When I first moved to the mountain, the mountain men – the Mountain Posse, as
this self-styled renegade group called themselves – placed bets on how long I,
a 28-year-old single woman from the suburbs, would last. The longest bet, so
I’ve been told, was two years – one year to experience the brutal weather, and
the second year to put my cabin on the market. Twenty-eight years later, the
Mountain Posse has disbanded, and I’m still solo on the mountain.
In the abstract, the
setting is idyllic: an isolated mountain cabin at the end of an abandoned
logging trail in the Rampart Range in Colorado. The nearest county-maintained
road is 2.6 miles distant at the base of the mountain, as is the community
mailhouse and parking area. I split logs for the wood stove, hike the mountain
trails daily (with 1.2 million acres, there are many trails to explore), wake
to magnificent sunrises. I’m the second-longest tenured resident on the
mountain and the only long-term, full-time single person. It’s a challenging
life alone in this environment. Yet this very experience of solitude within a
vast natural landscape is the reason I’ve stayed.
I don’t identify as a
hermit or a recluse. Although I find spiritual fulfilment on the mountain, my
solitude is not the result of a religious calling. Importantly, I didn’t move
to the mountain with the goal of being alone. I moved here because the cabin
was an affordable place to live while I fulfilled a four-year teaching
assignment at a university 20 miles away. The resulting solitude was an
unexpected discovery, then an unexpected benefit. At the end of those four
years, I left my career and a brief marriage because mountain life was even
more appealing than either of those.
Nor is my solitude
experimental. There is an abundance of personal narratives by men and women who
have ventured alone into an isolated or semi-isolated setting for a specific
purpose, for a specific period of time – Alice Koller’s An Unknown
Woman (1981) and Alix Kates Shulman’s Drinking the Rain (1995)
come to mind. In the main, their experiences are planned retreats from the
trappings of the modern world, not permanent life changes. Even Anne
LaBastille, the American ecologist and author of the Woodswoman (1976-2003)
series, eventually became only a seasonal Adirondack resident. The more
committed solitaries, such as the poet and novelist May Sarton, live in or near
an established residential area. But to endure the solitude in a
semi-wilderness setting, across decades, requires a different level of
commitment.
In her Aeon essay on female
hermits, Rhian Sasseen posed the question: ‘A woman alone, unwatched,
unchaperoned and without children is impossible for us to process. What does
she do with her time?’ I’ll tell you what I do with my time. On the mountain, I
live simply. I read books. I cook all my meals – unadorned recipes, from basic
ingredients, that freeze well. I take long, often meandering hikes into the
woods. I write in my journal. I sleep in a hammock under the stars and take naps
on the overlook. I bake bread from scratch. I rediscovered the simple pleasures
of sewing. With only myself to answer to, I bought a piano (an overwhelming
purchase at the time) and taught myself music.
Far from the madding crowd; the
authors house in winter. Photo courtesy Susanne Sener.
Mostly I am still, basking
in the absolute silence, unobserved by others, answering only to the mountain
and to myself. The freedom is absolute, and it is exquisite. But here’s the
rub: this kind of long-term contemplative solitude in a challenging environment
demands logistical support. I choose to have electricity, running water powered
by a well pump, propane gas, a reliable well-maintained vehicle, high-quality
winter clothing and gear, and a stocked pantry and freezer chest. I choose not
to rely on the mountain community for help (although occasionally I pay a
neighbour to perform odd jobs I lack the skill sets to perform safely myself).
Because I value my time enjoying this natural world rather than surviving in it
(translation: I don’t hunt or forage for food) – and without a partner or
patron, trust fund or other means of passive income – I must actively work to
sustain my long-term solitude. For me that means a job in the city, an hour’s
drive from the mountain. I find this weekday commute increasingly difficult to
endure, both as a waste of my precious time and as a separation from the
solitary life I cherish. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has enabled the
company’s staff to work from home, at least for the near future. I know,
though, that this respite is only temporary; one day I’ll have to return to the
commuting life. But it’s a task I’ll willingly undertake to support this life
path I’m travelling alone.
There
are many benefits to a solitary life in
nature: there’s the psychological peace that comes with living an unobserved
life, but there are also physical advantages. I no longer attribute my physical
health to good luck or good genes. Well into my 50s, I’m as physically active
as I was in my 20s. I take no medications, my weight is less than what it was
in college. I have suffered no major illnesses, only very minor colds, and no
hospitalisations. A medical professional recently told me: ‘Whatever you’re
doing, keep doing it.’ And I do. I hike at least an hour every day, and I
choose to perform manually even the most rigorous tasks. I snowplough the
nearly quarter-mile trail to my cabin with a push sleigh shovel rather than
rely on a more convenient but noisy, expensive and troublesome plough truck. I
split logs by hand rather than use an electric log-splitter. This past summer,
I painted the exterior of the cabin by brush instead of using a paint-sprayer.
The benefits I draw from these practices go far beyond my physical and
emotional wellbeing. This physical, manual work immerses me deeper into this
land, heightens my connection with this place, enriches my soul. When I split
firewood, I pause to inhale the pine smell. I admire the vastness of the
mountain landscape. I plan excursions to explore the mysteries hidden inside
its thick forest. Clearing snow as it softly falls all around me, I’m alone
inside the deepest silence the mountain offers.
Sometimes, I wrestle with
this choice I’ve made. At a very basic level, I’ve become intolerant of noise.
Away from the mountain, common sounds (a car door slamming, playgrounds, copy
machines, even people coughing) are magnified. My senses are easily
overwhelmed. Apart from food, I mostly shop online to avoid the barrage of
colour and activity in retail stores, even when this costs me more. I’m only 54
miles from Denver, yet over the years I have been visiting less and less; with
their advent, DVDs have replaced even annual trips to a movie theatre, let
alone the concerts and cultural events I used to enjoy. Sometimes, too, I
regret not having children, but I couldn’t raise them alone on the mountain, and
my desire to have children wasn’t strong enough for me to choose to marry and
relocate. As one disappointed suitor said: ‘What are you going to do, die on
this hill?’ Perhaps. If I do, it will be with full knowledge that the primary
relationship in my life has not been with a person, but with a mountain.
Approaching the
three-decade mark, I wonder: is this self-imposed solitary life a necessity, an
indulgence, or a form of madness? I’m not quick to dismiss any of these
possibilities. Steep cliffs, roads without guardrails, blizzards, wildfires,
and close encounters with black bears and mountain lions remind me that, while
this life can be contemplative, it is by no means pastoral. It’s not even
particularly safe. Last spring, during a ferocious windstorm, a tree split in
half and struck the cabin; two months later, a lightning strike set the deck on
fire. I was inside the cabin on both occasions; each time, I was lucky to
escape unharmed and that the damage to the cabin was minor.
Over the years, I’ve come
to view my relationship with this mountain as a marriage, and like a marriage,
sometimes I want a divorce. Self-reliance can be emotionally and physically
draining. It’s always me paying the bills, replacing ageing infrastructure,
chaining up the truck tyres, stocking the woodpile, and ploughing the heavy,
back-breaking late-fall and early spring snows. Five years ago, I fell over
inside the cabin, and as I lay on my back on the floor, literally seeing stars
in the darkness, I grasped in full the vulnerability that comes with solitude.
At night, the darkened windows reflect my shadowy self as I move from room to
room in the silent cabin. Twenty or so years ago, I joked that my goal in life
was to haunt the mountain after I die. I no longer make that joke. Recently, on
a particularly cold winter’s night, I watched the film I Am the Pretty
Thing That Lives in the House (2016). Forget close encounters with
mountain lions – that film terrified me, especially with its quiet conclusion:
‘Surely this is how we make our own ghosts. We make them out of ourselves.’
And
still, I remain.
My three decades alone, basking in the company of a mountain | Psyche Ideas
