Bumpass Hell, Canon 300D
Believe it or not, that’s what this place is called. Of course we laughed like 10 year old boys over it and made ass jokes for the whole drive up the mountains. Why on earth would they call a place that? Little did we know we would be hiking that very same trail the next day, in complete awe of its enormous beauty and mysterious sulphur springs. As we got closer, the smell became more and more intense. We heard, “It smells like farts!” in about 14 different languages.
Because it was a high yield hike {aweseome views and sights for relatively little effort} the trail was crowded with many people. My favorite moment was a French family getting all of the kids to pose on a rock overlooking the valley. At the notorious “cheese!” moment, the dad shouted, “Camembert!” and all of the kids grinned really wide. Nothing is more charming to me than an entire family of french people shouting camembert!
* I just read that Bumpass Hell recieved its curious name from a disgruntled explorer, who lost a leg after falling into a boiling pool. Yikes!
The next day Matt’s brother and I hiked to a crater called Cinder Cone. It was, as they say in California, a gnarly hike. When we got to the foot of the mountain, I was already overheated and gazed up at the 90 degree incline we were about to scale. To top it off, it was made of pure sand, embers and ash. For every step you took upward, you fell a half a step back. I felt like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, but slowly, surely, made it up.
Photo by Steven Passmore, Canon 300D
The payoff was the view of the painted dunes on the other side of the cinder cone. It was like being on top of the moon and staring down at Mars below.
It looked a lot like the architectural model of the park we saw at the ranger’s station.
I started to get an inkling then about why people might rock climb or trek a zillion miles in the Himalayas or dive deep into the ocean depths. To experience life fully, you have to take risks, you have to challenge yourself. It might be hard. You might suffer at the hands of mother nature. You might fall into a boiling pool of stinky sulphur, but there are rewards of beauty and aliveness in it as well.
Every time I go to Burning Man I vow to never go back. I will be overheated, covered in dust, sleep-deprived, thirsty and miserable. Then a dust storm will come, followed by rain and mud will be pouring out of the sky and I will think, ‘I am never ever coming back to this godforsaken place.’ I will be afraid I’m going to die (this will be totally unfounded) and I will look at my cracked feet and wonder why I spent so much money on my ticket and bought that expensive tutu that is now encrusted with playa mud.
And then suddenly, the rain will stop, the wind will die down, and out of a white cloud in the distance a flaming car that shoots fire and looks like a painted dragon will float across the horizon. And I remember again that sometimes the only way to see all of the beauty we want in this life is to work for it.
