Category Archives: mountain

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Scree dream

In September, I hike with the three friends in the Ragtag Daily Prompt photograph. I have not really backpacked into back country in years. The last time I carried the pack was in Italy with my daughter, a few years ago. She wanted to plan the trip as we went and stay in hostels. We did.

We hike in the first day, up switchbacks from the parking lot at about 3200 feet, to a pass at 5400 feet, over and down to a campsite. The sites for cooking are separate from the sleeping sites and there are serious big metal bear boxes. We are to put everything in them, including the deet and toothpaste and anything that could possibly interest a bear.

We pack day packs the second day and climb back up to the pass. We peel off there to the trail to Sahalie Glacier. After being on oxygen at sea level for a year and a half, I am beyond delighted that I can actually do this. We go up and up and the trail gets worse and worse, until it is rather nasty scree. Two other people coming down say it is even worse, slippery, unstable, if we go on.

So, like sensible people, we stop for lunch. The slope is very steep and we each find a place to perch. Lunch tastes good. Then the other three want to go on. I don’t. I want a nap. They go on, I find a slab and the view from it is the photograph: down, down, down to the lake far below.

They will get me on the way back down.

And I do go to sleep. It’s all that night time call I’ve taken over years and years. I can sleep practically anywhere, including in a noisy casino in the past. I tuck up against the rock and the sun is almost warm.

I wake up. Two other people have come by. My inner clock thinks my people should have come by. Do I wait? Do I stay? There are more ominous clouds building up and this will be much more slick and dangerous if it starts raining. And we are exposed, for lightening.

Then I see a hat, on a curve of trail below me, moving. I swear it’s one of my party. But how did they go by without seeing me or waking me. THEY ARE DITCHING ME ON THE MOUNTAIN. No, that is ridiculous. Hmm. She is not with either of the guys. I debate for a minute, shout and then grab my things and head down.

I catch her. Once they left me, there really was not a clear trail. There were multiple sort of trails. And it was tricky. They separated a bit. She lost track of the other two and then picked the least difficult way down, which seemed to be a trail. It was NOT the trail that went by me, but she didn’t know that.

We found one of the guys below us, waiting. The last came down a bit later. None of them had come on the “right” trail by me. We headed down and stopped to put on rain gear. It rained lots! We were also above the tree line, but also I would say that we were above the marmot line. We saw eight hoary marmots marmoting around on our way down. They did not seem deterred by rain at all.

So that is how I was left in the scree to dream. I would have returned by the time it started raining anyhow, and the trail was good once we got past the scree. Not all the way to the lake in the photograph, the trail ran along a ridge that is not in the picture and wound down near the lake.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: scree.

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Perspective: beneath the clouds

Beloved why?
I am glad for your love
and warmth
and connection
and my cat’s
and my adult children
friends
family
patients
work
and why? Beloved

A high Adverse Childhood Experience Score
Two alcoholic parents
One sick with tuberculosis through pregnancy
Letters from the hospital to her mother
After birth
Never mention me
As if I do not exist

She told a story that she dreamed
she gave birth to kittens
played with them
and gave them away

Not a dream of joyously welcoming her new baby
Me.
Yet I didn’t hate her or my father
My damaged parents
My damaged sister
Who followed their path, not mine
There was nothing I could do
Only three years old when she was born
Try to shield and mother her
As best I could

Why Beloved
I have tried so hard to grow
to love
to forgive
and yet I have no human lover

My cat jumps on my notebook
And interrupts this writing
She is happier to welcome me home
Than any man I’ve ever dated

My daughter’s boyfriend picks her up
at the airport and has made her dinner

If I am a failure at love with a partner
Or too smart or damaged or difficult
To love
For humans
At least my children have both found love
And if I were to choose me or them
Yes, I’d choose them

Is that why, Beloved?
Sacrifice to heal the next generation?
It is worth it.

And yet, that small child part of me
That even as a toddler thought the adults were unpredictable, dangerous, mean when drunk as they laughed.
She is angry at them, Beloved
She is angry at you, Beloved
Or at people
Or at the universe
She still believes in every cell, in her bone marrow, in the vast universe in her mind

that she too could be, should be

loved.

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Maps

I really like maps. I have a small hiking book for the area and a book of hikes. When I am riding in my daughter’s care, I admire a map of Colorado, a geologic highway map and shaded elevation map. My daughter says, “You gave that to me when I moved to Denver. Take it!” She doesn’t like extra stuff. Use it or lose it.

The geologic side fascinates me. It shows color coded zones of different rock formations and has some history. Rocks and mountains, delightful!

Some of the hikes here are also mountain bike trails and loop in all sorts of ways. I try to remember to photograph the map at the start of the hike, so that I can refer to it on my phone. Lots of hikes are out of the range of phone towers, so I won’t depend on GPS!

Grand Junction lies in the Grand Valley and runs mostly east/west along the Colorado River and Interstate 70. They have named the streets on a grid with letters and numbers. This has some odd charm: I live off of 21 and 1/2 road, which is 21 and 1/2 miles from the Utah border. There are some 1/4 and 3/4 roads too. The lettered roads start with A at Orchard Mesa. There is an F and 1/2 road. How fun! There is also a downtown switch, where suddenly the numbered roads go from 1 to 7 and drop out of the numbers set from the Utah border. There is an article explaining here.

The photograph is part of the Colorado Geologic Map. The altitude map is on the other side. Isn’t it pretty?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: guide.

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So far

I made it to Brigham City last night. That was a long driving day, 503 miles. I tried to stop in Snowville, but the motel would not take cats.

The only weather resembling a deluge so far was from Seattle until I crossed Snoqualmie Pass. It rained and rained, sometimes heavily. Once over the pass, the rain disappeared and we lost the ocean smell again. Dry and more trees and desert and wheat. I counted mountain passes, six so far that listed the top altitude. Some had smaller passes between, three more. The first one yesterday had ice patches so I stayed in the right lane with the trucks. Less ice.

One more day, I hope.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: deluge.

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Distant mesas

I have been in Grand Junction since the end of April. The Grand Valley really has amazing visual distances from one end of the valley to another, and even though it is a valley, it is at 4600 feet above sea level. It is surrounded by higher mesas and mountains in all directions.

Soon I drive back to Washington for a few weeks. That is a distance, too, 1200 miles with Sol Duc cat. She doesn’t really enjoy the car. I wonder if she will enjoy going home. Will she like the cloud settling over us, as if the bottom of it is grazing the roof tops? I did not like those clouds when I first moved to Washington but now they feel as if they enfold us and comfort us, an intimacy with the sky.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: distant.

We learned this song as kids:

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Air up high

Sunday I drove up to Grand Mesa, over 10,000 feet. Wow. The aspens gold and the evergreens green and the perfume of the clear air. The high temperature was much lower then in Grand Valley. A sign says that Grand Mesa is the world’s largest flat top mountain and there are hundreds of lakes on top.

And you can immerse yourself in gold.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: perfume.

No, I just couldn’t put up a John Denver song.

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Betty Ford’s

I met my daughter at Betty Ford’s on Saturday. No, not the rehab, Betty Ford’s Alpine Gardens in Vail. Vail is about half way between us. We found lunch at the Farmer’s Market, walked the gardens, and shared a banana split. My daughter was laughing by the end of it. “None of my friends are still eating at the end of a banana split, mom. You and my brother are the only ones who can keep up!” We walked over six miles and yum, how often do I have a banana split?

The gardens are not huge, but the alpine flowers are beautiful and from all over the world.

We heard music too, since the gardens are right next to the amphitheater. Robert Plant and Alison Kraus were warming up and doing their sound checks. My daughter was underwhelmed.

This looks beautiful and peaceful, but the Farmer’s Market is big and was packed with people. We were pretty much out of the range of Robert Plant at this point, but he accompanied us much of the way.

I heard it on the radio! Well, no, I found it on Youtube.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: radio.

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Wash, wadi, arroyo

A friend and I did a hike in Palisade this morning. It goes up, up and then there is a loop at the top. This is the fabulous view from the top, towards the west, with the Colorado River and the rest of Grand Junction.

On the loop we look for these:

Petroglyphs! And the bottom one really looks like an elk. Most looked like deer.

I also found this site, about the difference between a wash, a wadi and an arroyo. https://seethesouthwest.com/what-is-the-difference-between-an-arroyo-a-wash-and-a-wadi/

This is the canyon on our right on the way down, but I would bet that there is a wash at the base. These amazing mesas and rocks are carved by water and time.

And here is the mesa across from us to the north, from the top again.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: wash.

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Last on the card: May

The first picture is taken by my iphone. I have already posted the real last on the card, the rose bush from a few days ago, so this is the last unposted photograph. Is that cheating? Oh, well.

The second is from my Panasonic Lumix FZ 150, taken two weeks ago on my hike. This is on the way down. I was tired by then! Altitude + 4.5 miles, whew.

For bushboy’s Last on the Card.

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Cool

I am still wearing sweaters to work.

It is high desert here. One morning it was really pretty cold when I walked Sol Duc in her harness. Really she walks me. Cats are like that. But I wished for mittens. The temperature was 38. The last few days the low is in the high 40s or low 50s. Two days ago it was 90 driving home from work.

The consequence is air conditioning. I do not have air conditioning on the Olympic Peninsula. My house is from 1930 and well designed to stay cool in the summer and we rarely hit 90 anyhow. Two summers ago my heat pump switched to cooling when we had one hot week, startling me. We did hit 100 one day in Port Townsend, but it still dropped thirty degrees at night because of the cool Salish Sea surrounding us. My patients would complain of the awful heat when we got to 80 degrees. It’s all relative, right?

Here in Grand Junction, we are just starting to heat up. The hottest time appears to be around 4 or 5 pm.

I was cold at work all day two days ago. I wore a linen shirt over another shirt and it was not enough. I went outside at lunch and heated up nicely in the sun. Yesterday I took a wool jacket with me. Air conditioning is very strange.

This morning it is 51 now and projected to reach 85. The high desert temperature change of 30 to 40 degrees is not that different from home, but the air conditioning is different.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ambivalent.