Glenn and I recently enacted a “two week cooling off period” after we finish adventures. 

It turns out that when we are riding high from our latest amazing experience, we can make somewhat questionable decisions about our next adventure.

Case in point, before we had even gotten on our plane departing a recent visit to see grizzly bears in the Great Bear Rainforest, we had accepted an invitation to run 120 miles of trails through the Colorado Rockies this coming August. Drunk on the elation of our current trip, we honestly didn’t even think twice before we said “sure, sounds like fun!” 

Seriously…what were we thinking?!?

Our recent trip to the Azores – to run over a volcano in the middle of the North Atlantic – was the first trip with strangers Glenn and I had taken in several years (due to COVID). We’ve done several group adventures in the past (Vietnam, Croatia, Bolivia, Peru/Inca Trail, Tasmania, Ireland, Thailand, to name a few) and through them we’ve made friends all around the world. While Glenn and I love traveling together, we’ve come to appreciate the richness that adventuring with groups of strangers can bring. 

The Azores group was something extra special though.

A perfect blend of spectacular people, talented and amusing guides, unbeatable scenery, fun yet difficult physical activities, and amazing food and wine. After we got home, I was keen to find more “trips with strangers” to go on.

The social media algorithm gods smiled upon me and showed me a post from Women Who Explore for an upcoming backpacking trip through slot canyons in Arizona. I was immediately intrigued. I briefly visited slot canyons when I was an undergraduate geology student but have always wanted to return for more. It was a 5-day, 40-mile trek through knee-deep river water, sand, mud – and even quicksand – with a group of other women.

Sounded perfect!

As I pondered who might be interested in joining me, I immediately thought of Sayuri, whom I met on the Azores trip. She was going through some major life transitions and was joyfully adventurous as she explored what came next for her.

Sayuri (pictured above) joked that she was now a “yes man” trying to say yes to new opportunities and experiences that came her way. I sent her the link to the trip and it wasn’t long before she replied that she had signed up!

Next thing you know, Sayuri and I found ourselves greeting our fellow backpackers in a hotel lobby in Page, Arizona. We were both anxious. Sayuri because this was her first backpacking trip and she wasn’t sure what to expect, and me because my inner introvert is always uncertain about the social intricacies of meeting new people.

In addition, I was having serious doubts about my ability to do this challenging endeavor as I was struggling to recover from a nasty cold. I felt truly miserable and exhausted, but found the excited energy of the group — and a few pep-talks from Sayuri — was just what I needed to power through.

We gathered in the hotel lobby at 5:40 the following morning and were at the trailhead around 7:00. There was a nervous and determined energy among the group as we all made final adjustments to our gear and hefted our heavily laden packs onto our backs.

The group was comprised of women from across the U.S., each with their own unique lived experiences but a shared sense of adventure and excitement about the challenge ahead. 

Over the next five days the group transitioned from a random collection of strangers engaged in small talk…to a circle of loving friends sharing unbounded moments of joy and deep, meaningful, life-changing conversations. It felt like every individual was destined to be there – each bringing their own unique gifts and perspectives to share with the others. 

It seemed each of us was meant to gain something from the experience, and the others in the group were perfectly suited to help each find what they needed. 

Other than childhood experiences as a Girl Scout, this was only my second time doing something challenging while in the exclusive company of other women. Earlier this year I participated in a swift-water rescue training and it gave me a taste of how being the care of a collective of women — while doing something outside of my comfort zone — could be deeply empowering. 

I found that experience to be absent of ego, rich in comradery, and awash with caretaking that never felt patronizing or paternalistic. Being in that environment felt like a warm embrace that helped boost my confidence in doing something that, quite honestly, scared the shit out of me.

I left with a desire to find more opportunities to do hard things with other women and this backpacking trip called to me for that very reason.  

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m lucky enough to have had no shortage of “once in a lifetime” adventures. I am grateful I’ve been able to see and do so many of the things I’ve dreamed about. It has enriched my life in more ways that I can count. 

On this backpacking trip, it was a joy to watch other wonderful women get a taste for how uplifting, healing, and life-changing such trips can be. How these types of experiences can ignite (or reignite) a passion for seeking joy and connection with each other, and the world around us.

I was able to witness many of them shift their physical, emotional, and/or spiritual baselines for what was desired in their lives…gaining clarity on what they needed more of, and what they wanted less of.

I thought that was what I was meant to get out of this experience. 

To bear witness to other women having a transformative experience that can come from an adventurous and physically challenging trip. That this trip was meant to remind me to not take for granted how lucky I am to live the life I lead and to have the experiences I’ve had. 

Then, on day five, we came to “The Obstacle.” 

We all knew it was coming. I’d seen a couple of photos and had heard “The Obstacle” vaguely referenced by the guides a couple of times. The fine print said “The Obstacle” meant the trip wasn’t a good fit for people with a strong fear of heights.

I’m not afraid of heights, so I was confident my role would be to help those with such fears surmount the challenge. 

On the last day of our trip I was hiking along at the back of the group, blissfully enjoying the tight meandering curves of Buckskin Gulch. I walked through a narrow section, ducking under some big boulders, and suddenly came face to face with a wall of rock. 

“The Obstacle” loomed large before me, and my heart dropped when I saw it. 

The wall of rock had an ascending line of hand-/toe-hold divots (ancient ‘moqui steps’ carved into the stone by the Ancestral Puebloans who inhabited the area nearly a thousand years ago) and a knotted rope hanging down from the top. 

To mount “The Obstacle” required:

• climbing atop a big, slippery and sloping sand-coated boulder;
• lifting your right leg up to about hip height;
• doing the splits to reach the first toe-hold…which was about five feet above the ground;
• defying physics by somehow pushing/lifting/pulling oneself up onto the wall from that ridiculous angle; all while…
• resisting the mysterious forces that seemed to be gleefully sucking you into the precarious dangling open space that promised broken bones and cracked skulls.

I looked at “The Obstacle” and just knew I wasn’t going to be able to do this. 

While I’m technically not afraid of heights, I most certainly don’t feel confident enough in my upper body strength to HANG from them!! My mind immediately started playing out the various scenarios of how this would end.

Maybe I could hike back out the way we’d come – all 37 miles of it? Hmmm, that didn’t seem reasonable.

Maybe a helicopter could come lift me out of the canyon? That was a more rationale resolution, right?

Marci and Pika, our guides, gathered us around. “We’re going to help each other get through this,” they said. “You just need to trust us and follow our instructions,” they confidently proclaimed.

“You also need to trust each other. We’re going to work together as a team to get everyone up this wall,” they encouraged.

“But most importantly…you need to trust yourself. This is 10% physical, and 90% psychological. Trust that your legs can push you up and that your arms can pull you up. You can do this.”

I felt a brief glimmer of hope. Maybe I could do this?!? 

I looked around at the anxious yet determined faces of the group. I did trust them, and I wanted to do my part in getting the team, including myself, up the wall.

I had to at least try, right?

It’s all a bit of a blur now, but somehow I made it up the wall. In the video below you can hear the loving support and encouragement from my teammates, as well as the warbling stress in my own voice. In the end, it wasn’t that difficult of a physical accomplishment…but mentally, it was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever attempted. 

There are lots of other scenarios and groups with which I would have been able to get myself up and over “The Obstacle.” But being in the loving care of this amazing group of badass women made the experience infinitely profound. I was wrapped snuggly in their certainty that each of us would get to the top. I felt buoyed by their heart-felt encouragement and their elation at what we could accomplish together.

It was magical.

As women, we all have experienced parts of society that regularly tell us – directly and indirectly – that we are weaker, or less than, or lacking, or ???, due to our gender. 

When I was in the 6^th grade my science teacher told me that I couldn’t fulfill my dream of becoming a Space Shuttle astronaut because I had a “girl brain.” When I was a wildland firefighter, I was told I couldn’t operate the chainsaw (a task I had exceeded at in training), because as a woman it wasn’t “safe” to be so close to the inmate crews who typically worked with the chainsaw operator on a fire.

I have a lifetime of such interactions…as do most women. 

All that is to say…although everyone in the group had come from different backgrounds with a myriad of lived experiences, we all shared an important part of our identity. With that came a deep knowing and an intuitive connection to one another that didn’t require explanation.  

I believe “The Obstacle” experience was the real reason I was meant to be on this trip. 

I was meant to walk away with a deeper appreciation for the profound impact of affinity spaces – of experiencing life’s adventures while in community with people you have a shared identity.

It is impossible to put into words what it feels like to be surrounded by those with whom you have an instant connection that is tied to a part of your identity that is exceedingly complex and shapes nearly everything you think, do and experience in life.

I volunteer as the grant writer for the amazing non-profit Wild Diversity, who is singularly focused on creating opportunities for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, all People of Color) and LGBTQ+ folks to rekindle their connections to the land, water, and each other. 

In this role, I’m regularly seeking to convey to potential funders the profound joy and healing that can come from creating space for Black, brown, queer and trans people to come together in nature. 

I try to put into words the visceral and lasting impacts that racism, homophobia, and transphobia have in perpetuating a history of expulsion and exclusion from nature and public spaces that members of these communities continue to experience in the outdoors. 

I attempt to capture how transformational it can be for such individuals to hike, camp, kayak, swim, forage, etc., all while in affinity spaces where they can show up as their full, authentic selves.

Although my grant writing endeavors have been successful, my words have felt hollow at times. 

While I’ve been able to relay such concepts on an intellectual level, I’m not sure they carried the conviction and passion that comes from personal experience. 

I in no way mean to imply that the challenges of moving through the world as a white, straight, cisgender woman is on par with what Black, brown, queer and/or trans folks go through. The realities and impacts of those lived experiences are miles apart. 

However, “The Obstacle” helped lift the veil slightly and gave me a bigger window through which to foster empathy.

Tackling something that intimidated the hell out of me, while in community with an amazing and uplifting group of women, gave me a small taste of how critically important it is to create opportunities for those most marginalized and harmed by today’s society to have similar experiences of affinity, acceptance, and joy.

Now, as I work on writing grant proposals, I’ll have a deeper well from which to pull a more compelling narrative that will hopefully help fund the important work Wild Diversity is doing. 

The backpacking group has a text thread that started before we met in Arizona. 

The texts before the trip were about what type of socks and snacks people were packing. The texts immediately after our adventure were filled with gratitude and appreciations for each other, and how folks were changed by the experience. Then, two-weeks later, a text came through saying that “Michele’s next adventure cooling off period” had passed. 

My phone was immediately filled with lists of trips folks in the group were hoping to take next year – Faroe Islands, Dolomites, Grand Canyon, Nepal, Mont Blanc, Machu Picchu, Kilimanjaro…all grand life adventures and most of them to be done while in the company of other women.

Yes, yes, and yes…sign me up for all of those please!

Below you will find more about my experience hiking Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch. It is toward the top of my “most phenomenal life experiences” list. Definitely do it if you get the chance. Trust me…you can get over “The Obstacle!”

I’ve stitched together my Instagram videos from the five-day adventure. It’ll give you a good feel for what the hike was like. (Please forgive the horrible “royalty free music.” Ugh.)

We hiked 5 days and 4 nights, for a total of a little over 40 miles. We started at the trailhead near Lee’s Ferry in Arizona, and exited “the middle route” of Buckskin Gulch in Utah. There was a trail in some places, and random meandering, bushwhacking, and bouldering in others. We seemingly walked across and through the Paria River over 700 times – it’s honestly probably pretty close to that number! And quicksand is bonkers to walk through. It was unnerving at first, but by the end of the trip I was no longer envisioning the scene from The Princess Bride playing out in reality.

Most people hike the opposite direction (North to South, ending near Lee’s Ferry), supposedly because it is slightly more downhill and moves with the river flow rather than against it. However, our group felt certain that going upstream (South to North) was the best route to follow because doing so meant: a) the longest, hottest and most exposed hiking day (out of Lee’s Ferry) is on Day 1, when your legs are still fresh and the sun is at your back; and b) you end with a grand finale because the canyon gets more and more narrow, culminating in the spectacular chasm of Buckskin Gulch on Day 5.

I am incredibly thankful to have had amazing guides (Marci and Pika) from Backcountry Found. It can be challenging to navigate the trail (as the river often floods, washing things out), there are limited water sources that can be difficult to find during certain times of the year (as the river water is too silty to filter), and the deadly flash flood dangers can be tricky to monitor and assess, especially several days into the hike. Plus, they prepared the most amazing food for us!!

In addition, finding – much less ascending – the canyon walls that make “the middle route” exit of Buckskin Gulch would have been impossible without our guides. Although there is an ancient petroglyph of a man pointing the way, there was no obvious trail or path to follow.

Which is to say, for those who aren’t experienced backpacking in the desert, I’d recommend having a knowledgeable guide with experience on this particular hike. I certainly felt more relaxed and comfortable about the unknown because I was in the care of such capable and confident guides.

This is the first time I’d done a multi-day backpacking trip where I didn’t bring a tent and just slept out in the open air. During our final gear check I was feeling so miserable from my cold that I was eager to dump as much weight out of my pack as possible – so the tent was tossed aside. Weather permitting, I’ll definitely be looking to do more of this in the future. I absolutely loved falling asleep with clear views of the moonlight reflecting off the canyon walls, and waking in the middle of the night to a blanket of twinkling stars overhead. I didn’t have any issues with critters bothering me in the night, other than a sand covered frog that came along looking to snuggle.

I’m so deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to go on this great adventure. Marci, Pika, Nicole, Sayuri, Holly, Kirsten, Brenda, Kathryn…thank you for being such amazing companions, and for tolerating my never-ending coughing and nose-blowing that echoed off the canyon walls all night long. Every. Damn. Night. You’re all saints.