exploration

Greetings,
It's Thursday afternoon and I am just relaxing today. I went for a really big hike yesterday. Not long, only 2 hours, but the trail I picked to explore was challenging. Not a trail so much as a dried up riverbed which turned into a dried up waterfall. It was very steep. I contemplated turning back half way because I only had 2 hours total to adventure before lunch was served at the ashram but there was a ridge up ahead that looked like it would be a great lookout over the other side and I just couldn't bring myself to turn around, so I pushed on. I wanted to make it up to that ridge.
When you walk straight out the back of the ashram up the hill it goes into some rural land and small farms and things. I love to walk up in there because there is a beautiful creek that runs through and no cars at all, just nature, and dogs, and children and then the further you go..... nothing: trees, rocks, the odd cow with a bell, grazing in the hills.
Needless to say, I came back spent, covered in burrs and dirty and satisfied. I was in pretty good shape going up. There wasn't much of a trail. I had to abandon the creekbed because as I said, it turned into a vertical wall of rocks which would have been a waterfall in wetter seasons. I ended up scrambling up a gravelly slope with tufts of grass on all four of my limbs because it was so steep. The harder it got, the more determined I became. It became this great challenge which I couldn't turn away from. I arrived at the top, thirsty with no water, only to find there was a perfectly maintained and well used road along the ridge! You could see over the other side into a hazy valley. Very cool. Also there was a power line, of all things. Just when I thought I had escaped into the middle of nowhere, boom, there is civilization in all its glory. I discovered that I just took the hard way to a place that is probably relatively easy to get to by other routes.
I enjoyed the pinnacle only for a brief moment; feeling the breeze caress my skin and cool me down. Thinking there must be a proper trail down from that point, other than the way I came up (and not wanting to follow the nice road, for surely it would take me to a point far, far from the ashram, thus dousing my lunch plans at the ashram completely), I strolled a ways farther along the ridge. I spotted a trail on some rocky shale and began to make my descent. Again it was steep, but I was confident.
Well, the trail didn't last long and I felt I was really getting short on time. No time to backtrack and look for something better. I had no watch so i was going entirely by my intuition for time and I know I had little of it.
This trail was even less defined and wild than the last one and soon ceased to be anything that could be called a trail at all. In places it was downright dangerous as I slid and lost my footing several times, grasping onto grass clumps to slow my descent. I found myself again in a small gully, a different one, that had once had water in it, but that was also now dry and long unused. It was so overgrown that I grew used to using my body as a scythe as I plowed through the overgrown bushes, more concerned for my footing, as unsure as each step was becoming. Often I was stepping into a mess of leaves and sticks and loose shale, not knowing if the foothold was going to hold. The thought of snakes (India, the land of cobras) was constantly in my mind and I just kept telling myself "this doesn't look like anyplace I would like to be if I were a snake, too dry, too.... whatever" making nice excuses to keep from terrifying myself. I got tangled up a few times in tree branches, both fallen ones and attached ones, tripping. It reminded me of getting tangled up with my snowboard on the ski hill in some ridiculous position from which I had to patiently extricate myself, no one there to pull me out.
I began to feel huge rushes of adrenalin as I felt the power and strength of my body go into survival mode. Getting down off this hill was my only goal. All other thoughts were banished from my mind and I enjoyed this one-pointedness of purposeness for the duration of the journey. My mind was calm and concentrated.
I clambered over log jambs and lowered myself by my hands with the strength of my arms from small trees growing at the top of dropoffs to the ground below, often jumping down, or finding hand holds in rock faces to maneuver myself down to the next safe spot. I was invigorated and alive and felt I could make no misstep. I was moving as fast as possible because I knew lunch was at 12 and I think it is so inconsiderate to be late and expect to be served separately from everyone else. The steep part finally gave way to the gentler, wider, more open dry creek rock bed which I flew down at top speed, leaping with sure footedness from boulder to boulder, so grateful for all the yoga training I have been doing, my muscles were strong and stable, my balance, reliable.
I felt such a rush of life when I emerged from that valley back onto the road. I felt like I had been gone for days on a vision quest and had faced wild animals and life threatening conditions.
I was filthy. I had worn white, not expecting this sort of adventure. I was covered in burs and spear grass, dirt.....I was a mess. When I arrived back home, beaming and bouncing, the staff just laughed at me, as if I was a child who had been out playing in the mud. They understood my glee. It was a good day.