Having gone through some emotional family challenges that affected both of us, my son Joel and I decided to spend a week backpacking in the Yosemite National Park backcountry. We started at a trailhead near Tuolomne Meadows, in the eastern part of Yosemite, and hiked to Cathedral Lake, where we set up camp for our first night out. We took a quick swim in the icy lake, then watched the high-altitude alpenglow extravaganza of a golden red sunset illuminating the snowfields on Cathedral Peak. Venus appeared, followed by other planets and eventually a million stars piercing the evening canopy overhead.

The next day we hiked deeper into the backcountry, following a trail that led us up above 10,000 feet elevation. We walked past tiny crystalline lakes and a billion wild flowers, then dropped down toward a campsite in a pine and fir forest beside a quickly flowing stream. We camped early enough that we had time to scout around, refresh ourselves in a deep pool in the stream, and read for a while.

During the next four days we climbed up over the top of Clouds Rest peak, from which we could look down onto nearby Half Dome, one of the famous natural wonders of the park (we tried not to feel too smug, knowing that most Yosemite visitors look up 4,500 feet at Half Dome). We hiked down into the Merced River Canyon where we were visited one evening after supper by a curious black bear (it apparently meant us no harm, or perhaps came to that decision after we started banging pots and throwing pinecones).

From another campsite farther downstream, we spent a day climbing Half Dome, clinging to steel cables hung over the steep granite sides of the dome to aid climbers in their quest for bragging rights. Finally, we began descending out of the backcountry, past Nevada Falls and Vernal falls to Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley, a four-mile-long, 3,000-foot-deep granite slot that is visited by more than a million tourists each year.

Besides the spectacular scenery, the thing I found most interesting about the last day of hiking was the changing appearance (and sometimes odor) of people we met along the trail. After seeing only other backcountry hikers for several days, it came as a bit of a shock to associate once again with people who had recently bathed. We began meeting women on the trail who were wearing jewelry and perfume; they walked next to men dressed in pressed khaki slacks and shirts with collars.

One sweet older couple, heading up the trail with their walking sticks, stopped to ask us if we had “made it.” Not sure what they thought we might have “made,” we told them we had been up in the backcountry.

“Is that farther than Vernal Falls?” The woman asked.

“Well, yes. There’s Vernal Falls, and then there’s Nevada Falls, and up beyond that along the river is Little Yosemite Valley, and above that is Half Dome. We were up on Half Dome yesterday.”

“Whoa!” said the man. “You guys must’ve been campin’ out!” We admitted we had.

Several days earlier, during the afternoon when we were camped at the stream below Clouds Rest, Joel and I had gone off, each doing his own thing for a while. I hadn’t seen him for maybe an hour and a half. Eventually, he came walking back into our campsite, where I had started reading a book.

“Dad,” Joel said, “Something about this place is amazing. It’s just so … It’s so … real.”

I understood what he meant. I also understood why he couldn’t find words to explain it.

In ways that are different, yet somehow the same, I have this sense when I’m hiking in the wilderness and also when I’m reading the Bible. During the last day of our hike, as we met more and more people who had slept the previous night in hotel rooms, I couldn’t help feeling  we were leaving something behind that was more real than what we were approaching. It’s not that showers and clean clothes and comfortable beds aren’t good things. I wouldn’t want to live most of my life without them. Still, there is something more “real” that can only be found in a few of life’s experiences. One such place, for me, is buried deep in the natural wilderness. Another is immersed deep in study of the Bible.

Neither of these experiences comes without effort. Joel and I worked hard climbing the peaks and descending the canyons of Yosemite. It would have been easier to stay in a hotel in the valley. It’s also easier to read a magazine or to watch TV than it is to read the Bible. But the backcountry and the Bible provide something that those other experiences can never match.

G. K. Chesterton once said that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but it has often been found difficult and not tried. For those willing to take on the difficulty, I recommend hiking deep into backcountry wilderness and also probing deep into God’s word.

B.W.