rocky mtn white-out
This morning I hiked out from Bear Lake in Rocky Mtn. National Park. Out here -- up here -- winter's on.
The wind is snow's catalyst to life; stirring, swirling games and patterns. And that's about the only thing I've found alive out here. Half an hour in town and I saw twenty elk. Five hours in the alpine tundra: not one. I guess they've come to depend on the supermarket and Kind Coffee.
The wind gives me life too, and at over 10,000 feet I'm sucking for it.
The trail forks: drifted snow on the path I'd planned for, footprints on the other. Alone and without a few essentials for a night in the wilderness, I take the road more travelled.
Following one, another's, footsteps, sometimes thigh-deep. Trying to tread lightly, deftly -- not to trudge, tromp, trod -- legs are not wood posts. Ballet on the mountain.
Making up mantras.
If there were an uncovered rock I could sit and write a few, before lighthead loses them.
If I had a real camera and it weren't so white out, I could try to capture the whiteness.
If I had gators and good boots...
A couple hours out I met the man I'd been tracking -- on his way back -- and thanked him for his footprints. He had gators. And poles, and headphones. Listening to what? Not the creaking trees.
I turned back where he had: on an open ridge: element-exposed, wind blasting snow in volleys and sheets and war... We never made it to Odessa Lake.
I trudged/tromped/dogged most of the journey back down. On the return drive to town (to catnap at the Estes Park Hostel,) sky blue and clear, country colored (colorado!)
Hike lower country tomorrow: more colorado.