Tales
Possibility Road
by Scott BackesTHE SPEED OF THE TRUCK ADDED TO THE GROUND EFFECT BLIZZARD, GIVES ME THE FEELING OF BEING SUSPENDED ABOVE THE PAVEMENT. My truck is a hovercraft floating above the dull gray early January Montana high plain. The only color left in the softly rolling countryside is the brassy gold corn stalks sitting resolutely above the snow. The symmetrical perfection of purpose posed by the powerlines and train tracks that border the highway are the only other signs of civilized society. Then I go deep into what that statement really means... what it says about us and suddenly its time to change the CD. I’ve adopted an alternative strategy for time on these drives. The drive is broken down into how many CD’s will it take to reach your destination. Physical time, "am and "pm", means nothing; the only thing that matters on one of these drives is when it will be over. Knowing it’s only four more CD’s is somehow more comforting than knowing it’s still 3 and so many hours to go.
I can see the road ahead dropping into a deep ravine and soon the Ford Ranger is headed down hill into a beautiful little river valley. The scrub gives way to beautiful oaks and birch and were it not -20'F, I’d be tempted to stop. The ravine has opened into a broad valley with the braided river running on both sides of my truck. I feel a little blessed. The walls of steep stratified rock and soil that make up the hill sides of this valley have me fantasizing about the mountain biking possibilities this little piece of God's gray earth. Too soon I’m headed back up hill but find myself looking closely as the ecosystem changes before my eyes. The rough coniferous trees that line the top of the ravine seem to me to have as hard a life as any living thing. Their rough, dull, gray-brown bark, their tortured and spiraled forms equal raw will to me and I find it inspiring, if somewhat daunting.
Being an alpinist living in Minnesota means driving. The trips westward and then back again are as much a part of my existence, my avocation as the climbing itself. These long, mostly solo journeys have been a part of my process as long as I have been climbing. My friends both in Minnesota and out west have over the years expressed their pity and condolences for these long marches to my destiny. But I have always looked to them in another way. They are my magical periods of separation and rebirth. The time by myself driving on the road to possibilities bridges my two different lives. No matter how hard I try to integrate these two diverse and divergent "ways", no matter how much I want the two to be connected, they are not. The longer I have done these drives the more this lesson has hit home and the more I have become at peace with it. It is simply my life and my path and I no longer have to wring my hands over what it means or why I've chosen to live this way. I change from city dwelling worker, to artist and vagabond. I leave a set of crucial relationships that define my life in the city and take up with a set of friends that though more transient and fluid none the less define me as an alpinist and a man. For surely those relationships that we hold closest (where ever they may be, who ever they may be) give us much more than a clue as to who we really are.
These pilgrimages are meditation, long sessions of creative visualization, and most importantly a time to let the excitement and joy at the prospect of Alpine climbing build within me. These drives fill my being with such longing that the exertion and suffering that I know are inevitably to come will matter not in the least. These drives serve to bring me back to earth; to socialize me, as I return home from months of unstructured freedom and unabashed Pantheism. These drives allowed me to focus on the ones I have left behind, the ones that bind me to this city. I celebrate the joy of the soon to come proximity, conversation and physical intimacy. These drives helped me find a way back from the intensity and seduction of life at risk. They helped me to remember the magic of central heating, the pure joy of being waited on in a restaurant, vibrant energy of thousands of bodies in motion at once. When I was younger my impatience often made the drive seem interminable. I put the hammer down and stopped only for gas. My pace often a good measure above the posted limit and my musical choices only furthered agitated my already hyperactive state. These days I still speed sometimes and hard, wild music still at times fills the cab. At other moments the speed drops and the music changes to artists that fill my being with peace. I am a dichotomy, I've always been a dichotomy and the drives have helped me to join my yin and yang into a circle. Time has taught me to be grateful for this gift-to stop seeing this as some kind character flaw. I am blessed with the movement and I've long since stopped trying to explain this to my friends here and there.
Two and a half more CD's to go. The daylight is being trumped by the power of the winter in the northern latitudes as I drive out of Lethabridge. The town itself isn't so bad, and there is a river valley right in the middle of it. During summer it would be quite beautiful. But the Alberta winds scrub the snow from the dusty brown hills outside of town. I try to imagine how anything could grow in this environment and I try to imagine why anyone would stay here. Just as I'm sure my friends out west try to imagine what keeps me in Minnesota. The massive metal girder bridges are the only points of visual interest, yet they seem to lead no where. I attempt to cut short my visit to Lethabridge by accelerating up the final big hill, but the hill is steeper than my motor is strong, so I let up on the gas relax my grip and try to enjoy the meager scenery. One man's poison is another man's joy.
I'll be finishing my drive by listening to tracks 9-14 from the album Hail to the Thief by Radiohead. The last truly ugly thing between me and the Canadian Rockies is the cement plant in Exshaw. It is a colossal travesty and it is a wonder. Every year it eats a little more of the mountain it is encamped against. The thick charcoal smoke coming out of the plant's 200-foot high smokestack pierces the pristine cobalt nighttime sky. By having a tall, tall smokestack companies can sidestep environmental laws. Because the air quality testing equipment tests near the ground and the tall smokestack shoots the pollutants so high up into the air that the particles dissipate over a huge area-there by contaminating everything for miles at just under the legal limit. The lights from the chain-link, barbed wire fenced in grounds and factory creates an eerie spectacle that reminds me of the nighttime battle in the movie Road Warrior. It's post-apocalyptic image saddening me as I see the evidence of our insanity even in this most beautiful place. The strong emotion is good. Just a few minutes earlier I had started the dreaded heavy eyelid headbob and was considering pulling off for a short walk in the frozen air to clear my head. But now I'm pretty sure I can make it. Thom Yorke sings in my car "I will lay me down In a bunker underground I won’t let this happen to my children Meet the real world coming out of my shell With white elephants Sitting ducks I will rise up".
And that is the last attribute that makes these drives so important in my life. Who has time for undisturbed contemplation of our world today? Driving from and driving to, the white line hypnosis, the break from the familiar, the sheer boredom, all combine to take the mind (my mind at least) to places hereto for untrammeled. The luxury of enforced idleness should not be underestimated. Boredom brings thoughts unbidden that once sifted through, just might produce a gem or two. When I'm back in the city with deadlines, obligations, and sensory overload everywhere, it's not that I don't try to consider my life and the world. The truth is that I don’t have the unbroken string of time to let the thoughts play out and resonate. I don't have the time or energy that is required for conclusions. The moon's spare ghostly light is plenty enough tonight to see the three slender silver threads of these most beautiful frozen waterfalls hanging down the headwall of Mt. Rundle. I'm in Banff and once again bittersweet sorrow, as my drive is over until my next tomorrow.