Thunderstorms and lightning create a vivid sense of smallness and fragility while I shelter in my tent in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. The following day presents loose scree and talus as I navigate alongside a weary friend toward a lakeshore lunch. I share past anxieties to empathize and offer perspective. An intended off-trail route proves too difficult, so we switch to well-marked trails where her anxiety eases and she can relax and enjoy backpacking again. Mountains provide lessons about strength, vulnerability, and the need for alignment between people and terrain for successful adventures.
Thunder booms and rumbles across the mountains. Another flash and another drumroll echoes away. Huddled in my tent in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, I cover my eyes, for it seems less scary without the brilliant flashes of lightning. I think of the animals curled up underneath the trees as the rain pours down. I feel as minute as a grain of sand but as fragile as a snowflake under the stormy sky.
The more I recount these sinister feelings, the more I realize just how much I have learned from the mountains. Sometimes they teach you just how strong you are, and sometimes they teach you how strong you aren't. There is a certain synchronicity that I believe has to exist between a person and a place for an adventure to be successful. And sometimes nothing seems in sync.
When my friend and I eventually bail from our intended mostly off-trail route onto some well-marked trails, I feel the synchronicity appear between the terrain and my friends' ability. Rather than being scared and anxious, she is able to relax and enjoy where we were at and also still be out backpacking, which she hasn't done in a while. We also get to see some places that we might not otherwise visit.
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