Conclusion

Good day,

I am going home to Boston today from Bozeman, Montana.

First of all, I would like to address a major mistake I have made on this blog concerning Montana. I have called traveling to a destination in the wilderness without a trail bushwagoning. It actually is spelled bushwhacking. As a person who can't hear well, I confused "whacking" for "wagoning".

I also have received more pictures from my cousin that I would like to share with you all. They are of very good quality and show some details of the hike to Monitor Peak.

Fish Lake, where we camped.

The campsite. The yellow tent is where we slept and the grove of trees to the left of the tent (with the fallen tree) is where we hung our food.

The hike down from Monitor Peak

The ridgeline from Alpha-Monitor that we hiked

Now, for the conclusion.

A lot of people ask me why I like the outdoors and hiking, and I never really knew exactly how to answer that question besides "Oh, it's a pretty place, I like nature tbh."

I asked my cousin why she liked the outdoors and hiking and when she told me, I realized that her reasons were mine too.

A busy day for me is doing my homework after getting home exhausted from biking and while doing that work, I am trying to read my email and catch up on social media, maybe receive a call or text that I can't put off. For may people, the workplace is just a repeating cycle of boring processes, with occasional attempts to make it more entertaining.

Hiking and outdoor activity is an escape from that. It is an escape from the thoughts of the outside world, emails, calls, paperwork, etc. And the more off-the-grid you go, the more these thoughts slip away. Emails turn to water, calls to food, paperwork to shelter. Out in the wilderness where you have to make your own shelter and purify your own water and make your own food from what you have (in my case, instant mashed potatoes and oatmeal), you are not concerned with your work (in my case, two long essays on summer reading texts).

 Now that I am in the Bozeman airport writing this, I am trying to write, listen for announcements about my flight, making sure I don't miss the boarding time, trying to focus on just writing and not be distracted by the conversation of passengers around me. This, by the way, is why I'm liking videos more and more. Maybe someday I will have just videos, hopefully captioned.

Out there, I am more worried about getting to the top of the ridge to Monitor Peak. I am worried about making sure I don't slip on the rocks and that I am hydrated and that I don't lose half my blood to mosquitoes and making sure I have the air in my lungs to continue. This situation sounds absolutely terrifying to most. But why? Probably because you're not used to it. We are used to modern challenges, making money and then relaxing. I can almost guarantee that the people who are afraid of this situation are the ones who

a. Haven't tried it (vast majority)

b. Tried it but had a bad experience

Back to wilderness. How can anyone expect people to embrace the wilderness if it seems like a scary place? I'm not going to tell you that survival is easy, nor that it is all fun and games. I will tell you though that it is worth a shot.

When I wanted to go to Mexico, my parents gave me an outright no. When I wanted to go to Montana, we originally planned on it being a vacation for the whole family. Instead, I got to go by myself and try new things like whitewater rafting and backpacking and bushwhacking. All those things were things that I hadn't thought about trying until I was given that opportunity. When the opportunity arose, I grabbed it.

Grab it. Make your choice and take that leap of faith. In work, you don't decide if you get paid, your boss controls that. In the wilderness, your boss doesn't decide if you survive, you do.

I decided. I chose to survive. I took that risk, and boy, did I survive.

Sorry for ending so abruptly, I have to board my plane now. It's up to the pilot to get me to my destination, can't be late.

Thank you all for reading. Goodbye,
Ben