(Idaho) Rocky Mountain High

Every now and then, I find myself adopting a unique sort of breathlessness in nature.  It’s no longer of my own accord that my chest is rising and falling—it is doing so in complete synchronization with my surroundings. A moment of being simultaneously rooted in the earth and yet freer, wilder than ever—and entirely at home in that feeling.  
A couple weeks ago, I found myself (not unusually) hungover and overtaken by an understated, inexplicable come-down sadness after spending the night at Redfish. I clambered into the driver’s seat of the car, reeking of beer, cigarettes, and campfire smoke.  Half the kids who had camped out were still asleep as I cautiously backed my jeep out from behind cars and slowly rolled back down the road, leaving a low hanging cloud of dust behind me.  As I came to the top of the ridge line, the rugged tips of the Sawtooths had begun to peek out from behind the hills, glowing a coral pink in the sunrise.
Rather than heading towards 75, I ended up following the road up to the Sockeye campground.  It was early enough in the morning that the packed campground was absolutely still, although it stirred slightly in my wake as grumpy campers emerged from trailers at the sound of my car screeching around at three times the speed limit.
I pulled up to the edge of the campground, leapt out of the car, and took off at a run through the woods—I knew by this point the rosy morning light would nearly be gone.  I made my way down to a hidden beach on sketchy, spotty memories from the summer before, feeling conspicuously loud and out of place as I thumped through the still woods and down to the pristine, glass-surfaced water.  I wobbled my way along a fallen log that rested in the water, balancing in a squat, attempting to take a photo without dropping my iPhone in the lake (it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened).  Dissatisfied with my precarious log position, I made my way back ashore, kicked off my shoes, and waded in.  Aside from the ripples around my thighs, the water was perfectly still in the early morning—so far untouched by wind, weather, boats, or even humans.  Rather than the usual shocking cold I was accustomed to, I found my legs submerged in pleasantly cool water—a week of temperatures in the nineties had raised the frigid lake to a bearable—even enjoyable—degree.  I lowered my phone so that the camera was parallel to the surface of the lake, trying to capture the majesty of scraggly peaks, bathed in peach morning light, towering above the sea-green tinted water.  As always, I found that I couldn't recreate the magnificence through a lens. 
As I considered that, I was quite suddenly disgusted by the fact that my first reaction had been to try to take a photo in the first place.  I was literally emerged in the beauty of the scene, and yet I was entirely detached from it as I obsessed over catching it on camera.  I slipped my phone into my back pocket, deciding that if I was to really experience this moment, I wouldn’t do it behind a screen.  
Previous to that moment, I had believed my surroundings to be silent—seeing as they were immersed in the tranquility of the morning.  I simply hadn’t been paying enough attention.  The forest was alive thousands of the most subtle sounds—beats of wings, splashing of miniature, inch-high waves on the shore, the patter of a flock of geese landing at the far end of the lake.  I stared at the scene before me as if I was seeing it for the first time, revering the dignified peaks, rising high into the sky, looking down at the silken surface of the water.  The hills below, densely covered in evergreen pines, glowed with a certain emerald hue that was brought on by the golden sunrise.  The lake, a perfect mirror, shot back streaks of all the colors of the world above it: the coral light on the mountains, the dark greens of the forest, the white of the snow patches nestled in the ridges, the immaculate light blue of the sky.  
And there I was, suddenly no longer controlling my breath—my being had caught up to the rhythm of the world around me.  I was a part of the natural world again—a return to a true form, of sorts.  
If anything else, I felt honored to be a part of it all—thigh deep in what was mostly snow run off, sporting a pair of semi-soaked cheap jean shorts, coated in the heavy stench of Natural Lite beer, with a rumbling stomach and pressure cooked skull—but still honored.  That is where I was meant to be, and I was lucky in that truth.
I prayed.  To whoever—whatever was listening.  I prayed for the wild.  For the untamed.  For the natural world in its purest state.  All hangovers aside, I was genuinely nauseous at the thought my current setting ever being domesticated, reaped from, changed in anyway outside of natural forces—even though I knew someday it must be.  
I begged for the protection of the natural world.  I begged that all might experience what it has to offer.  I begged that others might reach my conclusion that coming to the wild is coming home, and that all of our constructs of human life are nothing but a facade in the grand scheme of things.  I begged that none may be excluded from the magic of this world, and that it may never go unappreciated.  I begged that humankind, despite our best efforts, might never come to have control over nature.  I begged that the illusion of separatism might be shattered, that man might come to regard himself as one with the world again—and not above it.  

I wandered back ashore, skimming the surface of the water with my fingertips.  Despite feeling replenished, I didn’t miss the irony of returning back to my world in which humans do not occur naturally in nature.