Outdoor Bunnies

Love for all things wild and free was instilled in me at a young age, as I spent my early years exploring along the Wind River, WY — delighting in the catch of a trout and watching water beetles beneath frozen winter ponds, eagles nested in the towering trees above my 5-year-old upward-gazing and awed eyes. The Wind River my family soon traded for the Carson River, the Winds for the shadow of the eastern Sierra in the corner of NV and all its sageand granite. I still find it quite fitting that in this shadow, I grew up among a neighborhood of streets named after giants of conservation and exploration, and a backyard of their namesake Sierra peaks, as I raced Radio Flyer wagons and climbed the trees lining Lyell Way, Muir, Langley, Ritter, Banner, and Whitney Way.

It was after college that I returned to these places my heart called home, settling into the granite slabs of the Sierra and its many paths as a seasonal Forest Service Wilderness Ranger. What started as a single summer of space to be and think after college turned into almost six, as I came to know valleys and peaks quite well (and a realization of the seemingly endless knowing to be had), and with this knowledge, a deep ethic of care, and a pursuit of trying to better educate backcountry travelers on minimizing their impact in Wilderness as well as the wilds that serve as backdrop to daily life. I learned to sit in silence and often danced among the granite slabs that reached down into alpine waters that left me gasping for life. Wilderness became a place of freedom, for it seemed to expect nothing of me but to be myself, and allow it to be itself, and known, in full freedom. It offered itself to be known in tangible ways by all the senses, and a place to explore its mystery beyond those experiences.

The intersection of questions of living well in a place, and a faith in loving and just God of these places brought me on a sojourn to Regent College in Vancouver, BC for what I thought would be a season of exploring a faith-informed environmental ethic, and rather large questioning of what it means to be human. What started as an academic pursuit turned into a journey through depression, and existential wrestling with these questions as a self in relationship to all that is around me. Part of what has emerged is a voice in need of strengthening and an offering of myself as a confident woman.

My solitary wilderness and life journeys from the days of rangering transformed into more communal travels and journeys; my forest service uniform traded for a now-faded NOLS visor. My journey in pursuit of knowledge of myself, and love for God, others, and place, now often occurs in the context of extended wilderness expeditions or rock climbing camps instructing students for a month at a time with National Outdoor Leadership School, and personal expeditions now extending into the realm of more technical pursuits of climbing and mountaineering, with hopes of developing into a ‘badass mountaineer’. All of these experiences have contributed to who I am, and what I have to offer. Recently the company of competent women and men in the backcountry, especially women, have played a large role in the confidence of my voice and personhood as a woman in and out of the mountains. The rocks and glaciers and my fellow travelers have offered opportunities of transformation, communication, mistake and forgiveness, calculated risk and courage, interpersonally and the like. So I guess what I’m offering here as I stretch forward and extend my voice and dialogue of experiences in this outdoor world through written word, in hopes of strengthening it in courage, is both encouragement and challenge to you others within this community to also do and be and speak in freedom, strength and grace.