[Day 5] Green Desert

Where does the mind go during a day’s trek? It depends on the day. Some days, my thought is focused, tight, and methodical. Other days, it’s jumpy and lost. However it may be and however I may feel, there remains one constant that guides the direction of the mind: the movement through this modifying natural landscape.

I think about my family. There is a mom, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, and many doggies that I miss and love very much.

I think about friends. I keep my circle small, but my companions are remarkable characters; I wonder what they are up to.

I reflect and reevaluate decisions, relationships, and events in life. I do this not out of regret, but to understand the past, so that I may better the future.

I often find my mind exploring cross overs between the sciences and philosophy. I hope to find motives to create better solutions and tools to provide the world.

Today, in particular, I was analyzing elements of my surroundings as mass-spring-damper systems and pondering on calculus’ miraculous ability to describe natural phenomena. The other day, I was thinking about perception: how our eyes, ears, noise, and mouth are all sensors, providing feedback from energy fields that we ultimately perceive and interpret as our surroundings.

The individual mind is a miraculous tool when you give it the proper mechanism to analyze without the clout of society and the noise of other’s opinions and judgements. This is not to demean the art of collaboration. Nothing in our world was built by a single man. But, a purified mind with direction that is careless to a world’s standards or expectations provides freedom to make a person indispensable to themselves and unequivocally insightful. Effort and intention is required to drown the distractions of modern existence. I’ve found long-distance hiking to be a prime method for focus.

I deeply enjoyed the hike today. I left Lordsburg around 8am after breakfast. A 3-mile highway walk to trail led through the northern part of town, where I came across an abandoned market and video cassette store.

The trail split from the highway under a barbed wire fence and navigated openness towards the Big Burro Mountains. The desert north of Lordsburg was gorgeous and green.

After about 12 miles of desert, the trail climbed about 3000 feet along a dirt road into the mountains where junipers and pines dot the landscape. The transition is reminiscent of the change from the Palm Desert to Big Bear along the PCT.

Along the route, there were many remains of old mining operations. I’m always tempted to enter the mineshafts, but I’ll save such adventures for when I am not on a country-long hike.

To end the day, trail followed the best single-track yet through a rolling landscape in junipers and above-head scrubs. I felt like hiking another 10 miles today, but I controlled myself. Colorado has much snow melt to come before it’s reasonable to enter. I intend to build up gradually to avoid injury.

It’s another night of cowboy camping. As with the past nights, the dusk howling of the coyotes transitions elegantly to a quiet night under the stars.

I forgot to note that I sent ahead my colder weather gear — namely down jacket, gloves, and warmer socks — to Grants, New Mexico. Temperatures are maybe a couple degrees below freezing in the early morning — not nearly cold enough to warrant a need for now.

Signing off,

Zeppelin