Being Comfortable With Discomfort

Most of the year, the wind blows from the west where I live, but in winter it slides around to the north, and it’s predictable enough to build that into your plans. A couple weeks ago, I set out to traverse a long ridge in Joshua Tree National Park, going north to south with the wind at my back and returning along the valley floor, thinking I’d have a nice boost from behind up high and easier going down below.

Winter and fall were arguing about who was in charge, however, and when I got out there, fall was winning and the wind was blowing stiffly from the west. By stiff, I mean the gusts were above forty miles per hour, which I know because I carry one of those wind-speed measuring things; smart people call them anemometers.

It was a struggle to stay on the crest of the ridge, even at times to stay on my feet. It was a struggle to keep my hat on, and it was chilly, too. But I pulled my hood up and cinched its drawstring, securing my hat and warming my ears. In trail running shoes, shorts, a long-sleeve wool top, and shell, the heat from my moving body perfectly thwarted the buffeting convective assault. Sunset was an hour away. In my running pack, I carried food, water, communication devices, a space-blanket bivy. I had everything I needed, nothing I didn’t. It was just me and the wind out there, and I don’t know who was more content.

One of the rewards of adventure is that you learn to be comfortable with uncomfortable situations. When I was a kid, I could not have imagined I one day would be perfectly happy sleeping on a cliff ledge the width of my body or hanging from a thin rope hundreds of feet off the ground or traveling in avalanche terrain. To many people, those things sound insane, or, at minimum, undesirable. But, bit by bit, you push yourself, you acquire skills, you discover capabilities, you feel better on uncertain ground.

Another reward is that you learn to be comfortable in uncomfortable conditions—strong winds, pelting snow, plastering rain, weather that tugs and pulls and shoves, seeking the gap between your jacket and trousers, probing for weakness and exposure. Rowdy weather is incessant. It feels alive, intentional, a character on the stage who’s bigger, louder, and stronger than you. And yet, what an amazing feeling it is to be dressed for the conditions, kitted up and ready to go, your garments shipshape and buttoned down, your zippers closed, your layers done right, your confidence surging and your spirit eager. You know you’re not just going to meet the moment, but to thrive in it.

Indeed, I have a big bank of memories when conditions were full on but I was, too—when my happiness and joy flared like a furnace pumped by a bellows, as if emotions escalated with each notch climbed on the Beaufort scale. There was a day in the early nineties in Breckenridge, Colorado, where a side wind scoured slopes, sweeping away tracks and all but a handful of skiers, and I, practically alone, made run after run, singing not in spite of the wind, but because of it. That was thirty years ago and yet I still feel the precise angle of the wind on my hood and the gray of snow and clouds and afternoon darkness merging as one.

Perhaps such conditions give us a choice, to hunker down and shelter or to saddle up and brave the day. Perhaps they add extra sensory stimulation, like music or smells, that imprints more powerfully into our memories. Maybe they bring out the best in us, combining the drive to explore with the ingenuity of apparel technology and handed-down sartorial wisdom. Or maybe it’s that strong weather strips away all but the essential from our endlessly chattering minds.

It’s probably all of the above. Out in Joshua Tree, I focused on nothing but moving forward and staying safe. I kept an eye on the setting sun, monitored my water, ensured each step was on solid ground. When I startled a yearling buck, who bounded away to the east, I felt the coolest sense of kinship, silly as that might have been. And when I passed to the leeward of a scrub oak, I marveled at the complete lack of breeze behind it, at the calm and quiet and shelter it offered, but I kept moving, to stay in the wind, and the wilder it was, the happier I felt.