They said that the Horseshoe Lodge project just might make me crazy. Building plans. Electrical. Mechanical. Historical. Cost projections. Capital campaign. Design decisions. Pile it all on an already full plate of programs, and I just may slip off the deep end, they said.

With these thoughts in my head, I look out across a narrow valley of spruce and fir, speckled with golden aspens, and I remember, thought-stop! The warm sun on my arms, cool with sweat as I take a break on this steep ascent of the Comanche Trail, drives home the point. I am here as an antidote to the craziness that could, if I allow it, get the best of me. There will be plenty of opportunity, and need, to think about all those details. But I’ll deal with them more effectively if I can walk away from them now and then. So, here I am, walking away. But, as I’ve learned many times before, getting the body away is the easy part. It’s the mind that so easily slips back into the fray. So, thought-stop!

The scenery helps. My wife Helene dropped me at the trailhead, on the eastern edge of the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness, an hour ago. The plan is to meet her on the other side in a few days. There’s about 18 miles of solo wilderness hiking between here and our meeting spot on the western edge of these mountains. I’ve packed as light as I could while still being prepared for what late September may throw at me up here, so my pack feels manageable. Each step makes me feel just a little bit lighter, even if they’ve all been uphill so far. It’s a wonderful rhythm, punctuated by frequent pauses for water, and 10 minutes of sit-down rest every hour….

I’m now at Comanche Pass. I look back into the drainage that I spent the last several hours in. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind is consistent but relatively gentle as I notice the rich blue of Comanche Lake. I pull out my water bottle and take a long drink, filtered water from the lake. A part of the lake is now a part of me. Lodge? What Lodge? Ah, it’s working!

North to Phantom Terrace, a trail carved into a gray cliff face that I hiked across once, several years ago, on a long day hike with a friend. Each step is taken much more deliberately, as the trail on the Terrace isn’t as wide as I thought it was, but the drop off to my right is just as I remembered – straight down. The trail is entirely in the shade, so I watch for ice. A slip here and I will have walked much further away than I want to.

Safely across Phantom Terrace, a slow grind up and over 12,800’ Venable Pass, and I am camped on the west side of the pass in a lonely lakeless basin surrounded by scratchy brown grasses and shrubby willows. Tent set up, enough water filtered to get me through the morning, split pea soup dinner heartily consumed and cleaned up, and I am sitting outside the tent facing west, bundled in wool and fleece, warm in spite of a steady wind. A lovely pink cloud sunset is today’s “beautiful scene number 97” or so, with a V-shaped sliver of the San Luis Valley and the distant San Juan Mountains darkening quickly as this day ends. It’s been a great day. I covered 7 or 8 miles today, most of it uphill. I am tired, really tired. But it’s that good kind of tired after working – physically working – hard.

I now realize that it’s been hours since I last thought of the Lodge and MPEC – work that I love but still need a break from. For me, it is wild Nature that gives me the best chance of walking away, physically, yes, but also mentally, and emotionally. “You don’t go there to find something,” Wallace Stegner once said of wilderness, “you go there to disappear.” Disappear. Walking Away. That’s why I’m here, to disappear into this wildness, this “geography of hope” as Stegner put it, for a few days. So the demands that could rob me of my sanity, as they’ve said it could, don’t. So I can walk out of this wilderness in a few days, reassured of my own sanity, ready to continue the work that I love.

~ Dave Van Manen September 27, 2007