Growing up I was what I would consider a pretty stereotypical nerd, spending most of my time inside playing video games and tinkering with computers. I was no stranger to the outdoors, especially on those long Ohio summer days when mom would kick us out of the house and we would roam around the neighborhood and surrounding farmland with the other kids, but I usually saw it as something to be admired from afar (at best), or a flat out inconvenience (at worst), rather than a place I desired to be. It wasn’t until later in life, when work relocated me to Colorado (a state pretty famously known for its outdoors) that I grew an appreciation for being outside.
Ever since that first time I flew into Colorado and the plane started descending over the Rockies I have had a deep feeling of being at home in the mountains. It’s hard not to have a sense of awe and wonder when looking out over a wide vista across a vast mountain range, and the ever growing number of scenic overlooks, resorts, trails, and drives mean I’m probably not the only one who feels this way. Over the past 15 years I’ve spent a lot of time on my mountain bike riding and exploring Colorado and it has afforded me some scenic views that visitors don’t get the opportunity to see and no postcard can truly capture.
The views I’m talking about, though, are not any sort of panoramic vista, but rather the deep sort of close up familiarity that comes from truly knowing a piece of nature. It is built up over time through consistent exploration of the same place over and over again. It is in knowing the contours of the land and how they shape the environment; the soil composition and how it responds to water; the spots that get a lot of shade, sun, or wind and anticipating what their conditions will be like after weather; how the water tends to flow when there is too much or too little; when and where the flowers like to bloom; how certain rocks cut into a trail and give it character; in all the little mundane details that can’t be seen from miles away, but all build up to give a place character.
Even in the small 15 mile radius around my house, all of which share the same ecosystem, I can think of at least half a dozen different places that feel like they have totally different personalities. There are trails that feel almost antagonistic to your presence, and others that are inviting. Some that are steep, and loose, but welcome the elements by channeling and shedding wind and water down steep gulleys. And still others that are soft and rolling and shaded, but must be cared for after a rain as the water pools into a clay heavy soil. Trails with sharp, jagged rocks along a narrow exposed spine that demand your undivided attention. And some that are hidden in a valley, surrounded by hills and trees and almost seem to invite you to get lost in your thoughts.
When we look at these places through our car windows, cameras, and postcards, we tend to think of them as static, at least in normal human timescales. But when we develop that zoomed in, deep level of familiarity, we see an ever changing environment. Years ago, after some severe rain and flooding, my friend and I found that a whole steep and loose section of trail we liked to ride had been entirely washed away. The trail had to be completely rerouted through a winding set of rocky switchbacks. I wonder sometimes how many people walk by that section and don’t know how different it used to be, and then I start to wonder how many times that same area has changed before I got to know it.
When strong winds and a fire ripped through another spot I frequent, I came by after it re-opened to find my favorite tree, the one perfectly positioned at the top of a long climb to block the sun and offer welcome shade, was just gone. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I felt a real sense of sadness for the loss of that tree that day.
Fires, floods, and winds are bound to cause drastic changes, but these things happen on smaller scales constantly. New ruts form and force me to take a different line on a high speed section of trail; a rock gets exposed that creates a clean transition into a technical section that changes the dynamic of a rock garden; erosion changes a once smooth ground into something more turbulent and loose. The more familiar I become with a place, the more I see it as a living and changing thing.
The act of exploration is something that seems to be fundamental to the human experience. Even though I still think of myself as an indoor kid, most of my vivid memories from childhood are of the outdoors. I can still tell you all the backyard neighborhood shortcuts, the best climbing trees around our house, and where the good spots were to catch crawdads in the creek. As I got older I think I just traded those small, local adventures for bigger and more novel things. There is a risk, though, in thinking that exploration consists solely in finding new places, taking a few pictures, and moving on. Kids seem to know this, maybe intuitively, or maybe because their accessible environment is more limited and opportunities for exploration are more immediate. Regardless, I lost that knowledge for a while along the way and I’m just now realizing that this exploration of the familiar is really just me doing something I forgot I already knew how to do.