Preparations of gear, mind, body and soul always precede these trips. Eventually there are too many rational, intellectual intentions in the way. A transition has always been needed after arrival. My expectation for years had been that it would occur around the end of the third day. A complex sea of technical and political issues from the parallel universe of a science and engineering career spun me with its own demands for attention. I would focus my attention like a hunter to quiet it down. It took time.

This time the transition was different. I had retired a little over a year before and the career spin was already wound out. We chose a more remote area of Zion National Park for the opening hike. The transition was happening in the first hour! I was not the hunter this time. There was a powerful sense of surrender. I realized that I would become the prey and let the land hunt me. I wanted to just listen and hear what it had to say. The abruptness takes me by surprise. The landscape speaks quietly; you must be quiet to hear, you must listen with your eyes. Impatience and a looming return had slowed me down in the past. Being human in a wild landscape does not come easily. Preparation becomes an art that is gratefully overwhelmed by the moment – it must be – to begin seeing. The contradictions we carry in begin to merge and weaken.