Trying to convince my husband and 3 teenagers to go backpacking was exhausting. I left them behind instead.

Yahoo

25-03-2025

Wendy Altschuler left her husband and three teenagers at home to hike through Death Valley National Park.
She went backpacking for three nights with strangers.
The trip left her feeling more in control and aware that it's not the type of trip for everyone.
It was 3 a.m. and I was awake not only because of the cold weather but because of a delight fizzing in my chest like Pop Rocks candy.
Outside my tent, which was pitched on the desert floor in California's Death Valley National Park, I heard a faint stomping in the backcountry. Wild horses. I grabbed my headlamp, unzipped my tent, and poked my head out, fully expecting to marvel at stallions.
That's the thing about silent spaces, remote locales with such little noise pollution that you almost feel like you have a superhero-level hearing.
The horses had already run past, so I looked up at an expansive sky filled with stars and planets, bright enough that I abandoned my headlamp.
This is the sensation I was seeking — the seemingly contrastive awareness of feeling itty bitty in a grand ole world, vulnerable and exposed to the elements, while at the same time, powerful and at the helm of my own life full of adventures.
Many of my past family holidays involved hiking and backpacking. But my three sons are now teenagers, and they don't have the same enthusiasm for challenging page-turners in the outdoors as I do.
When not with my kids, as an adventure writer, I also travel alongside other writers on media trips. This is why, during my visit to Death Valley earlier this month, I was excited to trek alongside everyday folks, plain clothes philosophers who had all chosen and paid to go on this adventure. An adventure company, Wildland Trekking, covered the costs of my trip.
At Death Valley National Park, I backpacked for three nights on the Cottonwood Marble Canyon Loop — a 30-mile trek through steep climbs, bushwhacking trails, windy strolls in painted canyons, rocky creeks, nearly invisible paths, and moon-like landscapes where I felt my most authentic self.
When day broke on that first morning in the park, shades of light blanketed massive boulders in a diagonal pattern. I shook out and packed up my belongings — everything I needed and nothing I didn't — and took one more glance around.
And there they stood. Having grown up in Montana with horses and cowboy culture, witnessing untamed equine wandering freely in the most inhospitable milieu — the hottest, driest, and lowest national park — was a breath-caught-in-throat moment for me. How rare to find time suspended.
I found my voice and bellowed, "Horses!" to the others, my new backpacking friends who were camped out nearby.
Like a country song, or the setup to a riddle: "A farmer from Nebraska, a nurse from Georgia, and a newly empty nester couple from Colorado walk into the land of extremes…" Strangers from all over the country, with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and lifestyles, had come together to sojourn in one of the most underrated national parks in the US — along with a capable guide to lead the way.
Every decision each one of us had made in our lives up until that point — every path that flowed toward heartbreaks, career changes, dramatic births, painful losses, marriages, and love affairs — joined our journeys to this very experience.
"Nebraska has the best tourism slogan," I said at camp one morning, remembering that parts of Nebraska join Death Valley in the Dark Sky Park designation. Grinning, the fellow Nebraskan and I parroted: "Nebraska, honestly it's not for everyone."
I later learned that Nebraska's tourism director announced the end of the five-year-old tagline last year, but it had clearly left an impression on both of us.
In the land of imposing contrasts, we protected our packs with rain covers, secured the hoods on our jackets during the wild wind atop peaks, and pulled our sun hoodies over our lids during long stretches trekking through infertile treeless land where we were fully exposed to the sun.
Death Valley has few maintained trails and no established campsites in the wilderness. We only saw a few other people on the trail.
After days of hiking through formidable terrain, full of awe-inspiring wonders like zebra-striped rock walls and theatrical canyons, we reached the end, which was also the beginning, and we did it together.
I celebrated by taking the longest and hottest shower in my bathroom at The Inn at Death Valley. I had booked the hotel for my last night before heading home, an Old Hollywood oasis in the desert that once provided refuge for Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard.
My phone vibrated, and I saw several messages, photographs of the farmer's family, beloved pets in front of a fireplace, the nurse bandaging a blister on her foot, and group shots of all of us with tents in the background.
Was it worth it to leave my family behind and backpack solo in the desert with a party of strangers? Honestly, it's not for everyone.
Read the original article on Business Insider