BACK COUNTRY

There is somethign very sexy that happens to all women in the backcountry. Especially girls who may be the nice, quiet, plain girls. The ones that didn't get lots of attention from the boys, who didn't dress to exaggerate that attention or always act like they were flaunting it. No, we're talking about the average girls in baggy shirts or sweaters, the ones who study for tests, and do art or theatre or choir, and like popular boys with distant crushes, but hang out with their circle of friends. We all know these girls, all went to school with them. They are sweat and funny, smart, and often very kind, but never the focus of sexual desire.

Then you take a trip into the backcountry. The first few days everyone still wears the city, but soon, hair is tangled and matted from sleeping on the ground. Skin is gritty from sweat and trail dust. Hair smells of camp smoke. Pants are dirty from the cook stove, and shoes become one with blisters. Heavy packs dig into shoulders. After a few days, the cliques of school no longer matter, everyone is on the trail, everyone pitches camp, trades chores cooking, firewood, dishes. Reasons for popularity shift, and those with singing skills, or storytelling skills, or compass and map skills move to the front.

After four days, every piece of clothes in the pack has been worn. Wash with creek water, and hung on bushes to dry. Socks and underwear the most important to clean. Bras no longer matter--especially for the girls who never needed them anyway.

That's when you notice her small breasts for the first time, pointing through her shirt in the alpine air. Hiking you are hot, and then when stopped for a breather, you cool rapidly. Her nipples show though. The gleem of sweat makes her face shine. Her hair has become so tangled, she's tied a bandana scarf around her head, but little whips of hair poke out. It's rugged and yet the most feminine thing you have ever seen.

Under her arms you notice a week without shaving has allowed her dark hair to sprout. It is thick and damp with beads of sweat. With out chemical deodorant, it is her natural scent, her animal scent. You are reminded that we are all mammals, after all. If you got close enough, maybe you could smell it, slightly sweet and sour, blending with the air of pine trees, moss, ferns.

In the wilderness, beauty does not go to privilege, but to the smart, and lean, and kind--the people who fit into the tribe and move it forward. No one looked twice at her chest at school, but now they look just the right size. She doesn't flaunt it, she doesn't even notice. She raises her hand to adjust her bandana, flashing the tuff of her hair. It is moist like the forest, fecund. In hiking shorts, her legs are bare, a hint of fuzz on the shins. The miles of trail have shaped her calves and thighs. You wonder why you never noticed how beautiful her leg were.

Looking at her now is how humans have always been. How quickly we forget in the city, how soon we remember after a week in the wilderness.