Trusting your memory could mean forgetting.

When I started packing, I first made a list of everything I needed to bring (smart!). But because the weeks and days leading up to my hike were very busy, my to-pack list got misplaced, and I didn't care to make another one. I "knew" everything I needed to bring.

On day 4 of my 6-day trip, I woke up in the middle of the night with an unbearable itch on my hands. I added some moisturizer and went back to sleep, thinking they were simply too dry. A day later, I noticed my hands looked decades older, and dead skin was coming off of them. I forgot to pack my sunblock, and my melanated nature was pushed past its own limit. My hands and the lower half of my face were the only parts of my body exposed fully to the cloudless sky for the past few days, and they were suffering the consequences.

The wilderness is this pristine place, seldom visited by people, far away from people.

When I first set out to hike this long trail, I knew I would see people due to it being a popular hike. Being part of both the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, allegedly also one of their best sections for its breathtaking views, the Collegiate West would live up to that reputation. I didn't realize until later that the way the wilderness is managed (and also just how it is) in such a popular trail is exceptionally different from how it's handled in at least most every other place I've ever backpacked to.

First of all, I was near a road almost every day, and even had to hike on them or cross them. I heard cars and off-road vehicles at least every other day. While I first found it annoying, I quickly adjusted my expectations, and it stopped bothering me.

Second, many sections of the trail are heavy duty day-use areas. Meaning, I had to share "campground" with a group of already loud teenagers who had also brought along their speakers to blast some top 40s all evening long.

Third, my Leave No Trace (LNT) ideas of camping away from the trail and at least 200 feet away from lakes and streams was a NO-GO. Apparently, most campsites are next to the path in this particular trail, often stream-side, and that's just the way it is. For me to follow my LNT principles literally would've meant to impact new areas and, therefore, a failure to my LNT principles nevertheless.

This brought me back to the narrative of several Indigenous activists whose work I follow and how they taught me that the idea of wilderness itself was created by white men to remove Indigenous folks from their land. Today, it seems like too many white men use what we call wilderness, and their own attempt to make it pristine and void of humans has not succeeded. But I couldn't help wonder how different things would look if the Ute people, the Indigenous people of this area, would be the caretakers of this land today.