Narrative- Rough Draft- Version 2

The Final Version. . .for now.

By: Anna Bawtinhimer

A wave of steam saturated my pores as I pass through the

door leading into the communal shower. The rush of self-awareness

by standing completely naked with the other returning hikers is nothing compared to the rapid rhythm

of my heartbeat upon seeing the inevitable reality check hanging on the bathroom wall. Fortunately for

me, the showers had already received ample amounts of appreciative guests and everything in the room

was clouded over with warm dew droplets. Waiting for a vacancy, I ambled over to the well worn,

yellow-tinted sinks, keeping my curious eyes fixed on the free flowing water instead of the clouded glass

directly above it. Then. . . slowly—very slowly—I reached my issued dry washcloth up to the

condensation—the corner of a foreign reflection comes closer and closer into view.

Back inside the frost coated tent wiping off the crust around my blurry eyes, I reawake with my

face planted on the outside of the sleeping bag and my frozen ear tips grazing the grass covered bed of

the cream colored tent. Now I am back in Wyoming. For 25 days I woke continually amazed at the

unnaturally contorted positions I’d find myself in. Even Houdini himself would have been proud.

Despite fully cocooning myself inside the sleeping bag each freezing night, my rosy nose, cheeks, and

chapped lips always managed to maneuver onto the crisp collection of crumbled leaves and dirt our

camp shoes snuck in adding layers of debris to the already sweat saturated, sunscreen coated pores of

my skin.

After our 5:30 am alarms reminded us to get moving and

consolidate the tent gear, we all would half-functioningly amble

down to a designated patch of gray gravel or yellow-green grass

patch known as the “kitchen.” Every dehydrated meal started

off with boiling water that was used to brew tea, hot chocolate,

or sweet powdered milk. Tea bags quickly became my

favorite intimate item off the trails: once the green vert,

earl gray, or black English breakfast teas served their

obvious purpose, they became my makeshift facial

cleansing cloths.

NOLS. . . my own Petoskey stone.

Every morning and evening I’d tenderly take a used tea

bag and slowly wipe the warm satchel across the bridge

of my nose, along the crusty crest of my cheeks, rough

ridge of my jaw, across my frosted forehead, and slowly

down my chin—the dripping residue cooling as it

evaporated. Sometimes in haste for soothing

satisfaction, I’d be too rough with the rubbing and the

bag would tear leaving leaf trails along my skin.

The word “clean” was used very liberally on the month long outdoor NOLS course. “Clean” was

determined by what the eye could or could not see. If, for instance, there were no burnt shreds of

rehydrated hash browns residing in the frying pan, then it was clean. If your only shirt was rubbed on a

rock in a mountain stream, it more or less passed the cleanliness test, despite most likely not passing the

smell one. Since cleanliness was based on rather lenient visual standards, it was probably pretty

beneficial that mirrors were not among the list of items we had to carry in our already 50 lb packs.

Regardless of how many tea bags we were re-rationed, there would never have been enough to

sufficiently remove the layers of caked on sweat, sun burn, soot (from the occasional campfire), and soil.

Despite weighing less than a pound, a mirror would have burdened all of us girls more than even the

most cumbersome bear ropes and cooking equipment.

Without having the constant contemplation of our external appearance, the snow-capped

mountain vistas themselves seemed more luminous, the cool translucent streams crisper to the touch,

and even the conversations with the guys essentially more genuine and cheerful. It wasn’t until entering

the blue border-lined, blistering hot bathroom that my fingernails immediately held more dirt

underneath them, and my hair was saturated with enough soiled oil to supply BP for another month.

Even the forgotten forest growth underneath my armpits was instantly recollected.

Back in front of the half cleared mirror, I overhear the other girls already enjoying the

purification process:

“God, I keep scrubbing and there’s still an endless supply of dirt.”

“Meghan, isn’t this Heaven compared to 30 degree dunking on top of Fairy Lake?”

“Holy crap! My armpit hair just clogged the razor.”

On and on they’d damn this and “ouch” that. I couldn’t have believed these girls were scaling 89

degree, pebble coated cliff faces up and over natural waterfalls less than two weeks ago if I hadn’t been

right beside them. Is it possible that the cakey dirt clumps crumbled and, floating their way down the

central drain, carried the memories of the mountain with them?

One last look, Anna. Embrace the natural vision.