The desert teaches you what you can carry, and what you have to leave behind. I learned that lesson the hard way, and I'm still unpacking the bag. The high country shows you the same thing, just with a different kind of thirst. Turns out, the heaviest thing I carried wasn't a thing at all. It was a story. The river doesn't care what you think you deserve. It takes what it will, and gives back only what it can. Survival becomes a matter of learning its language, not shouting your own.