painting with words

After a thorough search of all the obvious and not so obvious places I thought the cord for my camera’s battery charger might be; and several weeks of waiting in hopes that it would turn up on its own – I’ve decided to face the harsh reality that I am and will continue to be cameraless until I can afford to replace my point-and shoot camera with a DSLR set-up. (I won’t bore you with my reasons for not buying a new battery charger, but trust me, I know it’s an option and I’ve decided not to opt for it). Knowing that I cannot capture the spectacle of the Colorado Rockies in the Fall on film (or pixels as it would be) I will have to fall back on the time-honored tradition of words to tell their beauty. After all, writing is an art. For weeks, the mountainsides have been taunting me with their intricate color-blocks – daring me to blogg about them without a camera to back me up. Today, I’m taking the challenge.

The mountains always have an assortment of color on display if you know where to look for it. Aspens’ bright green leaves and long, lean trunks of off-white bark splice the dense hunter green boughs of the evergreens. An occasional blue spruce adds yet another hue. Further down, the rough reddish brown bark of pinon pines add yet another variation in color as their branches display their own hue of green needles – sparser than the evergreens further up the slope – they spread their needles in thin dangling clumps off their long branches so that patches of grey granite and the lighter greens of the mountains’ shrubs peak through. Closer to the forest floor, the flora are greatly varied from grasses to shrubs to those precious flowers that remain sparse but present until the harsh frosts set in- purple Columbines, red Indian Paint-Brush, blue and white Western Blue Flag. In all but the spring season, the color these small plants add to the mountain are a gift for those eyes who venture into the forest and walk under the trees. From mid-summer to early Fall the granite caps of these great mountains touch the sun emitting a steel-grey appearance or are lost in the white and grey of passing clouds. Iron-rich cross-cuts of rocks sliced by the glaciers of the ice-age, tower above tree line adding their own mark of color to the mountain. The rest of the year, these peaks on down to their basins are a bright white. But again, these colors are seen only when you look for them.

In the fall, the mountains put their colorful quilts on display; hanging blocks of yellow, red, orange, and green on their great slopes. It starts slowly – a patch of green turning to gold on a single Aspen branch, a scrub-oak exchanging its water conscious green leaves for the efficiency of orange and red. Then suddenly, the mountainsides catch on fire – gold, orange, and red dominate but they cannot subdue the dark green patches of the evergreens who hold their ground. A single tree or shrub stitches an array of color to make its block on the grand display. Patches of snow begin to fill-in rocky grey peaks. And slowly, the sun rises later and sets earlier, the air becomes more temperate but with a chill, and brown begins to take the place of color in all but the evergreens.

 

one step at a time

My husband and I began our hike to Crater Lake chatting about the previous night’s camping experience and the twelve miles to come on our journey to and from the lake. Before I write more, I should clarify that our destination was a small, alpine lake nestled at the base of Twilight Peak in the San Juan National Forest of Colorado; least it be confused with the geographic phenomenon in Oregon that warrants national park status.

My husband and dog stand at the lake's edge.

We spent the night before our hike about five miles from the Crater Lake trail head, car camping off of Lime Creek Road – a delightful dirt road with historical value and stunning views of the Twilight Peaks. Minutes after we rolled into camp, the thunder and rain began in the distance and the mountains were soon shrouded in clouds. With a storm on it’s way, we jumped into action. The tent – or our “gigantic portable shelter ” as my husband decided to call it – was soon up. Light sprinkles of rain were upon us as we clipped the rain-fly into place and staked the shelter. By the time the sprinkles had turned into a steady rain, we had moved all the night’s necessities – collapsible camp chairs and table, wine, Snickers bars, and books – into the vestibule and had the futon mattress made up with sheets and quilts inside the tent, a lantern positioned above it for some night-time reading. You may be thinking this night of “camping” includes quite a bit of amenities. And you would be right. If it helps, we also had our light weight backpacking stove (though it saw no use because we forgot to bring a pot), headlamps, long underwear, camelbacks, and BPA-free water bottles. But for my husband and I, a night of car camping 45 minutes from the house is a treat, and we reveal in our little luxuries. You see, for us a night in a creek-side tent with mountain views trumps a five-star hotel on most occasions. A bit of history may be helpful in understanding our feelings on this matter.

For our wedding, my husband and I asked for a honeymoon tent rather than a honeymoon suite. For roughly the same (or less) in cost, we figured the tent to be a good, reusable option. A bit unsure but in-keeping with our wishes, my parents conceded and bought us a tent of our choosing. We choose the Agnes Big House 4 – a four person tent that stands almost six feet tall. But we did not stop at that: we opted to get the detachable vestibule, an appendage that dwarfs our backpacking tents in size. The vestibule serves as a wonderful sleeping place for our tw-year-old, a one hundred pound puppy named Dillon. It also makes a great sitting, cooking, and dining area during rain. After surviving epic flash flood conditions on our wedding night (a story for another time), we felt confident in the tent’s capability in rain. And so, we settled in for the evening listening to rain falling on the tent, sipping our wine, and reading The Princess Bride aloud.

Our campsite off Lime Creek Rd

Camp chairs and Dillon in the vestibule.

 

A view of the rain falling from inside the tent

We awoke early to clearing skies and quickly broke down camp so as to be on the trail with enough time to beat the afternoon storms that frequent the mountains this time of year. While the night’s efforts to avoid rain had been out of the desire not to get wet, the morning’s attempt to beat the storms had to do with a desire to avoid lightening strikes in high alpine terrain. As a woman we passed on the trail aptly stated, “I don’t care if I get rained on; I just don’t want to get struck by lightening.”

We pulled into the parking lot at Andrew’s Lake at 8:15. A couple of fishermen hoping to take home a few trout for dinner pulled into the parking lot behind us. We guessed the rest of the vehicles belonged to backpackers who’d spent a rainy night by Crater Lake. 

Andrew's Lake, where we picked up the trail to Crater Lake

We ate a quick breakfast and reluctantly stripped off our warmest layers in preparation for the hike. Not having a pot in which to heat water, I skipped my usual am dose of caffeine and hoped for the best. Maybe it was the nip in the morning air, or being three miles down the trail by the time I’m usually pouring my coffee at home – whatever the cause, I did not suffer a withdrawal headache that morning.

After a few minutes of oohing and awing aloud at the scenery, about how much we loved were we live, about how good it felt to be on the trail, and how much we had enjoyed camping the night before, our chit-chat fell into silence until my husband asked the inevitable question, “What are you thinking about?” (Yes, men do ask this question of women on occasion) . It occurred to me that lost in thought though I was, I still had to think for a moment to figured out exactly what I was thinking. Many thoughts had entered my mind during our silence: mental comments and pictures of our surroundings, whether or not it was worth annoying my husband to stop to take yet another picture, my heavy breathing and rising heart rate as indicators that I need to work out more, what our dog was getting into, possible story lines, possible blog entries, and that this hike starting at 10,900 feet felt like a homecoming back to the mountains. These thoughts entered and exited as they pleased, some popping up repeatedly,  others making a brief appearance before disappearing altogether. “Thinking about writing; tossing around some plot ideas,” I decided on and answered my husband, choosing the most recent thought that had crossed my mind. “You?” I asked dutifully.  “The usual,” he replied, “Gadgets, phones, boats.”

His response seemed fitting for him yet for some reason I found it jarring. With a 360 degree view of mountain peaks and valleys at every turn, the smell of evergreens, and the colorful splashes made by Columbines and Indian paintbrush, distracting me from a steady train of thought, it was difficult to understand how he could be thinking about electronics and a river toy. I was indigent. We were in the mountains, away from technology – unless you count my digital camera (we’d forgotten our GPS). I huffed about this for a minute, then recalled my own thoughts, many of which had nothing to do with our surrounds – plot lines for example – and felt a bit humbled. While my mind was continually interrupted by the sights, smells, and sounds around me, what was interrupted where thoughts far from a mountainside.

Being in a place where so much of the present moment competes for my attention that it succeeds in pulling me away from endless chatter in my head is why I treasure hiking. Hiking for 12 miles in a day brings an even greater relief from the mental noise of everyday life. After so many miles, my mind reaches a point were it gives up thinking about all of those things related to home,from gadgets to responsibilities. It quiets itself. In fact, at times it becomes so quiet that I no longer think about my immediate surroundings. I simply take one step at a time. Those moments are rare and fleeting but a true bit of nirvana while they exist.

One of the many panoramas of San Juan mountain peaks