When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,
what is mankind that You are mindful of them,
human beings that You care for them?
—Psalms 8:3-4
“How could you have lost your fire starter!?” I yelled at the contestant on the TV show Alone. “Don’t you realize that fire is everything?” I reclined into the comfort of my chair and forked another gluttonous mouthful of lunch down my throat. “You moron,” I said, spewing food particles as I watched him cope with the delirium of starvation. I have no experience surviving in the wilderness myself, of course, but you know how easy it is to quarterback from a recliner.
I did go backcountry camping in a national park once. A friend and I lugged gallons of water up a well-worn trail to the top of Yosemite just to find out there was snow we could have melted all along. We ate satisfactory meals and were hindered by a weak cell phone signal, struggling through a single night at the very edge of civilization.
This near Lewis and Clark experience will stick with me forever, though, because it was the first time I slept under the stars, as we opted not to pitch the tent that night. And when I say “stars,” I mean you could see the whole Milky Way Galaxy, clear as anything published in National Geographic, complete with meteors streaking across the tapestry of constellations twinkling along the skyline. The only thing missing was a David Attenborough voiceover sharing valuable tidbits of information.
I recall being snuggly tucked within a circle of rocks forming a wall around me near the cliff’s edge while my friend chose a more open space further from the precipice.
“Be careful,” he called out, mocking me just before bed. “Try not to roll off the edge!”
“You too,” I replied. “This close to winter, I hear the bears are hungry!”
There was a strong silence.
“Night,” I added, rolling over noisily.
“You’re a real piece of shit,” I heard a weaker voice say.
If there’s one thing I learned from that trip, it’s that the vulnerability of sleeping cliffside in black bear country is worth the unobscured glimpse into eternity that’s otherwise blocked by light pollution. Will I ever brave the Alaskan frontier in grizzly country while depending on a fire starter for survival? Perhaps not. But that small taste of wilderness sure has awoken something in me that craves more.