While hiking non-stop these past four days, I’ve realized there is a distinct rhythm to a wilderness walk. The first thing I noticed was my feet: Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch… Then comes the hiking poles on every other crunch. Add in the chirp of a bird, every few minutes and the whistle of a marmot… And it seems like I’m playing a game of stomp with nature. Today, on our last leg of the hike, my pack added in the clunk, clank of my cooking set to the mix every time my pack swayed from left to right.

It’s amazing how this rhythm keeps one motivated to keep chugging along on the trail. Today, however, my little stomp game with nature was not enough. I caved in and decided I’d let my iPod give me its own motivating beat to keep me hauling up the mountain. It worked! I’m now at the top of Cottonwood pass with a four mike decent to our trucks, and an hour’s drive to our hotel and food in Bishop!

I feel bad that I caved in and used technology to aid my wobbly knees and blistered feet up the mountain. But hey, I would be fooling myself to think that I wasn’t only a few miles away from civilization anyway. This blog posted at 11,160 feet proves that point quite well.

I didn’t feel like staying here the first night we arrived. After the most grueling workout I’ve ever experienced (walking 8 miles, up 1300 feet, with a 30+ pound backpack), I was physically and mentally spent. It took every ounce of energy to set up my tent. I only wanted to be back in the comfort of my own bed. After forcing myself to eat dinner, I slipped into my sleeping bag wondering what I had got myself into. I’ve been dreaming about doing a trip like this for years, yet that night I wondered if I could ever enjoy backpacking, or even this particular trip.

That next morning it was this river that revived me. Washing my worn feet with freezing river water, filtering and drinking water straight from it’s source, feeling the soothing hand of the sun on my back. Somehow these things gave me strength for the next days wilderness workout.

It’s the last day in Big Whitney Meadow and somehow I have survived. Surprisingly, I’m not as afraid of the ascent of Cottonwood Pass, though I’m not necessarily looking forward to it. I’m certainly looking forward to a warm bed, a loooooong overdue shower, and real food, but this first leg of our journey has been well worth the effort.

This is, of course, typical. I’d imagine I’ll have many more encounters with these furry friends throughout the week. Last night I also realized I will also have many nights of interrupted sleep. While tonight was the perfect temperature for sleeping in a tent, my sleeping pad rustles as loud as those new earth friendly Sun Chips. No Joke! It’s comfortable and insulates well, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining.

Today we are headed on our first hike of the trip. We are headed up through Cottonwood pass and will be camping in Big Whitney Meadows for a few days. This morning we all packed our bags up and tried not to complain about the weight. Some of my fears about this hike have been overtaken by excitement… and the fact that my pack somehow ended up as the smallest in the group. I’m praying my knees hold up!

Well, time to go. We are all about to gorge on breakfast before the trip!

Some of the things I worry about: How much precious battery does it take to write a blog? (Used up 1% so far… 10% by the end of the post) Can my thumbs withstand the constant tapping on the screen? (Not sure, I’m already feeling the pain!) Will I be alert enough to edit these posts so that I don’t end up on the “Damn you auto correct!” blog? (Yet to be determined.). And who knows if I’ll even have any access to 3G when I’m out there in the glorious wilderness. I’ve had my fair share of technology mishaps in far off places… most notably my attempt to map a bazaar in Tajikistan with my iPhone’s less-than-amazing GPS. Total iPhone fail!

So, anyway, I now have less than 48 hours before my trip begins. I’ve got the vast majority of my gear set up and ready. My dehydrated meals are stuffed snugly into a bear canister. I have enough deet in my bag to kill a baby marmot. Rechargeable batteries are ready to be drained.

What’s left? Refold my tent. (It was stuffed haphazardly into a bag during a 105 degree heat wave on my last camping trip.) Go to CVS for travel sized toiletries. (Toothpaste, face wipes.) And pack up my backpack! (Currently stowed in a random cardboard box… See photo.)

Wish me luck!

I’ve been preparing for this trip for months, now. Actually, it seems more like years. The desire to backpack into the wilderness with everything I need on my back has been brewing in me for a while, but so has the fear that I am not experienced/fit/healthy enough to do so. Nevertheless, I have a subscription to Backpacker Magazine, and have slowly been trading all my hard earned money to REI in exchange for proper gear. Finally, this class gives me the chance to see if I’m really capable of such an adventure… AND I get to learn more about the geography of the Sierra Nevada along the way!

I’m hoping to blog during my trip. I’m equipped with my trusty iphone, the wordpress app, a solar usb charger, and the fortunate fact that often cell reception is often better on wilderness peaks and ridges than it is in my own bedroom. I can’t guarantee fantastic photos, or perfect grammar or punctuation. Yet, hopefully those shortcomings will be overshadowed by the novelty of blogging on the go in the wilderness. (My one technological luxury in an otherwise primitive setting.)

There’s only a week left, and I still feel utterly unprepared. Do I have enough food? Am I missing gear? (I just realized I don’t have a knife!) Have I been hiking enough the past month to prepare me for grueling days with a 25+ pound backpack at over 8,000ft? I have a nagging fear that I’m not good enough to conquer this kind of adventure. But I am going to face that fear, and hopefully come out on the other side ready to take on all the backpacking adventures I’ve been dreaming about all these years.

Wish me luck!

Eh, I’ll do it tomorrow…

But, I’m here to tell you: public libraries still have their use!

A few days ago, I caught the (free!) bus downtown and walked to the Civic Center to see if the library had any pertinent information in their “Santa Ana History Room”.  There to greet me at the door was a library worker who promptly asked me what I was researching and how he could help me find what I needed.  “I’m not really sure what I’m looking for exactly, but I’m doing my research on the downtown revitalization,” I said to him.  His eyes lit up slightly, then he proceeded to find a couple of documents, newspaper clippings, photos, and directories… all while giving me anecdotes of others who have studied downtown and the problems they ran into.  I was blown away by how helpful he was!

I had only planned on being at the library for an hour or two, but with all the resources I found, I was there nearly 4 hours taking photos of all the newspaper clippings and interesting texts from the documents he gave me.  Once I got home I organized the photos in Zotero for easy access.  In all I had 43 documents compiled together!  Yay!

So, not only am I excited about all the information I found at the library (there’s much more that I didn’t look at!), I also now have a cozy, free, air conditioned space to research in when I get sick of spending money at Starbucks or when I need to get away from the distractions at my house.

At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself the past two weeks.  I had promised myself that I would spend at least 4 hours a day, Monday through Friday, working on my thesis.  This was before I got my wisdom teeth pulled, before my relatives were in town from Canada, before my cousin’s graduation party, and before I rescued a betta fish from certain death and became obsessed with all things tropical fish.

It’s amazing how things just pop up in your way when you’re trying to be productive with life.  Two weeks ago, I had finally decided to get my act together spend the day walking around downtown Santa Ana (the study site for my thesis) to absorb the vibe of the area and hopefully gain a few insights for my research.  I’d literally just stepped into the first (discount) shop I found, when I spotted about 20-30 betta fish on a dusty metal shelf, moping in abnormally small betta cups.  I had to stop and look.

I had no intention of actually buying one.  I was scanning through the cups looking at all the beautiful fish; but when I noticed that one of the fish’s water was extremely cloudy and had food/feces floating in the bottom of the cup, I knew he’d be the first to die if his water wasn’t changed soon.  Of course, I bought him… which meant that for the next two hours of researching downtown, I carried around the fish, probably stressing it out even more than it already was.

I’m not going to bore you with the details (already did that to my boyfriend), but basically for an entire week all I could think about was making this poor fish happy.  I WAAAAAY over compensated and went for the full-blown 10 gallon fish tank with a heater, filter, driftwood, AND aquarium plants. Hey, apparently I really wanted to be distracted!

So, it’s officially been 2 weeks since I rescued the fish. I’ve since named him Diego Rivera. Naming him after a famous Mexican muralist is my way of hoping the city will merge revitalization with respect for the Latino population that uses downtown. In my opinion, the revitalization efforts are too focused on making downtown Santa Ana a “place for the arts” and are effectively excluding the Mexican/Latino population from the space by the way they are going about it…

The name Diego Rivera also provides a wonderfully abstract connection between the betta fish and thesis… ridding me of the guilt of having spent too much time on the betta fish and not enough time on my thesis.

Oh, the joy of distractions…

Diego Rivera, the betta, in his mansion.

In the media. From my friends. A random conversation I just happen to hear while passing by. Often, I hear comments about “those” immigrants in our communities.

Why don’t they want to learn English?
Don’t they know they’re in America?
If I lived in another country I’d learn the language!

We have a serious problem here, and it’s not that immigrants don’t speak English. The problem is with our attitude. First, it is void of any true experience with the group that is being stereotyped. Every single immigrant has a name, a story, and a struggle that, more often than not, dispels the myths our society has constructed about these communities. And even more, we’re complaining about a situation and doing nothing to be a part of the solution.

This year I signed up to volunteer as an English instructor at a local community center down the street from my house. I was feeling guilty. Hundreds in my community do not speak English, yet I had never lent a helping hand. Worse, I’d been off gallivanting around the world trying to help those in need abroad without giving the needs of my neighbors a second thought.

While training to become an instructor, I met a man named Bill who has committed his life to helping immigrants in our communities learn English. He doesn’t call it ESL or TEFL or TESOL or even just simply “Teaching English”. Rather, he is committed to challenging the English speaking population to SHARE their English. His classes have a ratio of one English speaker to one English learner. They are wild, funny, enjoyable, dynamic. He has an army of volunteers who are willing to put aside their stereotypes to be a part of the solution instead of just complaining. And people learn English because of it!

More than giving back to the community, more than helping people create a better life for themselves by giving them the skill of speaking English, Bill is helping every day Americans set aside their stereotypes by giving them opportunities to interact with REAL communities, REAL situations, and REAL lives.

I want to live like that!

Bill’s example of a life dedicated to change makes me ask myself a difficult question: How can I be a solution to the problems I complain about?