If you’ve spent any time at your local state park, your local body of water, or your local abandoned granite quarry turned rock climbing haven, then I’m sure you’ve seen me. I was probably leading a hiking group, a kayaking expedition, or belaying for a group of middle schoolers on a YMCA-sponsored after-school trip. If so, then you saw me in my element, for I am a guy in a Patagonia UV hoodie, and I have never been indoors.
I was born in the fresh fall air to a mushroom-foraging father and a reiki-healing mother. My parents opted for an outdoor water birth, and I entered into this world in a stock tank on an organic farm where my parents spent the year WWOOF-ing.
Shortly after my birth, my parents embarked on a three-year RV excursion along the entire Pan-American highway from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego. At fourteen months, I took my first steps at the top of Machu Picchu and climbed my first mountain in Patagonia (the region, not the store) a year later.
Growing up, my days were spent camping with my family, camping with my scout troop, or camping at summer camp. The Montessori school my parents sent me to was in a treehouse built by my classmates and me. That was our kindergarten class project. By ninth grade, we knew how to fell a ponderosa pine and quarter saw it for lumber with nothing but hand tools.
After high school, I studied environmental science at one of those colleges in California where the classes are held outside and all the professors have dreadlocks. The only “building” was the dean’s office. And it was less of a building and more of a canvas yurt.
Since then, I’ve had several different occupations. I was a park ranger at Zion, a whitewater rafting instructor on the Snake River, and a lumberjack in West Virginia. Each time, I lived in a tent right next to my place of work. I refuse to do any job that requires a commute of more than twenty paces.
The closest I’ve ever come to living indoors was the six months I spent on a sailboat while teaching scuba diving in the Keys. But that doesn’t count. Because on a boat, a door is called a “hatch.”
I have been with many women, but my only long-term relationship is my torrid, lifelong affair with Mother Nature. I make love at the tops of fire towers, behind waterfalls, and nowhere else. “Beds” are for gardens and rivers.
My hobbies include rappelling, lead climbing, soloing, and spelunking. If there’s a rock and some rope, I’m there.
I hiked the AT in hard mode: August in Georgia, December in Maine. You haven’t lived until you’ve done the Knife Edge Trail at the top of Katahdin when it’s forty below.
I don’t go to the doctor, because you don’t need health care when you walk sixty thousand steps a day.
I always know which way is north, what local plants are edible, and where to find the nearest rock shelter in case of a squall. Yes, I know what a “squall” is. Doesn’t everyone?
I grow my own weed. I make my own soap. I know the difference between the call of a Carolina wren and the call of a northern mockingbird imitating a Carolina wren.
I have never used a toilet that flushes.
The sound of the forest is my white-noise machine. The only blanket I need is a blanket of stars. The only pillow I need is moss.
I have never been indoors. Unless you count my annual trip to Patagonia (the store, not the region) to buy UV hoodies.
Do you really think I’m the kind of guy that wears sunscreen?