High Country Summer Stuff
I grew up in Colorado’s high alpine in the resortiest of resort towns, where winter passed in a haze of powder days and other winter clichés, like building snow men and sledding and snow-shoeing and ice skating while drinking hot cocoa. I’m serious. And while no one is trying to disparage any of that stuff (because how could you?!), I went home for a visit last week and was hit in the face with how awesome the mountains are WITHOUT snow on the ground.
Family trip to the Maroon Bells!
The stars in the sky. The lights from the city and the humidity of the Northwest keep me from seeing, like, half the stars that I can glimpse back home in Colorado. But high atop Independence Pass near Aspen, I stood for at least an hour gaping into the blackest of black skies with such a crazy mess of stars that my little head almost exploded.
Wildflowers. There are a whole lot of things that CAN’T grow at high altitudes. The air is thin and the climate pretty inhospitable. Because of this, alpine wildflowers are so delicate and extraordinary, and when scattered across a meadow beneath a craggy, snow-patched peak are, well, life affirming.
Rivers and hot springs. Not like the lazy, meandering rivers of Oregon, high-country creeks require you to seek out hidden pools between large chunks of granite or discover through word of mouth where the natural hot springs are. Sure, it takes a little work—but the payoff is a setting both miraculous and crowd-free.
Trails. These things go everywhere in the high alpine, and whether by foot/horse/bike, you can follow them from town to town (Aspen to Crested Butte, for instance), or just up to a lonely glacial lake sitting like an aquamarine jewel in the crown of peaks.
Pine trees. The way they smell in the afternoon sun, the soft lining they leave on the forest floor, the shade and quiet they provide—all of it.
Afternoon thunderstorms. I miss those cataclysmic storms we had every afternoon in August when I was a kid—huge purple clouds would move in around 3 and you’d run for cover as thunder boomed back and forth off the peaks like a bowling ball.
My nephew the beastmaster.
Stories To Tell
Oh hi! Maybe you didn't notice but I went missing for eight days. You probably didn't. I know when other people leave I just keep doing normal life and then I'm all, you're back already?!
Aanyway, I have lots to tell about the mountains and the desert I saw, about the long lonely miles of highway between this and that, about whether or not we saw Kristen Stewart in a backwoods Utah swimming hole, about how quiet a canyon can be at sunset, about why horse-back riding is, maybe, the best way to meander through a valley of sage brush and aspen groves. Lots. But—I'ma just decompress for a day or two before I get into all that, okay?
Camping: the Good and the Bad
Hi. Just got back from Oregon mountain/river country. Here are some thoughts about the lovely thing that is camping.
GOOD
Cooking: Sure, you can throw a can of baked beans on the coals and then later slurp it down, but I like to pack in a ton of reeeeally delicious food and then take my time preparing. Food is a huge comfort in the wilderness, especially if you’ve hiked to the point of physical exhaustion. Also, due to lack of TV and other time wasters, you have PLENTY of idle moments once camp is made to simmer up something good. It’s an art, cooking over the open fire or on a Coleman stove—learn it!
Campfires: The campfire is more than just a pile of incinerating wood. It’s warmth and comfort. It’s a gathering place for discourse and camaraderie. It’s a void where you can stare, solitarily, and contemplate what’s inside yourself.
Mornings: Mornings are my absolute favorite thing about camping, hands down. Waking up with the dawn, the way the forest smells all wet with dew, the richness and snap of hot camp coffee, a fire to fight off the chill, the sounds and smells of breakfast floating through the campground, the way the sun feels when it hits your back for the first time that day. Magic—all of it.
BAD
Sleeping: I usually spend the daytimes of camping trips in a haze of cottony sleep deprivation. This is because overnighting on an inch thick pad with nothing ‘tween you and the savage wilderness but a thin layer of ripstop nylon is, for a light sleeper like me, next to impossible. If you’re car camping, air mattresses are a go until they get a hole and then you wake up wedged in between gnarled tree roots and the heavy body of whoever you are sharing the tent with. Not fun.
Being Scared: Lance and I backpacked in a couple miles and set up camp. After dinner and fire, we were inside our sleeping bags tittering like chipmunks about stupid jokes when suddenly something whacked the side of the tent. I have no idea what it was—it sounded like a psycho killer had thwacked the tent with the dull end of his machete. We were both instantly and oddly terrified. And shining a dollar-store flashlight out into the pitch dark didn’t help—it just brought to mind desperate scenes from horror movies. Now, in the daylight, in the city, we can laugh about it—but at the time … pretty skeeeery.
Bathroom Things: Sure, guys can whip it out and take a leak wherever they want—and ultimately, it’s not so bad for us females to tip toe behind a tree and do the same. But when it comes to OTHER bathroom things that need to get done—things involving toilet paper and small, furtive holes being dug and then quickly filled back in with dirt and leaves—doing this in the outdoors just, well, sucks.
Exit Spring
This weekend, I threw off a long, dull two months that had hung heavily around my neck like dead weight. I pointed my car to the highway with a cooler full of bread and peanut butter and drove—south across the flats of Salem and Eugene, up and around through the winding trees of Grants Pass, down and out onto the parched plains past Redding and the gray-green olive groves north of Sacramento, all the way to the greasy blacktop of the Fresno Amtrak station. There, Lance stepped off the train, and next thing ya know, we were camping in Yosemite.
Mt. Shasta springs up suddenly, the second you cross the Oregon-California border. I've been jaded by my proximity to Mt. Hood so I was only nominally impressed by this view.
Dusk in the Sierra Nevadas—so many shades of green.
This little view is what John Muir was on about. Minus the girl and the dog. Not bad, eh?
Beyond the tour busses and open-air people movers packed with butt whites, there were pristine meadows like this one.
Sleeping in the dirt. Barking at the wildlife. Chewing on the firewood. Lefty loves camping!
My first swim of the ’12 summer season was at this, the mother of all river spots—right at the base of El Capitan. Then we hit the road.
Now, no offense to anyone who lives there, but the section of California between Fresno and Sacramento is the worst. Driving through it filled me with dread. Shanty urban sprawl made from drab, depressing vistas of sun-parched America where, on the way down, I ate lunch by myself in a Motel 6 parking lot just because there was a little merciful patch of shade. Ugh. We drove as fast as possible to get this leg of the trip behind us, only stopping when Shasta Lake came into our view.
Four minutes off the highway, empty, crystal clear, complete with rope swing. So fucking good.
Sunset over Williams, California.
The OC
Now that the ugly part of spring is over, I think it's safe to talk about it. Like, therapeutically. How all that rain made us feeeel. How the goosebumps, the mud that found its way onto the kitchen tile, and the low-slung steely sky just re-affirmed all the gloom and doom inside us. Now .... let it go.
Aanyway, though, before the sun officially came out last week, I took a spin out to the Oregon Coast, just me and Big Left. Passed quietly through the green hallway that is HWY 26. Emerged at Canon Beach and caught Haystack Rock in the rearview mirror. Headed south to Manzanita as the winds kicked up and walked for a very long time on the beach. And it was very, very cold.
On the sand, Lefty booked it in all directions with his tongue flapping wildly behind him. The beach is an exquisite joy to dogs. As far as these little fellas are concerned, nipping at the surf and chasing gulls for miles are reasons for livin'.
Next day, woke to pouring rain. Despite this, I wanted to walk up the Oregon Coast Trail a spell. Which I did, as long as I possibly could. Up through the fog. Past electric green undergrowth beneath tall, wise trunks. Eventually, the deluge becoming so bad that I slipped and fell scrambling over some muddy tree roots. Promptly, with mud from foot to neck, I turned for home.
A feather, for luck.