The Snowboarder's Journal - frequency 16.1
A Step and a Prayer
Words: Colin Wiseman 2018-09-17 18:18:00
JEFF ARRIVED AT SUNSET
“Sorry for walking through your camp,” he said with a nervous laugh.
We invited him to sit down and enjoy the last rays of light in this field, under this towering spruce, on the fringe of Washington state’s Olympic National Park.
Jeff looked like he was in his late 50s or early 60s and traveled with a noticeable limp. He touched his mala bead necklace. Marie looked up from carving a stick and said she liked it.
“My yoga teacher gave it to me,” Jeff said. “There are 108 beads. I touch each one, repeat my mantra, and meditate as I walk.”
He’d already walked 10 miles that day from Highway 101. He’d boarded a bus in Seattle, then the ferry, then another bus before he began hiking. Weighted down with a well-worn rucksack, he was en route to a week in the wilderness, alone. We were also on the first day of a week-long journey, but our packs looked decidedly different: splitboards, crampons, ice axes, rope. We wore colorful technical layers. Jeff wore a combination of earth tones. Even his mala was brown.
For 20 minutes, Jeff told us humble stories of long walks in the Olympics. He’d done a portion of our intended route decades ago and tried to explain some of the more difficult sections of the journey. Due to his current physical condition, he explained, he was planning to stay at lower elevations. He’d enter a world of old growth where the bear and elk population greatly outnumbers the humans. We’d climb high and explore the alpine.
The sun left our camp and Jeff stood to find his own place to rest. He’d be the last person we spoke to for a week in this world of natural rhythm. I’m guessing it’d be the same for him.
Jeff said goodbye and set off with his right hand reaching for his mala. I began to count his steps, as I would my own—a study in meditative movement through the mountains.
PHOTO CAPTION Kael Martin and Marie-France Roy, five days into a long walk across Washington state’s Olympic Mountains. Photo: Colin Wiseman
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A Step and a Prayer
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