It has been a good winter. I have stayed active to a healthy degree and even made it out trout fishing a few times in the new year. But, winter being what it is, I have spent a considerable amount of time in my living room the past few months, usually accompanied by a pot of French press, my dog Bleu snoring at my side, and some reading or fly tying materials. I have enjoyed it, and in some ways considered the simplicity and calmness of winter oddly essential. I guess you could say that restless feeling that creeps into many people's thoughts during a Midwestern cold snap has yet to hit me, and for that I am grateful.
Much of my time spent at home lounging in my long johns and wool socks has been fed by excitement for the spring and by a near constant daydream of road trips and new scenery. So, naturally, the things I read and write and listen to have generally reflected that.
There is a particular trip that my brother Travis and I have planned this spring that has me feeling pretty invigorated. All we know so far is that it will entail backpacking for a week straight somewhere in the Southern U.S. (maybe Arkansas? Tennessee?) and I must say that this sort of trip is overdue for my brother and I. Last April, while I was laboring over college courses that I would eventually end up failing, Trav was picking wild leeks and cooking them over an open fire while backpacking solo along the North Country Trail, a two-week long trip that took him across Northern Wisconsin and into the heart of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In total, his trip spanned 14 days and about 220 miles.
Since his year-long hiatus from school, during which Trav lived in Bozeman, Montana for ten months, car-camped for a period of time in Utah, and spent a summer growing veggies/foraging mushrooms with our dad, he has re-enrolled in classes at Northern Michigan University to major in woodworking. This winter, while visiting me in Eau Claire, Trav shared with me an excerpt from a paper he had written for an english class. I found it to be a beautiful piece of writing and it has been deservedly added to the list of literary inspirations I have compiled for myself over these winter months. Here is the excerpt:
A shudder wakes me from a frozen dream. As I shake the sleep from my tired eyes, I am met by the sullen glow of dawn as it patiently works to melt a whole through the layer of frost covering the fly of my tent. It is a struggle, but after much coaxing I force myself from the safety of my sleeping bag and step into the morning. Outside the forest still slumbers under a blanket of sparkling ice. The vulnerability of my situation hits me and it is a race to gather wood and get a fire lit before fingers are deemed too useless and stiffened by cold to strike a match. Coffee is my only motivator this morning and a warm mug of brew is a near heavenly reward after half an hour of waiting for the water to boil over open flame.
There is little thought as I tear camp and fit each item into it’s own place on the pack. This process has become routine the past week and a half, smooth and rhythmic as breathing itself. As I shoulder my home and step onto the overgrown trail, the sun crests the ridge ahead and a spear of light pierces through a gap in the pines. As it alights upon my face a shiver of warmth comes over me and quickens my pace, each step falling with a newfound confidence. There is no goal in mind, no point down the trail that must be reached. Today I will follow the sun on its journey across the sky, and tomorrow will be the same. One day soon I will come to a road and this trail will end. But I can be sure as the sun that another will meet me and together we will go for a walk in the woods.
-Travis Thier
Needless to say, I am excited to share the trail with my little brother. It will be a different experience than his last trip or than any that either of us have ever gone on before or ever will embark on in the future. And to me, it is that endlessness inherent in every adventure that makes it so deeply personal and valuable to the soul.
