White Mountains in Review

Why have we never heard of this place? How is it that we don't know anyone that's ever been here before? These questions and many more we were continually asking each other throughout the whole trip. It was amazing. The area is incredible. It's only a 4 1/2 hour drive from Lubbock to the trailhead. We saw only one couple up on the mountain after we got out of the range of the dayhikers. The weather was perfect. The views were stunning. I really just can't believe that we've never heard of this area before. We'll be going back often I think.









This was only Mandi's second backpacking trip ever but she handled it like a pro. She even outdid me by not passing out for a few minutes Saturday morning. That part is still a mystery. One minute I was working on making coffee, the next minute Ryan kicked me to wake me back up. That was a new experience for me. Our best guess is maybe I stood up too fast, cause the blood which was already low on oxygen to flee the brain and the brain decided to shut down for a minute or two. Fun game, but no harm no foul. Aside from that the trip was just a walk through the Firs, Aspens, alpine meadows, and ridgline trails. It was a beautiful hike. Luke, you've really gotta check this place out. Shame on you for not being the one to tell me about it. You're supposed to be the big brother. It's your job to find these places and tell me about them. So anyway, after my episode Saturday morning we hiked up this beautiful little valley you see to your left and then climbed to to that ridge to reach the crest trail. Which has views like the one to the right for, I've read, its whole 22 mile stretch. One day maybe we'll find out for sure. That one's on the list thought. White Mountain Wilderness 22 mile Crest Trail. Now all we need to do is find the time. We walked along the crest trail for the rest of the day while being followed the whole way by a rather nasty looking storm which is pretty typical for that time of day in the mountains. As it turned out though the storm barely missed us and ended up pounding Riudoso with a few inches of hail. We found a pretty swank campsite that night that had a fire ring, some flat ground for the tents, and even an old metal horse trough that we used as a bench. You can see the beginnings of that storm in the picture to the left. After our second night we woke up and spend a very short half day hiking back down to the car and by noon we had it packed up, our clothes changed, and we were on our way to Riudoso for some much needed real food. That always seems to be the most pleasurable part about coming off the mountain. Ryan had a burger you wouldn't believe, I had enchiladas and tacos, and Mandi had a huge burrito. After all of that food we decided that we still weren't done. Mandi, as resourceful as she is, overheard directions to an ice cream shop a little down the street from our restaurant and so we went to check it out. We went to the wrong one without knowing it, but accidentally got the best five dollar banana split I've ever had. This is another place we will return to. That was our trip. We're looking forward to the next one.

Our Community is Global

I'm working through ideas, theories maybe, or at the very least something that seems to sit constantly at the back of my mind like an itch that just won't go away. Different aspects of it seem to come out in this blog for different reasons depending on the day. Sometimes anger is the reason. Sometimes it's hope. Sometimes love, frustration, misunderstanding, indifference, or maybe any other emotion. I think that this thing, this idea that I have trouble putting into words, is at the root of who I am and what I believe. I'm still working on those last two things but every day I feel like I'm a little closer to finding out. It feels to me like this truth, this incredible revelation, that's just out of reach like it's buried deep in solid rock and all I have is a tiny little hammer to chip away at what's covering it up. It feels like something I need.

The other day I had a conversation with a man about politics, media, immigration, and eventually the whole world. Today I listened to a friend who is a police officer tell a story about a teenage girl who has seen more evil in her life than most people could even comprehend. At first it seemed a little strange that the one conversation reminded me of the other but I think that there is quite a bit in common between the two situations. The man I talked to, at the end of our conversation, said that when he was done he had all sorts of big ideas like me but eventually he thinks I'll basically give up on those and settle on smaller issues. I think that there are a lot of people like him that feel the same way but that sounds to me like giving up. It seems like saying "I'm not going to worry about the big stuff anymore, I'll just deal with the things that effect me directly." It really is a perfect example of what I was telling him I believed and why I believe it.

The world is a big place, but there's only one of them. In size it remains the same but in the ways we effect each other it gets smaller every day, bit by bit. What I write on here is read in various countries on various continents, the things we buy effect different people all over the world, and the values we pursue effect everyone else too. The man I talked to was upset that there might be a change in the immigration laws that would allow people south of the border to come into the country legally to work. He is against this. It also makes him angry that they come in illegally. When I asked him what he would do if he was in their situation he said he would go through the system and get in to the states legally. When I asked him what if the system didn't work he said basically "tough shit". This strikes me as one of the bigger problems in the world. On an individual level we worry more about what we're gonna get out of a situation and we are only interested in it if it is going to give us more than we had before. This is an understandable desire. No matter what we have, or how much, we typically want more. There seem to be few exceptions to this rule. We do this on a global level as well. Our political dealings, our foreign policy, and our immigration laws all stem from this idea of "it's mine and you can't have it." We don't like to share.

We have a system set up to deal with people who can't work, people who can't pay for healthcare, people who don't pay their taxes, and various other issues. The system is broken. Instead of trying to fix the system, we are simply deciding not to let any more people into the system. Our companies our shipping jobs out to these other countries so that they can pay lower wages so we can get our stuff cheaper, and the people who are now doing this work are trying desperately to get over hear so that they can get a decent wage for what they are doing. We are basically telling them to stay where they are so that we can screw them over. Then we admonish these other countries for not dealing with their issues well enough to take care of their poor and their sick. Directly or indirectly, we effect this. Our big companies move, fire american workers who then go into the welfare system, hire cheap labor somewhere else, and we cluck our tongues, maybe, and then go buy their product because it's cheaper. We want it cheaper, because we want it. Americans in general seem to have this preconceived notion that we deserve all of this because we were born here and it's just tough luck that everyone else wasn't.

Now we're starting to see that, at least maybe, the Earth can't even take what we are doing to it. We're not trying very hard to stop doing these things. We pay lip service to the idea, and the government is starting to listen a little, but we still go and buy our cheap gas, our new cheap fashionable clothes, and all of the other knick-knacks that we can't live without from companies that are pay peanuts to their employees. I realize I'm generalizing and that not everyone and everything falls into these assessments, but it seems to be the overall theme to the world in general. It is a product of capitalism, but it is skewed by politics and selfishness. I am a big fan of Ayn Rand, but I don't think that this is what she meant by the Virtue of Selfishness. She did not mean take advantage of other people. She did not mean destroy the world in order to make a profit. What she meant was do what you believe in, what you can be proud of, without taking from other people in the process. Create something other people need, that other people can pay for, but don't steal from the livelyhood of other people in order to do it.

I don't mean that we should stop building business in foreign countries. We should pay a wage the would afford them a comparable lifestyle to that which they would have doing the same work in the US. I bet that would shake things up a bit. What I told the man that I was talking to was that as our effect on the world and the people that live on it grows larger, so must our view. It can no longer be about what it good for Americans, it must be about what is good for the whole world. This is and idea that every country must embrace. Stop hating for the sake of hating, taking because we can, and buying because it's cheap, but instead buying for the idea of where the money is going, what is being done with it, and whether the thing that we are buying is something we need. Is the price fair with regard to the work that went into making the thing. Is the thing we're buying destroying the ecosystem in some way. Will our kids and grandkids have a world that they want to live in, or even are capable of living in. Borders won't mean much if everyone is dying. Neither will the latest fashion trends, how fast your car is, how big your house is, how much money you make, or any of the other things that we think are so important.

The girl that my friend was talking about went through things that most of us never had to, that no one ever should, and that I will not repeat. The part of the story that hit me the hardest was that she still goes to school every day, still makes straight A's, still takes care of her elderly grandmother, and seems to have a spirit that will not be beaten down. How many of us had few problems if any growing up and still did as well as her? How many of us can say that we gave it everything we had even while everyone around us was trying to take it all away? How many of us have earned this lifestyle that we think of as an intrinsic right more than she has? How much have we really earned, and if you think real deeply about it, how much have we just taken? Here's what really gets me. Just because someone can't afford to say no to the amount you're paying doesn't make it a fair price. Just because the governments condone it doesn't make it ok. Just because we can afford to buy it doesn't mean it has value, and just because it is for sale doesn't mean it's not going to take away from someone else's life when you take it home.

This is the only world we have. Enmities end pretty fast when everyone is threatened by the same thing. Maybe they won't. Maybe we'll just start killing to survive, although if we deal with the problems early enough we might be able to avoid it. Just because it could be a long way off doesn't mean it's not something to think about now. Borders, language, and money don't change the fact that we all need the same things to survive, and that every one of us has just as much of a right to that survival as everyone else. There are a lot of different forms of taking, and one of the most common takes place when we buy things that are much cheaper than they should be. I think that we do nothing about these things because we think that the problems are too big, that we can't' do anything to fix them. If you think that, then think about the fact that eventually, if nothing changes, the problems will get so big that we can't fix them. At least not in a civilized way.

What do you think?

P.S. On a lighter note, the White Mountain Backpacking Blog is coming soon.

Back To Nature

Thursday afternoon when we get off work Mandi, Ryan, Ward, and I will be headed to the White Mountain Wilderness for a long awaited backpacking trip. This is an area that none of us have ever packed into before and I'm greatly looking forward to it. This is also the first backpacking trip that we have done in somewhere close to a year. It's long overdue. Other vacations are nice, it's always good to get away, but theres just nothing like being deep in the wilderness, where most people don't ever go, with some of your closest friends. Last year we did a trip with a rather large crew because it was my bachelor party. It was an excellent trip into an incredible wilderness area. We saw almost no other living souls. It took us a day and a half of hiking to get up to this area where you see Ward walking by himself. The view looked much like this in all directions all around us. Aside from us you could see no sign of humanity. It took us another day and a half to get down from this point. There were wild strawberries along the trail for the whole hike. At the end of the first day we camped next to a mountain lake.
To the right is a picture of Ryan on the left and Carter on the right sitting next to the campfire at the first night's campsite. That thing Ryan is holding is his banjo. He carried it, hard case and all, along with his 60 or 70 pound pack for the whole trip. All together he was carrying somewhere around 100 pounds up and down about 3-4 thousand vertical feet for close to 20 miles. It was impressive. It was also nice to have a little banjo at nights after a long day's hike.
Almost a year ago, these seven people were spread out across two states and two countries. It took one of us getting married to bring us all together for this trip. In all honesty though, it took more than that. It took the wilderness. It took mother nature in all her rough and ragged beauty. It took the promise of a veiw never seen, a mountain never climbed, a black storm that might chase us across a high ridgeline, and the knowledge that at any moment she could throw something at us that we weren't expecting. It's always a challenge and there's always something new. Here's to mother nature, the next trip, and all of the trips that came before. I can't wait for the next one to start.