Three Times a Chama

Born to be wild.

Sep 14, 2021

As a senior in high school in 1992-93 I had one goal—to live closer to the outdoors.

Like a lot of prep schoolers of the 90s, I had spent a summer on a NOLS course in the Talkeetna Mountains in Alaska. I was 16.

Then, in January 1993, Outside magazine published its famous article “Death of an Innocent” by Jon Krakauer about Chris McCandless. That piece was the basis for the book and movie Into the Wild. Even though McCandless’ story was ultimately tragic and sad, I was mesmerized by that outdoor tale.

I needed to be wild too. At least as wild as I could be with an ambitious, tiger-lite mom and high-achieving, nerdish father. From their view, the outdoors were something to enjoyed occasionally, from a car window, and ideally as a way to improve one’s resume. It was not a lifestyle for their progeny. I was going to be on an elite path, no matter what. (We can discuss the pros and cons of parental override in a different conversation.)

I needed a sanctioned way to get closer to what I craved. I applied to Colorado College, where I was accepted on early admission. But my parents overrode that idea. They wanted me to attend their alma mater, Stanford. That is where I went. I am grateful at the doors this name has opened for me and the people I met, but it was not the right institution for me, in truth.

However, at the time, my compromise to the Stanford idea was to take a gap year and fulfill my outdoors dreams. Upon high school graduation, I went as far into the mountains as I could. I turned 18 in Patagonia, learning how to belay, climb, kayak and cook on an MSR stove. I stayed in South America and lived in Ecuador another three months; then in May 1994 I moved to Alaska to fulfill my Outside magazine off-grid fantasy. For four months, I worked at Trail Breaker Kennels, home to more than 100 sled dogs. The owner, Susan Butcher, was the first women to run and win the Iditarod, which she did four times. My young feminist pioneer soul was alight. (I wrote about this experience before for the now-defunct Hairpin.)

By the time September 1994 rolled around, I was definitely off-grid in more ways than one. I brought a sled dog, Feets, home to my dad’s house in California (Feets was later returned), I refused to wear something other than my Carhartts for months after returning to the Lower 48. I was far too worldly and independent to fit in with my two Stanford freshman roommates, both of whom were very devout Catholics from the Central Valley, played woodwinds, and studied hard.

From the start, it seemed this Stanford academic/social experiment was not going to go well.

Summer of 1995, Missoula, MT

To keep my nature girl fed, I joined the outdoors and ski clubs. I moved to Missoula for a summer. But at some point in my sophmore year, like a caged animal, my sense of wild-ness went from being an outer story to an inner one. I’m not sure exactly how or when the switch happened, but drugs and alcohol found me and my outdoorsy side fell off or at least, fell sideways. Another reality also found me: I needed to make money to live—and the outdoors don’t pay. It’s like I needed the anesthetic to make that medicine go down.

Like a caged animal, my sense of wild-ness went from being an outer story to an inner one.

I muddled my way through the educational system of Stanford for the next three years, without much oversight. I did graduate. But now instead of tall mountains, I became enchanted with tall buildings; instead of wild terrain, I wanted wild parties. Envision a quick montage: Move to Manhattan, go to bars, go to graduate school, 9/11, work and work, get sober, get married, get divorced. New York City was my mountain to climb.

Then, I moved to San Francisco in 2015. I started climbing mountains again on my free time—Whitney, Rainier, Kilimanjaro. The outdoor itch was more satisfied to be sure—but I still wanted more, less so for the adrenaline and more so for what I experienced at a soul-level in the outdoors. Joy. Peace. Happiness. Fun. Adventure. Freedom.

In those two decades in the city, I simply learned to live with a certain kind of longing.

Then pandemic changed it all.

***

On a trip back to Santa Fe inMay 2021 to see John, he proposed we go to the Chama River with some of his friends. I borrowed a friend’s kayak and we spent about an hour coming down the river. It was not a big paddle adventure technically speaking, but emotionally it was like a pipeline straight from Eden. Birds, views, breezes, lush river grasses. “Fecund,” John likes to say, his Scottish accent adding an extra purr to the word. Then we did it again in July, witnessing a double rainbow. And this last weekend, we did it again! This time with Bruno in a life jacket, in the kayak as well. Three times in one summer.

At the start of 2021, I could have never predicted that a short river I had never heard of would capture my heart. True, it’s a special place for many. There are dozens of campsites dotted along Route 151, the dirt road that runs up the Chama River Canyon Wilderness. The Chama River is a major tributary to the Rio Grande and the water flow is determined by water releases upriver; sandstone cliffs on either side rise up 1,500 feet. It’s sweet and pretty—and there are also rattlesnakes waiting to get ya under a good number of roadside rocks.

We have stayed at Oak Point, a little knob of a dispersed campground about 10 miles up the dirt road. We take a tear drop camper and sleep on a real mattress, which has now spoiled me for anything else. There is no cell phone service. You can see both the whole of the moon and the crescent. It’s a place that is filled with ancient stories, where, if you get quiet enough, you can hear them.

The Chama has been an easy portal for me to find my way back to the person I wanted to be so badly when I was 16 years old. I am turning 46 in a few short weeks. So it’s taken nearly 30 years to restart this story. But here we are, ready to begin again, and rediscover that path forward to true happiness.