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

outside of Cabin 2 looking up at Pole Mountain

Work on the remodel is almost complete.  This is the part of projects I most enjoy.  The finish work. Fine tuning.  The little touches. Details. Trim. Completion.  Finally we step back and say, “That looks good!” We will conclude this job, clean up, move the tools, and get going on the next project.

How quickly time passes.  I remember when it seemed to go so slow.

I step outside the cabin at the end of the work day.  The sun is low.  It is time to feed.  I will head over to the corrals to put hay and grain out for the eagerly waiting horses.  With light remaining a little longer each day, feeding time comes later as well.  The horses do not necessarily approve.  The temperature was twenty below zero this morning, and this afternoon they ran through three feet of snow, kicking up the rooster tails of soft white behind them. This does not feel like a change of season for them yet.

I look up at the mountain, Pole Mountain, our back yard, our muse.  I recognize the shadows.  These are the same shadows I see in October.  Only now the mountain is softened by white rather than the last golden glow of aspen leaves and dried grasses. I count, and yes, we are now of equal distance to the solstice, from the solstice as we are then.  The light, the shadows, the sun is our clock, our calendar.

And at times, I wonder if time passes too quickly.  Do I appreciate it all?  Or does it pass so swiftly I miss a thing or two? What a pity, when every little element matters.

and a little more snow is swallowed by the black waters of the Rio.

Today the sky was too blue.  Too much of a good thing?  Ah, all things in moderation.  Even this blue?  We make exceptions.

Robin shell blue.  At times, the color appears unreal.  If I painted it this way, would you believe it could really be so?

Robin.  Where, pray tell, did those robins go, those who lit nearby in the last passing storm? 

A nest from last year, a robin’s nest, I found fallen in the willows and filled with snow.  It was a thing of beauty, to be looked at, admired, considered.  

And it all meshes together under the bright blue sky.

The passing of time.

a nest in the snow

A robin arrives too soon (photo by Forrest)

Robins, a pair, pray tell, what do you do here now?
You surprise me with your presence.
I imagine the white world upon which you lit surprises you.

You look around in concern and I too wonder and worry what you will do, why you are here. Wherever you were, you began to think of spring. Perhaps it is somewhere else. I do not leave the mountains to see bare ground and feel the warm winds. I am told they exist, no more to me than a fairy-tale.

Did you come here with an oversight in schedule or direction? Or was it wishful thinking?

Here, you see now, Spring is far away yet, with the river just a crack open and peering into the black night sky, no more than a hint of light and warmth and soil and brown waters. Winter remains surrounding us.

What wild wind brings you to my kitchen window? You who have never visited before the first of April, before the dirt is exposed in places, before the earth and river begin to thaw, before the white sheds her skin to brown.

There is no place for you now. The only dirt I see from here is the flower bed beneath the west eve. Shall I assume you are just passing through, or will you try to remain?
What shall I feed you?
What will you do?
What called you to this world of white so early?

the sky promises another storm

I follow the moose tracks. There are no others so large out across these parks but theirs and those of my snowshoes. Funny how we both follow the same trail, a secure string weaving its way through the tapestry of the mountain, and we both cling and stay close, the wild and weary.

As I head out, blue sky teases, the clouds suggest they mean no harm, will gather no strength, will not amount to much. I leave the down jacket behind.

Yet as I stand out there, stark and exposed, the clouds amass to more, the wind picks up, my hands turn numb, and winter weaves her frozen threads about me once again.

I am both humbled and fortified in her frigid embrace.

stark storm coming

the growing line of exposed black waters of the Rio Grande

The wind blows violently.  It is spring somewhere else. Somewhere else there is exposed, dry ground, fields and fields of brown, yellow grasses waving in a humid breeze, rich dirt stirred up, temperate to the touch if you reach down and dig your fingers in, the rich, sweet smell of the earth, decay freshened by the heat of the sun on temperate soils, warming the air as it rises and blows east.  It reaches the mountains, the Divide, our world which may remain white for months yet to come, and the wind turns angry and cold, biting into the cliffs and  cutting down through the gorges with the force of melting waters .  I can only imagine the wrath with which this same wind descends upon the San Luis Valley below us.   

the earth exposed

Yesterday I saw dirt.  Here, so high, in a world still white and frozen, seemingly endless seas of snow and ice. On a south facing hillside beneath the exposed face of red cliffs. Dry ground with last years grasses sticking through, brown and dried, tired memories enduring.

The redwing blackbird returned on time, I dare say even a few days early. The same tree, the same time, every year.  For how many years have I awaited him with seed on the feeder board when I hear his call?  And I worry what he will do when I am gone. The boys remind me the birds fared well before I cared for them, and I wonder then how old he may be, does he remember a time before me?

redwing blackbird and stellar jay

He brings a new song to the mountain, a mountain with which our knowledge and intimacy is intertwined with breathing and the surge of our blood.  We discern the sounds of our birds, the few that remain with us for the winter. 5 chickadees, 7 magpies, 9 stellar jays, and the two ravens that feed on the leftover table scraps Forrest delivers to the chicken coop each morning, the same two which follow us about the mountain calling out in recognition as I am out alone on a snowshoe in the afternoon.

The sound of the blackbird was anticipated, but still somehow shocking.  A new noise, a new song, stirring the air like a pleasant breeze.  We hear the call before we see the flash of jet black, always where we expect it to be. 

Completion.  Our understanding of the world around us, the world of which we are granted to be a part of here, if only for a while.  Not as distant strangers, observers, but as participants, players in the game.  At times I feel as wild as the coyote, and just as misunderstood.

How incomplete would I feel if I missed the return of the birds?  How foolish am I to feel it matters?

frozen waterfall

Looking up River and into the high country from Snowmachine Point

Darkness arrives a little later each day.

The minutes of daylight are slowly extended.  The sun is higher in the sky; shadows are shorter; days are longer. We notice the slightest change.

The river begins to open, the Mighty Rio, swallowing mouthfuls of ice in its still quiet trail when no one is looking. A black ribbon flowing, twisting, dancing through the heavy layer of white.  Beneath, the river runs black and deep, quiet and still, a hidden grin on a somber face.

Without fanfare, it breaks free. So subtle and soft and slow this transformation.

Perhaps you did not notice And the tracks of the moose to the open water tell us they know.

We know the torrents that will follow when the melting begins in full force, the big brown waters of the wild spring runs. Subtlety is then lost, and none can overlook.  Now, it is only a hint in the calm, cool waters that have cut through the seemingly forever white landscape of the frozen river. It is but a minimal change, a hint, a suggestion of what will be, what is and lives beneath, beyond our blatant view. 

Nature is not ready to scream “Spring!” quite yet. For now she yawns, blinks her eyes, but does not stir awake. She will remain in winter a little while longer

The Rio Grande begins to open

This morning darkness is absolute. The horizon is black, pure and still.  Endless. There is no moon, only starlight to reflect back so faintly on the crystalline snow, and the delicate pattern of pin-prick lights across the vast black seas of the sky.  Between here and the heavens are the dark looming silhouettes of the mountain, complete, composed and motionless. They are this overwhelming bulk separating the faint glow on the surface of the snow from the twilight overhead.

Between the two I sit in silence, warm and comfortable, inside looking out, a part but so far away.

Looking up at the Little Cabins over the Rio Grande as the sun lowers behind

a peek at the flowing waters of the Rio Grande in winter

To hear the river now, one must sit silently upon its frozen surface, close your eyes, and feel the life below.

The sound is that of a faraway call, a reminder of golden warm days, rustling leaves and childhood laughter in the distance.

How deep is this layer of ice separating me from the flowing black waters below?

A quiet course secretly streaming beneath the ice, only a degree away from freezing; by motion alone does it remain fluid.

I hear the dormant river sing.

The wind blows and sends me turning.  I walk upon the river, following her frozen course. Snow drifts about the mountain in a horizontal storm beneath a clear blue sky. I wrap my scarf a little tighter and head for home.

Outside our cabin and the heavy snow begins to come down

In the darkness that is this early morning, I can not well see the snow that fell throughout the night. I shine my flashlight through the glass, and the small arc of light sweeps across nothing but white.  Before dinner last night, we stuck a ruler in the snow collecting from this new storm on the table out there on the deck.  By dinner, the ruler was covered.  By the time Forrest went to sleep, he took his tape measure with him to check the depth, and read over 20 inches.  Now, the table, which is our snow gage, is covered.  The snow from the deck has risen to reach it, engulf it, smooth out the surface of the deck so that chairs, rails, tables, all become a smooth white wave.

Still, the snow is falling. A mid winter storm.  So perfect in her abundance.  This is what we call a “good” storm.

The silence is incomparable.  The river, the trees, trails and life, all are covered with this heavy load.  The cabin is tucked in.  The air is filled with falling snow.  Sound, if any was made, is carried down by the millions of tumbling flakes and absorbed into the generous layer covering our world in white.

Last night we stood outside and listened to the snow falling.  The sound is like the softest of rain.  So delicate, we hold our breaths to hear. A dim and velvety pattering all around us as the snow lands, collects, the tiny facetted shapes holding together to form one smooth sparkling mass in the limited beam of the flashlight.  Coming down the snow shimmers, each flickering flake radiating like so many crystalline tears, and I wanted to cry for the beauty that overwhelmed us, surrounded and engulfed by so many fine crystals falling so gracefully from the black sky.

The excitement in our house was almost uncontained.  We anticipate the same sleepless excitement that Christmas brings.  Perhaps even more. Oh, how my boys love the snow.  I suppose like a surfer waiting for the big wave.  They were ready to burst. 

In the middle of the night, I woke to hear Alan pushing through his dog door.  I did not hear the ensuing click-click of his nails on the wooden floor.  I assumed he remained outside.  He still does not like that dog door.  I found my way downstairs, grabbed a flashlight and stepped just outside in hopes of finding him near. He was not there.  No sense in calling.  He can not hear. His tracks stayed close to the cabin, a narrow trench plowed through three feet of snow, then turning the corner and disappearing from sight.  I slip on a bathrobe and tall boots and head out to find him. There are few places he can go. He can follow the trench to a clearing beneath a huge Blue Spruce perhaps 12 feet from the cabin.  From there, I can see attempts at busting through the snow in other directions. Failed attempts, given up, the trench dead ends. He must have returned to the spruce. 

Now, my boots are far beneath the level of snow.  My bathrobe drags through the soft powder.  If I am to look further for him, I will need to be properly dressed.  I follow the trench and return to the cabin.  In one final thought before heading back out on my rescue mission, I check his bed in Forrest’s room.  And there he is, sound asleep. 

How often have I “lost” something only to find it exactly where it belongs? The last place I think to look.

And what about the birds in the trees, trees loaded with arching, heavy white arms? I consider the wild ones, the animals out there on the mountain, in this storm, tucked in somewhere, perhaps beneath other big trees throughout the mountain, seeking shelter, protection, acceptance that they can not they can not hunt, find feed, travel. They remain holed up in this deep white powder, despite their hunger, and allow this storm to pass, then await the snow to settle.  Their days of moving about the mountain with ease are over for this season.  They will long for the brighter days of spring to set up the snow, melt and glaze the surface, and enable them once again to move more freely about their mountain.

Now, spring seems a long ways away.

Now, I await daylight in this heavy darkness and silence. It is leaden, a grave in which I am softly swallowed in this tender bottomless blanket of white. I feel submerged, as if underwater.  A languid, fluid feeling of lightness, weightlessness, endlessness, as I glimpse outside and see the ground level rising higher and higher still.  

And for a while, I hear nothing at all.

another frozen creek bed

We await snow.

Our white world continues, vast and endless as it appears at times looking out at the great expanse of snow contained within the distant walls of the black mountains.  There seem to be no limits to winter when one is in the midst of it all.  I take comfort in knowing the boundaries are far away.  I can see farther than I can walk in a day.  Change too is far enough away.

Mild as it is, winter remains. I find a certain solace in the season.

Now the snow has lost its freshness, its life, its sparkle. Every track that was set since the last storm remains.  Snowshoe hare, rabbit, squirrel, elk, moose and man.  The hillsides appear littered with markings of our comings and goings.  It has been over a month since our last good snow.  The snow is old and tired. The snow has lost all substance, and turns to a coarse sugar and falls apart beneath each step.  It is dry, parched and granular like desert sands.  I reach down and scoop up a handful, put it in my mouth.  It melts, allowing me a suggestion of relief from thirst.  Only a trace of moisture remains. 

The ice continues to build.  It is an odd winter.  We have not seen the ice form as it does this year. We are fascinated to watch the build up each day, eerie silvery blue formations that glow in the sunlight, an opaque mass of hard surface and soft flowing lines. From where does this water emanate when the mountain appears at rest in her deep freeze of the season? 

And what will happen in spring?  What impact will these heavy flows of ice have when the top of the mountain begins to melt and sends down her mighty brown torrents? Will the creeks be forced to change their course or will the ice give way?

We notice the slightest of changes. And the mountain always alters herself ever so slightly.  Nothing remains the same, if one takes the time to see. Often no more than subtle variations in radiance as the mountain plays with light and shadows in the long low luminosity of winter.  Other times, dramatic fluctuations as clouds sweep across the horizon, dancing wild and grey, and tease of the promise of a storm.

Today, an allusion of snow in the air. The sky is still and heavy, pallid as the fields of snow.  It is difficult to discern between land and sky, all is white and cold and still, unmoving and silent.  There is no wind.  The trees remain oddly, uncomfortably motionless. I wait for something to move, but all remains the same. The sun is unseen behind the heavy shroud.  Do these clouds perchance promise snow? Will they bring the well needed moisture here, here where the river begins?

At the table over lunch, we discuss what will happen in summer should the snows not come this winter. Surely they will come.

Rain refreshes the river, a temporary quenching of thirst, but it is the snow that feeds.  The nourishment of the river, the nourishment of the lands, for miles and miles below, as far as the Rio Grande may flow.  As far as we allow the river now to go, with our rights and claims and growing needs and diversions, taking the water from its natural course.  How have we affected these waters already, and what more are we willing to do before the river runs with no more than the tears we cry?

Looking up the Rio Grande through Brewster Park and beyond

At times she holds me like a mother, the mother I wish I had, the mother I wish to be.

Strong, mighty, unwavering, non judgmental and wise. Indeed she is a mountain.  I am comforted in her vast command as she enwraps me in firm arms and soothes me with the soft touch of a breeze through my hair.  She allows my silent tears to soak deep into her flesh as she pacifies my fears with the warm fingers of wind and sunshine.

Other times she is my lover, allowing me to lie beside her, naked, raw, exposed, sitting together exhausted, slick with sweat and lost in a dazzling reverie of passion, amazed at the untamed, intense and intimate beauty spinning all around us.

At times she is too big and vast and I lose myself in her wilds.  We learn to let go.   

And then she finds me a place to be, to sit, to ponder, and allows me to find myself again.

I am frightened by the changes that I bring upon myself.  I could let go of my dreams, accept, and remain. Perhaps it would be easier.

But if I cease to dream, I believe I would cease to exist. 

She need not hold my hand and help me up, only reminds me that I can.  We are both too strong to condescend. I am no longer a lost child and she has nurtured the flower to blossom full and ripe. She allows me to stand up and sing on her hillsides.  I can ask no more of her.

Looking west along the snowshoe trail

I avoided the computer this weekend. It called to me but I would not answer. Do inanimate objects get lonely too?

From time to time I took a peak. Smiles from far away. Messages that do mean so much to me. I thank all who took the time to write here or by e-mail.

Here, the weekend brought life to the mountain, oddly abuzz with humans like ants on cake left behind on a picnic, though somehow lacking the sense of shared effort that ants are known for, each one feeding himself. How odd to hear the occasional distant motor, see tracks following our tracks. The strangeness of the holidays on this mountain attracts folks escaping. Each one seeking their own solitude, avoiding the hope for society, perchance even just neighbors. They come here to get away from those things. They can, they need to. It is no more than a weekend away. I have memories of distant mountains and neighbors at the holidays stopping in for eggnog or cookies or a story and smile. We sat at the kitchen table far too long. Funny the things I have missed. For these few times in the winter, this mountain seems small, aloof, uncaring, and cold. And yet, the air blows unseasonably warm. I take comfort once again in no more than the air. I need little else. There is little else. The rest will blow away.

Warm air. Warm enough to melt snow. Icicles form on the eves of the cabins. The ice flows on the creeks continue to build. Down at the Rio Grande, Forrest straps on ice skates and tests the frozen waters for the very first time. It intrigues me, the things I failed to teach him. No TV, no town. No peers, no peer pressure. How odd his education has been. Book smart. Mountain wise. Yet I forget many things, often things I took for granted as a child, things I assumed all children did and knew.

His life has been different, here, where we were before, where we will be next. There are few who have had the freedom of the wilds as regular as a deep breath. Nature teaches things I can not. He will learn his own boundaries, I thought, and he has. I try to be the mother wolf. He knows he is safe with me. And away from that security, he has learned, slowly, how far from the den he can wander. On his own. We do not push him. We try not to pull him back. I am here, wherever home is. Well and wild in the mountains.

I skated often as a child. I remember how it feels. Fond reminiscences of elegance and ease, gliding on this hard, unforgiving surface I felt enough to know intimately. He moves with surprising ease. The recollections I have of little boys beginning to balance on blades on ice is not what I see before me as this tall young man stands straight and begins to move with the manner of a young horse testing his legs on pasture. I am pleased.

The proud parents, Bob and I stand and watch. We both remember how this feels. We both wish to be there, gliding, over the mighty river flowing free, barred only by its cold, hard surface.

What is hidden beneath this heavy sheet of ice? I cannot even hear the waters below. With my wide flat snow shoes, I walk down the river in the center of its smooth silvery pale blue course of frozen waters. Now and then, the surface is broken, revealing the sides of the rigid surface in places a foot thick, and the dark depths below. I approach cautiously and look into the abyss. I hear the rush of the river from these faults, powerful and mighty, made more so by the memories of being here to watch raging brown waters in the middle of a summer storm. Now, the flowing black waters seem somehow colder even that the surface. Uninviting. Ominous.

What is hidden beneath this flat expanse of ice? There are my answers that I seek.
The plan lies dormant for lack of direction. Yet here I watch and see the water knows where to flow. Why don’t I? I am as still as the frozen waters on which I stand, as the sun dips behind the mountain and cold air spreads like wildfire in the wind, chilling me in an instant as the line of shade now works its way up the mountain,. I watch the warm gold glow rise and diminish towards the top of the mountain as the world below fades to indigo.

It is time to go home.

Forrest learning to skate along the Rio Grande

Please note I will not be posting on a daily basis this year.  For now, I will try for Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. And on the other days?  Saturday, I’ll still post on the High Mountain Horse site.  Sundays, I’ll often still share recipes – hopefully some of you do try and enjoy them – but at the least, it’s a good way for me to keep track of the ones I like best as I prepare to give my cookbooks away.  And the remaining days?  Time for me to get that book together…

Regardless of when I post, I hope you will continue to join me here again this year. Please know that as always, I love to hear from you, to keep in touch, and hope too that you will continue to keep in touch with each other as well.

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

In the snow across the river.

Solitude surrounds me.

For some the silence is oppressive. The dread of being alone, away from close walls and ringing phones, tight schedules and someone to hear if you cry out. An uncomfortable and odd void filled only with a transparent cold air of time to think, to feel, to listen, to dream. The need for bright lights and loud noises eases ones mind like the comfort in numbers. We are not taught to be solitary.  We are social creatures, they tell us, and perhaps it is so.

What do you do, they ask?  As they look around for the TV and shops and parties and a barrage of stimulations to drown out the hidden hum of the mountain.

Quiet, I ask them.  Be still and listen. But they are gone before the clear notes ring out. Don’t you hear laughter in the sound of the river gurgling beneath the snow?  Soothing words in the wind dancing through the deep black timber?  And feel the arms that wrap around you as the low light of the sun spreads across your shoulders and gently caresses your exposed cheeks?

The wide open spaces of the mountain are washed in white. It is vast, overwhelming.  Blinding. We yearn to find our place. We learn to listen within. Words need not be spoken. The wind answers the muffled song of the river reverberating from far below her winter coat of ice and snow.

I dreamed I was floating on a sea of snow, soft and languid like waves in the middle of tranquil waters. The river had brought me here, carried me away to settle my soul.  To allow me my solace found only within.

The cold places around us show us the cold places within us. We confront our darkest hours, our deepest dreams, when we crawl under ground and roll tight back into the world from which we emerged.

And nothing else matters but the one flake of snow which has floated from a far away cloud and landed so perfectly upon my glove. I stand for a moment and stare at this wonder.  Few other flakes fall.  Solitary diamonds in this glimmering sea of simple white jewels. What greater riches do we need to seek?

The snow turns to diamonds on the needles of the blue spruce.

The simple magnificence of nature: crystals of snow.

hoarfrost on a willow branch

Winter solstice.

3:22 in the afternoon and the sun slips behind the mountain to the south and west of the ranch.  How late will it rise this morning, as I sit here in the deep blackness of the star sprinkled sky, in company with the dog and cats and a cup of coffee.

Yesterday I watched as the line of darkness slowly moved up the pasture, beginning with the giant shadow that remains forever all winter on the north facing slope across river, where the snow does not recede amongst the big black timber and the hoarfrost blossoms along the fine branches of the willows.  I watched as the shadow moved and grew, not so rapid that I could see the movement, but swift enough that each time I took a conscious note, the shade had progressed closer and closer still. Now down by the river, then the lower fence line, then the corrals, now me

I am in darkness, a relative darkness of the season.  Cold and still and silent. The fleeting warmth of the sun has left us. Soft light lingers still. It is the time we bury deep within ourselves, and celebrate the darkness without. A time of reflection.  The frozen mountain echoes our quiet inner thoughts and dreams. Listen. The black sky is a mirror of that which we keep ourselves to busy to see.

Enjoy the longest nights, the sweetest hours allowing us time together, time to read aloud, remain just a little longer at the dinner table, there is nothing pressing, nothing to hurry off to now. The chickens are in, the horses are fed. Put another log on the fire and pour another cup of hot tea and sit back down… there is no rush. We have months of the chill brought on by this darkness to intensify, to endure. We shall revel in the stark, simple beauty.

Now we descend into darkness. Now winter begins.  Enjoy the dance of the darkness, the sway of the drifting snow, the bite of the morning air, the faint warmth of the low sun, a welcomed touch on the rare glimpse of exposed pale flesh, and the shadows long, so long and blue across the clean white snow.

diamonds in the rough (hoarfrost chrystals)