Camping has always has a tender spot in my heart. An activity I have engaged in all my life with friends and family and great food. From the luxuries of electricity, room temperature and warm blankets piled on my bed to crisp morning air, occasional smoke in my eyes and dew soaking my sleeping bag. The comforts of security found in a home have been the toil of countless men and women throughout the ages. My newlywed Grandmother built her home board by board and one nail at a time while her husband faithfully watched over the sheep herd in the mountains. Another newly wed, my Great Aunt did the same thing while her husband, content to live in a tent, carried on the duties of managing the family cattle ranch. Both of these homes were humble, added to over the decades that followed and created homes that sheltered families from winter fury, summer heat, and the wild hazards of the American Frontier. In the beginning of both of these families camping was the way, the only option. Camping was life. Camping was sleeping outside in whatever condition mother nature endowed upon them. Some days it was visitors of bears, rattle snakes, wolves, lions, spiders, scorpions and even domesticated unruly cattle who would molest the home camp. Spring and fall snows, unexpected, would try their grit. Violent thunderstorms of rain and hail, ensuing mud and wind would disturb the tranquil moments of camping pioneer life. The elements of the seasons, the high noon sun and the darkness of long dreary nights took it’s toll and once they had homes, though simple and small I never saw my grandparents camping in my short 18 years of life close to them.
My parents camped with us and taught us the joys of the mountain streams, majestic firs, rugged cliffs, the pristine nature of high mountain meadows filled with mule deer and elk. The herds were almost sacred to us an icon of the bounty that nature gives us if we are willing to wait for such gifts to appear. We cooked in cast iron dutch ovens over open fires with wood gathered from the jagged dead fall found in the deep woods. These were thick places where men and elk do not easily pass but squirrels, marmots, and chipmunks call cozy and safe. There the den of the coyote and the bobcat are concealed in such places from the eyes of children who long for a glimpse of such creatures.
The penstamon and the chamerion adorn the meadows and the foot hills with scarlet and lavender. The tamarack and ponderosa towering patriarchs of the hills and canyons. A fat black bear overlooking the endless tops of pinion and juniper from a torn cliff of weathering sandstone. The autumn breeze from the canyon wakes the lonely pines into their melancholy song. A whispering found in the sacred places far from the worries and tormented minds of men on their path vain pursuits. The gentle hoot of the nocturnal hours and the silent flight of downy feathers the concealed birds alive and thriving in their canopy of evergreens. The receding snow line filling the streamlets soon becoming raging torrents of white billows over the boulders in the depths of chasms plunging onward toward the endless miles toward the tranquil sea. Formations grey and silver ever holding back the onward march of the pounding rains and the fierce winds that bend the spruce into natures bonsai upon the cliffs of clean blown rock and polished earth. In all its violent fury fueled with the power that crushes solid rock and snaps mighty timbers into chips and splinters somehow incomprehensible a delicate bloom adorns the torn place and a flower will open and the glories of creation are celebrated by gentile pastels beyond the safety of human homes, electricity, and our warm beds.
I camp to see these miracles. I camp to feel the changes of each natural moment throughout the day. I camp to watch the glowing embers of my fire and feel the gift of warmth form the diminishing wood. I camp to hear the majesty and the gentleness of the bugling elk and the morning dove. I camp to feel solace and I find it. I camp and sing praise to the creator of heaven, earth and skies. I camp to remember those whose home this once was. I camp to share all creation with my children. I camp to experience beauty. I have found myself in the wilderness while I was lost. I have found the purpose for homes. I have found the place for my passions. I have found the source of my strength. I glory in the creator who is the king of kings and the giver of all good gifts. I camp that my children may know sacred places. I camp that they may know the worth of our home, our church and our temple. I camp to seek and I have always found. I camp to see and I have been shown the glory of the Almighty God.
