F R E E Z I N G T E M P E R A T U R E S G U A R A N T E E D .
Today, as I sat quietly while my computer chirred at some image processes, I leaned in a bit and read for the first time the bit of type on the little kitschy postcard reproduction of a Rocky Mountain National Park postcard that's been sitting on my desk for years.
It boldly touts the now-long-defunct, what-was a fourteen-by-eighteen foot cabin nestled among a field of boulders at thirteen-thousand feet on the approach to climb Longs Peak. 'No modern conviences,' says the first bullet. 'No trees to spoil the view.' Well, okay. 'Guests arrive on foot or horseback (no autos).' 'Freezing temperatures guaranteed every night.' And lastly, 'Water carried from snowbanks a few feet from the door.'
These, what must have been enticing claims back in the nineteen thirties, strike me as fascinating today for precisely two reasons.
First, the Boulderfield Cabin was itself completely unusual in the United States. Huts like this abound by the hundreds in the Alps, where they're staffed with a chef and crew to provide five-star accommodations in otherwise seemingly inhospitable mountain places. But here, in the country of John Muir's wilderness, devoid of the imprint of human beings… they do not. So this one, unique in its very existence, was even more so because of its lack of any modern conviences, or the ability to step off a tram and walk in the front door. You actually had to walk (well, or ride a horse). And the fact that this poster was advertising what amounted to a near-Muir wilderness experience in a cabin at thirteen-thousand feet, is fascinating.
It seems nowadays, this poster would read very differently. Quite the opposite, in fact. It would tout free wi-fi, air-conditioning (since someone may still require that to be comfortable even at thirteen thousand feet), cable television, RV hookups, and the like. Etc. etc. etc., for nowadays we cannot possibly be made
to be uncomfortable. It could claim the view, but not without the wi-fi. The pure, snowmelt water, but not without the steak and lobster entrees.
So that was one reason.
The second then, this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the
Wilderness Act. I will probably write a bit about that over the course of the year–about its significance. About how, maybe in the most pure and selfless way, we lazy, fat, greedy Americans got it right. Got it right in such a grand way as to provide a ray of hope for the very future of our periled civilization. About how, even with its claims of uncomfort, how strange it is still, our idea of wilderness, and the reasons for why we must continue to lay claim to the last vestiges of wild places.
This poster got it right. The stuff it advertises, that's the stuff stories are made of. From which adventure is born. John Muir, that grandfather of the idea of limitless wilderness, may have best written about his experiences in wilderness as such -
These beautiful days must enrich all my life. They do not exist as mere pictures–maps hung upon the walls of memory to brighten at times when touched by association or will, only to sink again like a landscape in the dark; but they saturate themselves into every part of the body and live always.
