Contemplative Hiking

I spent a week in Glacier National Park, Montana with my family, almost completely unplugged. We didn’t have cell phone service where we were lodging, there was no wireless, and the only time we could check messages or receive calls or texts was when we drove into Columbia Falls or West Glacier to get groceries. [...]

Written by guest blogger, Darren Johnson. Darren Johnson is the author of Taking a Walk on the Wild Side, a blog born out of his personal love of nature and his desire to help youth and adults improve their lives through higher self-esteem, good decision making and strengthening family bonds by building a relationship with nature.  [...]

Perpetuating a fear of nature and specifically a fear of bears and cougars is harmful, because when a series of incidents sparks panic in a community as it did several years ago when mountain lions started showing up in the city of Boulder, the knee-jerk reaction many people have is to eradicate the entire population of mountain lions in the foothills, as opposed to dealing with the problem in a reasonable, appropriate way.

I wondered what the take-away message was from this hike and I decided there wasn’t really a message. I had stepped into the living (and dining) room of Burning Bear Creek, intruded on a lunch buffet, eavesdropped on afternoon gossip, and tromped through what may have been a period of bereavement or rest for a tribe of cows. It was regular life and death drama, going on as it does every day, every month, every year, whether humans see it (and hear it) or not.

I’ve never seen a more adorable video of a baby bird and its mother. This one will make you believe in humanity, too, as the caretaker is a kind man who nursed the poor little hummingbird so it would survive: Peeps and Peter

Crap. Now what? I thought. I was still a good half mile away from my house. Behind me was a neighborhood of tract homes I could walk into, and hopefully find shelter on someone’s porch if necessary. I knew from reading that article that the worst thing I could do was act like prey by running. Although, that’s exactly what I felt like doing. I wanted to grab my dog up into my arms and run like hell.