Morning: We’re packing out, filling the little civic. Before people get up and around, we manage to grab a few pics to document our stay. It is peaceful in the morning light. No ripples and no voices, but for the call of that loon.
We walk the running track for a section and pass a nude man up on his roof. I have to stop and ask about the attachment of the built up roofing that most of the trailers have here. From up above he explains detail. He’s most friendly, for a guy with a busy chore.
We bid an affectionate goodbye to our hostess at check out. She runs this place with heart and a constant smile.
There had been a change of plans. We had heard about a place called Black Island out in Lake Champlain. There, supposedly, we can camp and wander nude with no repercussions from anybody. A couple of days like Robinson Caruso got dashed. When I looked into a visit, it would take extra travelers to justify splitting the exorbitant expense of the boat rides out and back. Topping that, the weather is getting iffy.
Alternatives abound in Vermont? There is a hike recommended not far down the country road.
I got an unusual comment on Sycamore Canyon post, today. Someone thought walking alone there, to be boring.
It consequently occurred to me, that I have been writing few stories of solitude, or lone nude walks. During the continuing “Nude Across America” trip, DF and I were glued together nearly 24/7 in a little Honda and our beds. Also, I am now away from my digs in Tortolita and immersed daily in the sounds of the city.
This website was never meant to be a weekly blog, but a repository of stories. It is to guide people into the joys of free range naturism and to share. I created a “Table of Contents” page up at the top to help navigate through all of this. I confess to not having been prompt about keeping up with the content there, but there is plenty.
There is a series there in the “Trip Reports” section of the Table of Contents, “My Private Place for Naturism.” There are 28 episodes, where I am walking nude and alone. These explain the wondrous quality of aloneness. There can be nothing boring.
A walk in nature is with nature. To be nude in nature is to be even closer. You might as well be holding hands with it. To walk freely to where your nose takes you in the moment is adventure in nature.
Alone, one can be more aware in every way, to feel inner reactions and guidance. When with someone else, there can be distraction. The roles of a social self can interfere with the being, just being, or in touch with the authentic self, or to be cast naked in the moment.
I understand what you mean about feeling bored when alone. I have experienced it. It is also important to not get stuck in social contexts and instead, to be alone. There can be nothing boring about being alone in a natural place. If you seek people oriented things, go to where the people are.
DF and I are often alone when we are together hiking, during these reported trips. Then also, we share, too. We lag behind on the trail, we walk off, and we give each other space. We generally don’t talk, but instead we listen in the many ways.
Sycamore Canyon itself? If I were to find myself bored there, I’d leave all of my clothing behind, swim across the river, to walk the tracks. There may be danger to experience. There may just be the feeling of being very much more alive in my own skin.
Sure hope that the video works…there’s a learning curve, becoming proficient.
We’re on our road trip across America. It’s sort of a naked version of “Easy Rider,” but in a Honda Civic and okay, not in the Deep South. We’ve been heading north and now find ourselves in New England, in the heart of Vermont.
We’re in a remote Arizona canyon. The weather is wonderfully warm for November. The Fall foliage is stunning. We don’t know it yet, but it gets even better the further back into the canyon that we go.
The next morning, we start at our leisure. I had been up for a surprisingly warm orange juice colored sunrise, but went back to bed.
Voices are heard. Two or three hikers walk by briskly up the canyon. They are the only ones about. They probably came from that group of RV’s a couple of miles down the road. This is a vast playground, all to our naked selves.
Today, we will continue upstream. Yesterday, the color got more dramatic, the further we went up the canyon. I wonder if it will continue as that. We will walk at our leisure, immersed in it all, cameras recording the gems. No more plan is needed, other than a good trail lunch, water and snacks.
After an hour and forty-five minutes of naked highway cruising, we’re off of the pavement leaving some huge irrigation farms behind. I stop in the middle of the road in a long straight stretch and turn off the engine. I climb out naked head to toe into the silent plains to turn the wheel locks into a four wheel drive high setting for stability. The dusty red dirt is pleasing on my feet. A sense of freedom comes over me, as I gaze out across flat miles in every direction. I would certainly be alerted to any intrusion to this space, by a dust cloud in the distance.
There are twenty-five miles of this dirt road still ahead. We’re off again. I look in my rearview mirror. A great plume of terracotta dust trails behind us, as we cruise through a plain of tall golden grasses in open range and a up a few grassy hills. The graded road turns into two tracks at a turn off created by the Forest Service. As we pass, the pompous grass grows into the road as high as our faces. As dry as this grass is, after a couple of months without rain, we both wonder out loud about the risk of brush fire from a hot exhaust pipe. There is one way in and one way out.
“Pompous” Grass
We find the alligator juniper, juniper and scrub oak along the dry creek. It is shading RV trailer campers.
Through a gate, hard packed dirt turns into mostly bare rock. After bouncing along on the river rock, dodging the big ones, I shift into four wheel low for a steep descent into the stream bed to drive upstream.
We notice a few familiar landmarks, a hill, a bump, or a campsite. The vegetation gets thicker and taller. Eventually, we park in a shady spot off of the road, grateful that no one has claimed this camping destination on this Monday. We have all of this to ourselves. Getting out freely nude and stretching with arms high, DF comments on the scent of those low pines and evergreens all around us.
All around, there are small patches of color amongst the evergreen trees, manzanita and low bushes. It is early November. Here in Arizona, at this elevation, the leaves begin to change and drop away in transition. Bundles of small leaves, fluorescent yellows and oranges are on well-spaced bushes. Occasionally, a colorful butterfly will flutter away from one, as if the leaves themselves are turning into the dainty travelers.
Avatar Flower
I have heard of this event and waited two years to get here. We have three days here, mid-week. There will probably be few other visitors to this remote canyon in a little known mountain range. I got a report last week that the colorful show was returning and it should be at its peak. The temperatures have been unusually high and sunny in Tucson this year. At this altitude, we are expecting to enjoy highs of mid- 70F’s. Our Fall leaf viewing won’t be bundled up in the usual warm clothing; it will be perfect naked weather.
John P. and Dan are excellent hosts and showing us around Vermont, giving pointers, lore and introductions to several wonderful naturists. For we two, who are new to this environment and place, this is a valuable treat. They have decided to stay around an extra day, after the World Naked Hiking Day celebration and show us a few places on their way back to Massachusetts. We all are simpatico, enjoying each other’s company.
There had been rain at dawn, but we’re going to get sunny weather today for the hike. In the tent, it was noisy enough to wake us up early, but we were dry.
Some quick oatmeal and we’re off.
We arrive to a full parking lot, again. There are twenty naked men. Several are new faces, today.
The number of women hikers has dwindled to one, which is DF. She is fine with that. As the only woman, she isn’t being treated with a whole lot of special attention. We are all focused on the day and the trail’s hike.
In a full lot, we move vehicles to fit in and then another one shows up. Once again it takes a while and some effort to sort things out.
Rick is excited to be writing the report of this for “N” magazine. We gather to get the pictures going for publication and posterity.
There are three clothed men who have been surprised by this spectacle. Rick is a boisterous guy and has a passion for naturism. He immediately begins greeting them as a salesman for naturism. He convinces two in that car to strip!
“Okay!” We cheer it on. There are high spirits in us all.
There are those favorite places in the world. One of those, for me, is in Redington Pass.
When the flow is strong, the stream splits into dozens of channels in the bedrock.
There is a boulder there, large and flat. I can sit with my legs crossed India style. The slight slope makes it more comfortable. There, as the waters cascade down the carved channels toward me, I feel wonderfully alive.
The mist from the turbulence of the falls floats by, across my bare body, chilling just right, as the sun warms my back.
Minerals and tannins create effervescence. The tiny bubbles fizz like root beer, fizzy all over, up into nostrils. I touch the world with the inhale of breath. I smell fresh mineral vapors.
It is like an energy, a presence that flows down. Chinese call it chi, the natural fung shui of it seems evident. I raise my palms and know something unique.
Sound is only the pleasant roar of water flow and the silence in-between. It seems to wash away any thoughts that have nothing to do with where I am right now, here, alone, at one with nature.
I wrap my kilt around my waist ready for a bottomless ride across New York State. Our journey begins in this driveway in Buffalo and will end with nude friends at a campground, somewhere in the Green Mountains of Vermont. We say our goodbyes. DF and her brother have those tears that dear ones share.
By the time we have arrive at the end of the block, you can hear the rip of separating Velcro at my waist and DF is pulling her dress over her head and folding it up. We have been dressed during our nude journey for plenty long enough and bare skin is liberation.
We’re on our way to the semi-organized “World Naked Hiking Day” in Vermont. We’re about to meet cyber friends that I have been corresponding with for years, in the flesh. We’re more than ready.
In the southwestern New York, we came across an emerald gem. It has a grey bedrock channel through it. In some places it sparkles like tiny diamonds. It’s called Skinny-dip Falls. It’s a canyon gorge with a nude area about a mile long. Some sources say that it is designated, but it appears to speak for itself.
The Free Range Naturist 