There’s nothing like the stinging massage of hailstones snapping like little whips against every part of your body as the lake before you boils and the rocks around you pop with exploding ice. By chopping trees into tidy little two inch by four inch boards and using them to build walls around ourselves, we’ve created the illusion that nature is some tiny, distant, insignificant story we hear about by watching it through our digital flat screen windows. It seems very much under control. That illusion was literally shattered a while back when hail broke through all of our west facing windows and sent us scrambling for shelter. Standing up at 12,000 feet among the trees, as untamed as when they were born, complex and beautiful, leaning and sprawling and twisting and reaching and in no way trying to protect me, I was unshielded from reality. I was a tiny human tossed and spit on, warmed and slapped by massive forces continually in motion and of which I was but an insignificant part. There are no waivers in nature. There are no courts. If I chose to be in the wrong place at the wrong moment, lighting would strike me because that’s what lightning does. Life: You voluntarily assume all risk of property loss, serious injury or death by attending.

Having to make my own decisions about living and survival is both daunting and liberating. Standing out in a hailstorm to feel the strength of the forces of which I am a part is always an exhilarating, tangible way to experience that. Ori Sofer and I trekked up into the mountains for a few days to find that experience or, to be fair, that’s what I planned to do, and I brought Ori along for the ride. I think I just told him it was beautiful up there.

There’s no question that we have an inherent human survival-based drive to be close to flowing water and greenery. Ever since I was a kid being dragged into the Colorado Rockies for the first time I felt that connection deep in my chest every time I took a breath. Later I learned about my affection for the stripped-down ecosystem at higher altitudes. There’s something about the relative simplicity of the perfectly clear lake water, snow, and tiny dwindling trees. There are only a handful of mammals including, my favorite, the Marmot. The flowers are tiny and bright and the huge stretches of exposed rock are often covered with colorful lichen. The granite up there feels just right under bare feet in a way that asphalt and pavement never have despite my love of cities. Maybe it’s the wind-smoothed surface as I playfully work over it with my toes or meet its curves with the arch of my foot. Sometimes cool from a chilly night, other times hot from the sun’s touch, always feeling right.

Ori was having some trouble with the altitude and so instead of making the steep climb to the nearby pass, we had time to play around the lakefront. I had brought along my new favorite survival knife, the Falkniven F1, and was excited about trying out my fire making skills. These is a spectrum from, “pour gas on it and use a lighter” to, “you are naked in the woods and have only a rock and a tree”. I’ve been working my way from one end to the other, and currently use a fire steel (like a modern piece of flint) and wood. I still haven’t mastered the art of tinder making and the trick was made even more challenging in that it had been raining and all of the available wood was wet.

The little knife did a great job of batoning and tearing through a few logs and once split the wet logs revealed their drier insides. I carved wood strips out of the center and made a fine powder out of the rest and mixed it with some rotting wood I’d collected the day before while hiking. It took considerable work, but as you can see by the smoke over my head, fire happened! The rain that immediately rode in on my triumph wasn’t enough to dampen my spirits, just all of the wood I’d been using.

Despite my success in getting the tinder lit, I was disappointed in how long it took me. I’ve since learned some new tricks, such as using tree sap, that should significantly improve the process and I can’t wait to try it. So much so, in fact, that I’m already considering a second run to the mountains before the summer ends.

More to come…