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Tag: yo cuento

Go. It Will Be Good For You

por Richard “Flaco” Flores

My mom passed away in 2021. We were very close, and losing her broke me. I went through a tough time: depression, loneliness – I felt I was in a deep hole with no way out. I had thought about doing the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) earlier that year – a 10-day hike through the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps – but hadn’t made any plans. I didn’t see how I could now, in the state that I was in. A close friend told me, “Flaco, go! It would be good for you.” Still unsure about it, I decided to do it. Last minute. Self-guided. Solo. Just me, my backpack, and a yearning to explore, a yearning to catch myself. I’m so happy I did.

I didn’t grow up hiking or in the outdoors. I grew up in Los Angeles – a concrete jungle. My family wasn’t particularly into nature, so there were no camping trips or hikes planned, not even to the nearby mountains. Possibly because my family had other things to worry about. The outdoors felt out of reach. It wasn’t until I moved to Portland, Oregon, that I started immersing myself in nature. A friend invited me along on hikes, and little by little, I developed an appreciation for it. But even then, I saw hiking mostly as an activity, a challenge, something to do with friends. I never saw it as healing. Not until the TMB.

On the third day of the hike, crossing into Italy over the Col de la Seigne, something happened that I wasn’t expecting. I reached the top of the climb and stopped. There was a huge valley, mountains on both sides as far as I could see. As I started the descent, taking one step in front of the other, immersing myself in all of it – suddenly, looking at the sprinkle of flowers here and there – deep emotions resurfaced. Feelings I’d been carrying for months.

I stopped. I knelt down. And I let some grief out. This huge, breathtaking valley, and I, grieving in the middle of it. It was one of the most healing experiences of my life. And I was able to continue lighter, brighter for the trail ahead.

Nature doesn’t judge. It doesn’t rush you. It just holds the space and lets you feel what you need to feel. That’s when I understood what my friend meant, that it would be good for me. This is what the trail does: it grounds you. It doesn’t fix anything. But it gives you something to hold on to, to stand on.

I finished the TMB ten days later. I walked back into Chamonix lighter than I’d left. Not because my problems had disappeared, they hadn’t. But because I’d been reminded that I was still capable. Still moving. Still here.

Since then, I’ve hiked the Alta Via 1 in the Italian Dolomites. This summer I’m doing the Walker’s Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt, fourteen days through the Swiss Alps.

I want to share my story to encourage people to get outdoors and experience nature. Because I want to be for someone else what my friend was for me. The voice that says: “Go. It will be good for you”

Nature always has your back. I’m living proof.

¡Vamos!

Richard “Flaco” Flores is a Latino hiker based in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Los Angeles with no access to the outdoors and discovered hiking as an adult — and eventually as a lifeline. He documents his hikes on YouTube and Instagram at Andar con el Flaco, creating content for the Latino outdoor community in English and Spanish. This summer he’ll be doing the Walker’s Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt through the Swiss Alps.

This Land is Your Land

Por Vanessa Herrera

There was an ICE raid half a mile from my house the morning we left for our trip. To call it a raid is a misnomer. A group of masked men in uniforms handcuffed and threw a Latino man walking down the street into an unmarked car. I watched this happen live on Instagram, took a deep breath, and put my kids in the car to drive to the Klamath River.

For me, being a third-generation nature-loving Chicana means straddling the space between city streets and the backcountry. I have the privilege to leave the realities of my city behind and get lost floating downstream. I felt conflicted about leaving, but I had been planning this trip for months. 

It took two days to drive from Los Angeles to the Klamath. I was there with my two children, river friends, and friends of friends. The eleven of us traveled in three rafts, roughly 50 river miles. We prepared our rafts to launch at Indian Creek. My boys played in the creek while I rigged my raft, loading it with everything we needed for the next 5 days: drinking water, tents, a stove, sleeping bags, a first aid kit, a cooler, and food. The familiar act of loading dry bags and tying in all our gear set my mind at ease. I was already more relaxed than I had been in months. 

I spent my 20s guiding rafts all across the West, chasing whitewater and honing my skills. I worked hard to excel in a sport that was not made for me. At every company I worked for, I was always the only person of color and one of only a handful of women. It was the early 2000s. There was very little diversity in professional outdoor spaces. I learned to code-switch and carved out a place for myself in this community. I made good friends and formed a deep connection to rivers and water. Rivers were the place I felt the most like myself, but racially and culturally the most out of place.  

But this trip was not about whitewater. This was a kids’ trip; meant to get my boys (ages 4 and 6) comfortable with long multi-day river trips. I want them to know wild places and to feel connected to nature, to take up space and know they belong. 

Just downstream from the put-in, we dropped into the first rapid, a wave train, a series of standing waves. I teed up my boat and pushed on my oars into the waves with my boys and friend sitting in the front of my boat. Waves after wave crashed over them. Silence. “Is this too much for them?” I ask myself. Then squeals of delight, “¡Mamá, otra! ¡Más olas! ¡Somos balseros!” I am relieved. They loved it. My wild boys have grown up in rafts and have already logged more river days than most. They named the rapid olas grandes. Somos balseros. 

We made camp a few miles downstream. Everything came out of our boats. We set up tents and the kitchen. My friends made dinner while my children swam in an eddy, a calm spot in the river. By the time dinner was ready, my boys were covered in sand. I bathed them in the river and put on dry clothes. We ate in a circle, sitting in camp chairs, taking in the canyon walls, debriefing the day.  

As the sun set, a thunderstorm moved in. My boys are scared of thunder. We ran to hide in our tent. My boys asked me for a story. I told them a story my abuela would tell me when I was little. The one where she sends each child one at a time to pick ceresas, but instead of returning with the fruit, the kids climb the tree to laugh and eat. She sends more and more children to bring back what she needs, and soon there is a party in the tree of children eating and singing “Come. Come. Come.”  My boys giggle as I add their names to the story and describe how they climbed the tree, the taste of the fruit, and the sticky juice of the fruit running down their faces. Eventually, they fell asleep. 

The days continued with more rapids between meandering stretches of flat water. We camped on a beach each night. The boys caught tadpoles. The adults took turns cooking. The boys collected sticks and skipped rocks. They learned to identify osprey, Canadian geese, and umbrella plants. They took turns rowing the raft through flat water. With no cell phone reception, the outside world faded. 

We rounded a bend and spotted a bald eagle perched on a rock. “Aguila calva,” my boys whisper. My oldest learned the Pledge of Allegiance in Kindergarten this year and knows it’s our national bird. He asks me to sing an American song, a patriotic song. We float by, and I sing the closest thing to a patriotic song I can stomach, “This Land is Your Land”, to the eagle and my children as I row.  I don’t know if I made the right decision leaving the city while my community is under attack, but these are the experiences I want for my children. This is the type of patriotism I want my boys to know. To know that this land belongs to the birds and them. It is their legacy to protect, steward, and enjoy.