Rekindling the Stoke

At college, I have little to no time to think. Yes, I have classes that challenge me mentally and push my intellectual capacities. I write for and edit the independent school newspaper, juggling a talented team of staff writers and a crazy one of editors and designers. And don't forget, I have friends.

But it's hard to label those aspect of my life as one of thinking, though. To me, it's more along the lines of an act of doing exerting on me both a mental and physical strain. Most often, too, the individual strains are not so much self-inflicted, but rather requirements of my academic life, jobs, and other commitments. Don't misunderstand, this is not me complaining, for I asked for more fruits to juggle. It comes with a price, though.

With so much doing, I did little thinking and ignored many of the signs from my body and mind that demanded allotted time to detox. Heck, I wrote one blog post this entire semester. I returned to Connecticut from Colorado, still shaking off the drips of exhaustion coating my skin my not reaching those diluting my blood. One more day, I would think, one more day before I will break.

That day of destruction never came, but it was close. I was nursed back to health by a pair of carpet adhesives and a bootpack in the snows of Revelstoke Mountain and Rogers Pass in British Columbia. I had anxiously twiddled my thumbs for months in anticipation for this trip, but little did I know back in October that I would find more than just steep lines on this trek.

After five hours of delays at Denver International Airport and another five hour drive from Calgary to Revelstoke, our guide Amos, my dad, and I settled into our home in the lower level of a family's home. I had slept almost all day, but had not even the energy to brush my teeth before nuzzling into my temporary bed.

The first day was mostly logistics. After scooping up with the last of my english muffin the remains of a ham and mushroom eggs benedict at a local café, we set off towards Roger's Pass. For about an hour, we 'played' in the beacon park, rescuing imaginary avalanche victims in preparation for the upcoming week. It was still just doing, though, and I couldn't escape such an institutionalized mentality during our short skin and ski through the trees across the street.

Later that night, the husband who owned the house we were staying in, Andrew, brought down to our cove two six packs of local beers from Mt. Bigby Brewery. He spoke with the mountains in his eyes about the newly published Roger's Pass Guide Book, the chutes down which we could not leave Revelstoke without skiing, and the avalanche paths he avoided while unofficially guiding despite the fervor to film on the part of his group of professional skiers. After three weeks in Connecticut watching the snow flakes flash on the weather reports in the Rockies, Andrew unknowingly invited me back into the world in which I thrive.

The next day, I walked to the car and my imagination was confined to the layer of clouds resting only 1,000 feet above where I stood. I'll be fighting the fog, I thought, preparing my rusty knees for the surprise spread eagles as I combatted flat light. On the chair lift, I sunk into my jacket like a turtle in its shell so as to hide from the thick air laden with more oxygen than I usually breathe.

I managed to survive the suffocating mass of cloud mid way up the Stoke lift, and, boy, could I not have asked for a better way to wake up from the haze. The clouds were now the water in which the last two thousand feet of mountain tops floated. Only the most impressive, jagged and startling sections of these ice caps were visible, leaving me with views of row after row 50+ degree couloirs with mandatory 30 foot drops. These peaks meandered up towards Roger's Pass and led my eyes to the one I would seek that day: Mt. MacKenzie.

I zipped my skis across the red Marmmot label on my pack and stepped quickly in line with my guide, Amos. With my eyes tracing each of his steps,  I didn't miss a beat up the ridge. My body did little to reject the air on which I was sucking, in part because of the plentiful oxygen, in part because of the passion-laden CO2 people like Andrew and Amos expelled. Soon, I was at the emergency radio station and even sooner, I was nearly tossing my skis down the Door Four couloir.

Amos roped my dad and I both in, and lowered us down the first ten feet. In this situation, I had to think. I had to listen to the rocking of my body, ensuring that all 130 pounds did not shift into my heals. I had to convince my upper body that facing downhill, down where all the rocks are, is the only way in which I can avoid those rocks and drift in and out of turns. But thinking was still a bit foreign to me. I listened but did not act. I told but did not demand. After half the turns, I was on my ass, cursing at myself for my lack of finesse.

This was no longer racing down corduroy and straight-lining down ice as I had mindlessly done from October to December nor was it just a physical act. I needed to be sharp, and I was still dull despite the initial strikes against the blade. I'd have to work, or else I'd crumble.

The next day, back on the resort mountain, it was time to celebrate my birthday. Well, maybe not my birthday, but we were skiing up to the Birthday Chutes on the other side of Mt. MacKenzie as we were on the previous day. Again, I mimicked every one of Amos's tracks, even grabbing the same branch on the shrubs at the turn of the switchback. As we reached the entrance to the skinny couloir, I checked the boxes in my head. Weight forward, shoulders downhill, parallel the skis during the turn.

I sunk into the turn with a wink of grounded confidence that lasted for all of five turns. On the fifth, my skis were not in sync as they rotated in the air. One landed on the other, propelling me head first through a six foot wide opening enclosed by rock. At first, I was calm, wriggling my hips in an attempt to put my feet below me a slow my fall. The attempt was futile, though, and I let out a sharp yelp as the rocks below obstructed my safe path.

"I thought I was going to have to tackle you," my guide said as the snow below me halted and I lifted myself up. The rock band was in sight but far enough that I was safe. I crouched in the snow, not out of fear, but of frustration. I didn't want a flash of greatness followed by a thunder of failure; I wanted  a traceable track and a driven mind only distracted by the beckon of a high-five. I wanted to listen when Amos said, "Just keep in mind and appreciate the place you're in," but it was more deeply seeded than one suffered line.

The backcountry would be a whole knew field to play on, I told myself the next day as we drove to the parking lot leading to the Asulkan Glacier and Hut about 20 minutes from Roger's pass. I had a full day of skinning towards the Asulkan Hut for me to think about those lines, the unusual disappearance of my confidence, and what I was going to do about it. In the words of John Steinbeck, it's not just about breaking through and understanding the bigger picture, but rather being able to break through and do something purposeful with what you discovered.

I had broken through the minute my chair on the Stoke lift had lifted out of the clouds, but I had not properly translated the thoughts I had logged into action. After nearly 11 hours of sleep in a hut filled with eight snoring, farting, middle-aged men, I was ready to test not only whether I could now think clearly again, but rather whether I could simultaneously think and act. With every step up the steep, two hour skin from the Asulkan Hut to the top of Young's Peak, I breathed in yet another piece of this goal and of the confidence necessary for achieving it. I exhaled the negativity that I had unknowingly thrust upon myself all semester and maybe even the latter half of the summer.

My lungs were full but light, lifting me mentally up over 2,000 feet without pardoning me from the physical strain of each step. We skinned as high as we could, booted about 500 feet, then skinned again with ski crampons holding us to the solid chalk to the top. The wind whipped my jacket with strength but the kind that drills into you even more determination. I ripped off my skins, clipped on my helmut, and picked my line down the open face on Young's. Finally, I was left to prosper.

I slept that night back in our cove in town. It was the fastest I had fallen asleep the entire trip, for between my hands and the sheets I curled over my shoulder were the few, but crucial pieces I had lost but now recollected. Although I had fully emerged quite late in this trip, I still had plenty more ahead, including heliskiing the next day.

This story could have been anywhere in world in which my Scarpas left a print and my polarized Smiths filtered the flat light hiding below. For me, it will always be in Revelstoke beside the friendliest locals of any ski town, a close friend and ski mentor, the raddest dad in the world, and myself.

Block 1: Embracing Disorder

The week after I returned home from Australia in June, I was obsessed with prospect of returning to school in Colorado. As much as the lush blanket of leaves sheltered me from the parts of Wilton I wished to avoid, I craved waking up to the humbling behemoth, Pike's Peak, every morning and watching the setting sun illuminate her pink granite as I ate dinner at The Preserve. I yearned for the invigorating discussions that would arise in my classes about the Ludlowe mine strikes or the distraction of the Balkan Wars away from the feminist movement in Serbia. And the monkey in me twitched in withdrawal from climbing onto roofs with my friends at night. 

When I finally moved five duffel bags of clothing, outdoor gear, and miscellaneous stuff (for lack of a better word) into my 9'x11' room, I felt as though my life had reset to where it had ended three months prior. Yes, I had stories from my travels in Australia and from my hikes in Connecticut (check 'em out  here), but I fell in love instantly again with Colorado College and the community it has fostered. I was no longer an ignorant freshman searching for people to eat dinner with, but rather a sophomore with a full grasp on how to navigate the school and the area with my arms linked tightly with those of family.   

My first class, Nature & Society, offered a means by which I could compare side by side my drastically disparate lives in Connecticut and in Colorado. I don't mean compare in terms of the physical landscape or the type of people, for those are obvious differences that I could've laid out before I began at CC; instead I know have a more philosophical means by which I can understand my life, my mind, and my actions. 

Prior to the French Revolution, philosophers, scientists, religious leaders and the general public regarded nature and society as in order. Ecosystems fueled themselves in, as Aristotle describes, a cyclical, infinite manner. People ascribed any catastrophes or anomalies in the course of nature, particularly climate, to the will of God; He simply was punishing the people for their sins, but not in an uncontrollable, overly-chaotic manner. Machines, in particular the clock, erected during the Industrial Revolution granted humans the ability to harness to a certain extent the chaos of nature, thus establishing a more routine lifestyle without as many risks for famine, food shortages, etc. Then finally, with the Scientific Revolution, members of the scientific community like Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Keplar, and Newton established universal laws of science that deemed nature predictable and confined it to certain patterns of behavior. 

Then, with the breakout of the French Revolution in 1789, the concept of order dissipated into one of disorder. Such a drastic upheaval of a longstanding monarch and an all-powerful bourgeois class shook the Western world like an earthquake, breaking down the foundations of their society. The middle class rose and the bourgeois class fell, drastically reducing the economic and social gap between the two. Since then, humans have consciously lived in a world of unpredictability without God as an excuse for the social and environmental pressures. Through the 20th century, the consequences of our ethic of exploitation began to directly interfere with our lives, whether the Dust Bowl or air quality in large cities. These events challenge that ethic and the idea that some higher being created nature for man's sole benefit, thus giving rise to environmental awareness and the conservation movement. 

My 19 years of living and the transitions that have occurred throughout it mimic those of the past 2,000+ years of Western history in terms of moving from order to disorder. That sounds worse than it is. Actually I don't regard it as a negative thing at all, but rather the wonderful reason why I am sitting outside looking at the first snows on Pike's Peak. 

My life in Connecticut was always a routine. Wake up at 7:30, get to class by 8:15, trudge from class to class seven times, go to soccer practice, do homework, sleep, and find sometime to eat within all that. I designed my weekends around more homework, more soccer, and maybe some recovery. In establishing such a rigid routine, I convinced myself I had every aspect of my life under perfect control. I had a scientific formula for how to perform at my peak in both school and athletics, and would attribute my failures to an input of incorrect data. Similarly to how people exploited nature without bounds, I exploited my body and mind without bounds, exhausting it beyond a tipping point. 

But then my own earthquake occurred junior year that fractured my whole self. Chaos had rudely and unexpectedly entered my life just when I needed peace to apply for college. I tried to uphold the order in my life, and convinced myself for a while that it was still there, as I would have expected members of the bourgeois to have done. A year or so later though, the relentless mass pressing down on me split the fracture wider, and I was forced to accept the inevitability of a disorderly life. 

And that turned out more than okay. The floor of my room at school is never without a stray jacket or three pairs of shoes. I only do laundry when I'm forced to due to a lack of athletic shorts. I never do homework in the same chair or place two days in a row. I efficiently power through my homework so I can be with friends instead of getting the sleep I should be. And on the weekends, I bounce from place to place, activity to activity, without any sort of boundaries confining me to a schedule. 

First block this year was a perfect example of that. To begin, I became News Editor of the independent school newspaper. That in itself is a fireball of chaos, especially on Thursdays when we spend seven hours at the publishing house finalizing that week's paper. But weekends were (and will forever be) the real thrillers. Second weekend, I went cliff jumping in Paradise Cove, sharing beers and urging people to make the leap of faith that aren't as willing as I to fly weightlessly into the water. Third weekend, I saw Lotus in concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater, woke up at 6 AM to go skiing on a glacier, jump off a 50 foot cliff into a lake, go to a 100+ person party in the woods on top of Mount Hermon in Monument, and proceed to work for nine hours on Sunday on a research paper on the development of French Cuisine for Nature & Society. It may seem like I never take a break, but I now thrive in constant, spur of the moment, ridiculously absurd adventures. 

I don't think I regret my past life, for I think if I had not experienced it, I would not bask so much in the glory of this thing I call life. So that leads me to ask why people, why I, have strived so hard and pushed away so many opportunities in order to find a false sense of security in stability. Why schedule your life around societal formulas when your holistic success is never dictated by a set of irrelevant numbers?

If you're not convinced now, just wait another month when ski season starts. 

Hiking Through Home

My adventures the past couple of years have flown me all of the world, from a political theater stage in Serbia to a hammock hanging over washed up coral from the Great Barrier Reef. In Colorado, I skied a 55-degree chute, and I skied naked, both for the first time. And I camped in Chaco Canyon National Park for a week for an archaeology and cosmology class.

So when I had to return home to Connecticut this summer after five weeks in Australia and a year at Colorado College (which is another, crazy, almost indescribable planet in itself), I’ll admit, I was not all that excited. My plans were simple to work and work out. There’s nothing to do in Connecticut besides that….right?

Wrong. Absolutely, 100% wrong. Whereas in Colorado, the mountains stole a piece of my heart, the trees in Connecticut have always enamored me. In the summer, the canopies of green leaves contrast with the lush brown of the bark and have an effervescent glow around them when the sun hits. And in the fall, it’s as if a woodland fairy painted each leaf. The honeycomb yellows look sweet enough to pick right off the branches and eat; the oranges could be glued to a styrofoam oval and be mistaken for a pumpkin; and the reds seem to emit heat like a fiery blaze. When the leaves are on the trees, every step feels like I’m venturing further and further into my own secret garden.

With inspiration from these trees, I discovered a whole other life to turn to on my days off from work. Twice a week I would pack a baggie of veggies and nuts, spray tick and mosquito spray all over my dog and me, and drive to explore another secret garden for the day. Part of me wants to say it was my escape, but I learned that it was really just the fulfillment of who I am.

The woods of Connecticut and the Hudson Valley area in New York are small comparatively speaking in terms of acreage and altitude, but they compensate in their deep richness. The Arthur Butler Memorial Sanctuary in Mt. Kisco, NY borders the 684 highway, but as soon as I stepped on the trail, the thick fence of oak trees defended the interior from rumbling engines and beeping police radar detectors. 

In the seven weeks I spent home this summer, my dog, Brewster, and I chased each other through the winding woods of twelve different state parks, sanctuaries, preserves, and reservations in Connecticut and the Hudson Valley area. I found an untapped love for the place I spent the first eighteen years of my life. This love reminds me to be thankful every day of where I was lucky enough to grow up, and as much as Colorado is a home, my roots will always be buried in the rich soil of Connecticut.

That love will only grow as I continue to plant more seeds in my secret garden in future summers and winters. I can’t give you the whole picture, for what is a secret garden if not fully kept a secret? Hopefully these highlights will encourage you all to find your own reasons to love where you came from. After all, it shaped who you are now for better or for worse.

To pay homage to Connecticut, here’s a recipe for streusel muffins with blueberries picked in state. Enjoy.

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Makes 16 muffins

For Cinnamon Streusel

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 tbsp granulated sugar

2 tbsp all purpose flour

1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, cold

For Muffin

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

2 cup blueberries

1 tbsp all purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with muffin liners or spray with nonstick spray.

2. For streusel, cut butter into sugar, flour and cinnamon. Mix until the dry ingredients are fully incorporated into the butter and resembles a crumble. Set aside.

3. For the muffins, in a small bowl, mix together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. In a small measuring cup, whisk together buttermilk, vanilla, and egg. Set aside. In a small bowl, toss blueberries and 1 tbsp of flour.

4. In a large mixing bowl, beat softened butter with sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Beat in buttermilk-egg mixture until just incorporated. Turn mixer on low, and gradually add flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in blueberries. Sprinkle about a teaspoon of streusel over the top of each muffin. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Ramblings from the Contemplative Canine: Mt. Beacon

We've never formally met, not surprisingly since I don't have opposable thumbs, if I tried to type it would look like complete jibberish. You'd think Liz had passed beyond the tipping point of crazy (which to be honest she was already quite close to) and was frantically typing out her last thoughts before checking into a mental institution. I have a lot to say, though, and am too infrequently listened to. You may think my species is simple-minded, but stop and think about all the secrets we are told in confidence, the sinful acts to which we silently turn a blind eye, and, most significantly, the camaraderie among our species and with the human species. If we aren't too distracted by that greasy spot on the kitchen floor or the new bunny rabbit whose stuffing needs to be littered across the living room floor, we can synthesize all that information into conclusions I believe are beyond the human rational.

That's why, on our hike up Mt. Beacon in Beacon, NY Liz and I devised a method by which I can articulate my thoughts to her so she can act as my scribe. They may seem minute and socially restricted, but if scaled to a local, regional, national or even global proportion, I know they could mitigate the violence and fighting I see humans agonizing over day after day. With that, here are my ramblings.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Brewster, and I am a German Shepard with a small bit of beagle mixed in there. Don't ask me how. I'm just happy I don't weigh 90 pounds nor have hips prone to failure like most Shepards. I've lived with Liz and her parents for almost ten years and treated every visitor, even the UPS and mailmen like family. She and her family take me hiking and mountain biking almost every week which is when I get to run up, down and around trails without that invisible, shock border I never listen to anyway. Although I love to weave through trees exploring every nook, cranny, scent and pile of some mysterious solid, my favorite part of these adventures is the joy I bring strangers when I trot up to them, ears tall and open, and tongue hanging flaccidly between my bottom canine teeth. I can tell that at first, they wince away in fear. Liz says it's because many German Shepards are trained to resort to intimidation or even violence in order to protect their owners. As much as I love my family, I could never hurt anyone. 

I fell victim to neglect and abuse by humans when I was a puppy but was soon blessed with caring family and a house full toys, furniture and food all for me (well, at least I like to think it's all for me). I believe we are all victims of something, whether of physical abuse, mental instability, death of loved ones, environmental disaster, or whatever. When my parents are working out listening to the news or Liz is talking with her best friend, Jordan, about the seemingly endless cycle of both anthropocentric and ecocentric violence and disaster, I listen. I question the purpose of humans hoarding their victimization in a vengeful matter rather than a progressive one. In doing so, they become the culprit in yet another case of victimization, thus fueling this seemingly endless cycle.

This place, Ferguson, I keep hearing commentary about followed by a slew of yells, gunshots, and bodies pounding against each other, is a perfect example. Both sides seem to have some sort of viable justification behind their anger, whether equally so or not. But as soon as the dagger of victimization plunged too deep on one side, the means of retaliation tipped towards irrational violence. Now, police forces are arresting, using near-lethal weapons against, and in some cases killing its neighbors. On the other hand, certain protestors are exploiting this political and social unrest to simply wreck havoc and destroy their community.

As someone who has experienced near-lethal abuse, I cannot even begin to empathize with such responses. If I and the hundreds of other animals who are treated horrifically every day did, there were be daily reports of dog bites and euthanization. What I can empathize with is the people who unravel the vine of emotions twisted around the tree of injustice in a forgiving and peacefully confrontational matter. I know, it's somewhat utopian; a world without war, public hatred or petty violence. Why, though, should we quell the pursuit of a utopia? Who would not want to live in such a world? Plenty of individuals do. I am one of them.

I'll admit I am a bit clingy at times. In the house, I follow around Liz and Carina until their hands are so wet from my drippy nose prying against it that they grant me with the belly rub for which I was pleading. Sometimes, my charm does not quite enchant them for whatever reason. They shoo me away, an action analogous to much of the violence of today. I have three main options: keep prodding, bite, or heel. The first risks a more stern "no," which on a scale larger than a belly rub, could shake a stable relationship but in most cases the risk is necessary to gain access to certain desires. The risk is unjustifiable though with too much poking despite constant negative response. On a political scale (not in my house), that as well as the bite would inevitably lead to violence and the cycle aforementioned. But the act of momentary restraint and eventual peaceful consultation. Consultation includes apologies (and the subtext underlying), submission to or denial of certain requests, and progress.

I think about all this nonsense as many of my friendly attempts at greeting the other hikers on the steep switchbacks of Mt. Beacon are denied with almost rudely inhumane indifference. The outdoors is supposed to be a communal place that fosters interaction between all classes of living beings. So, I set my path just to the right of theirs so as to not appear overly assertive. I make eye contact and raise my ears, though, as my invitation. Normally people at least smile back, most pat my head and many stop to ask my name. I walk more upright with pride protruding from my chest every time a stranger comments on my personable demeanor. But here, I struggled to not pound on the ground with every step, for many times when Liz or I initiated a greeting, we wouldn't even receive so much as a quiet nod in response. For a while, it seemed as though the world was against me. I had again become a victim, a victim of indifference.
I see not how the humbling challenge of 1,300 feet in 2.4 miles to the overlook and the additional 2 miles to the fire tower fails to bind together humans as brothers, sisters and friends in their mutual pursuit of better day. I see not how the green caps of mountains rolling endlessly to the north, split only by the gentle meander of the Hudson River. And I see not how the inception of a verbal (or in my case handshake, a symbol that has bound together enemies and allies on individual as well as global levels since the beginning of man, could ever go unreciprocated.

I could sink drearily and lose faith in a humanity I believe (despite the root of the word) includes all living organisms. Never again would I offer my head for children or adults to pat on the trail. I would interact solely with myself, Liz and the rest of my family and friends. But then I think, would I ever want to walk up mountains or through a web of trees in the woods? It would morph into a futile exercise equivalent to sitting on my chair in the living room. I would become angry inside, and begin to bite. I don't even want to imagine nevertheless articulate the changes I would undergo.

But I don't have to. I don't have to because we hear and read about it on the news every hour of every day. More and more of us witness it first hand and even experience it. We say so often, "What a shame, all of this violence and hatred," and think we can do nothing about it. Maybe on a global scale, we cannot. But we can start small, right? We can choose link arms with the people around us, establishing a network rooted in the simple fact that we are creatures trying to survive on this earth. That network will begin with two people, maybe Liz and I, maybe the 'CEO's' of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Chris Kennedy and Jon Bullas. But one day, it could expand across borders and seas creating that utopia we have for so long confined to lines in a book.

Just start by saying hi to Liz and me.

Until next time,

Brewster

The Finale: Australia Week 5

Whenever I thought of the rainforest, my initial thought would always be the Amazon. That was before I went to Australia. Now I think of the Daintree Rainforest in the province of Queensland. The Daintree Rainforest is 180 million years old, making it the oldest rainforest in the world and tens of millions of years older than the Amazon. It spans 1200 square km from the Mossman Gorge and the Bloomfield River on the eastern coast north of Cairns.  I wish I could've captured even a fraction of one third of Australia's frog, reptile and marsupial species, 65% of its bat and butterfly species, 18% of its birds species, and countless endemic species living in the Daintree Rainforest.

As soon as I stepped out of the van that had driven us from the pier at Cairns to the Silky Oaks Lodge in Mossman, all around these species roamed sheltered by the bottle trees, cluster fig trees, the 300 million year old King Fern, and hundreds of other species representative of the botanical evolution throughout the world. My parents, Brianna and her mom, Heather, and I each had our own villa elevated 25 feet off the ground on stilts. They by no means dominated the surrounding ecosystem, but rather blended in with dangling leaves, vines, and ferns and served as pedestals for perching for the squawking parrots, king fishers, and brush turkeys. Even the pool was hidden within the organized knot of flora and fauna and disguised by artificial waterfalls and aquamarine water reminiscent of the Great Barrier Reef.

The first of our two days we went to the Mossman Gorge. The gorge actually runs adjacent to Silky Oaks and lodgers can swim or kayak in it, but the national park associated with the gorge is 15 minutes away. Our tour guide, a member of the aboriginal tribe indigenous to the Daintree nicknamed Skip, led us through the narrow trail blockaded by intricate spiderwebs stretching nearly 2 meters wide. He explained the significance of every piece of nature Daintree has offered his people, formally known as the Kuku Yalanji, for the thousands of years they have called this rainforest their home. For example, the buttress roots of many of the trees were used to make canoes whereas their bark can be used to build the structures of huts and the bark of the vines can be dried out to make string. They were carefully to never stay in one area too long, transitioning from the deep rainforest, to the coast, and to the grasslands so as to not decimate the land for further use.


Skip talked more and more about the abundant utility of the rainforest's resources, including using eucalyptus leaves for soap by rubbing them in water and the sediment from different rocks to paint peoples' bodies with their personal and families history. What I found most admirable about his tour, though, was that he only mentioned the persecution by Westerners once. He said that white people had kidnapped his grandfather and much of his extended family in order to forcible claim the rainforest for commercial uses. On the surface, his tone was merely informative, but underneath a indignant spite burned. Yet he, like many of the other aboriginals who white people have apathetically relocated, have worked to coalesce their culture with the commercial realities and necessities of the modern world. He exemplified an indigenous worker committed to his field, an indigenous worker that many white people, including the government and some of those that we talked to at Myella, do not confidently say exist.

The next day, we experienced the rainforest and the adjacent coast from the more Westernized point of view: the biological and ecological. With an extensive background in outdoor leadership and adventure sports like backcountry skiing, backpacking, mountain biking, and kayaking, our tour guide, Barney, instantly tapped into my academic and personal interests. In the Jindalba Boardwalk, he spoke about the ability of the young, two foot high tree to live without ample sunlight absorbed by the older, taller trees for long periods of time and then to sprout up rapidly as soon as one of the older trees fell. On Cape Tribulation, he pointed out the small crustaceans that burrow in the sand, leaving stacks of perfectly spherical sand balls and hieroglyphic-like patterns. And he clarified that the violet, speckled ovals lying all over the ground were not cassowary (very rare bird about the size of an emu with black feathers and a blue head) eggs but rather a cassowary plum. The two species are mutualistic: the cassowary eats the plum safely, which is laden with poison and toxic to all other animals, and then spreads the seeds all over the rainforest in Queensland. I couldn't believe the extent of his knowledge nor could I resist eating up every piece.

Despite the fact that, as my dad mockingly noted, our tour could have been advertised for members of the AARP since the other eight people were couples over the age of 70, the Forster-Magliozzi clan managed to thrive. Heather made friends with a kangaroo at the café we ate lunch at who, according to her, "stared deep into her eyes," I found an Australian to talk with about backcountry skiing, and my dad managed to last yet another day with four very, shall I say, open females.

Early the next morning, we drove back to Cairns to the airport to fly to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, a desert national park and World Heritage Site in the center of the country. We stayed in tents at Longitude 131. When I say 'tents,' though, don't picture in your head a rain fly, poles and stakes; instead, picture a sleakly modern, metal cabin raised about 15 feets off the ground with a canvas tarp stretched in a curved pyramid across the top. And if you can't picture that, you'll at least be able to begin to understand when I tell you that Prince William and Princess Kate stayed at Longitude 131 in late May. Yeah. You get it now.

But that was just the tents. Then there's the food. Yes, breakfast, lunch and dinner are all 5-star quality. But little can compare to the grill marks charred on two perfectly portioned pieces of chicken breast seasoned lightly with salt and pepper and served over rainbow quinoa soaking in the chicken juices. I couldn't stop my fork from returning over and over to the bright wasabi caviar bursting with the refreshingly pungent spice as I bit into the sesame crusted mahi mahi. Even their homemade muesli, the European/Australian version of granola that is served cold, with milk like cereal, swept away the nighttime desert chill lining my torso with warm spices like cinnamon and all-spice.


I needed that warmth every morning since we would leave for tours of the two rock formations, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, before sunrise when all the heat that had escaped the air and the sand had yet to be replenished by the sun. The land in the national park, as of the late 20th century, is owned by the local aboriginal tribe, the Anangu. Despite this, most all the licensed tour guides there are not Anangu but rather white. At first as we walked the 10 km perimeter of Uluru, and through the 32 rock heads of Kata Tjuta, I was greatly turned off by the supposed ignorance of the guides in terms of their knowledge of the sacred cites of which the visitors could not take pictures and ceremonies of the Anangu. They would shrug their shoulders and say, "We can't tell you about them because we don't know." I wanted to know everything of this massively flat landscape interrupted and dominated by two burnt orange rock formations radiating mystery. Even the most indifferent tourist couldn't avoid the raging curiosity sparked by the holes on Uluru that create an image of a human brain used by the Anangu as a male sacred site.

I finally began to understand during our last tour of the trip that focused solely on the cultural history of Uluru and the Anangu, I finally understood. Our tour guide told us all that she could, again which isn't all that much, and that she had no other information because the Anangu wouldn't tell her. At first I thought, 'Great, another tour of incomplete information.' But then she said, "I can't tell you because the Anangu have a hierarchy of information they allow certain individuals in and out the the tribe to know." Within the tribe, the elders know everything and only tell others if they seek out the elders' guidance, and if the elders' believe they are mature enough in terms of both age and character to handle such information. Even so, women know nothing of the men's sacred information and vice versa. Outsiders, thus, are eligible for even less information not so much out of spite for the intrusion by Western and white society but more so because the vastly different means by which we live that are dictated primarily by commercialism do not coincide with the priorities in the lives of the Anangu.


In a way, I compare it somewhat to the education system. Although people do not openly deny aboriginals or many urban minorities in the United States the right to quality and higher education, their eligibility for such an education is for some reason inferior to that of whites. Obviously the Anangu's reasons for not sharing their cultural information with others is rooted stronger in cultural history than my example, but in comparing the two, I can begin to understand the division between groups of people at the most basic level.

As much as I loved waking up to such a striking environment much different from the view of Pike's Peak I wake up to every morning at school, I was satisfied to leave on our last day. I felt as though I had a much of a grasp as I could on the Anangu and the reason why Uluru-Kata Tjuta was named a World Heritage Site and had hiked every trail in the park (typical Forster family mentality, right?). Besides, I was a bit tired of waking up at 6:15 AM when it was 30 degrees outside while sleeping in a 'tent' without heat and a floor so cold I'd have to wear slippers. Underlying that satisfaction, though, was a remorseful acceptance that my trip had basically ended. All that was left was our second stop in Sydney for higher quality food in Chinatown and at Pie Face, and finally the plane ride home.

I wouldn't say this trip surpassed some of my others in terms of extreme adventure or exposure to exotic culture especially when I compare it to backpacking in Alaska for a month or learning first hand about non-violent political protest in Serbia. I'll never forget this trip, though, because it was the first time that I traveled without adults or a paid organization and planned four weeks of constant travel with someone about my age. Rather than having every hour or every day planned as with most of my previous vacations, I embraced the spontaneity and budgetary restrictions of traveling as a college-age student (even though I hated looking at my drained checking account when I got back to the United States). We could explore cities without the rehearsed, sometimes narrow perspective of a tour guide, sleep on the beach without a to-do list lingering in our dreams, and giggle sinisterly when we tell our parents we went sky diving and bungee jumping.

Of course I would've loved to stay in Australia for the rest of the summer riding the Greyhound Bus and sleeping in bunk beds at youth hostels throughout the rest of the continent, but that's not what I miss the most I think. Maybe it's Brianna and my furry, kangaroo friend Bendy, but what I think I really miss most is waking up next to this crazy loser every day. Cheers, my friends.

Australia Week 4

Brianna and I had two days left of freedom in Australia after leaving the Myella Farmstay, and we were intent on exploiting every last second of “do whatever you want” time before meeting our parents at 12:45 PM sharp on June 21^st. After that, we would no longer accept various colored sheets from the receptionists at youth hostels to stretch over the shabby mattresses on our bunk beds, eat $10 meals in Chinatown, and throw our packs into the storage area of the Greyhound Australia buses. Instead, we would be cruelly confined to plush pillows in private rooms, five star quality, four course meals, and porters to transport our packs. Such a shame, right?

In all honesty, it was hard to let go of the lifestyle Brianna and I had grown so accustomed to the past four weeks. It was the first time I had felt homeless. There was a increasing satisfaction in that homelessness, that day after day I had yet another city, beachfront, farm or teepee to crawl through and feel their respective cracks in concrete, jagged shell remains, brittle grasses and coarse strands of dreadlocks on the pads of my fingers and toes. Every step, harmonized by a creak in my weary back, was another diversion from the routine of my life in the United States. I was intoxicated by that melody, and not sure if I was ready to fast forward to the next beat.

I figured if I had to (and there was no changing my parents plans), Brianna and I would leave on the highest note possible. To do so, we figured we had to actually plan for at least one of these two momentous days unlike acting spontaneously the morning of. With our track record, though, it was to be expected that our activity itinerary for one of these two days would be as last minute as possible. Our original plan before Cairns was to stay in Mission Beach for two nights. We lasted all of 24 hours, plagued by a cloudy drizzle and stunned by a 'town' consisting of a strip of four restaurants and six stores. Out of immovable boredom, we rescheduled our bus for a day earlier, leaving us with an extra day in Cairns before jumping out of a plane. So when the receptionist at the Cairns youth hostel asked if we needed help booking any activities in Cairns, what else would you expect us to answer but bungee jumping?

My dad had bungee jumped in the past, and when I was younger, I thought he was crazy. That was before I indulged in, rather than quelled, the sweet nectar of adrenaline. Now, I was equally crazy. I dared to climb 196 to the top of a 162 foot tall platform at AJ Hackett's Cairns Bungee Jump Center. As the employee on belay wrapped towels around my ankles and clipped the carabiner onto my harness, I stoked the fire burning in my blood to elevate the scale of the upcoming explosion. And when a bolt of fear electrocuted my brain as I looked below from the edge of the platform, I absorbed the shock with a deep inhale and, well, jumped. I expected to scream in excitement, but instead, I was completely calm. My body was so weightless that I couldn't feel the adrenaline pumping inside me but rather revolving around me in a color-shifting aura. I stretched my hands towards the top of the miniscule pond below that grew in size drastically disproportional to the two or three seconds I was actually free-falling. It expanded more like viscous molasses rather than thin cake batter. I could have free-fallen forever, never retracting the smile stretching across my face for miles and exposing every one of my teeth.

When the tips of my fingers finally did graze the surface and my body bounded back upwards like a rag dog, my squinty-eyed smile burst into a light-headed giggle. Even as the length of my rebound decreased and I reached for the raft paddle held upwards by the employee on the pond, I kept laughing with hopes that somehow its vibrations would lift me back to the top of the platform so I could jump again. Sadly, I was detached from the bungee cord too fast for my far-fetched fantasies to even begin to come to life. Instead, I relived my jump over and over in the five pictures I had paid $50 extra to receive and imagined jumping off the 200 METER (about 600 foot) tall platform AJ Hackett's company was building in China. Some day, I kept thinking. For now, though, we had yet another adrenaline-junky activity for which we had to prepare ourselves.

Day two, our final parent-free day, was actually planned three weeks prior when we were staying in Byron Bay. I had wanted to dive in Colorado for my eighteenth birthday, but with the start of my freshman year, free time was not really an expendable resource. Looking back, I'd say it was for the better. Now, I would sky dive over the Great Barrier Reef the day after arriving in Cairns three hours before meeting my parents at the pier.

The night before our jump, Brianna and I meticulously pried through our heaps of clothes we had poured out of our packs and onto the floor, ensuring our diving outfits were as perfect as a wedding dress. So, when my alarm screamed at 6:15 AM, I pulled on my signature shirt that I wear in at least half of the pictures I am tagged in on Facebook: my obnoxiously neon yellow, synthetic shirt with “SoccerPlus Goalkeeper School” written in bold black letters. Anyone in Friday morning traffic would look up at the sky and see me: the little, yellow dot hurdling towards the ground.

Unlike with bungee jumping, during which the threat of the ground is only a few feet away, during sky diving, you have almost 34,000 feet between you and the ground while free-falling. The reality of the consequences of part of the equipment faltering is so far away physically, that my mind could only comprehend the experience with blurred, unrecognizable lines like bleeding watercolor painting. While free-falling, I thought more about the beauty of the swelling ocean and the lush, dark green masses of rainforest below than the fact that I had just jumped out of a plane with a stranger on my back. After the parachute deployed, I calmly transitioned to my task, steering the chute and spinning wildly in circles, rather than regaining feeling in (what I assume was) my pounding chest. It wasn't until I slid smoothly across the grass on my butt upon landing that I had even the slightest sense of what I had just done. Even a now, a week later, after looking through my pictures time after time, I still can't really wrap my mind around it.
 

We headed back to our hotel, dazed partially from the drastic altitude gradient we had just experienced and partially from lack of sleep, and grabbed our packs, backpacks and two overstuffed bags of yogurts, cheeses, eggs, bacon, and Tim Tams. After two 30-day backpacking expeditions and countless multi-day ones, I'm obviously used to a heavy load. But this, this was unbearable especially for a 25 minute walk from one side of downtown Cairns to the other. Every two minutes or so, either Brianna or I would have to stop and rearrange the positioning of our hands to regain some sort of circulation. Ten minutes into our trek only seconds before both of us would have collapsed, some heavenly angel cast its blessing and granted us with the greatest gift even a higher being could ever give: a shopping cart. There it was, resting on the edge of the sidewalk just to the left us, waiting to be claimed. There was no hesitation, no self-conscious fear of judgment. That cart was ours.

We plopped our backpacks and grocery bags inside the cart and strided forward towards the pier with overwhelming relief and a new-found vitality. There's no denying it: we looked like hobos. We were the happiest hobos, though, with the most swag of anyone glaring inquisitively at us. As we sat on the pier leaning against the back of the shopping cart, our parents, who had just landed in Cairns, walked towards us asking each other who the hell those two girls at the end of the pier could possibly be. "Maybe that's Brianna and Elizabeth." "No, it can't be." "Wait, it definitely is. That's Elizabeth's neon yellow goalkeeper shirt!" Brianna and I galloped like crazy monkeys towards them, and embraced them for the first time in almost a month. The Forster-Maglozzi clan reunited at last.

We climbed on the ferry to Fitzroy Island, an island composed almost entirely of a national park about an hour off the coast of Cairns. Until arriving in Cairns, nobody Brianna nor I had talked to had ever heard of Fitzroy which could have been either a cause for concern or a greatly appreciated relief from the populated cities. Thankfully, the coral-lined shores and undulating inland hills of the island proved to be the perfect secret hideway for the first leg our of family journey. We started first with the hills, hiking up painfully steep but short sections of crumbling stone alternating with short downhills. The island has in fact the highest summit elevation of any of the surrounding islands reaching a monstrous 882.5 feet. Watch out Colorado 14ers, you've got some competition. 

The trail ended at the island's lighthouse, from which we could see the various shades of blue blending into one another as the depth of the ocean increased and decreased. The next day, we would snorkel throughout similar areas forty-five minutes away from the island. I would get to see the pearl white coral brutally massaging the bottoms of my feet on the beach bloom into vibrant shades of peach, plum, kelp-green, and sunset pink from the polyps living inside. I would float silently over schools of metallic fish flickering their tails, propelling them towards the algae and kelp. And I would be nearly paralyzed by the sight of the dull-grey reef shark flashing its needle-point teeth. I saw this and so much more, yet I had still only seen a miniscule fraction of the largest coral reef in the world, spanning 344,000 square kilometers of the waters off the coast of Australia.

Could you imagine if that entire area, or even a portion, bursting with an infinite color wheel of environmentally productive organisms and ecosystems essential to the health of our planet was gone? Although not on such a large scale, such degradation is ongoing due to an increase in sea surface temperatures and consequently, an imbalance in the calcium carbonate levels. The majority of the damage to the Great Barrier Reef since the end of the 20th century was caused by tropical cyclones, whose power is proportional with sea surface temperatures. The coral polyps that give the coral its color and its nutrients also die with the acidification of sea water caused by this chemical imbalance and oxygen starvation primarily. When the coral dies, the organisms that use the coral as a shelter or a source of food die, thus leaving their respective predators without prey on which to feed. I would never wish for the Great Barrier Reef to disappear, but if for the most unfortunate reason it ever did, I'm eternal grateful that I was able to experience its vibrantly, bio-diverse wonder now before it may be too late.

Fitzroy Island is also home to a turtle sanctuary and rehabilitation center run by the Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, a non-profit organization formed in 2000 by Paul Barnes and Jennie Gilbert. The turtles residing in the Fitzroy Island location are in the second stage of rehabilitation after spending an average of eighteen months in intensive care at a veterinarian facility. Many suffer from floater's syndrome which occurs when a turtle ingests a substance that they cannot digest. Unlike in the human body, which would manage to break down the substance despite its consequences, the substance would cause the turtle's other essential bodily systems to falter or even fail. Their muscles begin to break down and weaken substantially, causing them to float. They no longer can dive to find food, avoid predators and weather patterns, and continue maturing. If not rescued, floater's syndrome can lead to death.

The Fitzroy Island Resort, the only place of accommodation on the island, pays for the rehabilitation centre's lease and offers to its guests a tour of the turtle sanctuary (during which I learned all the information above). On the tour, you also get to meet two of the turtles, Barney and Bettie, who have had some of the most miraculous recoveries of any of the turtles currently at the sanctuary. In learning about their stories and those of the other turtles, the effects of pollution and the rising sea temperatures on the severity of storms (most recently Cyclone Yasi in 2011) in particular are evident on a peaceful, graceful species. And with the recent world-wide call for immediate action to curb the rate of climate change after the release of some dismal climate change reports, including one from the International Panel on Climate Change, the medical disorders plaguing these turtles are all too relevant to the drastic consequences climate change scientists are predicting if we don't change our engrained habits.

So, I left Fitzroy Island with an appreciation for two staple components of Australia's and the world's ecosystems that are currently at risk for eventual extinction, both of which suffer greatly from the increase in sea surface temperature and associated climate changes. With my equally environmental-hippie-dippie book, "Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution" by Caroline Fraser, in my hand, I was ready to venture into another ecosystem with ample endemic species and essential resources: the rainforest.