Oscillating.

John and Shalena are out front, with Shalena pushing a pace that is as close as running without running I think I’ve seen. Kenny and Heather are in the back. Mama Bear is making sure they are coming along. And I’m oscillating between a suicide pace to keep the Taylors in sight and then stopping and waiting until the Lickers are also in sight attempting to keep the group somewhat together. Eventually, I just let the Taylors go. Regrouping at the top of a hill making sure everyone still had water and then moving toward the van.

The sun is starting to set casting long shadows from 50 Mile Bench. We are cruising through countless drainages dropping into the shadows and then climbing back up into the setting sun’s rays. This is one of the most beautiful places on earth and it’s even more so at sunset. Normally, the group would be stoked, taking pictures and oohing and aweing. Instead, there’s thousand-yard stares and questions about the logistics and info that was given. At this point, the only thing we can do is to keep walking.

The day started almost 11 hours ago on the other side of the reservoir.

We had awoke to a beautiful day and good spirits. A somewhat lazy morning led to us deciding to paddle 7ish miles to a canyon that would eventually be our exit. The glassy water and warm temps made for a pleasant day and we were all stoked as we turned out of the main channel and began making our way up a canyon most often visited and seen from above. As the walls closed in, our stoke continued to grow. Mama Bear even tried to get us to paddle more up another canyon, but knowing what I know about her, we put an end to that and instead transitioned from boat to foot.

Our original plan had been modified due to thunderstorms, so we were running on audibles. The first one was to paddle seven miles to get us to where we were supposed to have slept the night prior. In theory, this would give us a day, maybe a day and half to exit through the canyon and back to the van. After traversing a cottonwood cemetary, we made our way up canyon to the one spot I knew existed for camping. We dropped packs. I was ready for lunch and assumed we would be camping, but soon there was talk of beer in the van and that it wasn’t that far and it would be better to hike out than to wait around all day without beer in this canyon.

As soon as a van with beer was mentioned, I knew we were fucked. I tried to reason with the group, but the overall distance was unknown and my insisting that it was farther than they thought wasn’t even considered. Before I even had a chance to eat lunch, packs were reshouldered and we were on our way.

We’ll be drinking soon.

Are we taking ourselves too seriously?

A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way.

Death march – Wikipedia

There’s two equally important pieces of that definition to consider.

• 1. It’s forced. Physically compelled.
• 2. People die along the way.

I’ve never been forced to do anything.

I willingly and knowingly get myself into situations that will stretch my abilities or push me into what is considered uncomfortable. It’s kinda my mantra (see below). In the above example, I was stoked to drop into the desert and be off grid for a few days. I chose to follow the group consensus that hiking out to beer was more agreeable than staying in said canyon for another day. I chose this. There wasn’t anyone there forcing me along with a gun to the back of my head, nope, just myself and my dubious life decisions.

As Americans, we often act like we are compelled to do certain things. Sure, there’s a lot of societal pressure to live and act in certain ways, but in reality, there isn’t a hand on your back pushing, a barrel to the back of the head willing you forward, it’s all just in your head and how we have been conditioned to act. That conditioning can be incredibly difficult to mentally overcome, but it can be done. We can chose not to chase the things we are told are important, we can define how we want to live.

There’s a lot of ways to look at it, but we aren’t physically compelled.

Secondly, no one has ever died.

Can you imagine being on a journey and having someone die? Have you ever considered that contingency? I hadn’t either until, for some odd reason, camped at the top of Hole in the Rock, I went down that rabbit hole. There were thousands of people who perished along the way to moving west. There are countless stories of my Mormon ancestors burying babies, children, spouses along the way and then, they just kept walking.

For most of us, if that was even somewhat of an expectation we wouldn’t even start. Yet, history is full of expeditions that people volunteered for with a high chance of no one returning. It’s a crazy thought.

Add to that uncertainty being forced. Well, then you have a death march.

A bunch of goddammed busy bodies

From the water to that decisive spot was only a mile or so. Even though this canyon sees few human visitors, there was a faint trail we could follow that led us up canyon and through the endless troves of tamarisk and willows. That trail disappeared almost immediately as we headed farther up canyon. The flora overtook the canyon. We attempted to use the waterway as a type of trail and this worked somewhat. The only problem was the goddammed beavers.

Picture this, a narrow canyon made even narrower by the receding waters of Reservoir Powel which left 30-40-foot-high deposits of silt that have been cut through by the perennial stream trickling down. The space that is left is 50ish feet wide bordered on one side by that silt bank. The other side was usually the solid sandstone or another bank of silt. The narrow channel became our portal through. This channel was shared not only by the stream, but was filled from wall to wall with willows, tamarisks and cottonwoods. The which were often flooded with water. The stream was punctuated by beaver dams. Anywhere possible, the cute, furry little fuckers had gnawed their way through everything and pulled it into the way of the creek. Then spent god only knows how many hours patching the in between with mud slowing and backing up the creek. Some of these ponds were waist deep.

Did I mention this was the day after the summer solstice? It was hot. There were, at times, trails leading up the silt banks and out of the waterway. We attempted a few, lost John to one for a while, but they always seemed like more work than they were worth. Plus, there was the heat. It was much more pleasant to thrash through the bushes and splash around in beaver ponds than it was to leave the stream and climb up onto a bench with no shade cover and more importantly, no water.

Hours of bushwacking, getting incessantly slapped in the face by willows trying to push you the opposite direction, scratchy tamarisks pulling at your clothing and skin with the only relief being a plunge into a silty, mushy beaver pond with unknown depths whilst carrying 40ish pound pack. Forward motion was gained only by fist fighting nature and as fist fights go, even when you are winning, you still end up taking a pummeling, and it certainly didn’t feel like we were winning.

This endless wrestling match continued for as long as the water continued. As the stream lessened, turning itself into a trickle and then going underground manifesting itself only with intermittent pools, we were stoked as the bushes thinned and disappeared. The mode improved. There was talk of never returning to this canyon, it held nothing of allure. We stopped and filled our water reservoirs to their brim thinking we were close to the exit of the canyon and then a few easy miles to that beer we were supposed to have already been drinking.

What’s your benchmark?

Every expert, from Self-help Gurus, Life Coaches, Psychologists and even your New Age aunt, will tell you that the way you talk to yourself is a huge piece of mental health. People with positive self-talk are shown to be generally happier, suffer from less mental health issues and tend to also enjoy a much more positive outlook on life. If this is news to you, go ahead and do a quick internet search, it’s a pretty easy rabbit hole to fall down.

I wonder, given the apparent importance of how we talk to ourselves, if the appropriation of certain words within our lexicon holds any sway on our outlook.

Let’s start with Epic. It’s been lamented enough that it is cliche to consider, but the word epic has become synonymous with nothing. The word originates from Latin. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

epic (adj.)

1580s, “pertaining to or constituting a lengthy heroic poem,” via French épique or directly from Latin epicus, from Greek epikos, from epos “a word; a tale, story; promise, prophecy, proverb; poetry in heroic verse” (from PIE root *wekw- “to speak”).

Extended sense of “grand, heroic” is recorded in English by 1731. From 1706 as a noun in reference to an epic poem, “A long narrative told on a grand scale of time and place, featuring a larger-than-life protagonist and heroic actions” [Miller Williams, “Patterns of Poetry”]. Earlier as “an epic poet” (1630s).

epic | Etymology, origin and meaning of epic by etymonline

Yup, that time you referred to your road trip as “epic” you were telling everyone that you had written a lengthy poem. Probably not what you were thinking. Colloquially, the word is often used more in the essence of a comparison to the most famous “epic” or at least one of the earliest known epics, the works of Homer in the Odyssey and the Iliad. Both early works of literature that described the “epic” adventures of Odysseus. Seeing that I’m going to assume you didn’t write a couple hundred-page poem about your road trip, the word you were probably looking for was Homeric. The adjective used to compare a particular activity to the adventures described by Homer in his epics.

Let’s take a look at that use as well. Comparing your 5-day trip through the southwest to an epic, or even an Homeric adventure would still be grossly false. Odysseus was a bit more adventurous than you. His journey home took ten years which was proceeded by another ten years of war. So not only was your road trip grossly under the benchmark of what should be literarily considered epic, but the effort and timeframe also fall far short of any effort that could be considered Homeric.

More importantly, and back to my point, if you set your road trip as your “epic” what does that do for your life outlook? Are you unknowingly truncating your ability to do anything truly epic because you have already set your benchmark?

Following that logic, what of your last “death march?” Were you truly so close to the very end of your abilities that you were about to collapse and be left by dead as your friends were pushed on by gunpoint? Or were you just tired? If it’s the latter, and you were not about to die, what have you told yourself about your abilities? Will you be capable of pushing through the next “death march?” Or will you just pass because it’s too hard?

Where the hell is the van?

The vegetation stopped with the water. The sandstone walls began to close in and soon we were walking on a flat, gravelly path. It was a relief to no longer be pushing and pulling our way through the countless branches. We had made it through the crux, the van was just a couple of miles across the benches, we just had to get out of the canyon.

John had planned out this trip and provided us with a map. I assumed he stole the map from someone who had done what we had originally planned to attempt which would put us back on that map as we were finishing up the 2nd half. The line had been perfect up to this point. My assumption that the line was in fact a ground truthed way out of the canyon, insisted on following it. We entered the narrows walking past the actual exit. When the GPS line shot straight up a cliff, I figured I had missed something. We turned around and that’s when JT let me know that we were looking at the map from different perspectives. I probably should’ve asked.

Getting out of the canyon was anything but easy. We were loaded. We had been bushwacking for several hours which was proceeded by a several hour paddle. It was hot. Each one of us had a full paddling kit (boat, pfd, paddle), plus water, plus a full camping kit. The way we found out was a scramble. Straight up a steep ramp. Hands were needed in some spots to be able to keep our balance. Our tired legs were shaky. The burn was real and it didn’t feel like we were getting any gains.

We finally pop out. The view was gorgeous, but none of us were thinking about it. Our new perspective showed us truly how far we were from the van. By a straight line, it was a ways, but we didn’t have the pleasure of just walking toward it. Between us and that beer were hundreds of drainages and a couple of canyons. Our route would require us to continue up the sandstone to the base of 50 Mile Bench and then circumnavigate all the drainages at the top to make our way back to the car.

As these things go, nerves were starting to get raw and the group began to splinter. The Taylors were ready to be done and started pushing the pace. The Lickers were done, or at least close enough to it that moving any quicker wasn’t an option. Mama Bear and myself were caught in the middle. This is when I started oscillating between the leaders and the caboose.

Late afternoon crept into early evening. The shadows stretched out across the sandstone sea around us. We walked, regrouped. Walked. Regrouped. I tried to steal Heather’s boat. We walked. After what seemed like forever, but certainly wasn’t, we could see the van and there was only like six more drainages to get around. It slowly got closer and closer. We finally dropped off a sandstone bowl and walked up as the sun was dipping behind the horizon. The Taylors handed us beer and suddenly, it was perfect.

Was it a Death March?

We only did the hike out of our own stupidity. Group think, the desire for beer and a lack of good intel led us into an effort that took all day. We technically could have stopped thousands of times. There weren’t good camping spots, but we could have made them work. There was never anyone or anything compelling us forward against our will. Our will was working only against our own bodies telling us we were tired.

No one died. There was a little concern about water, but no one ran out as far as I remember and there certainly wasn’t anyone missing when we got back to the van. You could argue that there was some sea turtle action happening, but that kind of goes with the territory of these types of adventures. Sometimes, you just have to move at your own pace.

This particular hike happened in 2019. I even wrote about it and declared it a proper death march. Considering what I’ve laid out here, it wasn’t a death march. Hell, since then we’ve put down way bigger efforts, harder days, closer to danger, etc, etc. You could argue that this is evidence that this thought experiment is pointless as we didn’t stop doing hard things after declaring something a death march. Our benchmark didn’t stop us. We just kept raising the mark.

What we don’t know is how much the mark could have been raised if we didn’t set that benchmark. Would we have gone even bigger? I don’t know, but I’d love to find out.

Just don’t call it a death march.

Seek Discomfort. Embrace Chaos.