[cdt-l] What to do after the CDT

[Brett]

In all seriousness, the idea of a solo hike across Mars 
appeals to the sense of individualism that drives many CDT 
hikers, to our desire to separate ourselves from the 
familiar - from the burdens and distractions of society. 
Assuming the necessary equipment and experience, who of our 
unlikely ilk wouldn't want to claim such a feat, or better 
yet - to be first!

But imagine that first night on the Red Planet, camped 
perhaps in your Six Moon Designs Europa. The view of Earth 
is surely exquisite, and in this Earth-light the pristine 
surface of unexplored Martian hills and craters glows in 
soft rusted hues, purely for your eyes only.

Yet the wind wails lonesomely, rattling the walls of the 
tent as you struggle for sleep on the cold, hard ground. 
Your imagination attempts to console you, conjuring images 
of Martian critters, out there in the night, contending with 
the elements same as you. But your human senses register 
otherwise - your ears detect no encouraging chirp of 
crickets, no familiar scent of sage or musky tone of pine 
needles infiltrates your nostrils, and lurching uneasily 
toward alertness your eyes open once more in search of 
something in the night, something real and tangible and good 
and meaningful... but there is nothing here. Nothing at all. 
And for the first time you know what you thought you already 
knew. Now at last you know what it means to be truly alone. 
It's not the absence of humanity that bothers you so, but 
what you are lacking that was your somehow intangible 
sustenance through the long, autumn nights on the Divide 
back home. For it was life itself that had sustained you, 
and now without its fellowship you are left to fend for 
yourself, one human emotionally abandoned in a universe of 
absolute indifference.

Around midnight you awake in a sweat to the sound of a mouse 
raiding your food bag, and are relieved to put the nightmare 
behind you. Checking the bag you find the mouse did not take 
much of value, just a Mars bar or two. You leave the rascal 
to dine in peace, and are rocked back to sleep by the wind 
in the pines, the staccato chirp of crickets like a sweet 
lullaby from Mother Earth.

- blisterfree

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