Humanity on the Rim

We all sense it. Day after day, there seems to be a growing disconnect between people. You walk down the sidewalk and the person coming toward you quickly averts their eyes to avoid eye contact. You sit down on a plane and the person next to you pops in earbuds to stave off any efforts at small talk. You’re hiking up a trail in the wilderness and the person coming down the trail passes right by without even a nod of the head to acknowledge the shared passion for the dirt beneath your boots. This same disconnect is apparent in much more serious issues such as bystanders witnessing bullying, sexual assault, discrimination, and many other injustices from human to human. I get it, too. Well, I sort of get it. Life is busy and life is hard. We all have demands on our time and energy and a limited supply of both to get us through, but, at some point, we have to take off those blinders and be open and mindful to what’s happening around us and to the needs of those sharing our world.

This is something that I try to actively focus on improving in myself, and a recent experience on the rugged White Rim of Utah really brought it home and provided a guiding example of who I want to be and how I want to live. A group of us were headed to Utah to start a 4 day, 100 mile mountain bike ride through the wilderness that surrounds the White Rim route through the backcountry of Canyonlands National Park. Shortly before starting I realized I had forgotten something quite important, my sleeping bag. As many of you will know, there aren’t many options for obtaining a replacement sleeping bag around Canyonlands. And honestly, even if a store to buy one were readily available, the fact that I already owned 6 sleeping bags that were stacked away in the gear room back at home would have been a strong deterrent to buying another one for the collection. So at this point I did what any dirtbag adventurer would do and decided to push forward with the trip and wing it, knowing that there would likely be extra jackets and other items to use to stay semi-warm during the chilly nights on the Rim, and also knowing that sleeping bag or not, this was going to be a grand adventure. Now don’t get me wrong, while on the outside I was determined to make light of it and just move forward, on the inside I was freaking out a bit. How can I sleep if I can’t stay warm? How can I ride 100 miles if I can’t sleep? And mostly, how can I keep from being the grumpiest person on the trip if I’m tired and cold and full of frustration at myself for making such a silly mistake?

Now fast forward 5 miles into the ride that first morning. We encounter a man on the trail that was headed out for a hike. It turns out that he was with a group that had set out that morning to ride the trail, but he had mechanical issues with his bike, had to stay behind, and was now passing his time by exploring the area on foot. Somehow the sleeping bag story came up, and we shared a few laughs over how interesting the next few nights might be. We discussed that we had some other riders and a support vehicle still coming behind us on the trail and that we were all meeting up at camp that afternoon. Eventually we bid him happy trails and continued on our ride. Later that day our support driver pulls up wearing a smile and holds a sleeping bag out the window. It turns out, the hiker we had passed had gotten a message out to his wife in Moab, had her drive 50 miles to bring him the sleeping bag, stopped each vehicle passing him on the route to find out if they were our support vehicle, and finally found our driver and passed off the sleeping bag for me along with a note that simply had an address and the name of his business in Durango. I’m sure I don’t need to waste words describing how shocked, amazed, and happy I was. First, I knew I’d sleep nice and warm that night. But mostly, to see so clearly the lengths that a complete stranger went to in order to help someone on a trail, and to trust them with a very expensive piece of gear, just blew me away and made quite the impression on our entire group over the whole trip.

Once I returned home I made a point to look up their business website which includes a mission statement. I invite you to adopt this portion of that mission for yourself and to open yourself up to being aware of the lives around you and extending a little bit of humanity, whether on the trail, walking down the sidewalk, or wherever else you see a need: Be nice to fellow man, be thankful, be generous, and trust the Universe. I’ve now boxed up the sleeping bag to return to them along with my favorite bottle of Colorado whiskey and a request that they share a toast to kindness and adventure for all of us.

Published in the Montrose Daily Press, Nov 19, 2017.