Wild Times

I came to the mountains alone.

I’ve spent the last two days camping way off-trail in the national forest near Telluride. It’s an annual ritual where I seek isolation, mountain vistas, starry skies, and a physical challenge. Carrying a 40-pound pack and 10 pounds of extra fat makes every foot of elevation gain a heart-pounding challenge. Exhaustion is a strategy when sleeping on the ground.

I can see Lizard Head through my tent flap, but my imagination is not as good as whoever named that spire. The enormity of the surrounding wilderness can make you forget how precious, and how vulnerable, it is. Places this big seem indestructible. They aren’t. The public lands in the western US are a resource for all of us. I just strapped on my pack and started walking. No gate. No ticket. No permission. That’s freedom.

Thanks to my peripatetic mother, I have camped all over the country and learned to love the wilderness. Big Bend is one of my favorite spots. I’ve hiked, climbed, camped, watched sunsets, drank wine, stargazed, and adventured on both sides of the border.

Late one night, after drinking in a bar in Boquillas, I got a couple of six-packs to go and paid a stranger to drive three of us a few miles upriver to a secret hot spring. It never occurred to me that he might not return to pick us up. He did. I don’t recall recrossing the border.

In 2019, I spent a memorable couple of nights deep inside Santa Elena Canyon with a great group of friends on a canoe trip. A spider bite knocked me unconscious, and the more thoughtful members of the group would periodically leave the cool water of the river to move me into the shade as the sun crossed over the narrow canyon walls.

Those memories are part of why what is happening in Big Bend makes me so angry. If you have ever stood in that country, it is almost impossible to comprehend the idea of bulldozing it to build a border wall. The land is desolate and inhospitable for hundreds of miles on both sides of the river. This sector represents roughly a quarter of our southern border but a tiny fraction of illegal crossings – about one in every 2,225. You are more likely to die in the desert than to cross here successfully.

The turbocharged stupidity of this administration is spending billions to bulldoze a natural wonder to solve a problem that does not exist. Maybe it is ideology. Maybe incompetence. Maybe somebody is making a great deal of money. Whatever the explanation, they are permanently damaging something that belongs to all of us. I am not interested in debates about what type of barrier they are building. The bulldozers tell me all I need to know. Don’t mess with Texas.

Someday, I hope we follow the contracts, follow the money, hold people accountable, and tear the damn thing down. The people behind this travesty belong in prison. Our elected officials in Texas have betrayed us once again. This doesn’t happen without Greg Abbott.

Camp coffee tastes better. The mug warms my fingers as the first light reaches the mountains. It is a good thing there is no cell service up here. For another few hours, at least, the wilderness gets the last word. I hate this administration with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Fortunately, one of them is rising now.

"Keep close to Nature’s heart and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean." - John Muir