“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” - John Muir -
These words, written over one hundred years ago, epitomize my mentality and the mentality of my fellow wilderness wanderers. Inspired writing and prophetic thought, marked by continued relevance. We go to the woods to remind ourselves that the works of humanity, no matter how beautiful and awe-inspiring, do not comprise the entirety of existence. Neither is the world roses; it proffers a cold indifference. The oft forgotten natural world, with all inherent struggle, violence, and grandeur allows immersion in a system which does not care if we are the apex species, or the commonest of rodent. Pikas and mocking jays have outsmarted many a supposedly intelligent backpacker, grabbing unwatched and unguarded granola and crackers laid out during a quick lunch break; black and grizzly bears have outsmarted the most cunningly devised methods of protecting food and camp from their culinary sampling. They brush aside our tricks and rational though; their concern is one motivated by survival.
Likewise, the elements care not for humanity. The winds, fires, snows, and earth existed long before humankind, in perfect, albeit sometimes violent, contentment, and shall exist long after the bones of the last of our kind return to earth. Wind blows, regardless of our standing in its path, as fire burns, the constructs and moral valuations of humanity only adding fuel to its course, until stymied by another natural force.
JFL