Gone camping

In the first years of our relationship, my husband and I went camping several times, and these were ambitious, multi-day, backpacking-style trips. We were bold. We were excited to traverse difficult terrains, to boil wild rice for forty-five minutes in the rain unsure whether it would ever finish cooking, to brave the mosquitoes and ticks and the sleeping on hard ground. Gradually, we have become less ambitious. We did a one-night trip car camping soon before we moved. We hauled all of our camping equipment to Norway four years ago, and we have not used it once.

*Arrival at the campsite. Cloud and rain made our trip out grim. I did not want to sleep in the wet and cold. I felt like Norway had come with us. Fortunately, the next two days were brilliant sun.*

My parents-in-law are impressive campers. It’s inspiring. Every year, they set out on several trips in their small RV, packed with care against all eventualities, to New Mexico and Colorado and in the nearer mountains to the west of Billings. Taren and I drove with them early this week out to Woodbine Campground, at the edge of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. My parents-in-law had their camper; Taren and I were in a tent.

Twice during these last four years, we have accompanied the first-year students at our school on their annual Friluftsveka (“free air week”), cross-country skiing in the mountains a few hours north of the school. Those beautiful, cold weeks each included a night of sleeping out, in sleeping bags under an open-walled gapahuk. I have come to dread that night in the cold, and when I have contemplated camping more recently, that cold night in the gapahuk has been the only thing to come to mind. I was eager to visit the wilderness, but I dreaded not being able to sleep.

We hiked up the gorge of the raging Stillwater River (I, the outsider, was overly amused by the irony of this name). The rocks of the gorge sprouted so many tiny brilliances, like these flowers, growing angled out towards the light. Behind them, the shadow of the rock wall contrasts with their sunlit color.

*Here I am, hiking up along the Stillwater.*

As it turned out, I loved the camping. I remembered why I enjoyed it. I loved waking in the tent to the sound of birds, to the immediacy of watching the sun slide down the face of the mountain. Nature was so present when I had no choice but to be in it. In Norway, although we live in a very natural area, it is less present to us because we have the comfort of a shower and inside and full kitchen.

The flowers in the mountains had so much life to them. Their colors were so vivid, and perhaps it was the way the wind had whipped and ripped them, but they seemed all the more alive and gregarious for their damaged petals.

This two-night trip was practice: relatively cushy camping. In a few weeks’ time, my dad, my father-in-law, Taren, and I will embark on a five-day canoe trip in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. We’ll be paddling and portaging, trucking in everything we will need for the five days in our boats, and hauling it all back out again.

*This was the highest point we reached, looking onward towards where the Stillwater widens down below. This terrain was all so similar to Norway in a way, but its dryness and heat were alien.*

I want to be more ambitious again. I don’t want to become too comfortable in the comforts of my modern privilege. Maybe I should try that sleeping outside in the cold again, see what else it might open me up to. Of course I say that now, sitting in an easy chair in my parents-in-laws’ living room, sipping tea, showered and dry and well-rested. We’ll see how I feel after five days of canoeing.

*The view from our campsite, early evening.*

We have a few days left here before we journey onward to Wisconsin. I have been finding good time for writing, but also much for knitting. As I knit, I am listening to the audiobook of The Second Sex. I’m a bit more than halfway through now, and I am reading before bedtime A Sand County Almanac.

I’ve also started The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which I’ll be working with students on next year. I’m inheriting a second-year class that has read it; I’ll be responsible for that, for 1984, which I have read, and for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which I haven’t, so that will be another good reading project. That will all be good.

With love,
Jimmy