Cold Night in July

A cold night in July is any Rocky Mountain Morning up high near timberline, or down at the bottom of valleys were the frigid air settles after midnight.

I have seen morning frost on meadows at both places in July, when the daytime temperatures in the lowlands were at 90 plus degrees.

Cold nights make for good days though, is what I think, and I sleep my best when the night gets to freezing or below. The combination of warm sleeping bag and fleece blankets and my two dogs in the tent never fails to take the edge off of even the most arctic nights, and I find myself usually opening the tent flap before morning to let some fresh night air in, and reduce condensation inside.

Cold nights are most bearable when you stay in the sleeping bag, where it is warm and cozy. However if you do have to get up and wander in the middle of a chilly mountain night, don't make the mistake I once did :

When up, I decided to go on down to check on my bear bag, to be reassured it had not be messed with by a hungry black bear, which would cut my trip short real quick.

It was fine though, hanging just like I left it. When I turned around, in my drowsiness I didn't pay attention to where I was going, and must have gone the wrong way around some trees, because after walking for what seemed like a long time there was no sign of my tent. I turned around and scanned the woods I had come through, again with no tent in sight. Back and forth I went shining my flashlight into the darkness, and dread and concern began to creep into my thoughts.

Eventually, to my relief, I came to the tent, but not before visions of how cold the rest of the night was going to be with only pine and spruce branches for a blanket.

So the next morning at dawn I was off, up the valley, to set up my camp next to willows on a ridge over an alpine lake, full of cutthroat trout.

Well I may not have a lot of money, or be the smartest person around, and my wife of 26 years divorced me for something better, and I know my writing just rambles here and there,

but I can tell you this much:

When I wake from a timberline camp like the one above that lake, and walk out to some rocky ledge with a cup of coffee in my hand, and my two border collies beside me, to see the sunrise over the dark green of a massive forest below, I know I have some things that are worth a whole lot: freedom, companionship, health, and the holiness of mountain beauty spread out before me.

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