In my previous post, “Being an Intellectual,” I praised that side of myself. However, it turns out that my life has actually been all about body. Before I entered the woods for the first time, it’s true, I was an out-of-the-body intellectual. I was always reading or studying, and usually sitting at my ease in a chair or at my desk. I seldom if ever exercised and was probably on my way to an early heart attack.

In my early thirties though, something happened. I began to backpack. I also began doing acid. Doing acid in the woods helped me to accept and to facilitate this change in my life. Ever since then, I have remained an intellectual, but I have also been able to enjoy my strength and prowess as a body. And today, I am still very strong and healthy and horny for someone my age.

I’ve been going into the woods now for more than fifty years. I have hiked and backpacked often in the High Sierras of California and in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I have also backpacked in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as well as into the various Rainbow Gatherings in such states as Vermont, Michigan, and Minnesota.
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Back in the late fifties, when this all started, I backpacked several times with my first wife. The first time she and I went, I lost my wedding ring. I didn’t know it then, but I was actually choosing the mountains over my relationship with her. However, it took her cheating on me a few times and then leaving me for her Jungian Analyst for me to do something about it.
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Several years later, after she and I were finally divorced, some friends of mine from UCLA wanted to go backpacking and do acid with me and my partner. Thinking about where to go, I remembered the first place that I had gone to – Dinky Creek in the High Sierras.

Dinky Creek is on the west slope of the Sierras, near Shaver Lake, between Fresno and Kings Canyon National Park. It’s beautiful – lots of rock, lots of trees and lots of water. Another creek, Cow Creek, comes down and joins up with Dinky Creek, and that is where we ended up, right at their juncture.

We had a magical trip together while we were camping there. We all did acid and wandered around barefoot in the woods all day. We realized that everything we did in the woods, even the chores like gathering firewood and cooking was fun, lots of fun! That first day, we all became bodies, bodies with minds. And ever since then, whenever I go backpacking and do acid, I become body. I wander around, exploring in wonder. I climb rocks and trees. I dive into the icy cold creeks. I lie out under the stars at night.

That first trip at Dinky began an incredible spiritual odyssey that I am still on today. After that first trip, I continued to return to Dinky, either alone or with others, doing acid and exploring consciousness. It became my spiritual home.
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In the early seventies, I had a major transformative experience while tripping there alone on peyote. I overcame my fear then and finally became who I truly was. I became Wanderer, an acid adventurer, living on the edge of reality.
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Although I now live in Colorado, I still wander in the woods. I still explore consciousness. And I still use acid to do so. I love spending a day or a week or more alone in the woods doing acid. I have tripped at home, in the city, but I have found that tripping alone in the woods is the best way to become high and conscious.

I still do a lot of day hiking in the foothills near Boulder or up in the higher mountains. I like to hike with the whole family, with Aspen and Callahan and the other boys, although Jake, with his muscular dystrophy, and Zane, with his four-year-old legs, can’t go for very long hikes. Callahan can. He’s great. He keeps up with me easily. I’m grooming them all though, hoping that when I can no longer carry a heavy backpack, they can all help out.

I haven’t backpacked in years, not since Aspen and I started having kids. But Callahan and I are going backpacking together this coming summer. And if I have my way, we will also all go out to California this summer to visit Jonathan and his family – and, of course, to visit my old camp at Dinky Creek.