Snowmobile tracks along the road to the ranch
Now the snow is new. It is soft, malleable. It will not support my weight. With each step, I sink mid thigh. I am confined to the few trails I have packed. Or better yet, those the boys have packed before me on snowmobile. Even for them, maneuvering their heavy sleds through this yielding powder, they are easily engulfed.
Here we do not plow. That would be a loosing battle. Dirt is something we have accepted we do not see here for nearly half the year. There is little mud and dust in the cabin. Our jeans do not soil. Laundry is left at a minimum in the winter. These are the perks of winter.
We accept the snow, allow it to become the cover of our ranch, our world, and learn to acknowledge the inevitable, to work with what we have. Between packing trails by foot, snowshoe or snowmobile, our paths are set for the season. We learn not to wander or stray until spring when the snows surface is hardened by the melting and refreezing of the fragile surface by the stronger spring sun.
The lightness of the new powder will not remain. Between wind and warm air, it will settle, firm up. The surface will harden and hold me better. Within a week or so, I will be supported within the top eight inches. I will look beyond the trails I have today and break new ones, slowly.
The road along the reservoir, with snow slides creating obstacles
Direction here is set in terms of the river, the Rio Grande. Up river is further beyond the ranch, anywhere between us and the Divide. Down river is pointed in the general direction of eventually reaching our truck, a plowed road and other human beings. I have little need for down river. It is but a destination for an afternoon ski. Down and back. I have found I am better alone in the mountain.
The boys headed down river on snowmobile yesterday, only as far as the truck and the start of the plowed road. I use this opportunity of a new trail open. The road. Our road home, our road out. I lace up my boots and clip into my skis. I will follow their tracks. Slower than the snowmobiles, of course, I can still cover good distance sliding along in their tracks. And because I am slow and silent, I will see so much more.
Down in the flats along the river, I see the elk bedded down in the willows. At first, I see only a black silhouette, one set of Mickey Mouse ears sticking out of the snow. Then they stand, they mill about, and ten cows and calves punch through the snow, forming a single line winding up the hillside, regrouping on the edge of the black timber.
Above me in a cloudless section of an almost indigo intense blue, there is the moon, a waxing crescent above Finger Mesa. And in her wake, an eagle soars, straight and sure and lofty, not moving a wing, just slowly circling, caught in an updraft from the heat of the afternoon sun on the sheer cliff between me and the sky supporting him. Round and round, higher and higher he ascends until I can see him no longer. My eyes can not focus, can not find him. Surely he is there.
Below me there is a coyote crossing the delta before the Reservoir. He follows his own track, struggling to remain afloat. Every third step or so, he collapses through the surface and falls in; only his back and the top of his head are visible. It is difficult; he struggles. At last he reaches the ice of river, a hard, solid surface, and he is able to remain buoyant and run. Then again, the ice fades into the deeper snow, and the coyote is left leaping with every forward step to stay on top of the swallowing snow. He moves like the ermine we have watched dash through the snow in playful arching movements, agile and animated. Yet for the coyote, I know how difficult and tiring it must be, as I remain gliding with relative ease along the surface of the track that my boys have set for me. He will find this track too. They know well enough to share these simple blessings.
Fresh cut tracks in the snow
I go further than I intended. That happens often. I am easily lost in the wilds, taken by the mountain. I liberate myself from my self, and allow myself to shed the weight of human bindings for just a little while. For that while, I am free, unbound, limitless. I hold onto nothing, no thoughts, no pressures, no stresses of human confines. I simply move, a steady rhythmic forward motion, with ease and grace more like the eagle now than the elk or coyote. It is not effortless. I pump my arms, my legs, breath and blood. There is no updraft to carry me along, only the simple silence of my solitude and the magnificent beauty surrounding me. Only me and my heavy breath, the views enfolding me, my straightforward desire to see around just one more bend in the road.
The sun begins to lower. I am in shadow now of the mountains to the west. Cold comes quickly. I stop to zip up, tie on my scarf around my chin, around my nose, pull my hat down just a little lower over my ears. My hands are cold. I have been removing my mittens too often to take pictures. The beauty overwhelms. It has taken me twice as long to go half as far I would otherwise have gone. Probably better that I find myself only three miles from home, only three miles left to return.
The cold becomes stronger. My hands become weaker. I would like to grab a snack, but know my hands are too cold to risk removing the mittens once again. Two miles away now and the ranch seems still so far. I can see it. I know I will make it.
And then I hear the roar of motors. It is odd how comfortable we have become with the knowing that nearly every human noise will be your own or that of your family. It is rare another ventures up this far.
The sound brings comfort, relief.
My boys.
I am rescued. Again.
The boys (here Forrest) return along the road