2021-10-01
DF got a call from a friend of ours offering permits for Araviapa Canyon’s west entrance. The four of us, our two non-nudist friends and we two, will now be leaving the following weekend… It didn’t take much deliberation. After all…”Paradise!”
We hadn’t been out backpacking in over a year and not visited the Aravaipa paradise since 2017.
When I contemplate peace, I feel my oneness with all I know and beyond. There is that quiet strength that it gives me. When I see a tranquil lake, a gorgeous sunset, or a mountain stream, smell a familiar scent, or hear the wings of a passing bird, I know that.
A vista, or the array of stars will put within me awareness of my sense of the vast identity that I share, I know that strength. When I feel the air and the sun across my nude body, my feet upon the Earth the energetic or reassuring touch of another, that body knows thanks. I can feel thanks in this body, more than to just think it, or to list it in the mind. The beauty around me and within me, that which I am, is the gratitude and oneness.
Feeling peaceful, I am relaxed and calm. I glow from within and feel serenity in my soul. I breathe easier, remain positive and always feel thanks. I am mindful of my place in the universe and the difference that I make in this world. I am a spiritual being in this body, sharing my unique energy and talents.
I can travel far to grasp the magnificent experiences, or I can walk naked where I am, at any given moment, to realize my being and my peace.
There is inspiration by the beauty of creation to know calm and strength through oneness.
I am truly blessed.
I frequent FreeRangeNaturism.com. You are invited to join us to discuss anything naturist.
© The owners of TheFreeRangeNaturist.org as of the year 2015 declare. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to TheFreeRangeNaturist.org with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
We were last up on Mt. Lemmon in the spring of 2020. We hiked down to Lemmon pools and explored on through the Wilderness of Rocks. It was early in the Covid lockdown and we got surprised by around 35 other hikers on a trail that rarely saw anyone else. We just had to grin and bare it, having brought no clothing along with us.
The next day, a bolt of lightning hit the mountain range and burned with little control for over a month. Every day, we watched heart broken, looking up to the flames above, from Tucson below, tasting and smelling the smoke. The Forest Service maps reported that a huge area, something like 120,000 acres went up in smoke. Our favorite spots were hit, one by one.
We finally got the gut fortitude to return and assess the damage, as it applies to us on August 27th of 2021. We found there, that the historic extra wet monsoon rains have left the entire region is in hews of green. Trails are getting overgrown. After a year and a half long drought, it is stunning.
We expect much of our forests to be gone, but from the look of things, the desolate aftermath of a forest fire has been replaced by a mass of bush, grass and shrubs. We have heard reports of abundant flowing water!
The hiking trailheads along the road have been closed to hiking, due to the extra year of drought that led to the fire’s fuel.
We begin the 21 mile drive up the Catalina Highway, from 2500 ft. to 9200ft.The saguaro studded lower hills are great, as if nothing had ever happened. I remark that maybe nothing did happen here.
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.
© The owners of TheFreeRangeNaturist.org as of the year 2015 declare. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to TheFreeRangeNaturist.org with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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.
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.
A Change of Plans
We wake up in our cozy tent, looking out of the net, hungry. That huge mountain rises up above us with its sense of beyond. There is more hidden up there, lots more, eventually there is a National Forest filled with pines and lush life.
Stepping out of our nest is like stepping into adventure. The view is spectacular. The valley is now its normal self, under a big turquoise New Mexico sky. We are on vacation. Breakfast comes, as I tear down the tent. I carefully tuck each component of our campsite in its assigned place in the small car.
The plan was to be out somewhere in the Lincoln National Forest, this morning, somewhere near Capitan, New Mexico. Yesterday, we altered that in a moment and visited White Sands National Monument instead. We then stayed here, just a few miles away.
So, we’re hours from that original goal, in no particular hurry and about to alter our plans again. Like I said, “We’re on vacation,” But what I haven’t said is that this is an open ended trip. We can stay on the road as long as we like. Just that, feels mighty liberating.
I pull out my notes and check our parameters. What can we do today? There is a compelling notion of a hike up a spectacular looking canyon that we have been curiously viewing from our breakfast table.
We are on our first day of our epic road trip. We have been enjoying the threat and turbulence from a storm menacing the Tularosa Valley of New Mexico. We just left my childhood stomping grounds and the White Sands National Monument, but now, we need to find a shelter.
We pass by Holloman Air Force Base and more memories are triggered. Before space was deemed safe for men, it was here that chimpanzees were trained to be sent out into orbit. These earliest astronauts were trained with the positive reinforcement of banana pills. My dad, an Army Lieutenant Colonel had toured the training facility and brought some of the “top secret” pills back home to me. He joked about using them to train me like a monkey. Those pills were absolutely the essence of banana, delicious and I did want more.
Things have changed, this was once the world where Billy the Kid camped out under the stars of the big sky. Today, as we approach Alamogordo, I am searching for the National Weather Service on my smart phone. Do we go for a tent site up in the foothills of the Lincoln National Forest, or hunker down safely in a stuffy motel?
I look to the forecast and the evolving satellite weather map. I look out at the storm across the vast valley from here, ground level. I figure odds are that the storm will pass west and south of the mountain range. We’re feeling hopeful. We drive off to investigate the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park.
After dropping our camping permit papers into a small box, we’re watching rain and storms all across the great valley. We’ll pitch our tent in the evening sun.
There are numerous adobe picnic shelters spaced across this hillside. I find a space under one that is just big enough for the tent. If my weather research is proved wrong, this will be an additional insurance.
As we set up camp and dinner. The sun peeks out from under the clouds and illuminates the massive hillside to our east. It is bright, a sharp golden spectacle. I think of Pizzaro and his army wandering in search of tales of mountains of gold. The natives along the way all concur that there are mountains of gold. His resolve increases and his thirst salivates, but his lust is never quenched on the fool’s errand.
Tularosa bats come by from mountainous shelters for their evening meals. We welcome them and wonder if they may be headed north to Colorado and the cave next to the Orient Land Trust hot springs.
We inspect the car that we started out with. It is coated with fine white powder, spotted like a Dalmatian by the large rain drops that found their way to us in the sandy storm, earlier in the day, at White Sands National Monument. It isn’t a sand blast, but more like flour dust stuck to the metal and paint. Oh, well….
We’re off on an ADVENTURE! We haven’t done a long road trip in…decades. DF has retired and we can have an open-ended vacation across America…naked.
We wake up with the Alarm? Dang, DF forgot to stop the reoccurring setting on her phone. She rolls over, first confused and then angrily she starts to peck at the screen.
The peace and well-being intruder is off for good now, unless we choose so. Now, our excitement is getting in the way of our slumber. We begin in a casual series of stretches and exercises, a little yoga, just enough. We’re going to be doing a lot of sitting in a car, best to have our bodies ready.
This exercise establishes a good pace for us. We hug and acknowledge that we’re okay. DF produces “The Daily Word” a small book of spiritual wisdom that we read each morning. Today its daily advise is spot on. It talks about adventure. We feel in like we’re in sync with the world.
We have been loading and final prepping for over a week. Everything that we need has been tucked into the little good on gas Honda Civic. Each piece placed more at the ready in its rank of usage. In the trunk tent/bedding out front, kitchen front and center. Clothing minimized, we just have the space in the rear driver’s side door for access. Food goes behind the passenger’s seat on the floor and the cooler is packed and placed on that seat. Doodads, this and that is placed in available nooks and crannies. It’s all ready.
After a quick breakfast, we walk naked through the garage and into our trip.
I had to make sure that the posts would continue, while we would be on our road trip, so I pre-published. I arranging to have automatic posts while we were gone. I neglected to pre-post recognition of six years of publication of TheFreeRangeNaturist.org., which occurred during the middle of June. We are now back in Tucson, after seven weeks of travel and I have access to my familiar tools, so:
This is a good time to let you all know what’s in the future for The Free Range Naturist. I have now content to last into 2022. I have several articles in the works and a thought or two might pop up. We have some trips in mind this Fall/Winter. But mostly, our trip has provided us with several stories, which will probably keep me busy. Now, they are just on paper as notes and photos are in files. I’ll have to set the trip reports as beginning rough drafts and sort out a couple of thousand photos. It will be a challenge to keep it fresh enough in my memory, before final attention is given each piece.
I was told, that I should number each story about our trip as a chapter, like a book. It will appear as a series called “Naked across America.”
Naked across America is exactly what we did. This website has been from the beginning, a how to and encouragement for others to get out and practice naturism in a free range manner. We figure that most of us can somehow do similar to what we demonstrate.
There has always been an Arizona/Southwestern-centric expression of this “how to.” Part of our trip was to expand free ranging nudity to other environments, legal jurisdictions, across this vast and varied land. It works in Arizona, how about other places? What could be learned? What obstructions might there be for others living elsewhere?
We had other goals in mind. For one, we wanted to see how inexpensive, but comfortable, we could be crossing the United States. We decided to use DF’s small Honda at what turned out to be over 30 miles to the gallon. I figured around 5000 miles, but ultimately 7000 was traveled. Also, DF retired and we were able to have an open ended flexible schedule, that could change on whim, or need. We were attempting to see how a sustained, or spontaneous trip might be done on our discretionary funds alone.
We had several friends to visit and planned to spend a good amount of time hiking, or backpacking. We both prefer stars and fresh air, opposed to feeling cooped up in stuffy hotels. Continue reading
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