• AT HAND: Deuce Lee, RoBear, BBJam, Girafita, DobleM
• LOCATION: Jennie Lakes Wilderness, CA
• DATES: June 13-15, 2025
• STATS: 3 days/2 nights, 16.9 miles – 3,044 feet EG

We all talk too much, whether aloud or within our own internal, infernal monologues. Our brain is pretty much impossible to silence, and self-bias magnifies our joys and sufferings alike, largely outside of our control. Making reasonable sense of our default setting is both essential and impossible, a spiritual pursuit that eludes pretty much everyone, a source of dread and transcendence, violent resistance and placid acceptance all at once. We can only gaze at a wall for so long before a new episode of Rick & Morty drops.

Popular wisdom suggests that difficult things are worth doing, and that the extent to which one steps outside of their personal bubble of serenity correlates exponentially with the satisfaction a person feels upon completion of a challenging task. Pushing past the volitional limits that we set for ourselves creates new false maximums, which slowly morph into fresh goals and inspire the search for ways to supplant our previous achievements. I’d like to think that if this cycle continues to regenerate, persistent in the green noise of your psyche, waking you up early in the morning, snatching your leisure time away, responsible for (at least some of) your inattention at work, feeding the schemes that your prefrontal cortex refuses to let die, then you might actually be “living” life; patiently wall gazing and being solicitously leered at in return.

There’s a certain beautiful masochism in the way that we seek opportunities to test ourselves, and there is no more able sadist than mother nature to provide the setting for such pursuits. The whole point is to gain and retain the mindset that there is purpose in stepping beyond oneself, and that the rewards of doing so mean you get to see and experience things that can’t be accessed from a couch, or described in anything more than a cursory way. It’s the stucco dust and wet drywall sludge we need to dam our ever-flowing stream of consciousness into blissful, compliant speechlessness.

Of consequence: Road tripping with favorite allies; tall tall trees; shhteaks; it’s called fishing, not catching; lakefront property; teenage trail angst rearing its ugly head; Dad stoges.