By the time the pixelated image of Barry Lopez’s face appeared on my computer screen, I had not read a single word he had written. I knew nothing of his accomplishments, writing mastery, or desire to explore the world, observing viewpoints other than his own. I looked curiously at his 70-something face, his balding head with gray tufts of hair on the sides, and the book-filled room in which he sat, without knowing that his ideas surrounding exploration would come to shape my own, articulating inclinations I had already felt but could not put words to.
Southern Utah University Professor Emeritus Jim Aton was going to be interviewing his friend Barry for the In Site Podcast. I was just there to record and make sure there were no issues with the overall sound. So, when the interview began, I turned off my video and just listened. Within the first few minutes, I was floored by this man’s brilliant and compassionate character. I knew right away I’d have to read everything he had ever written.
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Companion forum thread to: Exploration, An Act of Imagining
The horizon is our reminder that the way things are now is not the way things have to be. Exploring, even just backpacking into the hills at the edge of town, expands the known and opens us up to the possibility of more.
Thanks for the article. Some deep thoughts and reading material for next winter thanks (already prepping to take off for this years hiking). If it’s a new view or even experience, it’ll be an exciting exploration for that recreationalist at that moment.
My views are pretty clear on the recent permits thread … think modern society needs more recreational and wilderness areas myself. From municipalities to the backcountry.
Think it’s the perception of the hiker, biker, or traveler that counts. Guess it all combines with other emotions to form adventure but I’m no psychologist .. a.k.a. known as Type 1 and 2+ “fun”. There’s also doing trails or if allowed bushwhacks in the same area for familiarity or same area/different weather-season to push the boundaries. Different strokes for different folks of course, .. and there’s the feeling of exploration vs relaxation in our busy modern lives. My parents had a time share in Hawaii and going there after a stressful work year was relaxing (dumping the work calendar in the trash after m that first sip of rum n’coke at Honolulu Intl). In the midst of snorkeling and tanning, I worked in Kona’s Z-trail for a little adventure, though it’s become more expensive (might need to be more adventurous if wanting to do it on a budget). Here’s the original report from over 10 years ago, but if I did it again .. I’d probably “dirtbag” it in using public transport (of course having the official State of Hawaii forestry permit), and then maybe “poaching” a view or 2 on the entry beach => maybe explore doing a trail again, but “tougher”
https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/48523/
Horizon is in my top three as well (maybe number one?) and I love what this article brings out of it and expands upon – really well put.
Excellent!
Ben, loved the line about “places with toilet paper hanging from the sagebrush”. It’s true that we can only really love what we have experienced personally, whether it’s a place or animal or even a person.
I’ve spent more money on my own kids than on third world orphans, more on my dogs than on eagles or whales. Going to a place gives it a little connection to your heart, and you care more about conserving it than some remote island.
But there’s always someone too lazy to pick up their own (literal or metaphorical) crap, and I’ll bet they don’t pick up after their dog, either. Some people just don’t care and don’t respond to education. There have to be ‘sacrificial’ places with bus access, concrete wheelchair trails, and signposts. Keeping the remote areas ‘pristine ‘, for those of us who try to leave no trace, is difficult.
I’d take issue with you on Cook – he had the latest scientific instruments for his voyages – he’d definitely be a GPS/Satphone guy!
My mother once pointed out to me that everywhere she looked she could see a world full of amazing and beautiful people and landscapes and life in all myriad forms. She could also see a world full of banality, greed and cruelty, waste and destruction. It’s a matter of what you chose to focus on and emphasize. She chose to focus on the former.
I’m not exactly sure if that’s what Lopez was trying to tell us in Horizon but I’m heartened you have chosen to write about it. It’s hard to imagine a world without it.
Chris K – Cool to hear other people love this book! It feels like one of the most important books I’ve read in terms of learning how to work together at a critical time in history. I wish everyone could have the opportunity to read it.
Ian H – Good point, Cook probably would have had GPS. In which case I wonder if he’d have the same desire to explore…
obx hiker – I like your mom’s viewpoint here. Lopez is trying to hold both views at once, I think. In the chapter Talismans, he talks about a harpoon tip he carries in order to remember that we have to kill to eat and to support our families. An act, driven in part, by great love. “To act here is to face one’s own complicity,” he says, “to choose to take life in order that one’s own kin might continue to live.” And a second talisman he carries is a Spanish silver coin to remind him of the world of banality, greed, cruelty etc. These things remind him of the complexity of human existence while he writes. Of the overwhelm resulting in these complexities he writes: “Sometimes I’ve been able to rise to these ethical challenges and craft what I hope will be an eloquent objection. Other times, I am ashamed to admit, I step into the next room. I shut the door. Who can change this? I say to myself. The horrors—ethnic cleansing, industrial rapine, political corruption, racist lynching, extrajudicial execution—once identified and then denounced, always return, wearing different clothes but with the same obsessive face of indifference. We denounce those who order it, we condemn the people who carry out the policies, calling them inhumane. But the behavior is fully human. We are the darkness, as we are, too, the light.”
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