Field Notes
Field Note No. 3: Goat's Rules
Goat's rules: stick together. Anyone can call a stop at any time.
The thing about goats is they had to adapt their ways. People signed up for an OG hike without understanding. This ignorance forces goats to create rules. You could say, "goat's rules for the romantics."
Romantics? Yeah, kinda.
Goat understands the journey is the adventure, and the summit is just the gravy on the dehydrated potatoes. Romantics see photos of mountaintop views and say, "That's neat." Neither is wrong, but one is in for a rude awakening.
As the offspring, I learned from goat: when you cherish the journey, any obstacle is just part of the adventure. The dusk nights peeling through seven-foot-tall fireweed. The seemingly traversable saddle that ends up being anything but. The bee/wasp/demons that puncture your flesh.
Be a goat. Cherish the journey.
Cheers to the goats.
Field Note No. 2: Watch Me
I'm not the OG. I'm the offspring. I've watched the goat.
Goats tend to say "watch me" more than they say "listen to me."
This pass is grueling. Someone said not to sharpen the top end of this stick, but how else will it make a cradle to hold the quartz bounty of the mountains? The hiking stick, part wizard's staff, needs a mount ASAP.
Bounding down the boulders, staff in hand. Loose footing, a quick trip, a slight puncture to the neck. Merely a flesh wound.
I catch up to the goat later. He glances at my staff, at the dark color on one of its prongs, and his eyes shift to my neck. He looks me in the eye, knowingly, and pulls out the map.
He's not looking at the map for paths. Topography is what beckons him. The closely stacked lines are where we're headed.
Without a word, the map is packed and his eyes are set on the saddle.
Onward.
Cheers to the goats.
Field Note No. 1: The Map Ran Out
November 1949
The map ended at the creek. Somebody had drawn a dotted line past it once, then thought better of it and rubbed it out. You could still see the ghost of it.
We took the ghost. Two days of deadfall, one day of scree, and a night above timberline with the wind trying to steal the tarp. The pot got dented. The stove stayed lit. Nobody said much, because nothing needed saying.
Came down the far side with no trail and no regrets. The map's still wrong. We never sent in a correction.
Cheers to the goats.