Exploring the Wasatch Mountains: Sunset Peak

The trek up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Sunset Peak is a tough one, but the reward is well worth the price in strain and sweat. For me, it was a much-needed break from the delirium of deadlines and youthful excess.

As I made the trek up Little Cottonwood Canyon I was reminded of my bygone journeys into the wilderness of my mind, to a primal state of exploration. With a little help from my friends, it was always easy to let go and wander into the hidden wonders of deep forests and ever-winding trails of the backcountry of suburban life, disaffected and alienated at school and home. I often reminisce of those days, when my withered frame cracked and groaned like an old house as I staggered to find my way through darkness-peppered landscapes and heard pop music in the rhythms of rustling oak and maple leaves, flowing streams of water from some unknown source, intermittent chirps from nocturnal entities, and the footsteps of the shadow creatures lurking in the brush. I am referring to those lost days of youth, when the future was an afterthought and the present so malleable and rich, when every thought had potential and every word subtext, before literalism spoiled the odyssey. No, those days are merely remembered as adventures in the seclusion of nature at its purest. They were most likely actually frenzied pursuits in backyards and theatrical expressions of paranoia and fear in the streets of city districts at twilight.

What was different about this hike through Catherine’s Pass, though, was that I am almost certain that I was truly in the former environment because there were others who could verify this reality. Still, I question my experience. How then, I ask myself, do I carry sand in my shoes, evidence of the wind-traced serpentine path that led me to the peak? Why then do my pants cough dust when I beat them at the calf? Where then is the peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwich I packed? Surely it was consumed as I stood overlooking the panorama of a calm-watered lake. These are the thought-provoking questions we must ask ourselves at the end of each day because our reality has become so entwined with the fantasy we absorb through the neon bible in every home, school, and office, which we recite from to mollify our innate urge to bear witness to the all-too-elusive natural world.

As I reached the summit and relaxed my overworked lungs and extended my legs upon a sandstone ottoman, I set my gaze intently on the horizon—so clear, even as my eyes burned from the windswept grit that I failed to shield myself from—and I considered the fleeting moments that make up a day. For instance, my exertion during the hike increased with the altitude, and the thought of giving up on this project of early-morning hikes through the Wasatch crossed my mind but was gone before I could give it a second thought.

Such are all events in this life: everything is always in movement, passing by the lens of individual experience, which is reflected in this journal entry on my own transience in the mountains. And this too shall pass.