Its always a bit frustrating when you circumstances dictate your
reality for you without your consent. However, this is how, I
suppose, most of our lives occur. I don't subscribe to the thought of
manifest destiny or the whole concept of everything happens for a
reason or even the concept of creating your reality...at least not
fully. Some would and do argue these points with more vigor than
people argue about different organized religions. But usually, as
with arguments with religion, the two different sides haven't changed
their opinions about anything!
Sitting and waiting for things to happen, worrying about things
that are beyond your control is often a waste of brain power. Its
easy to logically come to this conclusion as I’m sure all of you
would agree with my thoughts. But how do you stop yourself, your
mind, from going crazy with these exact thoughts of what do about
things that are completely out of your control? Why do we immediately
consume ourselves with things that we cannot change? It creates so
much unneeded stress in our lives that can, in theory, be avoided if
all we do is ignore the ramblings of our mind as it encroaches on
our consciousness and creeps into and consumes every ounce of brain
power rendering us uselessly stressed out.
I have sat for hours at a time, days on end just blinking,
thinking, and inevitably....feeling stressed about things I cannot
control. Its been quite the steep learning curve over the last month.
I have found that spending time alone with your thoughts is actually
a good thing. About a week into our ice cap expedition all my
electronics were dead and there wasn't a day of sun in the forecast
to even possibly recharge any of them with a solar charger. All I had
was my inner voice to hang out with and talk to. And so I did...
Sitting and waiting at Palomar camp we were able to do minimal
classes due to not having the proper equipment to actually practice
and implement skills that we will need and use on this trip as well
as throughout our careers as guides. However we did have some
miniature carabiners and some pea-cord that we rigged up and
practiced rescue techniques and some other rope and knot work on a
very tiny scale!
Palomar camp was amazingly beautiful, however given our
circumstances it made the gorgeous weather , views of towering peaks
and surrounding waterfalls seem a bit more glorious as we wondered
and contemplated our next move. What happens if the horses didn't
arrive with our gear? What if sickness and injuries continued to
plague us and we are unable to accomplish our goals we set out before
this expedition? These and other scenarios, that were beyond our
control, were plaguing our minds and adding to the stress and
frustration of the situation. Then, without a care in the world,
clipitty clop clippity clop, Don Ramon and his wife come trotting out
of the woods with the horses and gear we've been waiting and praying
for! There were definitely mixed feelings at this point among some of
the team members. Not everyone was stoked on leaving the plush grass
and sunny skies and the comforts of Palomar camp but nevertheless, we
were set to move!
When we arrived at Puesto camp, we still had no gear after caching
most of it up to keyhole, our entrance onto the looming ice cap.
Productivity was at a stand still, yet again. However, on our second
cache run a couple of days later, we retrieved one of the ropes and a
bunch of technical gear so while we waited for injuries and
infections to heal, we could practice practical skills we'd need
while on the ice cap: namely crevasse rescue techniques. But there
was one small problem: we weren't even on snow yet! So, again, this
was mostly practicing a theory of the skills we would have to be
masters of in case of a real emergency. At least it took up the
better part of an afternoon which would have inevitably been spent
staring off into space thinking of the “what ifs” in life.
Meanwhile, the weather forecast wasn't all sunshine and teddy
bears anymore and we had to sit out two more days of weather before
moving to Keyhole.
To be continued...
