Trail, Not Trail
Accustomed to the slip and squeak of snow, the first trail run on tacky dirt is a spring highlight.
Antelope Island is home to trails that dry faster than those at home. It’s also a mountain ridge poking up from the Great Salt Lake, inhabited by a herd of bison and a herd of campers. The lights of the city remind those folks of how close and how close they are to the city; the lights of the stars remind us of how far we are from everything else.
A sweet little loop of not many miles and not much vertical gain began across the road from our campsite, and couldn’t have been a better invitation to crunch across some gravel on a Sunday morning.
It’s a sage-and-rabbitbrush kind of place, so all the flora is low enough for unimpeded views. The lake, the uninhabited basin and range all the way to Nevada, the metropolis of the city named after the lake. In short, a spectacular trail for early season running.
Everything went swimmingly until about a third of the way in, when a thought popped up about my arms. Specifically, their floppiness. A looseness that did not exist a few months (definitely not a few years) ago. Suddenly, the purple mountains in the distance and the teal green waters of the lake weren’t as arresting. I wasn’t thinking about how lucky I was for a cool but sunny morning. I was instead considering the circumference of my upper arms.
Buried in this thought, I came to a trail marker. Not many are needed, as it’s a simple loop with no offshoots. It’s very easy to follow since there aren’t any other choices. Sure, game trails threaded up the peak but those were clearly for animals with far more balance than I possessed.
The trail continuing straight had all the markings of the one I had been on, but another path crossed perpendicular. I slowed, doubting what I had seen on the map only a few dozen minutes before.
Then I chuckled. One sign said “trail,” the other said “trail” with a red line through it. Clearly, folks had chosen to go straight up to the peak instead of circling around it on the designated route, and the rangers had (rightly) done their best to mark this as a disrespectful idea.
Here I was at the crossroads of a trail that looked like the right one, and a trail that also looked familiar but wasn’t right. The former was the same as my first few miles – the ones with an unforced smile and the noticeable smell of sage and the music of my feet moving on dirt. The latter was the stormy thoughts about my arms.
My body is the thing that allowed me to be on the trail, and thinking poorly about it is not the trail. It may have been trail-shaped, it may have been a familiar trope, but it needed to be left alone for environmental restoration.
Instead, the way of “this feels good” is the trail. It’s the way to get to the next view, to be followed by the next yellow-breasted bird with an impossibly complicated song. The bigger trail, the better one, I’ll maybe make a little more obvious with my footsteps.
To show the right way for myself or for anyone else who may follow.
