be a comfy abode for me, a familiar hub on the journey of life. Until we once more share a finger-lock and an IPA, I bid you farewell. Stay weird.