Wild is as Wild does

A favorite perch
Originally uploaded by On the Edge.

I sat here just about a year ago for some indeterminable time. It takes a couple of days to decompress in land like this. The tendency upon arriving is to set the clock, have a plan, schedule your activities. About the third day you fully comprehend the timelessness of the place and you begin to pare down to the essentials. Layered clothes, good socks (wool, no cotton), even better boots, a hat, preferably one that you look really good in, sunglasses (don't scrimp here) a camera, a map and compass, a knife, a rope, and most important of all......water, lots of it.

The only relevance of time at this point is sun up and sun down. Or you can hang in the National and State Parks where it's much more civilized and convenient, and these places do have some wonderful scenery to offer, but it's managed wilderness, they have rules, there is very little risk because they feel a need to protect you. But you can get hamburgers and ice cream and cold drinks and you can drive to all the good parts. It's a good place to start, to get the feel, but then personally I get the itch to have an unprotected experience. Wilderness without the condom. Where the wild things rule, no rules, but a natural order unparalleled by anything mankind will ever devise. Where lunch is dried fruit and beef jerky and trail mix for desert and the water gets warmer but tastes sweeter as the day progresses. Where the steps you take, the scrambles and the wading and the clambering about become your self determined unmapped path.

And if you're lucky you'll get this overwhelming feeling of being lost in something far beyond your comprehension, something immensely fantastic and more complex than will ever be explained on a Sunday morning or in a mosque or a temple.

Wild doesn't work for you there's always Disney World.