I often thought about all I had to lose by making a dumb or reckless mistake. I loved my family, my life; I loved growing the No Barriers movement; I loved waking up, stepping outside my front door, and feeling the cool fresh Colorado morning air combined with that touch of warm sun as it climbed higher in the sky. The thought of leaving it all behind continually consumed me. I had promised my family that I would always be there for them. I couldn’t break that promise.

29

That afternoon, we laid over at Dune Camp, around mile 120, a tiny spit of sand so sun scorched you had to wear booties so you didn’t burn your feet. The arrival of the new radios had brought such promise, but now, to my intense frustration, they were also beginning to degrade. Harlan’s voice was scratchy and distant—just like it had been with the previous sets. Skyler and Steven tinkered with them, trying out different headsets with different manpacks, but they were stumped.

The wind was picking up as Timmy dragged out the musical instruments, and as he started thumping on the bongos, it hit for real: hot, powerful gusts that kicked up sand.

“Boys, I don’t think there’s going to be any music tonight,” Harlan said, “unless someone brought wind chimes. It’s time to lash stuff down, put your dry bags in your tents, and dive in. It’s about to blow.”

We all scrambled to grab gear that was laid out to dry on boats, hanging over tamarisk branches and strewn over rocks. Within minutes, everyone was in their tents, zipping up doors and windows and settling in for a hot wind scouring. Without ventilation, the tent was an oven. The wind howled so hard down the canyon that the tent kept lifting up and tugging at the stakes holding it down. I had endured plenty of hours in the mountains, waiting out bad weather, yet never had the storm been inside my tent! Somehow, the sand had found its way inside and was swirling around in mini-cyclones. I felt grit peppering me all night long, getting into my eyes, ears, and nostrils. I finally put a T-shirt over my face, but it didn’t seem to help much. I could feel sand in my teeth and in my throat. I lay there most of the night, sweating on top of my sleeping bag and listening to the tent rattling and the wind roaring and whining outside.

When I awoke the next morning and crawled outside, Timmy and Harlan started chuckling. “You might want to douse yourself off in the river,” Harlan said. “You’re looking a little crusty.”

“More like the Abominable Sandman,” Timmy added.

I ran my hand over my face and arms. I was caked with sand from head to toe, and my hair felt stiff like straw.