Day Twenty Three, near Meeker Park, CO: The boring moments

I’m typing this up on Sunday night – I’m back to writing in real-time again.

It’s some time past 10pm, and I’m sitting in front of my fire. There is a calm breeze that directs the smoke away from me and off to my left, but is light enough that the fire still keeps me warm. My tent is off to my right. The last people I saw were riding on horseback perhaps three miles down the rocky dirt road I drove up in. Directly above me are all the stars I have ever seen and many I’ve never been able to. The only sound I hear is the occasional popping of the fire and rustling of tree leaves. This accompanied by less frequent, intermittent sounds of wildlife; some birds, and some small unidentified animals as well.

I am unsure exactly where I am. Rather, I am unsure of where to call that place.  The unpaved road I came in on is not on the GPS road map. I am at least 20 minutes and five miles off the paved road. According to my GPS, I am at about 8,500 feet, my third straight night above 7,600, and tenth above 5,500. And, also for the third straight night, I camp in a place with no cell phone coverage. I am no longer disturbed by this; the only inconvenience is that these posts are not transmitted through the ether – I must find a reliable signal in order to send them in.

Having explained the night, let me go back to the day.

I got a relatively late start, leaving my last campsite at nearly 11am. I headed into town, where my first order of business was to pick up a few things at Safeway, (think Kroger with higher prices). Next is the Laundromat for a shower, (which, around here, appears to be a normal practice, at least for transients such as myself). I head to a local fruit smoothie shop, (naturally, every town of 5,000 should have at least one,) for a delicious and even reasonably priced ham sandwich. Pretzel included. Fortunately all of these stores were located in the same shopping center. By now it was about 1.30pm.

By this time, the weather – which had been steadily worsening throughout the day – had turned to rain. I headed to the library to type up Saturday’s post and check on the world.

I realize that, like a TV show, I sometimes only include the important events of the day or the momentous decisions that ultimately cause those outcomes. But the last three days especially have been far more than a series of dramatic plot twists. Most of the day Saturday was spent reading on a lake. In fact, almost 8 hours were cramped into a few short sentences. I am alone, and thus I can spend my days as I please. It is the otherwise boring moments – those that, at home, beg for action or explanation – that provide me the most pleasure, and are often impossible to transcribe through a keyboard. Or, they are just boring to read about it if you aren’t there yourself. Perhaps I simply need a vacation. I do not think one could continue like this forever. But for now, when I run out of things to do, I can simply move on to the next town. Such was the fate of Estes Park, and thus Rocky Mountain National Park was my next destination.

I make my way to Rocky Mountain National Park – my original goal on Friday night – to decide where I will stay next. By the time I find myself in the Backcountry office, it is nearly 7.00pm. The ranger tells me that I can stay in the park for a $20 entrance fee, and for an additional $20, I can camp 1.2 miles from my car. At an earlier point in the day, this would not be a problem. But now, it would be nearly dark by the time I got to my campsite.

Ranger Dale offered a ready alternative. If I took highway 7 south some number of miles, I would see a sign indicating Forest Access. Drive past the private property and you’ll find yourself a good spot. I do, however, intend to return to the park on Monday. I just cannot justify paying for a campsite with one so close by for free. The backcountry permit at a National Park is fine if you are going backpacking. But if you are backpacking simply to get to your designated campsite, it is a little odd. All I need is a place to spend the night. To pay for the privilege to haul everything there on foot seems strange. If National Forests did not offer the same – or even more – solitude as a National Park, the decision wouldn’t be as easy.

Car camping, I have come to see, is what you make of it. The only difference between car camping and backpacking-camping is that you are hauling your gear through the woods. Some people choose, as their gear, items that are grotesquely out of place in the wilderness. For them, car camping is a way to get halfway there. My gear is substantial because I am camping out for days at a time, but it is backpacking gear.For me, the only difference between a site I drive to and one I walk to is how I got there.

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about National Forests yet. They are a good deal, a “land of many uses,” in Dale’s words. National Forests have almost no rules and no restrictions. They are, essentially, minimally managed public use lands; this country’s best kept secret. Imagine a campground where you are the only camper, there are no fees, and you can pitch your tent wherever it will fit. The one catch is that they are extremely hard to find. In my experience so far, the best way to find access points – essentially dirt roads through the woods – is to ask around or hope you chance upon them.

I arrive at my new campsite around 8.30pm after a short drive from the RMNP gate. Being a forest, wood is plentiful, (one of the few NF regulations are that only dead and fallen wood may be used for firewood.) The fire comes easily. The tent is effortlessly pitched in the almost non-existent wind.  With the fire burning and a short stack of wood sawed by hand just to my right, I sit down to try to put the feeling into words.

These are big words for a starry night spent alone by a fire in a forest, and I’m not sure they fit. Their simple meaning alone makes it all sound far more substantial than it is, but it is that very lack of substance that makes it so outstanding.

As I send out this post, it is Monday morning, and I’m at the Visitor’s Center at RMNP.

I have a bunch of good pictures to include here, but I don’t have the time to process and edit them. So look for them in the next couple days at http://picasaweb.google.com/reidksmith.