August 13

The rain has been somewhat of a constant so far this weekend having rained pretty hard the first night as well as all last night and now again during the day today. Not just rain, but thunder storms. I started out this morning at 10:00 doing a solo recorded hike to start gathering material to post on the DNR website. I have decided I will most likely edit out several segments of 6-10 minutes so people can peruse online and then perhaps create a map from the PDF template that catalogs where on the trail each segment was taken. I also decided that instead of leaving behind a MP3 of the meditation, I would instead write out several different meditations depending on the season so that an interested party could download and print out a PDF Song Path guide with both a printed meditation and a map showing the exact trail and starting point with some suggested stopping points along the way. That way the hiker can really get the experience of the space at the moment they are there rather than being transported backwards in time to the season and day that I was making the recording.

To give a bit of context on this, Amy Barrett at the Minnesota DNR, who is now my main contact for the entire project, thought it would be a good idea to leave something behind in each park that people visiting the website or the parks could enjoy after my project was done. I thought at the time that an MP3 of the along with a MAp showing where the song path goes would be a good idea as well as some MP3 files of the hike itself so people could get an idea of what it was like without actually being there. In retrospect, it seems that really "being there" is a part of the experience so even though I still plan to post some audio clips, I just think a recorded meditation would take a potential hiker OUT of "being there". The park changes so much from day to day and week to week that I think it would be best for them to have some sort of reference that didn't impose a certain time an place on their ears before they begin hiking the trail.

So, back to the rain, I am sitting in a tent right now wondering if my scheduled 4:00 hike will go off. The rain isn't coming down too hard actually and if there was still a bit of thunder in the background it would be incredibly interesting. Nina and Hans -Georg and I experienced this in Whitewater and it was spectacular but I fear the hikers won't show. I would love to be able to find them to encourage them to do a rain hike with me but we'll see. Crossing my fingers.