Camping and a homemade sweat lodge
Went camping with my new friend Sandy out in a river canyon near Jamestown, about 20 minutes from Boulder. We drove out there with her couch surfer, Felicity (who is from New Zealand), and met two more of Sandy’s friends who were already at the campsite when we arrived. They had picked out a great spot for us on an island in the middle of the river. After hauling in our gear, the women started setting up the tent and preparing the campsite while myself and the other two guys went out to gather firewood.
We spent the evening around the fire, taking in the delicious warmth and dancing flames, sharing food and drink, and recounting some great stories. I particularly enjoyed Felicity’s stories about New Zealand, including the history of the Maori people and their connection with the earth. I love her accent!
About halfway through the night, we started working on putting together all the ingredients for a sweat lodge. We found about 15 large stones and placed them into the fire, and then started throwing very large logs onto the fire and to the point that the flames were almost licking the branches of the nearby trees. Apparently you need a lot of heat for a sweat lodge, so we let the stones cook for about two hours under the blazing logs. While one person manned the fire, we started work on digging a hole that was about 2 feet in diameter by 6 inches deep. The next step was to start chopping some of the dead Aspen trees into 6 foot poles and then start placing them around the hole in a tipi/teepee fashion. Once we had the wood frame constructed, we created walls by wrapping the poles in about 20 blankets. It’s important for the walls to be as airtight as possible to keep the heat in, but you also need to build a flap for the door that can be easily opened and sealed shut.
Once everything was ready, we stripped off our clothes and ran into the tent — it was about 35° that night, so we had to move very quickly! The person watching over the fire shoveled about half of the hot stones into the hole in the tipi, and then the door was sealed shut to keep the heat in. The room was now in total darkness, but you could see a faint shimmering from the stones as they radiated their inner heat. Water was poured onto the stones to create steam which rose up and filled the room with a damp, earthy heaviness. Even though our legs and bottoms were shivering from sitting on the cold dirt floor, our upper bodies were sweating heavily until almost a steady stream of water was dripping down us and creating pools on the floor or falling onto the hot rocks and turning back into steam.
Time seemed to slip away there in the darkness of the sweat. Our eyes were blind but our other senses were heightened — the sound of the crackling fire outside and the wind blowing through the trees around us, the sweltering heavy air that enveloped us like a cocoon, the raw earth that evaporated into the air with the steam and caked onto our bodies and into our nostrils with ancient smells. We talked, we laughed, we chanted and prayed. We gave thanks to all the beauty and prosperity in this world, and for the opportunity to share this rich experience with each other.
When the heat had done its cleansing job, we each climbed on hands and knees through the door out into the cold as if being birthed from the womb. We jumped into the freezing cold river and screamed and laughed as mother nature’s cleansing water washed away the sweat and dirt. We gathered around the fire, still naked but unaffected by the cold, feeling so natural and at peace with the world around us and basking in the afterglow of the experience.
We slept well that night cuddled up in a big pile together in one large tent. We awoke the next morning to a bright sunny day with deep blue skies and the occasional puffy cloud here and there. All the trees in the canyon were shimmering as they swayed back and forth from little droplets of frozen water that had collected on branches and frozen in the early morning dew. As we were breaking down camp, a mild wind blew through the canyon and showered the frozen dew down on us like little snow flurries. Once camp was packed up and our stuff was brought to the car, we went for a short hike up the side of the canyon and climbed rocks that looked out across the river and nearby hills. It was a perfect moment to take in the beauty of our surroundings one last time, and reflect on the vivid experiences of our magical night together.
Sounds a little different than your Vegas trip.