Fully Unplugged From the World for 10 Days, Deep in the Forests of New Mexico

I am back in cell service range with access to the internet once again, after spending 10 days in a row, deep in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, with no phone/internet and not a single trip into town, despite only being 15 miles north of Silver City and only a half hour drive. It felt good to be back into a real forest after spending several months now in the desert and high desert terrain of the southwest - felt more like home to me being used to the forests of Montana, with the tall variety of trees, camped right next to a small creek, Cherry Creek, and a little higher into the mountains (about 7,500 ft elevation I believe).

There was predominantly ponderosa pine where I camped, very tall mature ponderosas, along with a few hardwoods, junipers, and limber pine scattered throughout. There was also another type of coniferous tree I wasn’t able to positively identify (maybe a fir), which along with the limber pines increased in density at the higher elevations and on the northern slopes. The creek wasn’t clear due to rich mineral supply of some type up there which could be seen in the creek bed, which also made filtering the water more time-consuming, but I had no shortage of time, so it wasn’t really an issue, and a good trade-off to have the sound of running water right at my camp and a free water supply.

I even got snowed on my third morning there after a large rainstorm the previous afternoon/night, before the weather cleared up pretty nicely for the rest of the trip, but the wood stove kept me plenty warm.

I was also able to catch rain water during the rainstorm, giving me about three days worth of drinking and coffee water, which was nice change from the time-consuming filtering.

There was no shortage of easily accessible firewood, however, due to being in a burn zone, and throughout my time there I burned oak, juniper, limber pine, and even managed to find a small ponderosa pine that was dry (a rarity, I have discovered). An old stump from one of the fully burned trees near my camp also served as a decent spot to split the larger wood.

To be honest, I thought I was going miss the connection to the outside world a bit after at least a week or so, but I was even a little sad to be leaving even after 10 days, and not even all that excited to make it back into the ‘real world’... It felt good to completely unplug from society for so long, and the solitude made me realize just how much energy the average person wastes (myself included) thinking about things that are practically for all intents and purposes meaningless for them personally.

Being away from any news at all on top of being so far away from the normal busy day to day life of society made me realize just how little the news stories really effect my own life, even those that greatly interest me, and just how nice and peaceful it is to be in nature for extended period of time without any contact with society.

I didn’t get bored at all, surprisingly, and rather just felt much more relaxed, closer to nature and in touch with my own thoughts and thought processes, undisturbed by the (usually fear/worry-based) thoughts, news, stories, and lives of others and society in general.

I spent much more time just contemplating life, meditating more regularly, reading more instead of watching videos for education/entertainment, and felt much closer to nature than I had in a long while (despite living in nature for over 5 months now), which was nice. Of course I took plenty of walks, hikes and bike rides with my pup Dakota, and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of litter in the meadow I had chosen to camp next to, though I realized there was still an abundance of litter in the general vicinity, which I as usual did my best to pick up as much as I could.

There was even still a decent amount of snow in the higher mountains up the road above where I camped, and the entire area was a very large burn zone...

The views from higher up were pretty amazing, despite the total burn of all the trees in that particular area...

I had the whole area mostly to myself during the nights, though some days there was a decent amount of traffic up the road, with people mostly just taking short joy drives it seemed, with some cutting firewood, target shooting, and taking walks as well, but I’ve also camped on busier forest service roads as well, so it wasn’t that bad and not so much as to bother me. There were even a few days with hardly any traffic at all, and really quiet the entire day, which was a nice change.

I quickly came to realize more fully than in the past just how disconnected society is from the peace and balance found in nature, and just how influenced most people are by perceived problems, fears, worries and concerns that are not even their own (myself at times included), but are rather entirely someone else’s. When you don’t see or hear even one piece of news for ten days you begin to realize (at least I did) how unimportant and typically irrelevant the ‘news’ really is. It is entirely unnecessary for happiness, personal growth, and life in general. Sure, it is good to be informed, and I personally find it important to support independent media to fight back against the mainstream news lies, indoctrination and programming, but even still I feel as though I had an epiphany and realization of how truly unimportant media in general including independent media really is, for the human psyche and overall mental/emotional/spiritual health.

It was certainly good to unplug completely from society for over a week, and probably a healthy habit to get myself into a little more often, because as I discovered it is only by being away from it all that realized how much of it affected me in various ways, particularly my thought patterns, and how much certain aspects of society affect us. But at the same time it is nice to be able to get back on the internet again, and feel ‘connected’.

On my last full day there before I left, at least five new camping parties moved into the area, the heaviest concentration of people camping I’d seen since I got there. I came to find out by my nearest new neighbor, whose dog quickly made friends with Dakota, that this was due to all of the official campgrounds being shut down due to coronavirus. This in turn made me realize I had been so in tune with the present moment and out of tune with society that I had literally forgotten all about the coronavirus - I don’t think I had one thought about it since about my third day there!

Unfortunately when I got back into Silver City for the first time in ten days early yesterday afternoon, I realized the coronavirus panic and closures were everywhere, but that is a subject for another post. I have now found another beautiful little spot to camp for the next couple weeks before heading further north, this time a tad closer to Silver City and with good cell signal for internet, and in a nice grove of very large trees next to a little creek that has pure clear water which is so exciting! But more on this awesome spot will too come later in another post...

It was a little sad to leave, but soon enough I shall be back in similar forested mountain terrain once again.

It was good to get ‘away’ and it is good to be ‘back’, though sad to see the manufactured state of panic most people are generally now in. For 10 days, nothing changed for me except a deepening inner peace, feeling more in tune with nature, and becoming more relaxed, while for everyone else the opposite was taking place :)