Seeking Connection
A strenuous hike, four friends, four beers, and the quiet reminder that I was no longer alone
I heard a grunt and a heavy exhale from behind me. It was the unspoken signal to stop. I found a flat spot on the trail as I felt the heat of a blister threatening to form on my heel. I removed my cap and wiped sweat from my brow and turned to look at the party behind me. Despite the discomfort, I was happy to be out here in the wilderness with friends.
No words were spoken. Each of us glanced at the others, straining against the weight of our packs. We stayed silent to afford each other a moment to steady ourselves from the climb. A tired smile formed on my face as I looked over the landscape we had traversed and this ragtag crew of guys that had come together over the last few months. Much like life, mountain pursuits had been a solo adventure for me in the past. Today, it felt good to be with others on the trail.
“This is, without a doubt, the hardest hike I have ever been on,” our flatlander friend Tyler exclaimed, having just flown in that morning from Minnesota. He leaned hard on his hiking sticks as he gathered himself and quietly laughed, a stark departure from his normal booming laugh that fills a room and leaves people smiling at its power.
The statement broke the silence and permitted us all an exhausted chuckle and a chance to comment on the rigors of the hike that had gone unspoken as we had climbed over two thousand feet over the last few hours.
I mindlessly poked at the ground with my hiking stick thinking back to the first real conversation Tyler and I had together a month before. His far north Minnesota accent gave a hint that he and I had likely walked similar paths. After nearly an hour of talking, we connected that we both had core childhood memories at the exact same lake located in north-central Minnesota. A friendship was immediately born over memories of mid-summer storms and our favorite fishing stories.
“Yeah, the path sure looks different when you look at it on the screen,” replied Ryan, the sole native Idahoan on the trip and the instigator of this current adventure.
Being in the mountains with Ryan was special. He was completely at home and at peace in the wilderness. Ryan and I had met for the first time at a breakfast months before. Our talks about our desires to better ourselves as husbands, fathers, and servants to others had drawn us close. He lived life intentionally without being loud or performative. He contemplated situations deeply and spoke only when and what was necessary.
“Geez, Jace, are you even fazed by this?” Tyler asked as he leaned forward harder into his trekking poles, calling upon the fourth member of our party.
I turned to see the youngest member of our party at the back of the line as he held his binoculars in hand and scanned the far face of the opposing mountainside. One look at Jace and you knew he had spent a lifetime on the wrestling mats. Weeks earlier we had all watched Jace emerge from the water in a cold pond far from any civilization in Idaho after getting baptized. We were all lucky enough to bear witness to a fire being lit within Jace in that moment.
“Boys, we’re just woodpeckers in a petrified forest…1” Jace stated as he continued to scan the mountainside through his binoculars.
Jace attempted to remain stoic and continue to hold the binoculars steady, but the comment made him sputter with laughter and his body began trembling in an attempt to hold back further laughter. But the laughter was contagious, made more so from our sheer exhaustion. The laughter started feeding off itself, and I found myself oscillating between thinking I had control only to find more laughter welling up within me that I couldn’t contain.
After the laughter finally dissipated, there was a moment of calm where I felt incredible gratitude for the company I was in and the experience we were having. These moments are still not lost on me. This is that second chance at a life that I felt was all but lost over three years ago. These are the moments of complete immersion in the present that I struggled to find before recovery.
I shifted my gaze to a small finger ridge behind me. Towering at the end of the ridge was a giant column of a rock formation. I felt the tug of a desire to explore pull me to investigate the formation.
“I’ll be right back, I’m going to see what the view is like from over there,” I said as I was already turning and walking the path to the rock outcropping.
The chatter of the group slowly faded off as I worked my way towards the end of the ridge. As I neared the rock formation, I noticed a small clearing with details that didn’t seem all that natural. Wood was stacked and positioned in a way that seemed like someone had posted up and worked to make the space comfortable for them. As I moved onward, a makeshift fire ring came into view. Then, I noticed the unopened beer.
Four beers, ready to drink, sat nestled next to a log positioned next to the fire with an extraordinary view of the valley below. I stopped in shock of the find, often having found empties in the backcountry, but never this. I paused a moment and let my eyes drift from those beers lying on the ground to my three friends that I could see standing a couple hundred yards off, chatting and continuing to laugh.
Their conversation was only a murmur to me at this distance, and I thought about the various pursuits and challenges that each of us had faced over the past few years that had brought us together. Each of us had our own individual battles, but we shared the commonality of wanting to draw ourselves closer to God, the ultimate pursuit that had brought us together.
I brought my gaze back down to the four unopened beers. I allowed my mind to drift back to my very first trip to the mountains of Idaho where I adventured alone and was very much searching for something beyond the game that I hunted2. It had been nearly ten years since that first solo adventure. At the time, I was obsessed with being alone. I was convinced I had to achieve and solve all of the problems in my life by myself. Those four beers sat there on the ground, not tempting me but reminding me of a life that once was and that the descent back to the hell of loneliness and isolation could always spring up when I least suspected it.
Tyler’s booming laugh echoed off the rock outcropping I now stood by and lifted me from my trance. I looked up, knowing what I now desire in life.
I turned and headed back towards my friends.
Keep showing up,
Kyle Layne
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