What's Required
Photo by Sam Taylor
The past year has been a lot. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of comprises, a lot of hard conversations about the future, our future, and what we want it to look like in the face of these uncertainties. But mostly, the past year has been a lot of change, a lot of change for everyone. Changes in our employment status or what our employment entails. Added difficulty to tasks that were before considered routine, mundane, and aggravating like grocery shopping and filling up the car with gasoline, how incredibly lucky I am to have ever found these tasks routine, mundane, and aggravating as there are so many folks out there who do not have the privilege of a two-income household, a stable partner, and/or a steady income of any kind. And of course, the global anxiety associated with COVID-19 and the racial inequities in this country once again coming to a necessary head. Beyond these global changes, Sam and I have experienced some truly substantial personal changes that have added to the pressure of performance in this strange time. And I think he will agree with me when I say that I think we lost track for a minute there, I think we lost track of the thing that makes us keep going. We lost our driving force, our wanderlust, our primal nature to get deep down into a big section of forgotten land and prove to ourselves that we can be brave, tough, and resilient. This is the story of re-finding that force and looking back now, I’m not surprised that it was hiding at the bottom of Smoke Hole Canyon.
Sam and I are loading up the truck. We are leaving after work tomorrow. It feels a little strange to have Sam’s help packing. On most of our adventures for the last several years, I would have done it on my own. Blame it on a combination of my having worked only a few days a week and Sam trying to finish his PhD. But somehow I got used to packing alone, trying to think through all the possible necessities. Charging camera batteries. Checking for headlamps. Water. Food. Camping Gear. Loading it all up and impatiently waiting for Sam to get off work so that we could head out of town. But now, we both have day jobs and Sam is done with his Ph.D. so here we are, packing together. I like it.
We are packing for an adventure we’ve been trying to execute for over 6 years. We are trying to get to Blue Rock in Smoke Hole Canyon. Here’s the catch, we are trying to do it over-land without needing a boat or a shuttle and without running into private land. All of the internet says this isn’t possible. The internet says it is too steep, that there are sections of the riverbank that are sheer rock that run straight into the water. The internet says all of the routes that are feasible are landlocked by access issues. The internet says it is boat or bust. And while we don’t shy away from the boat or bust adventure, over the last 6 years the dryness of high summer makes the water too low to run and the coldness of the WV springtime leads to Sam, the reptile in our outfit, getting cold feet.
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