We’re off to explore north of Arch Canyon, along the rock slope west of Comb Ridge, Utah. I’ve been aligning a series of canyons, what I can see, with lines on a crude map. On the map, there is marked a cave, pictographs and ruins in a few of the several canyons. Which canyons are which, at this point I’m reasonably sure about, but heading north through the canyon on winding roads, trails may get confusing.
Then, there is a blank piece of the knowledge. I have no information about any trails, or routes to get to each canyon. There may be none. We’ll have to keep an eye out for any clues along the way. We may even find ourselves bushwhacking.
I can’t know how WordPress will deal with the coming pressures of overreaching government. They have been a safe haven, perhaps a bastion, defending my free speech for the ten years that I have been affiliated with them. I’ve deeply appreciated that. We are concerned that the TheFreeRangeNaturist.org may be taken down within a few months. Perhaps on “day one.”
The Project 2025 as read, sets back free dialog and so civil social change. It is imposition from a minority upon approximately 70% plus of the rest of us. It promises harassment, legal entanglements and fines.
There has been an unwarranted callus attack on our freedom of expression. Many corporate owners of social media and several search engines have been censoring the internet content already. This would be illegal for the government to do, like it denying free speech in a public park. Our public spaces on the internet however, are now by proxy and for profit, able to act like government. They provide the public spaces and are not regulated like a people’s democratic government, or like a government in our interests.
The issue here is that often, mere nudity has been classified as porn, unsuitable, deemed a nasty thing. For providers that flow over international borders, the lowest denominator is profitable, and so unfree countries have been placated at the expense of American freedoms. The backward religious countries in effect, dictate our American community standards. Wholesome, harmless, simple nudity is wrongly classified with porn. This site, because it contains nude images, is treated the same as sex by many of these entities. Unjustly, many nude sites have been taken down and censored during recent years.
Even the website of the respected “The Naturist Society Foundation,” an institution that has been defending our rights more than 45 years is now hidden under an adult content barrier on search engines.
The new administration is implementing the Project 2025. I’ve read much of the 900 pages. It contains several plans for anti-pornography objectives, even fines for providers. This minority, I see as akin to an American Taliban, which plans to impose restrictions on a majority of Americans and rolling back the freedoms that I personally have defended during my lifetime. I don’t know which internet entities will cave to the pressures.
I lived the 1950’s and 60’s. It was oppressive and dangerous to be different during that time. Society was run with fear. That is why there was social revolution and so much collision as the era ended. There was a lack of personal freedom caused by the same entities and personalities that seek to again rule our lives. We are not far from this minority choking freedoms again.
It’s Worse than No Chocolate!
In consideration of these facts, I would expect our freedoms to not be defended by most internet corporate tycoons, unless there is a profit to it. The corporate objective by law is to make profit for the shareholders and not bound by moral conscience. Because this is the past, it is a likely future.
I Ask for Some Help:
I’ve got over 400 full days of work here, more than a year of my time and effort devoted to this message. I’m looking for information to take steps to preserve my content for, in the least, my own personal memories. I’m not a computer tech.
If anyone knows how to store in this format someplace, or who to contact for such, please, guide us toward that goal, in the comments.
If necessary, we can converse email, or phone from there.
If taken down, perhaps alternatives will appear that will not silence us and I can find a way to once again speak freely about and demonstrate something very healthy for humanity.
I have done my best to not make this website political, just an agent of social change and to do something good for my fellow humanity. A well-funded Taliban-like organizational process has made this political.
Better news:
We intend to continue our output as normal, perhaps in hope, perhaps denial, or defiance. We have plenty of content set for future publication, both tales and informative ideas.
We may see effective resistance to the intended steamroller of oppression. I can’t know how things will ultimately unfold, or how WordPress will respond to all of this. I need help preparing for the worse, while hoping for the best.
…There is a disappointing discovery. DF confesses a tragic mistake. She has forgotten the chocolate! Alarm, disbelief, the signs of grief engulfs our mood, “No! Not the chocolate!”
Our traditional savory dessert, snack, treat, will be missed. Everything is better nude and the same may be true of dark chocolate, but since the damage is done, we will just accept that. There are plenty of other blessings. The moment is simply and completely, lovely. I’m tempted to shout out, “tar-rad-ged-dee,” but my tongue is stuck hard in my cheek.
We have a chore before breakfast, to filter water. I didn’t check the water filter before we left, and discover that it is clogged. This is a very serious threatening issue! We can only boil water and there is but one small fuel canister. Clean pure water is quite a hassle when boiled with a campfire, when our only pot is a small titanium vessel. For us to have assuredly safe water for our return hike, this old school method just will have to be utilized…but, not now, later.
The article “Ultralight Path, which I published here on November 8th, 2024, was first published in “N” magazine, a couple of months previous. As we sat reading and browsing through the magazine’s pages, we saw the images of ourselves as sort of the poster children for naturist backpacking. A revelation then hit hard; we realized that we hadn’t been actually out backpacking in a couple of years! We felt a bit hypocritical. We have been four wheeling into day hiking situations and luxuriating at the hot springs mostly. Taking in our own sales pitch, we realized that we were missing something, too.
When our planned trip into the Blue River region got delayed, an apparent solution presented itself to us. On our hiking bucket list, was the re-exploration of the Lemon Pools on Mt. Lemon. Our last visit ended the day before the entire mountain went up in flames, back in 2020. We have been reluctant to go back because of the chance of having our hearts broken by the sight of the destruction.
Last year, looking down from above and into that valley, it had looked mostly untouched. It has been about four years and we figured that the dense brush should have had a chance to return…
…The first ten minutes are a steeper slope up at around 8700 feet through Marshall Gulch. I’m feeling that I have a challenge in front of me. We’re in thin air and haven’t had this size of a bulk to carry in a while. I’m beginning to feel out of breath. When I inquire about DF, she mentions that she is feeling a bit “wobbly” with her pack.
As we walk, our bodies are illuminated by the dominate reflected colors.
I snap photos as yellow and then pink light make our skin change its hew. In amongst the cover of a group of young trees we pass through a room of lavender and stop. There is a still warm air in here, and a scent identifying the local species. It is a unique space.
Politics create grief, sad, anger, anger, sad. We have been struggling. We needed a break, if not the cure, which is to get naked and get bowled over by nature. We needed to find what is immediate, get away to “it” and find perspective. It just so happened that in the Fall, leaf changes are happening and we had set aside the time to re-experience that splendor months ago.
These photos tend to speak for themselves. Instead of a more usual story with pics, this may be more pics with a story. I’ll often just pepper this short story with photos in a mostly random manner….
The last issue of “N” magazine had a couple of articles in it authored by me. This is one. I’m adding several extra illustrative photos that weren’t in the magazine:
I have a friend that produced a video documenting 69 different arrangements for wearing sarongs. As clothing, they can be elegant or practical.
Borrowing a phrase, “But wait, there’s more!” I use mine as a multi-use addition to my ultralight backpacking and nude hiking outfits. It is a constant companion. It may not slice, or dice, but probably can give duct tape a run for its money as an all-purpose problem solution. The following is a short list.
A sarong is light and folds up into nothing, so it’s easily packed out of the way. It is often all the clothing that I need, and I can wrap it around my waist as I get from the trailhead parking out into the sticks. When hiking nude, if the need comes, it is a quick cover-up. It can be a covering for a female hiker, too.
The last issue of “N” magazine had a couple of articles in it authored by me. This is one. I’m adding several extra illustrative photos that weren’t in the magazine, here.
An Ultralight Path for Nude Hiking
Defined as two naturists, DF and I love to immerse ourselves in nature, our bodies as naked as possible. We value the added sensual exploration and awareness, the oneness, the spiritual augmentation, and the liberating sense of freedom. I like to experience the body’s natural instincts, the way it steps and climbs in so many ways, and across the seemingly infinite myriad of nature’s make up.
Several years ago, we began hiking the deserts and forests of Arizona nude. There was a period of inhibition and fear. We walked with wraps in hand, shuffling for cover when someone approached. In stealth, fully listening, we smuggled our naked bodies through uncertain terrain. We got more comfortable as time brought more experience and through our dialog with similar-thinking people. Realistically, on the trail, one to four oddballs out of one hundred encounters may object. Personally, we have had more people inquire and then spontaneously join our nudity than give us dirty looks. We comport as ourselves and others act similarly.
We also, found a plethora of options and strategies to have an abundance of natural treasures all to our clothes-free selves. We started by hiking further. I bought a four-wheel-drive, and we were able to drive and camp away from people, and to then walk further into unencumbered natural states.
We became more enthusiastic with what we were experiencing, realizing health benefits both mental and physical. The more we hiked, the more the passion for being nude amongst nature captured us. We began to discover more of what was hidden in the wilds, and thirsted for it. We felt overwhelmingly blessed, standing naked in the middle of the astounding and awesome.
It is Memorial Day Monday, the end of the long festive getaway weekend. People are packing up, for their return to working lives. They are savoring the last walks, final drives, the moments before leaving their good time playgrounds. It is quieter, a calm is returning, passersby are much less frequent.
Memorial Day, I begin to think about my dad, the soldier, sadly, but proud and respectful.
By dinner’s end, we are feeling less impinged. The softer light permeates. Heat is turning progressively down to perfect warmth. Everything seems to mark the close of the holiday.
There is a sense of expanding freedom. We can relax easier in our nudity and stretch out of our hiding boundaries, safe to walk and wander.
There is in my guidebook, a reference to some ruins. They are somewhere on down the road that leads from our camping area, here where the creek empties out into the valley at the base of Arch Canyon. There is an old trail, a dotted line, probably another 4×4 route, leading up the stone surface. It is probably a good long hike on a less busy day, an ancient route, now marked by rubber skids and rubble.
There is “the old Perkin’s Ranch” a landmark. There is the symbol mark for ruins. As best as I can cipher, it is at the top of what is referred to as a nipple. I suspect it may be at the peak of an attention grabbing hill that I have spent time looking at, even curiously searching its nature with binoculars for details. It looks like a short walk. I’d like to see if I got it right.
I recently finished the book “White Trash: The 400 Year Old History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg. I thought her harsh, in some ways wrong on Thomas Jefferson. I perceived some general bias and anger, but the reasoning and multitudes of facts surely justify some degree of anger. There has been a history of abundant injustice.
All Things MUST Pass
I picked the read up because I had been pondering class war and the media’s obvious fear to talk about it, the enlarging economic schism, the powers that be and why there are all of these people about that just don’t understand and share many of my perspectives. I’ve been concerned.
Since I am how I am, I couldn’t help but mentally insert the historic role of the use of clothing during the read. Although there was quite a bit on that topic in her book, I’ve got my own predilections, my way of seeing the world and sorting out thoughts.
Somehow briefly, I’d like to inform, sow seeds, or trigger reflection and awareness. I recommend the book. It brought to me many forgotten memories of my youth and some ingrained class distinctions. It opened a better understanding of my parent’s generation and why I was raised as I was, during that era, and the subsequent social upheaval within me and around me.
I doubt that anyone has lived in a truly classless society of equality and equity. I realize that clothing has had and continues to have a significant part in the structures and preservation of class. This needs to be talked about.
The Free Range Naturist 