The capstone of the Wilderness and Civilization program, in a way, occurs in its first ten days, which are spent backpacking through the Bob Marshall Wilderness. On a trip of this length, you’re bound to find out a lot about yourself, the people you’re hiking with, and the place you’re traveling through. Perhaps a little more than you want to know…

The trip began in the last week of August, still summer, though temperatures at higher altitude where we would be backpacking had already fallen. It rained eight out of the ten days, and we spent many hours with wet boots and clothes slogging through mud. The scenery was beautiful, of course, and there were thimbleberries along the trail to be had, but after a few days of cold and wetness that we weren’t ready for in August, our morale was low.

On the third day, our group leader came across a large rock (at least 10 lbs) with a hole right through it. He’d tied it to a string and forced himself to carry it around his neck as punishment for leaving his trekking pole behind miles before when we had stopped to pick huckleberries. Here begun the rock cult. The rock was to be called Lenny and the purpose of the cult was to convince others to carry Lenny the very heavy rock for no reason at all. Good luck, I thought.

By that night, Lenny had already been smashed due to foul play, so I figured the Rock Cult was over. Turns out, we found another nearly identical heavy rock with a hole through it just down the trail, and the cult was revived. Even the sound of the water squashing around my shoes couldn’t down out the sound of the cult members chanting what sounded like “E-R-S-2 Lenny-day. E-R-S-2 Rock-we-day”. Whatever that means, I thought. Couldn’t they find something more interesting to talk about? Wasn’t this supposed to be an educational experience?

By the end of the trip, we had gone through three Lennys (Lenny, Lemmy, and Lenora), all equally lovely large rocks with holes through them. There had been a Judas-style betrayal in the cult, recorded in our trip journal, the betrayer had been re-baptized into the cult using the water from a stream, and Lenny had thrice been murdered in some way (however you might murder a rock, that is). While at the time my mood had often been clouded by grumpiness generated by being wet, cold, and a bit hungry, I look back on this trip and the Rock Cult fondly.

As children, we freely make believe, changing the world we are experiencing before our eyes. When it’s snowing in August and you’ve been hiking in wet boots for six miles, who wants to talk about the current state of the world? What’s the point of laboring over evolutionary theory, or contemplating strategies of wilderness management? Part of physically removing yourself from society by getting out into the wilderness is mentally freeing yourself from its constructs. Why not, for that matter, create a new society where a heavy rock is King and you are to do his bidding?