Each trip feels like a pilgrimage, with expectations of earthly and spiritual rewards before me. At 10:30 I make my first stop. I take off the pack and drink and eat some. I have already made four miles, still feeling strong. I can see the snowcapped peaks at the top of the valley; more snow than I expected. My night's rest lies up there somewhere, but I still have miles to go.
I throw a stick in the creek for Ben, and Maggie helps get it. Their view of life is as uncomplicated as it gets - absolute loyality, and love for me, and love the the adventure and discovery and wildness they know these trips bring.
At seven miles, just as I am hitting 11,000 feet, I am exhausted. My early start gives me time to quickly set up the tent in an aspen grove and take an long nap with the dogs. An hour or so later - I don't know how long, it feels like a new day. I load the pack and soon we are climbing again.
At 4pm we break into the last valley before timberline. It is wide, filled with low willows and birches. Wildflowers line the dry slopes above the willow flats - Potentilla, Erigeron, Wallflower, Higher up is the old growth spruce-fir forest - the hiding place of elk and bear, whose scat I found on the trail, possibly by design, marking this valley as their territory for anyone who has intentions of staying.
I take off my boots and wade the creek to find a campsite on high ground on the opposite side of the valley - away from the trail, to separate me from anyone who might encroach on my solitude.
Our camp is a little ways into the trees, and hidden enough that animals wandering in the valley do not see us. Over the next four days I spot elk, deer, and moose grazing below our camp. Storm after storm rolls down from the divide, with thunder that roars across the valley, echoing from the mountain slopes. It rains a dozen times over the four days. The smell of the forest in a rainstorm is intoxicating. The willows and birch have their own unique smell when wet. The storms move through fast, and often a half hour later the sun is out again.
