We shared a picnic table in Canyonlands National Park this week with a young couple from Arkansas and their two adorable daughters.  The youngest one arrived first to join us at the table, holding a stuffed animal that she told us was a mountain lion, with “eyes the same color as me and my mom.”   As we chatted, this brown-eyed sprite told us that she had just “finally” turned five.  And that became relevant as we had what seems to be the standard conversation among visitors in the Utah “Mighty Five” National Parks region:  which epic hikes have you done?  This family, like us, had been at Arches NP the day before, but unlike us, they had done the Fiery Furnace hike.  That’s the one that requires being on a ranger-led group, or getting a permit to hike it, including verifying that you have survival and orienteering skills.  Only 90 people per day are allowed into that area, which is described as remote, rugged, and essentially trailless.  The little girl of the family was “finally” able to do the hike, because they don’t allow anyone under 5.  

We are realizing that we are among the least adventurous of a segment of the American population that loves the outdoors, especially those who seek out the remote, rugged, and trailless wilderness.  I will just say that as we drove by the entrance to Fiery Furnace, we wondered aloud who exactly are these people who choose to do such a punishing experience?  Turns out, at least one of them is a brown-eyed five-year-old from Arkansas.  

This year as we have visited so many national and state parks, I have been noticing that although they are at times busy, even maybe crowded, I have not minded sharing these places with lots of other people.  In fact, I find it encouraging that so many are choosing to go to these remote, wild, and challenging places.  If about half of American adults say they have visited at least one National Park in their lifetimes, then that gives me hope for our country.  Obviously, being in the natural world makes us healthy, more attuned to the earth’s beauty and rhythms, and probably kinder as well.  So I am not too worried about standing elbow to elbow with people gazing over the rim of Bryce Canyon at sunset, because nothing but good accrues for all of us from this.  

But I have been having a bit of an identity crisis because, dang, most of those people strike me as such bold adventurers, especially this year as I am noticing the increasing declines in my own physical and mental comfort zones.  Not to go all confessional on you, but I have a few tiny little fears and ailments that make my wilderness experiences of late seem like one “oh dear I don’t know if I can do THAT” after another.  In Yosemite, for example, we were walking up a steep but well-traveled path to a waterfall that everyone said is a “must do.”  About halfway up, my knee was hurting and my anxiety about trudging up a sheer cliff was kicking in, when I just stopped and told Joey that I didn’t feel the need to tackle this particular personal challenge, and I sent him on up while I toddled back down.  When he found me later at the bottom of the path, he said I probably had made the right decision, as the path had gotten even more steep and the drop-offs more extreme, plus there had been a rattlesnake a little way up the path from where I turned around.  

I have a deep anxiety about heights, but I really HATE snakes.  Outside of Palm Springs in a canyon preserve, the gatehouse attendant told us to be especially vigilant because it was “snake season,” which put me on edge and when we got to the trailhead, we saw a sign that said “Extreme Danger: Rattlesnake Habitat.” You won’t believe me when I tell you this, but I almost never bail on a planned outdoor activity, but here too I opted to sit the hike out.  Joey came back 15 minutes later, having gone ¼ mile and seeing four of the little devils.  (We have since added two more sightings, both of which I was there for.  The West is apparently chockablock with those nasty serpents.)

I also am not a fan of enclosed spaces, but I won’t get into that, nor how my joints seem suddenly to all be arthritic and painful at the same time, and how my back sometimes just spasms for no reason, all of which I now have to take into account when choosing outdoor activities.  Among the adventurers old and young coursing by us at the places we have visited, I just have felt so timid and anxiety-ridden by comparison.  I almost asked a ranger at a visitor center for advice on which hikes they recommended for someone who is acrophobic, claustrophobic, doesn’t thrive on adrenaline rushes, and whose knees are creaky, but I just couldn’t do it.  Besides, they likely would have pointed me to a bench in the shade next to the ice cream cart.  I already know that their idea of a nice, moderate afternoon walk can feel more like an obstacle course for me.  

Let me give a few examples of people we have seen having what seem to me to be daring and brave adventures, all the while acting as if it was just a lark.  Outside of Moab on Memorial Day weekend, we saw groups rafting and kayaking on the Colorado River, rock climbing the sheer gorge cliffs, biking a loop road from canyon bottom through backcountry mountain wilderness and emerging grinning on the last big downhill onto the main road (where we were, by contrast, sitting comfortably in our car).  Rough campsites with families having dinner on a picnic table overlooking a vast and deep canyon, Jeep rentals for off-roading through deep wilderness, and of course, hikes into, around, under, and through every sort of rock formation, waterfall, crevice, cliff, or canyon you can imagine, are all just part of the scenery.  

On the Yosemite walk where I turned around, a woman with a walker came down the path while I was waiting for Joey.  Parents carry tiny babies into the wild, and elderly couples take off into the unknown with walking sticks and big smiles.  I didn’t witness this one, but I read about a six-year-old who turned seven while doing a five-day climb of the face of El Capitan at Yosemite, making him the youngest ever to do so.  (His big brother had previously held the record, doing the climb at 8.)  It starts to feel like everyone but me is an adventure badass.  

But even if I don’t go to the parks for adventure, I do go for something very important: experience.  I have seen photos of these places, but that is not experience.  Experience is putting myself and my five senses right in a space of extraordinary beauty or geologic story-telling or essential timelessness, with no filter and most of the time no cell service.  We all know that reproductions, digital or otherwise, are no match for IRL.  I am also keenly aware that the chance to visit so many of America’s open spaces is a luxury and a privilege.  But even if we can’t get to so-called bucket-list places, we have opportunities literally in our backyards.  It seems clear to me that experience produces connection, and connection is next door to love.  If we can place ourselves in places that matter, whether because they are beautiful or historical or natural or unusual, we begin an association that matters.  I may not zipline, whitewater raft, or backcountry hike through America’s open spaces, but I am becoming good friends with them anyway.   

Note: We will be posting next week some photos and comments with more specific info about our time in the Utah parks.