Normally the river is subdued and makes about as much noise as a stiff breeze moving through the cottonwoods. Today it roared with speed and intensity, and is the sound of summer in my country. It means that the Rocky Mountains are clearing, and I will be able to get up there for the many high journeys the dogs and me take every year.
I was impatient to feel the pack on my back and did my first trip last week, snow or no snow. I began at 9000 feet, and planned to go as far as I could before being cut off by drifts of the white stuff. To my surprise we made it all the way to 11000 feet - only a few hundred feet below timberline. Noone else was up there, which just amazed me.
I mean the dogs and I were in this massive subalpine basin, lined by snowy peaks. Our camp was on a ridge over a deep, steep-walled valley, covered with spruce and fir at the top, and lodgepole and aspen further down. It was quiet, except for the far-off sound of a waterfall in the valley, an occasional breeze in the spruce, and the sparse songs of mountain birds. Try to picture us three up there, on our ridge, checking out the view of the peaks, listening to the sounds from the valley, without another person for miles. We had it all to ourselves.
That is what I had in mind on the way up - to get a strong dose of solitude and mountain beauty. And that is what I love about the West - experiences like that are not hard to find in these mountains, especially in midweek. There is enough room to figure yourself out, to make you humble, to understand in your heart that the silence of the mountains is the voice of the divine.
It was a good trip, and there are plenty more to come once the rest of that snow runs down the river me and Ben and Maggie walk by every morning.
Go To Page: 1 2
