Wyoming trip

I was thinking on the 2th day of the 4 day backpacking trip that was part of a two week hunting/camping adventure in some of the most rugged mountains of Wyoming. Why am I doing this? There were no trails, we were bush whacking cross country. Maneuvering around cliffs and trying to gingerly find a way to descend from the top of a granite peak as night was approaching and we needed to make camp. We found a flat spot and with flashlights made dinner. My feet blistered on the heals from climbing, blisters on the bottoms from side hilling, the tops of my toes blistered and toenails cutting into the other toes from going down hill. The boots were to small and the constant jamming into the front of the boot had bruised my big toe. I was in pain, so bad I questioned could I really make it back the 15 plus miles to base camp. I removed my shoes to inspect the damage, I took my knife out and began carving down my toenails, wishing Id cut them before we'd left. I had discovered Its really difficult to trim them with a pocket knife. They were jagged now, so I found a flat rock and used it as a file to groom them down smooth. With a sense of accomplishment that at least that problem was solved, with the wind howling around us, and visions of the deer, elk and big horn sheep we had seen,I fell asleep.On the 3rd day we boiled snow for water and pumped water from small pools in the rocks. We ran out of fuel to cook, which didn't really matter cause we were also out of food. But I wanted a fire so I found pitch from a tree that was scared and placed it and some dry tender into a empty baggy. We headed for lower country to make camp in the creek bottom of the next drainage. planning to ascend the next mountain. Hungry, hurting feet, shoulders aching from the weight of the backpack, cold and vulnerable to the changing elements mother nature was throwing at us, from warmth to thunder showers to snow. I wondered in that moment why am I here? why did I plan, organized and willingly leave the comforts of home to do this? Am I crazy? why do people choose to put themselves into hardship? What is the draw? Making camp that night, I found fish in the creek and went about making a trap, I damned up the creek, took the netted bag that held part of my tent, cut some willows and placed it strategically to catch the fish. I went up stream to scare the fish down into my trap as I beat the water trying to make them flee into my trap. I found out they would rather go up stream. After falling in a few times and no success, I decided to get Little more violent in my attempts, I fashioned a spear and went about trying to stab one, no luck! So I reverted to throwing big rocks at them in my frustration. I couldn't hit them. But it was a good release of anger. I decide the cave man approach wasn't working well I need to use my mind again.So then I started looking through my pack and found some rope, I unraveled it into thread, carved a hook out of some hard plastic, attached the rope to a wood stick. Took a few pieces of left over spaghetti noodle from the reminance of our last freeze dried meal and cast my line into the pool that held the hiding trout I just traumatized. On my 4th cast I hooked one! So proud and excited as I pulled him into shore but just as I was landing him, mouth watering as I could already see myself frying him over the open fire I'd built, he fell off. As I watched dinner swim away, my pride departed too.
I returned to the little camp we had made for the night and we boiled some water and made a soup from all the left over bags of freeze dried packages, from spaghetti to eggs, A concocted I deemed dinner, It seamed alittle sparse so I picked bitter brush and we shared the meager meal.That night we slept as rain soaked the tent and again I thought why am I doing this? Then I thought of all the other times in nature Id experienced. Hypothermia as a child, lost in the wilderness of north eastern Washington, snow up to my waist and dad building a fire to keep me alive, striping off my wet cloths and wrapping me into his snowmobile suit to bring my temperature back up. Why did he do it? Why does any man or women consciously put them self's into positions of hard ship or adversity? even near death experiences. Is it the challenge? We must enjoy for some reason to test our self's, I presumed. but for what? why? It doesn't make sense in this moment. Now sitting in the comfort of home writing this, for some odd reason I look back over the experience with some weird sense of accomplishment and pride of surviving. What is that about? A good friend I once sculpted his portrait who has sense passed on said to me "A man afraid to die is afraid to live." It was his motto and we carved it in the back of the bronze to be a lasting reminder to his family of the way he lived his life. But why does it take adversity to appreciate the little things? Running hot and cold water, electricity, a soft bed on and on? To be so cold, I am so appreciative of warmth. To be hungry, I'm so appreciative of food. To be vulnerable in the elements, I feel so appreciative for the safety of home. But the same is true in the opposite. To be content and safe, makes me appreciate adventure. I guess we need the contrast to relay appreciate any thing. We need dark to appreciate the suns light. We need cold to appreciate warmth. Isn't it amazing how the universe is set up that way. Its all a changing circle of contrast, from the seasons, to the days. Even the environment and landscape, from flat barren deserts to the lush mountains of the pacific rain forest. All a beautiful contrast, that allows such variety in our life's. I guess I realized we need adversity, challenges and contrast in our life to feel really alive. And if we arnt experiencing enough of it, we find the need to self induce it by competition, sports, the outdoors. My friend Roger said after fighting off cancer and surviving he now appreciates life so much more, even the pain he said is good, because pain is apart of being alive. It reminds him he still has seances. Some are pleasant and some not, but he'd rather have feeling than not. He did change his tune a little when he sat on a cactus! He said a real friend would pull them out! I told him he was going to have to suffer and feel it to its fullest!lol.
Seriously though,I guess we really do need the ups and downs of life. To really be alive, is to be able to feel it all. Pain and joy, sorrow and gladness, love and anger. That to the extent a person can feel the depths of sorrow is the heights we can feel joy and is the measure of being fully alive. Those that live in mediocrity really have limited there capacity to experience the fullness of life. Well all the philosophy bull aside, My feet still hurt!