Big Bend

First off, many apologies for the incredible span of time between posts (I wonder how many times I've started a blog entry like this. lol.) The evening before I left for Spring Break I very nearly finished a post on Fr. Roch's Theology of the Spiritual Life class, but it didn't happen and it's still waiting to be completed. I figured though that I should write about the 5 days I spent hiking through Big Bend National Park while it's still fresh in my mind.

This is the trail we took through the desert, around a 35 mile loop.

We went camping quite a bit as kids, but never anything so serious as backpacking through the desert. I didn't really know what to expect from the trip. To a certain extent I was really struggling for clarity in discerning my vocation and summer plans the week before and hoping that this trek through the desert might help some. It was almost three days on the trail before I remembered that I'd been hoping to spend sometime thinking about this. Between learning the in's and out's of backpacking and the concentration needed to look out for bears, snakes, and good footing while on the trail this other goal got submerged in doing what was necessary. I was joking with a friend when I got back that perhaps the lesson I was supposed to learn and the clarity that I received over the week was that I needed to focus on just taking the next step and getting to the top of the next hill and not worry so much about the big picture until God, in His perfect time, deems it right. You'd think I'd get that through my thick head eventually.

That's not to say that it wasn't a spiritual experience. The grand views and just sheer beauty and majesty of creation proclaimed God's goodness and infinite love so loudly all weekend long. In a way it was like being back on the Rome semester in that the beauty of the place was just so amazing that it hardly seemed like it could be part of the same world (much less state) as Irving. There was an additional significance to the beauty of the views though because we had to work for them, really hard. It wasn't like driving your car through a pretty place, something that anyone with some extra time and a love of nature can appreciate but we had to sweat and strain ourselves for those views. This was most impressed upon me on the last night on the trail. By our third and final night on the trail we had covered 30+ miles. That day we started by walking 2 hrs through the desert to an old ranch house and filling up with water, increasing our pack weight almost by a third. The house is the little blip at the base of the big hill in the pic.(Quick aside: this was one of two times while we were in the desert that we ran across the remains of old homesteads. There was nothing quite as crazy for a farm kid as seeing a row of ancient fence posts stretching across such a barren landscape. The views would have been incredible but I don't know how anyone could've been insane enough to try and make a living out there. Next time I catch myself thinking we've got it hard back home on the farm I hope I think back to those fence posts in the middle of the desert and realize how blessed I really am.) Back to the third day though, after filling up with water we proceeded to walk about 2 miles up a dry, sandy creek bed (worst idea for a trail path EVER!). Already tired from walking uphill with full packs through sand we had to climb 6,000 feet up onto the rim of the Chisos Basin while the wonderful Texas sun blazed away. For me this was by far the hardest day on the trail, but we finally got up onto the rim and made it to our campsite for the night around 5pm. After making camp; boiling water for tea; and cooking dinner, rice, cashews, chicken and taco seasoning (it may not sound great but considering the circumstances it tasted like a culinary masterpiece), we settled down on a row of rocks and watched the sun set. Our campsite was right on the Southwest rim of the basin literally 20 feet from the edge. The view was incredible we could see the whole canyon we'd walked up that day as well as the desert up to the Rio Grande (about 20 miles away) and then the cliffs on the Mexican side and mountains on behind them (probably 50+ miles). This isn't from our trip, I got the pic off of google, but it's almost the exact spot were we ate dinner.It wasn't the most remarkable sunset I've ever had the privilege to see but it was amazing and in light of everything we'd invested to get to that point, I think Mr. McDonough nailed it when he said that it was an experience you only get 4 or 5 times in a lifetime. He also said that watching the sunset you seemed to forget about the climbing the hill and the creek bed and every other difficulty that it took to get there. This struck me as especially profound in light of my earlier comparison between hiking and the day to day struggle of the Christian life. Sometimes it seems to me like the struggle for perfection is a never ending monotonous climb uphill under a blazing sun, but that's when I have to remember the goal of the entire struggle, the summit of the path, unity with God. In those moments like watching that sunset, all our daily struggles find their true perspective and meaning in that they bring us closer to God.


Hopefully I make it back to blogging again a little sooner next time, there's a lot floating around in my head that I should sort out and write down. Until then though "quo vadis" where are you headed?