Seasonal migration patterns

A few years ago I had an instructor who shared with me a perspective that has been helpful to me ever since. The subject was the seasonal lifestyle, the constant (or seemingly constant) changing of address, job, location, climate, and friends that happens a few times each year to those of us in the tribe. She got to talking about the differance between nomadic peoples and people who simply wander. Nomads may be always on the move, but they tend to frequent the same pastures and lands year after year, season after season and that after awhile these lands, dispersed though they might be in time and space, become home as places and seasonal events become part of a person's landscape. Thus the nomad, despite being on the move, is at the same time always at home on the move, within the boundaries of that personal landscape. The wanderer in contrast lacks that personal connection with the places and seasonal events they encounter.

This concept has helped me at times when I feel particularly un-grounded. This is not one of those times, in part because I have grown into my personal landscape and migration pattern, which includes the journey from Flagstaff to Lander, Wyoming, where I sit writing this. I passed through Mesa Verde for the third year in a row to visit Melissa the Taller. Went to Winter Park to visit a friend from the Ice. Made my yearly pilgrimage to Ft. Collins to visit the New Belgium Brewery and sample the fine beverages on tap. And now tommorrow I'll start my third season as an instructor for NOLS. While I generally try and take some differant roads and studiously avoid the freeway, I invariably end up on familiar territory, especially as the years go by. And that is ok.

This year is feels shorter though. I still made my rounds in Colorado, and will visit the ranch for a week after I get out of the field, and then swing up to Montana for a conference of diabetic mountaineers. Then I don't know what will happen, but hopefully an adventurous road trip involving mountains, rivers, and a girl I'm kinda' sweet on, all on the way back to Flagstaff. Then I have the lofty goal of setting a new record for longest consecutive stretch of time without leaving for distant lands. I think if I make it past five and a half months, it will be the longest I've ever spent in one place at a stretch in over 7 years. Regardless of the time, it is the attitude which is important, wherein my adventures happen on a slightly more local scale. But since I'm still adjusting to this new attitude, I think this road trip and NOLS adventure is a good stepping stone in transition.




Driving through Colorado backroads is like driving through a post card.

Tasting at the New Belgium Brewery.

Ranger Mel and I.