A Mountain Climb

I’d had enough.

Enough managing, strategizing and solving problems.

Enough news and humanity.

Enough slogging through the winter doldrums named February.

The mountains called.

I filled a water bottle, asked the dog to jump in the truck and headed west.

When I pulled into the campground I call a second home, the thermometer in the truck read 37 degrees.

A gust tried to rip my door off, but I hung on and pulled it back to the latch.

I glanced up at the steel-gray clouds and powder blowing across the ridges.

Before long, I found my first crusty snowdrift, ice under powder, slippery unless I stomped each step through the layer of ice.

Fortunately, the wind blew across the lake, pushing uphill, so I was in no danger of toppling into the water far below.

I crossed the rocky shale, open to the gales, home to lichens and a few leaning pines.

Snow pelted my eyes. I couldn’t tell whether it was new snow or just old snow blasting every living thing sideways. I realized it didn’t really matter to my eyes.

Old or new, it still stung.

I tucked down the brim of my wool hat to limit the pelting snow – and limiting my view to my feet.

Watching where I stepped was probably a judicious use of my senses considering the slippery, uneven rocks.

The trail led first to one tree, then another, and then a grove of spruce.

The forest was a reprieve, yet mysterious.

Danger might lurk unseen in the dark beyond the confused undergrowth branches that looked like a ball of yarn after a cat found it.

But the forest offered sanctuary, too.

A place to breath.

And lift my eyes to see again.

Tiny buds popped from red willow branches.

Is this too soon for buds to pop, I wondered. Could they survive the freezes still sure to come?

I decided to check on them later this summer.

Chirps emanated from beyond the branches.

A few yards away, mule deer doe selected each step.

A movement in the trees caught the side of my eye.

I watched, smelled, listened and felt the omniscient presence of the mountains.

The mountains offer mystery, too, shrouded in billowing snow clouds, emerging in the sky with no base.

I stepped away from the trees and, like the doe, carefully selected each step, watching tiny ice crystals fly from my heel, noting where my hand sank into the snow when I leaned against the steep snowbank.

When the snowbank became almost vertical, I mentally chose the route I would attempt to slide down if I slipped, choosing fallen logs to run into and branches I might grab as I passed.

I didn’t slip, didn’t need to guide a fall.

By the time I turned around to follow my trail back, snow had filled my tracks.

This was not a concern, just an observation – I know that trail well, have traveled it many times.

When I left the trailhead, I thought I might be the first person to traverse it in a few weeks.

My aloneness was not lonely, but welcome.

Now I knew I might be only the first person in a few minutes.

I climbed higher in the rocks, admiring the ancient shale, limber pine and rugged living beings on the ridge.

The wind shoved me, first to the left and then right into a snowdrift.

The power up here on the ridge demanded humility.

Nature welcomed me, but insisted on her rules.

Again.

Each time, she challenges me to discover her secrets, challenges me to understand her.

I fail miserably, yet I crave her.

She is my addiction.