When Jessica and I made our way to Great Basin National Park in Nevada, it was like rekindling an experience.  Re-living a past adventure, yet a new story constantly evolved in front of me.  My prior visit came some years prior during a non-stop adventurous birthday weekend.  During this trip, I had climbed Wheeler Peak.  The smoke from Wildfires surrounded the large Mountain, making views unique from a viewer’s perspective.

  I wanted to come back here… It was a blessing that when this occasion came about it was with my wife.  We ventured farther into the back country, not to the windy summits and boulder fields but to the almost treeless lakes at an elevation where the air feels different than below.  A delicate place where quiet has become a feeling rather than a place of sound.

When Jessica and I found ourselves here we did not have to deal with Wildfire smoke like my previous visit.  Although we did have to contend with the possibility of

Thunderstorms.  As we hiked farther and farther Jess and I looked to the sky.  Evaluating the clouds, hoping they would let us in… Be vulnerable.  Our backup plan in unsafe weather conditions, which we discussed, would be the historic cabins down the trail.  Once at Johnson Lake, we spent the evening captured in the peacefulness of the Backcountry.  I showed Jessica how to use the water filter.  She dipped her feet in the alpine water, joyously declaring it cold!  I thought about swimming and we ate a cuisine of freeze-dried meal

We embraced the quiet of the night, here in the wild, an animal making a noise in the night though this sound was not what you hear in civilization.

  It was calming, like man had nothing to do with its origins…. A natural song and not an evasive static that plagues our surroundings.  We hiked out and grabbed food at the Great Basin Cafe in the Visitor Center.  We felt refreshed, even with a seven-hour drive.  We took a walk in the wild.

-Sky