This morning she was there, austere and aloof, low to the west. Though an intimacy grew as I stood with my coffee in hand, sweet and creamy, sipping by the sliding glass door, staring over the backs of the horses silhouettes, the peaks of the bald mountains, and asked for nothing. There, alone, the two of us, she faced me.

Was she closer? Did she appear bigger? I can’t say I saw a difference. What I can say is that I looked a little longer than I usually do. And you know, the longer you look, the more you see. , More. Deeper. Details. Lines and curves and subtle shadows I never notice before. And something more.

The importance of that little bit of rock reflecting the sun back down at us. And to think when I was a child, man had not yet touched her. She was still only a myth.

Our moon has since become closer, more manageable, understandable, real and tangent. Funny, though, how the mystery has not disappeared. Like fire, our innate intrigue does not dissipate with a grasping of the facts. It only goes a bit deeper, more personal.

My moon.

This morning I watched my moon, diffused behind the high clouds, set behind my mountain. Did your moon do the same?

I see her now, not all anew, but from a new perspective.

An intimate view. I slow down and look closer. Fine details reveal themselves only with time.

In the early morning after a clean snow the trees sparkled with a hoar frost in a way I’ve never seen. Fine silver branches of the Aspen, delicate and intricate tips with the new sun just up behind them, setting them all aglow. The mountain sprinkled with diamonds. For a moment I felt like a princess dancing through the soft snow beneath my heavy boots.

Yesterday in an Aspen Grove. Snowshoeing up a silent trail. The old ones are dying. The largest of the trees finished playing out their part let loose of their bark and reveal their orange blood below, the demise of the old growth. The Aspen are never too old. Short lived trees. I am glad in a way as I see the passing of this generation of so many scarred with names and initials and dates of tourists who felt they mattered so much to the mountain to leave such a lasting mark, who felt carving into a living tree was somehow not the same as scrawling on a subway with spray paint. I fail to see the difference. Both selfish marks some stranger passing by had the ego to leave behind.

It is hard now not to be distracted. First light from the rising sun has topped the mountain to the east and is illuminating the uppermost stark white peaks of Indian Ridge and Pole Mountain. A pinkish layer of light. Off set dramatically against the steel grey sky behind. Another storm pours in form the west. A little more snow to add to our load.

How can I overlook each detail now in this silence? I remain in tune while I can hear.

an aspen leaf from last season

I sit here on a hillside of exposed dirt, dried grasses, crushed wild rose stems, aspen leaves brown and frail. Perhaps the only place on the mountain with signs of life exposed. Dead and dormant, but a fragile promise. Not frozen or covered in white. I feel more alive by sitting here, smelling the distant odor of decay and thawed earth.

Here is where spring will come first, now so far away. Here is where I will come to find the first bit of green. A place of hope.

Now I sit here in silence and listen for the sound of my boys approaching to come find me. I hear nothing, and wait for the last of the sun to fall on me and the dried leaves I stare at with my head resting there on my knees.

There is no noise. No one will come.

It is my fault. I have chosen to be here. And even here I find it. Disappointment and isolation. An odd combination that makes one wonder what really does matter.

In a land more harsh than any other I have endured I try to find my place. I try to find solace. This is still a softer world than from where I came. Am I far enough away? What I run from, is it something within me?

Or am I here because I have nowhere else to be?

An Aspen leaf. That’s it. In one little place where there is no snow where today I sat and cried. With my head resting on my knees I saw this perfect beauty between my feet. The light just right. Perfect nature in our imperfect world.

willow buds in winter

This year there is little ice.  The snow seems to spread directly on the river and creeks.  I question its ability to hold even me each time I cross but see the moose tracks before me and find comfort and wavering confidence.

This winter has an easier mood. A few days colder than any others just to keep the averages in line.  Otherwise, a little less snow, a little less wind, a little less chill.  Mild. Comfortable. Comforting.  My home feels like a content place.

Easier.  Winter is not half over here. We have much work to be done.  Our lives our bustling with the well anticipated and needed change.  Electricity in the air, charging us and our lives with excitement.  The exhilaration of change, now put into action.  We can enjoy our memories, but need not grasp for what is no longer there.  I do not cling to what I no longer am. Where and who and what am I now?

Now. A perfect moon low in the sky, its cool silver light reflecting off the white ground, reflecting off the heavy clouds, the echo of this watery light.  Each molecule of air seems to embrace the radiance. Our world glows.

Now the clouds are swathed in a silver and gold luminosity and the moon slowly settles behind the mountain.

In a matter of moments, I will notice each time I look up a little more clarity in the sky, a little less magic.  Day prepares to rise.

How many mornings have I seen the moon slip behind the mountain from the warmth of my home while in the dark crystalline world outside my window temperatures are so far below zero, far below anything elsewhere I have lived through?  So close, so thin are these walls and windows, so often I step out into it all.  My home is not a bunker in which I remain hiding, but a haven I return to, rest in, allow to be a part of the wintery world while smoke rolls from the stove pipe, down the valley, dissipating into nothingness.

How much wood have we burned to allow us the warmth to remain here?

How unnatural at times it seems when I remember the fresh green of garlic poking through rich black moist soil in perfect lines and patterns of deliberate life, and tilling beds in preparation for carefree sprinkling of carrot seeds, a simple random toss that produced sweetest rewards. These were other times, other mountains.

on the Rio Grande at Brewster Park

Down by the river I flow while the water stands solid beneath me. Here, we are supported. Still we stand on the white expanse and listen.  A murmur of life below. Is that Thalia I hear beneath the surface, tempting me to join her?

It has been years since I had a dog who can keep up with me. I am enjoying the more distant explores this year. But have I ever had one who can sit and listen, enjoy the moment and ask for nothing for now, only to soak it all in as this one does? What a wonderful companion I have.

I think of how many come here to fish in summer, standing in free flowing waters with their waiters and hip boots, tossing lines to dance on the water’s facade.  And how little “use” one has here for winter.  Peace and solitude hold only so much value.  We tend to choose more excitement, brighter lights, and louder noises.  (Perchance warmer places, too.) Stimulation provided for us, not created by mind and nature. Our senses left dormant where here they can breathe.

The banks and adjacent hillsides are littered with droppings and tracks of the moose that were scattered here yesterday, high tailing it for the trees, as a low flying helicopter broke the peace, hovering over the frozen river, scanning the hillsides, back and forth. From our kitchen window we watched a bull moose run through the deep snow on the north side and seek shelter in the trees, only to be chased back out again twenty minutes later as the helicopter changed its course.

We call it wildlife harassment.  I believe they call it “counting elk.”  Funny they wouldn’t think of the simpler method – asking those of us who live where the elk do for answers. Perhaps our answers are considered too simple.  I have found local views hold less value than facts and figures filed behind a big desk.  Living with the wild life, one sees and understands more than many a report will tell you.  But learning to look… I’ve been thinking of that often lately.  Our inability to see.  We see what we expect to be there. We find more comfort in the safety of seeing what we expect to see, not what is really there. It is a blindness we all must battle.  Seeing is not always easy.

Ah, but who am I to say?  I don’t see the elaborate reports.  I don’t look. A blindness for which I am at fault.  I only see the magnificence around me, and look at the finest of details.  I hope to miss nothing.  It all holds value.

We return home among longer shadows along the packed snowmobile track, the half moon rising in the ridiculously blue sky over the tops of the trees peppering the hillside.

Have you ever heard the shivering aspen with their intricate silver tips trembling naked in the frigid winter wind?

a storm still a canyon away

Storm.

How can we use the same word for that which happens in winter and summer when they are so very different? Hear the distinction. One soft and silent and gently falling.  The other rolls in like a mighty herd with fire in the sky, full of intensity, power and passion, electricity in the air, thunder on the horizon.

Winter.  Our storms arrive and settle.  They ease into the distance, descend down the valley and enwrap us. Consuming the mountain in a muted rage. Without a sound, without flash, without fanfare. Only extreme silence, calming, subdued, like a lullaby.

Tranquilized.

In summer she shouts her arrival.  Wild and vibrant, colorful and loud. The sky is alive and the ground becomes more so as it is saturated and swells. The cup flows over.

In summer she screams. She dances and twirls and pounds the drum to some primeval beat with torrents of rain playing on metal roofs, rubber boots and horse hooves singing in puddles and whistling down muddy slopes.

Ah, the fiery passionate song of summer in the high country!

Rather than confining, containing and covering, she exults and spills forth. 

Now a winter storm.  Its subtle and hushed arrival. We sit inside and wait it out.

We settle into a long deep sleep as the heavy blanket falls around us and tucks us in to the womb or casket.

And within, buried deep inside, a slight stirring. Passions brew soundlessly, as subtle as the sound of falling snow.

We appear dormant, don’t we?

I am a seed ready to burst free with the first rains of spring.

snow on the willows down by the river

And this morning, a closer confinement.  Our valley safe and protected as if held in a gentle mother’s arms. The defused low light of the waning moon behind the clouds is enough to see our horizon fade away sooner as the mountains to the west of us are lost in paler gray.  Another storm approaching.  A curtain falling in between acts.  A new scene will emerge when it lifts.

There is excitement, anticipation in the hollow void like a white hole when the storm finally sets in and enwraps us in a heavy veil.  No trepidation of the weather. We are ready, almost always.  This is what we expect.  This is what we live for. This is the blessing of the mountain.

grass remaining on the horizon line

Big storms continue to pass us by. We hear stories from the other side of the Divide and listen longingly. Here, we watch the radar maps and check forecasts daily, looking out for “severe weather warnings” with the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning.  And every day, it seems, they tell us the Big One is coming.  This one to be measured in feet, not inches.  Yet we see two inches one day.  One the next.  Feeble storms. 

And warm. Mild. Balmy.  Yesterday hit 40 while the snow sort of fell.  Last night I cooked dinner on the grill under the covered deck and I was comfortable.  30 degrees is unheard of for a December night.  I stood there with the lid closed, the aroma of sweet smoked chicken wafting through the damp air, and watched the flakes fall under the narrow gaze of my headlamp.  Such deep silence in the endless black, broken only by the hiss of the dripping grease on the grill.

We ease into this winter. Soft and warm and now finally wet.  We need the moisture. This morning there is new snow.  Perhaps measured in inches instead of the feet we would have hoped by this time of year.  It will come.  If not this storm, perhaps the next. 

Yesterday Forrest shared a poem he wrote about deluge and drought, full of contradiction that weather (and life) can and does bring.  One day nothing, the next too much.  Only through time do we find a balance. The balance of moisture, of temperatures, of seasons, of light and dark.

Now we find darkness and revel in the long nights that Solstice allows us. Darkness softly spreads like the shadow of wings from the giant raven flying overhead.  At once ominous and magical, somehow discomforting.  Such lightness in memories of the easy long warm days of summer when night does not settle until after nine, and the sun rises before most in the morning.

Tonight is the longest night, the pinnacle of the darkest time of year, made darker still as the full moon will be shadowed from the radiance of the sun by our beautiful blue planet.  A lunar eclipse just past midnight; funny it should occur at what we call the darkest hour. 

I see no hidden meaning only the drama and intrigue that nature plays.  That alone is plenty, more than we will ever fully understand.

like a sand dune of snow

Despite the increasing light of early dawn, the view this morning is limited.  The mountains close in further on days like this when storm clouds dance about the hillsides and hide the mountain tops, circle and tease and linger but do not come in, settle down and stay a while,  join us and grant us with the blessing of a heavy load.  Rather these clouds sever us further from what may be happening elsewhere. How little we know of what lies beyond our enclosed horizon. Here, our world is still and seemingly unchanging, drifting shades of white and grey, pencil lines and smudge marks as far as the eye can see. Is that ever far enough? 

How dry this season has been.  I dare not complain about the mild weather, for I know better than to assume this will last. We enjoy it for what it is, knowing it will change.

Yesterday I cut branches from the nearby spruce trees to decorate the house for Christmas.  We will not cut a tree and have not done so since Forrest was three.  The fake tree we had set up for the past several years was lost in the move (the move that brought us right back where we started from).  We will do without a tree this year.  There are plenty to look at and enjoy just outside our windows.

The branches I collected are fragile.  The trees are suffering from the dry spell. Blue needles appear yellow and fall off leaving a trail of tiny spikes about the kitchen counter and wood floor.  They give off little smell of fresh sap that winter cuts usually grant. As if the beetles have not taxed the trees enough.  Now they suffer from drought.  Or are the two related as many have assumed?  The dry will not remain. They say another storm is on the way.  Perhaps this one will serve us all well.

For now, the ground cover of white becomes thinner, dryer, changing its texture from plump crystals to course sand.

The wind blows.  Dry snow moves like a shifting dune, arid and desolate beneath the pale grey sky in this abandoned landscape. Patterns changing in the low light and long shadows of the December sun. Sugar snow. Crystalline surfaces, wind blow and sun glazed.

These patterns will be buried beneath the heavy load I know will come.  We count on nothing but change.

patterns in the wind blown snow

a bit of color on an otherwise bland day

Layer upon layer the mountains fold and fade

And endless undulation of white capped waves

Motionless below the somber sky

Finally merging with lines too faint to decipher

Enveloping the stratum of steel grey clouds

Becoming a part of the sky that helped formed them

Softening their hard edges with time and wind and rain

And the untamed spring run-off as the snows that in winters form

Suddenly let loose in a violent burst of brown waters

That rips and tears the face of the mountain

Not unlike a zealous artist at work on a pile of clay

But wait

I am ahead of myself

I hold myself back

From lusting for the lushness of the spring

Now it is the silent hour of the mountain

As she stills and freezes and collects the bounty of snow

That feeds her and us in times of less than plenty

We refrain

We are restrained

We quietly build the load that one day will gush forth

Uncontrolled and wild

In a plentiful powerful passionate display

up high

I find myself alone on the mountain. A place and space of comfort.  Our cabin guests leave early due to the threat of the oncoming storm.  The last of the hunters who ventured up from down the road realize their efforts are futile and return to lower ground (where the elk are, too).

And before you know it, puppy and I are heading up Pole Mountain.  I know this our last chance to hike this year.  Beyond today, there will be deep snow. Yes, I can snowshoe up there, and have before.  But there is a freedom in resistance.  I want to have feet in boots alone, freed from the cumbersome snowshoes that will be strapped to the soles of my boots for the next five months.  And so I resist and find myself trudging at times through snow knee deep, and other times, on the naked windward slopes, stepping on frozen ground.

It is not easy.  It never is. The puppy doesn’t question why we spend hours working upward.  He does not ask where we are going, only trusts and follows and does his best to enjoy. 

The elements challenge us. The wind above treeline nearly topples us over.  It bites my cheeks and pulls tears from my eyes. Gunnar leans on me, pushes his face into my warm body at every rest (every few steps up there), and I lean over to rub his ears and legs.  My legs are tired before we reach the top.  They feel as if they are made of rubber.  I wonder if I can make it but talk aloud to the puppy and tell him we can.

The top of the mountain, over 13,000 feet elevation and no one around for miles and miles and miles.  And funny thing is, for all of you who climb mountains, as soon as you get there, on most days the wind is whipping and the snow blowing and weather threatening and there is no shelter or comfortable place to rest and it’s too cold to take off your gloves to grab a snack, so all you do is snap a couple pictures to prove you were really there then head back down quickly, so quickly. Isn’t it remarkable how fast you can get down when it took you so long to get up?

So why do we go there?  What drives us on when climbing higher is so hard, and time and again we have to push ourselves mentally and physically to go on? What makes putting yourself in a state of discomfort as you climb, as you reach your goal, and then often the following day as you find yourself stuck with sore muscles – what makes that so rewarding?

The lick from the puppy as we sit huddled taking pictures to prove to the boys that we were there?  The view far, far, far away? Perhaps it is the perspective. The perspective of seeing our little piece of the mountain down there, a tiny rectangle, pin point pricks that may be the horses, our home, our little barn… so tiny, all of it, against the big background that is our mountain, all these mountains, all of them, so many, so big… Yes, perspective.  So I can see how little we are.  How small our foot prints are. How much more lies beyond what I can see from my kitchen window.  How small that window is.   

Up there looking out is like looking into the night sky and seeing all those stars.

Perspective.  I see more clearly from up there.  I see farther away and deeper within.

Beauty is found only if we look. How far are we willing to go to see?

This morning I am sore, head to toe.  Ok, that is an exaggeration.  My head is fine, and I suppose my feet are too.  But my shoulders, my arms, my back, my legs… all the rest, I guess, I feel these parts and they are not fine. Outside, the world is white and getting whiter (can that really happen?).  Perhaps a deeper shade of white, measured in inches as the snow falls, closing off our view and our road.

I look out my kitchen window.  My vision is limited by the heavy snow.  I cannot see across river.  I cannot see the mountain we climbed yesterday.  Yet somehow, I can see farther than I did yesterday when the skies were clear.

looking down the mountain we came up

cabin 7 on another snowy day

Soft and heavy and full the snow falls once again, settling over the mountain like a fresh sheet from the line.  A spring snow, calming in her languid easy beauty. Temperatures hover just above freezing.  On the horses shedding hair, snow melts instantly, leaving dark patches of brown like big blankets dripping over their steaming backs.

The season lingers.  Here, winter comes, settles in, and takes her time to depart.  This is her mountain. This is her season. She does not let it go readily. The summer she endures, a brief fleeting glimpse only slightly longer than the brilliant display she shows off in spring and autumn.  But winter, winter she allows to come and settle in and stay a while.  It is what makes the mountain, the river. It endures. It is the season she wed; the rest are passing fancies.  

Pole Mountain behind cabins in snow

Winter.  Springsummerfall. The mountain balances the cycle. Springsummerfall. Fleeting seasons. We enjoy them for their dazzling parade then close our eyes and turn within and become a part of the vast white world all around. It is in winter we breathe. 

Cold, stark, somehow distant.  I believe this is the true nature of the mountain. The rest is a brief show on stage.

new door

The door hung yesterday is somehow symbolic.  A door to the once open bathroom. Hanging there, suspended, able to open and close, even before walls that will close off the room even further are built. A door, not so much to leave the past behind but to open up a path to the future, allowing us to step into a new world, tomorrow.

Last night I lay back in the tub with the door propped open by my old worn cowboy boot. In the quiet glow of the candles, I observed where the walls will be, all around me, closing me in.  My last soak in the openness.  The walls will go up today.  This is said not with fear of change, for change is both exciting and inevitable, but in observation only, trying to appreciate each day for the newness it brings. I wish to miss nothing.

Bob's winter cargo van as he arrived home from a trip to town

On a lighter note, Bob hauled home the carpet for the bedroom in the remodel cabin.  Remember, this was going to wait for the road to open, trucks to drive in, so far away still is seems… I guess he could not wait.  Thought you too might get a chuckle out of how he brought it home… As usual, it worked.  We should have the installation compete today, so will share pictures shortly.  But I wonder, do you think he’ll do the same for the big window we’re waiting on?  He has been known to do such things…

a walk along the river

A simple walk down the river.  A little family adventure in the big back yard.

We follow the course of the river, finding bends and cliffs and secret spots, the wildness tamed beneath a winters worth of snow, a heavy load held afloat by ice still holding, promising to give way soon enough when softened by the strengthening sun.  Here within these solid walls of rock face, winter remains indifferent to the hint of spring and warmth of sun which does not easily find its way to the bottom of this canyon.

the boys walking around an open section

Inspired by a simple solitary mile trek up river earlier this week, I convinced the boys to join me on an excursion this time down river, along Rio Grande from Brewster Park back down to the Ranch.  Probably only four miles, four unchartered miles, most certainly never travelled in winter when the river is iced over and covered with more than two feet of snowpack.

Conditions were just right.  Not too fluffy, not too sticky… we are picky with our snow.  And more so with the status of the river, or rather, the solid state of the ice on top.  Another week, and her gaps may be impassible.  As it was, we were passing each other poles and pulling each other up with rope to make it around a few precarious breaks in the icy surface. 

making our way down river

From time to time, we see the water; sink holes in the snow, a shock of black in an otherwise smooth white surface. We take heed.  There is no way out of the canyon, except onward or back the way we came, should we find it too uncomfortable and change our mind.  We are not here to falter. Still and silent, we stand for a moment and listen to the whisper of the muffled flow. We hear its unmistakable song before we see it, transparent waters coursing over ancient rocks worn smooth with time, infinite stories that remind us how ephemeral we are. 

Solid as the ice may seem, distant as the waters mostly remain, we are well aware of its existence below us.  Each step is a wonder, with held breath, until we are too tired to care any longer, and step slowly through the snow, snowshoe sinking in through the powder, our movements labored, purposeful, just to be closer to home.

a quiet easy section

The secret of a remaining nest, perched on the cliff above the motionless river, a reminder of life and seasons past, and what could be again. Safe and protected, undisturbed between these almost impenetrable cliffs embracing the primordial waters flow.

almost home

And here we are, walking on frozen waters.

the final stretch

a flow of ice, secrets along the river

Where does the full moon take you
When you are willing to dream beyond the horizon
And walk for miles in darkness on crystalline powders
Alone in silence without even the wind to whisper to

Where does the river take you
When you are willing to walk her frozen waters
Unknowing uncertain of all but blackness below
Trusting of a fragile and unseen layer of ice and snow supporting you

Where does the mountain take you
Playing with your quiet yearnings
Pulling the strings stretched taught
Against your heart against your reason
And creating such music as I have never heard before

evening light through aspen

Where will you go they wonder
And they can not see beyond this horizon
Can not see the tangle of ropes that have bound us
To your dream not mine

This dream of mine came true
Can’t you see?
I already made it have it live it
I have more imaginings
Many more

And now the mountain tells me
Go
And I go
And where she leads me
Is always more beautiful than where I was before

And yet she slows me down
Reminds me to look around
And shows me what I should already know

The most beautiful day
Is always today.

spruce trees growing on rocks along the river