While I was in college I went on an incredible backpacking adventure with 7 friends. 4 guys and 4 girls. I was going out with one of the girls and 2 of the girls were my sisters. The other 3 guys were my very best friends.
When we got to where we were going (the Bechler region of Yellowstone, which is filled with hot springs), somehow we all ended up naked. No premeditation. It simply happened (after we met 2 nude guys at a spring).
For several days we were naked all day in the springs. Even the rivers and some of the waterfalls were warm that year because of drought. It was a paradise for nudist activity. We were pretty "modest" about it in that the girls went upstream and we stayed downstream most of the time, and in the hot pools we were mostly covered in bubbly water.
What is incredible to me is the spontaneous, childlike innocence of the whole experience. On one day the guys played together by sliding down an algae-covered rock and then squeezing up between 2 rocks in the river and letting the water shoot us downstream. Soon we were all four of us in the crack between the rocks together squeezing up against each other to see how far we could push against the current and how far the current would shoot all of us. So, we were not only naked...we were touching. Like innocent kids. Not a thought of anything strange about it.
We even took photos of us all (all 8) in a hot pool together and showed our bishop at BYU! He laughed. (very smart guy) What were we thinking?! We weren't. Simply unashamed, playful as puppies, modest in our own silly ways, as if it even mattered at that point. (I was appalled, modest me, one morning that one of my friends simply stood up in his garments out of his sleeping bag and got dressed in front of the group...LOL!) It was a beautiful and spiritual time.
We hiked nude. An experienced friend showed me the tickliest grass to walk through. Sat on thick beds of moss in the sun to dry. We did try not to reveal a lot to those of the opposite sex with us. Gee! My sisters! I protected them like a nut. What on earth was I thinking? My family is more proper than proper.
We were all sad to leave and talked about our sadness. The girls asked us to hike ahead of them so they could hike topless together and feel the breeze. The guys were pretty quiet hiking out except to ask a few personal questions and a little talk about how we were different than a few days before when we entered the woods. I think there were even a few tears as we left. There was a feeling we all shared of how very foreign the world we were reentering suddenly felt.
That was actually my first naturist experience - other than constant secret skinny-dipping with the guys in our pool while growing up at home.
The carefree innocence that accompanied
that experience in the woods is something I have treasured. I take it out
of the recesses of my brain periodically, dust it off and relive it just
to remind myself of how it should be. That's why I am a naturist...so
that I can feel that innocence again.
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