Ice building up on a log in the creek
The snows have not held back the ice, but are feeding it. The courses continue to swell with frozen waters, layer upon layer of a silvery blue, here secretly building beneath the soft snow, there its run has risen to the surface as the snow bows gracefully at the frozen banks to allow the measured flow.
It has been cold. Snow has not yet slid from the roofs but clings to the steep metal sheets in defiance of the feeble of warmth of the sun. The depth of snow on the level is holding its own. It does not melt. But somewhere on the mountain, something melts. Something runs its course, slowly feeding these flows of ice.
On Christmas day we journey up what is a trail in summer, now no more than a white ribbon through the trees and a path we create as we push through the first time. The boys on their old play sleds, snowmobiles well over a quarter century in use and carefully tended each season to ensure one more year. Me on snowshoe. The same ones that have taken me thousands of miles over this mountain. We have packed a simple picnic. The temperature rises to nearly 17 above zero. We find a relatively warm place on the hillside, protected from the bitter winds, saturated with the low light of the early winter sun.
We can not remain idle for long. The shadows threaten to engulf us. We return along the course of the creek, by way of frozen waters.
The boys zoom ahead of me on their snowmobiles. They move fast enough not to notice, not to hear the rush of the water beneath the snow where the ice has not formed and the soft powder is somehow precariously balanced upon the gushing waters beneath. A stealth and menacing secret that only winter knows.
We descend the creek, now to a narrower, steeper section, the smooth white trail of the water course yawning in the timber and higher banks of the deeper canyon. The water is pushed and funneled through here. Ice is not as easily formed as on the flat, wide, slow sections we just crossed.
Ice is not infinite. It has its limitations.
I follow their tracks slowly, cautiously, spreading my weight out between my snowshoes and poles, hoping the snow, the ice, the solid feel beneath me will hold. I see where the boys’ tracks have broken though, unbeknown by them, as the snow falls into the water in their wake. White breaks way to the black abyss, letting loose an angry roar of river. They are unaware of how thin the surface has become. The motors drown out the growl that echoes from just below the seemingly innocent surface of snow.
Where do these waters come from? When the creeks seem to seep a solid form, from where does this flow continue? Deep within. With stories of the violent brown run off, of last years snow fall, of summer days hot enough to seek out shade, of springs formed beneath her flesh thousands of years ago. The blood of the mountain flows clear and cold, a pulse that never ends.
Now, humor lightens and lifts the human soul in ways nothing else can. We have seen it with so many animals, we are no different, playing for no more reason than just to play. A simple and basic need. An instant relief from the heavy world that can oppress us too easily.
Bob’s snowmachine breaks through the ice. I don’t think anyone is completely surprised. Laughter builds and bursts free like the ice that did not hold up the weight of the little sled. I imagine Bob stepping off the sinking sled onto the firmer shelf of ice looking down in great amazement. And Forrest behind him, having kept a safe distance, probably glad it was not he in the lead this time. Both would look at each other in silence, and a big wide grin would spread across both faces.
They work together to get the sled out of the creek. By the time I arrive, the sled is out, both boys are safe and dry. Forrest is contemplating how to get his sled turned around and off what we now know is thin ice. Bob is assessing the next predicament of how we will get out of this canyon through the thick timber and steep slopes, made steeper still with the tiny motors of the antique sleds.
“That was me,” we say as we point out to each other a distinctive tract left behind in the snow, a line which tells a story. I look back down the creek, up on the timbered slope. This was my boys, on Christmas day.
We return home content. It was another good adventure, another good day, together. Once again it is the best Christmas ever, as every one should be.
Snowshoe tracks heading down the middle of Lost Trail Creek on a wide and well frozen section