At tree line on Pole Mountain
The closer I find myself to change, the more frightened I become. It is real, before me. So near I can feel it’s breath like a draft beneath the door. A door still closed, but alluding to opening. Leading to where? Leaving the comfort of remaining. I grasp for the past, but come up with empty hands. Sifting sands between my fingers; the falling grains blow far in the wind. Why do I now seek a comfort in what I no longer want?
I am filled with doubt. The unknown becomes a cold, dark space. A black void. What was once familiar now lurks behind dark shadows. I question my ability to leap forward to recapture my dreams. I question my dreams. I try to remember how to build these dreams that have been compromised.
The boys head out on a crazy snowmobile adventure. Up the mountain, over Stony Pass, and down the other side to the town of Silverton. There, they are greeted with sideways glances and a few brave enough to ask. No one else comes in town from this end. They are served dinner from a man who remembers them from last year, having done the same. This is not something one forgets. The father/son team that drop in from over the mountain. This time, they drive through town and park in front of a hotel room. They will spend the night. Bob tells me it is a long way for a guy to go just to watch TV.
Me, I am left alone. Again. By choice. It is in these times that I thrive. These times that I somehow grow. What is it about isolation on the mountain that allows this of me?
In silence, I finish my work. It is 1pm. I strap on my snowshoes and begin to walk. I head towards the “speed trail” up Pole Mountain, a rather difficult hiking/horse trail carved up the side of the mountain that few will walk or ride up even in summer. I am thinking perhaps I should blaze a track through the powder up there, just part way, through the parks and up to or along the lower ridge. Blaze a trail so that next week I could entice the boys to join me. “The trail is already broken open,” I could tell them, and they would know it would be easier. They might agree. I know this is no place to go alone. The slope is at about a 45 degree grade along the edge of the dark timber on a north eastern incline, laced by an unforgiving cliff to the south. It is fragile yet harsh. The snow is deeper than I anticipated and being untouched by enough sun to set up, is dry and loose like sugar.
I begin to ascend. I progress with a mindless rhythm, looking down at my feet, closer before me because of the steep slope. A slow, steady cadence. I hear only my labored breath and do not notice the beauty around me. Inhaling becomes more difficult. Each stride slides back in the granular snow. For every step forward, a half step back. Progress is slow, deliberate. I try to think of nothing. It feels good.
Now, there is something about elevation that is intoxicating. Addicting. You begin. You want more. It is harder to stop than it is to go on. You need to see the top. To be there. You feel somehow that only there will you breathe.
And so I continue on.
Looking across from treeline to treeline at the Rio Grande Pyramid
At last I reach the top of the slope. Tree line. 12,000 feet elevation. I finally stop. Allow myself to breathe deeply. And drink. I look around. Such a big world. For a moment I am filled with an unnamable bliss. Everything around me is huge, beautiful, mine. Not for me to own, but simply to be allowed a part of, accepted. There is no human being as far as I can see and I can see so far. Isn’t it odd what comfort I find in this solitude?
I smile.
I do not allow myself to remain long. I see the shadows down below begin to inch across the big river, approaching my side of the mountain, my home. Alan, my dog, will be sitting outside looking up the path from where I left, waiting for my return. The horses will be hungry. The chickens will need to be put in. The boys may have sent word of their adventure, anxious to share with me, and be waiting for my reply.
Descending is quick.
But now I look around and see the world I missed on the way up. And it all seems so beautiful. I take nothing for granted. I stop and stare back at the mountain from which I just returned and find magnificence in its lines, shapes, the long shadows and golden light from the setting winter sun. I am so filled, fulfilled, by the mountain.
I bound across the open white hillsides towards home, and am overflowing with elation of the elevation. I have ascended above my fears. For today.
Looking back home, down the Rio Grande towards the Reservoir