Be Inspiring to People

When I was in Jr. High Youth Group we had a Sunday evening session about covenants. After discussing and explaining the meaning and importance of covenants/ promises our youth leader passed out a piece of stationary with a very cute seal on it. "I want you to make a covenant, as a seal of promise to yourself," she said, "and I will mail them to you 6 months, a year from now. I thought long and hard about what mine should be, wrote it down, handed it over, and quickly forgot about it.


Some time later I received a letter (which rarely happened via snail mail at that time in my life). The envelope had my handwriting, and I was pretty confused about the whole thing. I opened it, and pulled out the seal paper. "Be inspiring to people" was staring back at me. It changed my life.


I find a lot of value in other's life insight/ philosophy/ and musings. At the end of every summer at Camp Alta Mons Bob Giesy would read the summer staff this poem:

Bits and Pieces

Bits and pieces, bits and pieces. People. People important to you, People unimportant to you cross your life, touch it with love and move on. There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of relief and wonder why you ever came into contact with them. There are people who leave you, and you breathe a sigh of remorse and wonder why they had to go and leave such a gaping hole. Children leave parents, friends leave friends. Acquaintances move on. People change homes. People grow apart. Enemies hate and move on. Friends love and move on. You think of the many people who have moved in and out of your hazy memory. You look at those present and wonder. I believe in god's master plan in lives. He moves people in and out of each other's lives, and each leaves his mark on the other. You find you are made up of bits and pieces of all who have ever touched your life. You are more because of them, and would be less if they had not touched you. Pray that you accept the bits and pieces in humility and wonder, and never question and never regrets. Bit's and pieces, bits and pieces.-Anonymous

I believe that I am made up of bits and pieces of people, experiences, thoughts, that have crossed my path. SO in an attempt to shed light on the perpetual "why would you want to walk over two thousand miles and live in the woods for months?" here are musing, quotes, near and dear to my being. I hope you find them inspiring.



Found when working on a school project for 11th grade history/English class.
“You can’t count a river while it moves by you. The best thing to do is take off all your clothes and go swimming in it, then when you feel the water all around you you’re part of the total river. Where it’s been, where it is, where it’s going, Plunge In!”

Henry David Thoreau

Explained to me by Dietz in 11th grade, hung on my walls since. "Montani Semper Liberi" West Virginia State Motto, translation "A mountaineer is always free"

Found when researching what to put on girls XC team shirts, 12th grade.
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there's some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Was introduced to Service by my 12th grade/freshman in college love who was very active in scouting and the OA.
Have you suffered, starved and triumphed,groveled down, yet grasped at glory,Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?"Done things" just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?Have you seen God in His splendors,heard the text that nature renders?(You'll never hear it in the family pew).The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things --Then listen to the Wild -- it’s calling you.
They have cradled you in custom,they have primed you with their preaching,They have soaked you in convention through and through;They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching --But can't you hear the Wild? -- it’s calling you.Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us; Let us journey to a lonely land I know.There’s a whisper on the night-wind,there’s a star agleam to guide us,And the Wild is calling, calling. . .let us go.
Robert Service"

Letter with High School Graduation gift.
"On the bottom of the box is a compass. This is so you will be able to find your way home. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you'll always have friends and family who will love you no matter what, and the compass will help you to find your friends and family should you ever lose them. Or if you're going hiking one day and you just really really need a compass, you can take it off of the bottom."
Dr.Scott

Found sophomore year of college in course text, reinforced by Dr.Scott. “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul."

John Muir

Found online, reinforced by Hasty. Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

Edward Abbey, from a speech first gave to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana in 1978, and in Colorado which was published in High Country News in the 1970s or early 1980s under the title "Joy, Shipmates, Joy."


Found during college course work, read at my Environmental Studies Graduation Ceremony.
"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you --- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Part of a letter I received on my 23 birthday. "I think you have that gift of being able to see into people's souls, and I always worried you might see the twenty-two year old Ralph in there and the things he was all about...... All the Ralphs are still alive and well: The 12-year-old Ralph who loved hearing that new song or buying a new record; the 15-year-old Ralph who loved sitting by a lake and listening to the water; the twenty-year old Ralph who discovered that so many unique and beautiful things exist out there beyond the camera lens and how much he wanted to capture them all so they would never be lost; the twenty-two year old Ralph that (well--he was the wild one); and on and on they go....... little pieces of the whole that build a whole life. The ups and downs, the loves and lost loves, the laughter and tears they all go together to make days that make weeks that make months that make years that are like bricks that build our lives.Keep building -- you never know what it might look like in the end, but I think it will be something beautiful." Ralph Bratton

One Month

Sean Davis knows the countdown better than me. I was excited today about tommorow, just figuring I get paid and the normal good monthly stuff... then it dawned on me... I trade this world for the woods a month from today. I moved some furniture from the apt back to my parents this weeked. Today I got off work early and manged to remove most of my pictures from the walls of my home (if you've been in my home you know that's a lot! Angie was proud!)

So here it comes =D

About a year ago this time I was driving north on 581 through downtown Roanoke on the phone with Angie. I vividly remember a conversation with her explaining and deciding to "settle" into this life for awhile, commit, in order to save and plan for the trail. I've been in the apartment 16 months.

It's not that I'm sad to leave, just pensive. Life's brought many surprises to me in Raliegh Court and Daleville since entering this chapter of my story, and as we near the end, on the cusp of flipping to the next page I was thinking... how about a little recap:

Detour Ahead

I spent some time in Libby, Montana Fall 2005. The intent was to interview and understand what everyday life is like in a town that made national news for its environmental degradation. I found myself sitting in the living room of an elderly couple struggling to live with the affects of "asbestos related diseases". Les explained how he came to Libby. He was on his way to Canada, or Washington, I don't know, en route from the mid west to the coast I believe. His car broke down in Libby. The part he needed wasn't available for awhile, then it was winter and terrible weather, he fell in love, got a job at the mine, etc, etc. There I was in his living room, a life time later.


So I've been thinking about all the little bits that make a whole, and how surprising it all is. I spent a lot of mental and emotional energy senior year of college trying to figure out what to do with my life. My decision to leave Montana for Virginia was rooted in a fulfilling job at Alta Mons for the summer, and supported with dreams of reconnecting with old loves; friends, family that hadn't been part of my daily life for three years. I wanted to cheer for my little brother at Cross Country meets, eat dinner with Cindy, run with Carrie and Susanna.



What I anticipated would be 6 months, a year, has turned into two. I have transitioned from summer staff to board of directors at Alta Mons. I have been to Brazil and back. I have rented and paid bills on my own, without a college loan refund check. I have watched a heart-bound genuine community rise out of loneliness and isolation. I have pulled 40 hour weeks and helped countless people in the store.



Every time I take more of life in Raleigh Court apart in preparation for the trail I think about memories from these years. Shooting for the Fincastle Herald, paddling with camp buddies, moving couches with Susanna, painting by headlamp, screwing orange and yellow wire caps to my dining room fan outlet, Erwin TN, road trip to Kristin's wedding, eating chocolate with Mark.

So here we are, gettin ready to uproot again and journey off, back in the saddle, and I'm singing a little

Annual Bad Ass Mama Jama Bike Across Botetourt

Christmas Break 2005 Carrie Hatter and I decided to go for a bike ride. We were both at our parents' houses for the holiday so we hopped on two wheels and met up. The ride started small, cruising around Blacksburg, Etzler, Haymaker Town Roads. It was one of those freak perfect 60 degree Virginia winter days, so we rode on. Thirty- forty miles and hours of twisting rambling road later we finished rolled though Greenfield Recreation Center at sunset and knew something very special had been born.


Annual Bad Ass Mama Jama Bike across Botetourt


Christmas Break 2006 rolled around and we both had full time jobs; Carrie on the peds floor of UVA hospital, me the Assistant Manager of Outdoor Trails Daleville. The bike ride was pushed back some, it ended up being some random day in January, but once again we hopped on our bikes and headed out. That year we rambled around Old Breckenridge Mill Road, Springwood Road (right about the time James River High School dismissed), Lithia "Lithuania" Road and back Blacksburg towards home. It was about 10 miles further than the year before and created a serious ache between our legs.


2007- A year into "being adults" we found it very hard to sync our schedules to go on our day long adventure. With my thru hike looming and spring pouncing upon us we finally pulled it together in March.
The route: Rie's parents-Fincaslte. 220-Eagle Rock. ER to Buchanan via Rte 43.



PAUSE THERE. Somewhere on 43 we found inspiration to veer on a dirt road through mountains, vineyards, and "Farm Use" vehicles to the Blue Ridge Vineyard. A wine tasting, feast, bottle of Pinot Noir, and life stories with former high school teachers later, we re-mounted.








James River H.S. to Springwood put in. River, donkey, Hasty house, my fav fields, we had HAD IT. The sun was sinking, just in time for Big Al to pull up in the red truck and bring us on home for Ginny's amazing tortellini, spinach, and Adam's fighta girlfriend's chocolate cake.






Deemed- best BAMJBAB YET =)

Thru Hike Plans

So most of you know I'm leaving soon to walk the miles on the Appalachian Trail between Georgia and Maine. The plan is to leave Daleville May 15, head north. Hopefully I'll reach Katahdin in September, then drive to Springer in GA. So I'll be walking Georgia north to Daleville September-Nov with the plan of being back among friends and family by Thanksgiving.
Granted these are all dynamic plans with a lot of adventure and flexibility in between. I'll keep you guys posted though =)

Alta Mons Love Letter

Summer of 2007 was the first summer in 15 years that I haven't spent at least two nights at Alta Mons. The last summer I worked there, 2006, I spent nights watching moonrises in the blue truck with Amy Cox, wandering starlit gravel roads with Clark Ramsey, and drinking tea on the staff house front porch with Rhiannon Violette and Corey Dalton. At night there are cicadas, bullfrogs, crickets, lightening bugs, owls, even bobcats. Campers squeek in their beds, counselors done a single flashlight for story time, and the valley exchanges a slumber of people for an alertness of the wild. Admist the twinklings of bugs and stars, a dew falls over the vegetation. It is damp, mysterious, comforting, frightening, and intoxicating.
Days are glorious on those acres; summer sun beating down, temperatures building all morning while campers and staff bebop between low ropes, meals, home in the woods sites, the pool, and crafts. Around 3 or 4 the heat may break, sky turn black, and thunderstorms send units from the pool towards the dining hall for some intense four-square.
I feel at home at Alta Mons because so much of my growth has happened here. When I was an elementary camper I packed far too much and always came with friends, usually Bethany Stevens or Keelah Andrews. Sometimes I idolized staff members, sometimes they were grumpy and sick and we made their weeks torture. I always bounced across the bridge from the cabins to the bathhouse, and usually developed crushes on that week's lifeguard or some other non-suspecting male staff member.
In those days the pool was fed by the creek, there were snakes in the pumps, and wild contests Friday afternoon before we went home. We worshipped in the back 400, nothing but trees, mountains, grass, and us. I first heard the legend of the phoenix in that amphitheatre, while a flaming arrow lit the fire pit. It was everything I understood magic to be.
Like the Harry Potter craze I was glued to Alta Mons. I came back every summer, for a coveted week. I looked for returning staff members, cool college kids that seemed legendary to me. On the drive from Troutville to Shawsville I would count down roads; Kirk Ave, Butt Hollow, Strawberry Ln., the yard with the rooster huts, the vine gazebo, Purgatory Creek, Sisson Dairy, Boogie's Wrestling Camp. Finally the valley would open, with the promise of lightening bug summer dusks, hand churned ice-cream, guitar around a fire. Back then I only got to stay a week at the longest. Six days I anticipated all year.
My first summer as a Junior High camper I stayed in Unit 9. We carried the entire thermal to the site from the old barn for breakfast. For lunch we ate summer sausage, saltine crackers, easy cheese, granola, and apples… every day. For dinner we cooked over the fire, every day. It was only after I was a staff member that I understood why my counselors were stressed out this week. I learned how to canoe. I fell in love for the first time with my canoe partner.
My life changed a lot between that year and my first year as a Senior High camper, by that time I went to camp alone. Katie Moser and Josh Dietz were my counselors, I met George Dickenson, and Jamie was the only other girl in our unit. We spent the week traveling, biking, canoeing, all the way to West Virginia. It was… perfect.
The next summer I was a C.I.T. That was a whirl wind of confusion, growth, and reality. I attempted to bond with staff while being told C.I.T.s were not allowed to develop any kind of meaningful friendship with staff members, never mind, as it turned out I was the only C.I.T. for that summer. I was lonely and searching most of those four weeks, but loved being at Alta Mons, learning to work as staff, and developing one close friendship I would carry throughout life.
Two summers after that I was a high school graduate and a real staff member. I felt respected more but sometimes things were a struggle. It was perhaps my best summer at Alta Mons- things were new and wild and fresh, and everyone seemed to be stumbling through the learning process together. My loves were there; Marie, Sheri, Steve Opetia-Williamson, Sarah Perry aka Big Veg, Mike Jamison, Elaine Smith, George Dickenson, Greg Moench, all people that throughout college would stay very near and dear to me.
After that I was in a groove, while school years were wild and wandering from Emory & Henry to the University of Montana, summers were spent on these 800 some acres. New staff came and went, I loved and lost, learned, kept, and stayed. Despite all my love for the place I tried many times to quit the addiction.
Every summer seemed to surface me further and further in experience and respect until I found myself one of the oldest returning staff members taking on battles I pieced through with God. It is wildness; wildness to grow up, wildness to search, wildness to battle, wildness towards wisdom and grace.
Memories cascade my mind- crying on the dock with Josh at a C.I.T., watching Will Williams and Paul Inge break bread wearing togas reinacting Jesus' last days, walking circles in the baby pool with the Muscatellos to create our own whirlpool, night swimming with Greg Moench, KK and I joking about dancing under the pink roof on the weekends, quoting Thoreau plunging in and Heather Taylor carrying that tattered letter through life with her, singing the Elephant Medley with Maggie, running around camp smothered in mud to lift morale from a week of rain, God. God pulling me, shoving me, isolating me. I think the best way to explain what I have gone through spiritually in this place is to think about the enormous amounts of pressure and process coal goes through before it is a diamond.
Different folks have different interpretations of a place. Dedicating my college years to class and life in Montana- ideas and theories floated through my head about natural resources, how vast our country is, how diverse this world is. I think it is undeniable that some mixture of memory and affinity for a parcel of land strikes every person. Whether it is as small as your bed or your grandmother's house, or as big as Virginia or the East Coast, I believe each person has a quadrant that awakens and stirs the depths of their beings.
Luckily for me, God has always been involved with my depths and my places- trusting his hands to guide my steps in his will. I tried to leave Alta Mons, and Virginia for that matter, many times (a regular prodigal son). Run as I may, there are always two firm definitive hands pushing east, luring me back to abandoned homesteads, bottling companies and Willie Jack's. Stories echo off Bear Mountain, Turtle Ridge, Purgatory Creek, and Christmas Tree Mountain.
In many ways this camp has been a testing ground physically, spiritually, and socially for me. It has turned me into a singer, naturalist, guitar strummer, trail runner, paddler, leader, lover, climber, gear junkie, writer, worshipper, and friend. My dreams revolve around memories and models here – thru hiking the Appalachian Trail, finding a career where I'm paid to be outside, marrying a man who can stand beside me on the East Ridge after scrambling up the ravine and loose dirt to abandoned logging roads overlooking the dairy and camp's tree-lined boulevard. I have been betrayed and befriended, broken and blessed on these acres.
Through the years, people, adventures and stories I've grown into the understanding that Camp Alta Mons is the love of my life. I can breathe here, cry here, soar here. God meets me HERE.
It is my ardent hope that others feel this way, and together, for generations past, and future, Camp Alta Mons will dynamically shine God's grace and wonder in its mountains, trees, waters, creatures, and people.
May you forever find graceful magic here,
~Rebekah aka Little Veggie

Summer 2006

Flash floods sweep Virginia as the rain pummels lush vegetation. I'm sitting, clean shaven, smooth, tattooed in a dark living room, silent aside from Boston and St.John's and the rain against the bay window. Normally I'd be waiting out the storm on the staff house watching drenched home sick summer campers slosh from the dining hall to their cabin. This week the smell of fresh painted middle school permeates my nostrils as I wander the halls with my photography and movie making students. For all intensive purposes I guess I'm back east for a long haul. I find myself however living more like Hollie Golightly than I may have anticipated... half unpacked boxes from Montana scattereding the house. Unnamed pets at the nature trailer. Current clothes haphazardly mixed with random Tshirts I wore in high school. I have a section in the basement of picture frames, paintings, and wine glasses wrapped in Missoulian headlines and lead photos, a pile of Mary Kay boxes in the living room, a backpack full of outdoor toys in the living room, and we won't discuss the tordado that my bedroom has become... Moving is hard and beautiful. Some mornings I wake up wanting to cry, longing for biking down the river trail, running at Blue Mountain, and breakfast at Food for Thought. Some weekends I desperately long to done that white lace slip, black and white saucy dress, heels, and go dancing. Always, I miss the J school buds, Jane, Dacia... I was right about some things though. Here in this saturated intoxicating Blue Ridge I feel gracefully alive. Around the 'tourt I see my friends, we go to lunch, we reveal our hearts to each other. Back in the bubble (camp) we're on fire for Christ, summer, and any unsuspected moment. It is wild, and healing. Every song I sing, I mean. Every prayer I pray is poignant. New friends hold me accountable with their suprisingly honest questions. Old friends keep me in awe of their strength, courage, and devotedness. You are all in my thoughts and prayers, I hope all yall's summer is shaping up to be just as eye-opening =D
..... yes I am starting to re-embrace southern lingo. And I think it's sooo niiiiiice ;)
Blessed be your name when the sun's shining down on mewhen the world's all as it should be, blessed be your nameblessed be your name on the road marked with sufferingthough there's pain in the offering... blessed be your name.every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise.