Back in the Germ

 Hey all, I'm back home. I really needed to come home. It's been a week, and feels like healing.

There are a number of things that happened that I didn't talk about. I often felt so, so tired. Once, I did something really dangerous just to save me from a draining and tedious hour going up and down over dead trees and snowdrifts along a lakeshore in the San Juans. The lake was partially frozen.

I decided to walk across the frozen part of the lake.

The whole time, stomping and sliding down steep snow to the edge of the great ice floe, I was saying "what are you doing? This could be bad." However, another part of me was grimly determined to save energy for what I knew would be a tough afternoon dropping into and climbing out of several valleys. This part was silent, answering only with marching legs and a set brow.

I stepped onto the ice. Crunch. Crunch. No one was around anywhere. If I broke through, I guessed it would be like the many movies I'd seen where someone falls in. Thrashing, sputtering, and hopefully, dragging myself back onto firm ice. Despite these movies playing in my imagination, I kept going. I was stubbornly unwilling to accept the workload that was the price of the safe route.

Then it happened - crunc--collapse!

But I wasn't in the water, only my shoes filled with cold liquid. I had fallen through a top layer of ice to another one, partially submerged in the lake. I was about 20 feet from the shore.

I took more steps, each time crunching through to the lower layer. They say you can get used to anything, and so it was for me. I considered myself still ahead, because every foot closer to the opposite shore of the lake represented a tremendous work savings. I reasoned that if this second shelf of ice failed, I could back up, or make for the nearest shore, which I kept within 50 feet.

I was glad no one was there to see me. I would have been ashamed to be seen doing something so crazy.

Finally, I reached my goal, and stepped with relief onto snowy ground. I marveled at my tracks across the ice, with blue water shining not far away in the sun.

This was not a rational decision, and signaled that I felt overmastered by conditions. I was gambling...taking "short cuts" that might end in disaster. Not the actions of a master in the backcountry.

Sometimes I go along, driven by a will that forgets to ask if anyone is having fun. Moving away from the lake, I was alternately bemused and horrified at the lake crossing. It must be that I already wanted to go home, but, the super-ego, regarding such a wish as pathetic, had shut up all opposition to his plan. And so, it was a kind of message from a submerged (like the lake) part of me. A "cry for help."

I did say I'd never do something like that again. But wasn't ready to let in more than that. Soon I was climbing and then descending 2000 feet of icy snow to a gorgeous, remote valley. There were other people here. I didn't talk about the morning.