Cabin Journal

One Man’s Garbage

 

 

A letter to the Allenspark newspaper last June sparked a small controversy that exemplifies the attitude of the mountain community about private property. A local resident, Marilynn  Sweangen, reported that one of her neighbors had complained to the county that Marilynn had several old jeeps sitting on her property plus a target range.

 

This resulted in a county violation for “storing unlicensed and inoperable vehicles.”   Although inoperable, the International Scouts were used as mechanical projects for several family members, Marilynn wrote. And part of her complaint was that the neighbor had never contacted her personally but only called the county.

 

The outrageousness of the neighbor’s action prompted the editor of the Allenspark Wind to add a note: “Sorry to hear that the Colorado philosophy of ‘Live and let live’ has been replaced by ‘Report your neighbor if you can,’ especially if someone has to walk into our back yard to see what you  have.”

 

Apparently, the letter provoked a lot of response, because in the July issue,  several letters were printed about being a good neighbor, including a follow-up from Marilyn, who thanked “all of you who expressed concern and offers to help.”  Others were more explicit about their feelings:

 

“For generations, mountain community members have also lived by a . . . code known as ‘Live and let live.’ Unfortunately, we now have city transplants who, not only do not understand this code, but are also determined to turn our community into the type of area that they moved here from where people turn in their neighbors to the authorities, force their values on their neighbors ‘for the general good’ as THEY define it and do not full consider the consequences of their actions on the culture of our community.”

 

In the August issue of the Wind,  Gary Williams, in his column “Ranch Tales,” told a story about Marilynn’s late husband Mark asking Gary if he could hunt on his land in exchange for painting Gary’s old truck, which Gary saw as a sign of respect for someone else’s property. And Gary wrote about several old trucks and farm equipment on his property, which didn’t seem like decrepit pieces of machinery as much as “pieces of history” that reminded him of childhood adventures and long-gone relatives who used them..

 

Through all these letters and columns, a code of mountain behavior emerges: a distrust of city folks; a concept of neighborliness that embodies both helping out when needed but otherwise staying out of your  neighbor’s business, including their property; a respect for what some might consider old, useless things;  and a very healthy respect for private property. That means I can do what I want with this piece of land I own: keep rusting metal chairs (above); store vehicles, old toilets, and bathtubs on the property; let my outhouse fall apart; and leave piles of wood and rubbish all over the property.

 

Part of this attitude comes from being somewhat isolated. It’s not easy to get rid of stuff, and you never know when you’re going to need it. So personal items tend to stack up around the property. The cabin next to mine has several classic and inoperable cars sitting in the front yard, most likely being used by the resident rodent population for parts and nesting. The house across the road has a washing machine, circa 1930s, sitting in front, and the cabin next to mine has an old telephone spool propped up against the tree and what looks like an old hand saw, rusting and covered with vegetation (photo above, taken last summer). Across the road is an outhouse where several sheets of TP dangle from the cracks in the wood (below). None of these things would be tolerated in most urban neighborhoods, where they would be considered an eyesore, junk to be removed.

 

And, yet, as an inveterate recycler, I applaud the idea of keeping things that no longer work in the hopes they can someday be used for some other purpose. But I also like the fact that things are a little messy here, which seems more natural than the artificial neatness of my suburban neighborhood, where lawns are kept manicured and trees trimmed, streets are on a grid, and nature is controlled. Here in these mountain communities,  life is left to go its own way, to give way to the forces of dissolution and even rebirth. If a tree falls in the woods, it stays on the ground until someone with a chainsaw comes along, months or years later, and turns it into firewood. If a car stops working, it sits until another purpose can be found for its parts.  

 

I’m happy to report that the whole issue with Marilynn’s jeeps came to a peaceful end this fall. In the October Wind, Marilynn wrote to thank people for helping to erect a fence that would screen the Scouts from her neighbor’s view. “What’s that saying, ‘Many hands make light the work?’ I have never met some of these NEIGHBORS, only seen their names in the WIND or heard of them through others. I now have faces to put with names, what a wonderful thing, and what wonderful people! THANK YOU, THANK YOU ALL”

 

And there’s the opposite side of the coin to protecting your property: helping your neighbor when threatened by city folks.

The Pause That Refreshes

 

 In Pema Chodron’s new book, “Taking the Leap,” she talks about the importance of taking a pause in our daily lives as a way of connecting with ourselves and our surroundings. I think it’s good advice. In my own life, I know that I go around with my head in the clouds most of the time, buried in my work or a book or anything else I can find to distract myself.

 

     I’m especially aware of that at the cabin, because there’s so much to be aware of: the winter sun as it moves across the valley; the jays, rabbits, chickarees, crows, and juncos that inhabit the yard around my cabin; the tall ponderosas swaying in the stiff winds. And yet often I’ll enmesh myself in my work, put my head down and forget where I am. It’s almost some willful need to lose myself in what I’m doing, so I don’t have to be aware, like setting myself on a track and not having to think about other possibilities, other ways of living. It’s the easiest course but not necessarily the most rewarding.

 

So lately, I’ve been forcing myself to take a pause, not just in my work day but when I’m on the trail, because even when I’m hiking in the mountains I can get lost in my own thoughts, and not see what’s in front of me. I’m finding that those times when I let myself stop and become aware of everything around me are the best parts of the hike, because I see and hear things I wouldn’t otherwise.

 

This week, after the new snow, I went for a short hike on the Twin Owls trail (above) outside of Estes Park. The rock formations (the most prominent being the two overlapping rocks that mimic the shape of owls) were etched in snow, bordered by a blue sky  in which clouds drifted in and out of the hills, making for a dreamy landscape. To be out on a trail in new snow under blue sky is something like achieving perfection, although strangely, only two other hikers were out, maybe because the temperature wasn’t much above 15.

 

I didn’t go far, didn’t have much time, but at one point I stopped at a vantage point in the sun to absorb everything around me: the golden afternoon light on the rocks, the icicles that hung from the bottom of rocks, like gaping teeth. There was almost no wind, so it was quiet, everything still, out of which emerged the sound of a chickadee, the plopping of snow from the branches as the sun warmed them. And there was another sound, one that was unfamiliar, so I had to listen intently. And then I realized that the icicles on the boulders all over the hillsides were melting in the sun and breaking on the rocks below. From the immense silence came a tinkling sound, like glass shattering but gently and softly. If I hadn’t stopped, I wouldn’t have heard it, the sound too subtle and delicate to hear even over my footsteps.

 

I stood and listened as this rock and ice composition played over the whole mountainside. It was magical, a brief moment in time, a conjunction of forces (snow and cold followed by warming sun and quiet) that allowed this soft percussion. Music for the soul.

A Light Goes Out

I found out last week that one of my neighbors had died the week before after a long fight with cancer. I didn’t know Bonnie well, but she was an integral part of this mountain community, someone people speak of with reverence and affection: a caring, warm person, a dogged fighter who gracefully and with courage accepted her fate.

And last week one of my other neighbors left, packed up a van and moved to Oklahoma to be with family. I didn’t know David and his wife that well either; we were mostly on waving terms. But I had gotten used to getting up in the morning and seeing smoke coming from his chimney. It felt like another presence in this neighborhood where most cabins are empty, especially in the colder months.

Both Bonnie and David were part of the Meeker Park community, and with both gone now, I realized how we create mental maps of our neighborhood and community, much as someone would sew a quilt from disparate pieces, creating a record of our known world. Meeker Park is a tight-knit community, in the best sense, so when certain strands fall out, the whole piece can feel like it’s unraveling.

What I call a neighborhood (above) is a collection of cabins scattered among the woods and around the valley bottom in the shadow of Mount Meeker.  Slowly, over the year and a half I’ve lived here (part-time), I’ve filled in my  map, although for many cabins the details are still sketchy. There’s a few solid pieces, consisting mostly of the people I run into the most, the ones who live here all year long, like Claudia and Tom who live next door. In my mental map, those cabins are illuminated, like light bulbs on a schematic board. The other cabins are a bit fuzzier, those houses where I’ve yet to meet the inhabitants or learn their stories.

The person who delivered the news about Bonnie was a neighbor of hers, someone who recently built a house over the course of the past year on the main “intersection” of Meeker Park. I met Sam while we were out enjoying the snow on one of the unplowed roads in the valley; he was on skis, and I was in my hiking boots. I was glad to meet Sam and find out a little bit about him (he loves to ski). Another piece of my map got filled in, just as another piece fell out.

At night, I like to go out on my front deck, check to see how many stars are out. I always find it comforting to see the light on next door at Claudia and Tom’s. As much as I come up here for some alone time, I’m always grateful for the presence of other people, as if among the darkness there are others like me who love these wild mountains. In the other direction, it’s usually dark, but last week I could see warm yellow light spilling out into the blackness from a cabin at the other end of the road, belonging to a summer resident who has decided to spend the winter here.

 I was glad to see it. As some lights wink out, another comes on.

More Worlds to Explore

 

A friend of mine hangs up her hiking boots when fall comes. A landscape without flowers doesn’t interest her. Yet this is one of my favorite times for hiking because the weather is cool, the crowds are thinned (sometimes I have whole trails to myself), and I start exploring new trails and places. In summer, I always return to my favorite high mountain trails where I love the landscape, the alpine lakes, and yes, the flowers, for the short duration before the snow and cold shuts everything down.

But once that happens, I feel free to explore other places. At the cabin, last fall I discovered I could hike along Tahosa Creek (above), the small creek not far from cabin—theoretically, all the way to Estes Park, some 10 miles away, although I haven’t gotten that far yet. I don’t hike it in summer, not just because I’m up on the high peaks, but because the creek passes through private property. Once the summer visitors are gone, I feel free to ignore all the “no trespassing” signs, scooting under barbed wire fences and through wooden fences.

It’s beautiful along the creek, its own ecosystem among the otherwise dry hills, with aspen groves bordered by  rock walls, small ponds, and grasses. There’s even a waterfall that spills over a large boulder, and, because it’s in shade for most of the day now, it’s in the process of becoming a frozen waterfall.

I don’t usually like to bushwhack (a wonderful word for making your own trail). It’s harder to beat back the bushes (and aspen branches and grasses) than stick to a trail with a known destination (a waterfall or lake or the top of the mountain). Yet there is a sense of exploration when following your own nose and you’re not sure where you’ll end up, not knowing what’s around the next corner. It requires more awareness, like noticing the barbed wire fence laying on the ground, which I got caught in on my way back because my thoughts had taken a different turn. You’re even closer to nature, brushing up against the smooth bark of aspen trees, clambering over boulders, grasses clinging to your pant legs.

There are cabins around here, but you don’t see them; most are on top of the hill, but down here by the creek I get intimations of human existence: a bridge made of logs across the creek; a carved wooden bench (below) set among a grove of trees next to the creek. When I hiked the creek last week, on an unseasonably warm day, I found a large treehouse, enough to hold six or seven children, apparently part of a nearby summer camp. Amazingly, the creek was free of ice, running as if it were still October, as if it never heard of winter. 

 

And, in search of new territory, on Thursday, I went back to a trailhead I discovered last summer, just a few miles west of my cabin. On a map I had found what looked like a trail that went partly up the east face of Mount Meeker. After admiring this mountain from the valley floor all this time, I wanted to be on it, see what it felt like, what I could see from there. But after a mile of hiking upward through the trees, with few views, I encountered snow and ice, for which I wasn’t prepared and headed back.

And yet I’m glad I found the trail, which has enlarged my mental map of this area, and I’ll go back when I’m better prepared, see where the trail leads and what I can find. These are all small explorations, I know, not like discovering a passage through the Northwest Territories. Yet, in my own world, I’m happy to know there are still are still places to explore. Who knows what else awaits me out there?

 

Thinking about Hibernating

I was at my cabin last week, taking advantage of the warm weather to get the front deck stained before winter. With temperatures in the unseasonably warm 60s (especially after the previous week’s snowstorm), it felt balmy, and I was enjoying just being outside, feeling the sun on my body and the wind through the trees, and hearing the stellar’s jays call to each other.

I could have almost forgotten that winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, is only a  month and a half away. But at 3:30,  the sun dropped behind Mount Meeker, and I wistfully watched the last of the sunlight hit the south side of the valley, lighting up the hillside and the orange and brown willow bushes by the creek. And then that was gone, the whole valley in shadow by 4 p.m.

When I drove into Estes Park around 5, to have dinner with a friend, it was already dark. Like most people, it’s hard to get used to the transition from daylight savings time. It feels like we’re abruptly being pushed into darkness, and I feel some ancient primitive fear. When I’m out at night in winter, I feel the need to seek shelter, to find someplace warm and safe. What did our primitive ancestors do in winter? I imagine people huddling in caves, bodies stacked together to keep warm, long hours spent around campfires telling stories and singing.

In Joyce Gellhorn’s Song of the Alpine, about life on the Rocky Mountain tundra, the botanist/writer says that marmots (abaove) hibernate from late September until early May. That means these large rodents sleep for almost three-quarters of their lives. There’s a good reason for that,  because their food supply of plants is gone by late September, and new vegetation doesn’t start growing until May in the high mountains.  Before these animals take shelter for the winter, they fatten up and then enter what I imagine is a blissful state of sleep with fellow marmots all piled up in one big ball of fur. Amazingly, their heartbeats slow to once per minute, according to Gellhorn, and they breathe only once every three to six minutes.

All that sleep must do them well, because when I watch them in summer, running on the rocky slopes or taking a snooze on a warm rock, they seem happy and relaxed. I’m not ready to sleep through the whole winter, but on those long winter nights, when it’s cold and the winds are howling, I do feel that urge to burrow into the bed and not come out until it’s light again.

First Snow, Best Snow

I drove up to the cabin after last week's snowfall and found a whole new landscape. In South St. Vrain Canyon, the pine trees were covered with snow, like someone smacked a dollop of whip cream on each one. On the hillside of sand-colored cliffs, where a few ponderosas had found their niche among the rocks, the white snow subtly changed the color of the cliffs to a pale golden, made it somehow more dreamlike. It was a whole different palette than what I usually see driving through this canyon.

And where the road starts climbing out of the canyon, all the hillsides with unbroken forest were now an unbroken expanse of white, and for a moment I felt like I had lost my bearings, didn’t know where I was, because the landscape looked so different. When I got up to the Allenspark valley, Mount Meeker was surrounded by hillsides of frosted pine trees, and I felt as if I had entered a calendar scene, some perfect image of a winter landscape, where everything is pure and white, glistening, alive.

All afternoon I sat at the cabin working on my laptop, hearing the thuds of snow falling from the ponderosas onto the roof and deck, as the sun started warming up the landscape. And when I drove home that evening, all the snow had melted from the trees, and the canyon was already in shadow, returning it to something gray and washed out, something more ordinary.

And, just like that, the magic was gone.

 

The Collapse of Autumn

This year’s early frost deprived me of enjoying my favorite time of the year, of the brilliant fall colors, both in Boulder and in the mountains. On a hike to Gem Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park last week, the leaves had already been stripped from the aspen trees, leaving a bare, ready- for-winter landscape.

And down here on the plains, instead of a palette of reds, yellows, and oranges, the trees are  pale greens and beiges. I felt like I wanted to find a cheap fare to Green Bay and fly out for a long weekend of brilliant falls colors in the north woods of Wisconsin. But I didn’t really have the money or the time.

And there was that insistent voice that said: sit still, stop hopping around trying to find something better. We live in a world where, if we don’t like the weather or the view or the landscape, we can hop a plane to someplace that better suits our fancy or get in our car and drive. Even if we can’t leave for fairer climes, we can ignore the weather, watch TV, stay in our offices, put down the blinds.

But it’s a good feeling to accept what’s happening in my world and to stay with it, not fight it. It almost feels like a solidarity with nature. I’ll stick with these trees that are going through early withdrawal from summer and fall. I’ll watch the  abundance of summer slowly dwindle: as the trees and bushes become bare, the tall grasses start to collapse and flatten under the weight of the snow, the milkweed plants become dry stalks and their seedheads start to spill out of the pods.

This is what the world offers, and I want to be part of it, not to judge whether it is good or bad but accepting it as what is. For now, I’m happy to watch the winds carry the silky milkweed seeds off, watching them float down into fields or streams or into the blue depths of the sky.

 

Cabin as Container

A few years ago, I did a week-long meditation retreat at Buddhist center in the Colorado foothills.  All-week long I rose at 6 a.m. in the dark of winter and walked in the cold from our lodging across a field and through the woods to the meditation hall, where about 100 of us spent most of the day. We even ate our meals there, although in the afternoon there was a break to do our assigned daily chores and sometimes there was time for a walk on the paths that wound through aspen groves, where prayer flags hung, and along the creek. At night, we didn’t finish until 8 or 9 and so I retraced my steps to the lodge in the dark and snow.

After a few days, I got into the rhythm of the schedule: the meditation, the talks, the meals where you sat in silence, eating your rice and vegetables. It seemed what like monastic life might be like: beauty found in the simple cycle of contemplation and work. Gradually, as the week continued, the outside world diminished, and there was just this small circuit of our daily lives: the meditation hall, the lodge where I slept and the woods and fields in between.  Nothing else seemed to exist, as I got deeper into my mind and this place where I found myself.

And then the day came when we had to leave, wrench ourselves back into the real world, into noise and crowds and people driving fast, after we had slowed our minds to a crawl and closed out the rest of the world. There was even a session to give us tips on how to re-immerse ourselves in the world (when heading home, take the back roads instead of the highway). I remember walking to my car, stepping out of the cocoon that had been created in the week’s time. It was like breaking out of web, out of something protective and sane to return to a sometimes insane world. On the other side of that bubble, the world felt different; even the sun’s light seemed more raw, too bright.

The Buddhists have a term for it: container. In setting up these retreats and classes, the idea is to create a place where people feel safe enough to let their guard down, to let their minds and beings go deeper than they ever have before.

In many ways, my cabin feels like a container, where it’s quiet, where no one bothers me, where my thoughts flow uninterrupted. In this safe environment, I open myself more to what’s around me—the sun moving across the sky and into the nooks and crannies of my cabin—but also what’s inside me—feelings that arise unbidden.
And then when I have to leave, I feel that same wrenching as when I left my meditation retreat. I think of a dozen excuses not to leave, finding more chores to do around the cabin that keeps me there another 10 minutes or half hour. Finally, I drive up the dirt road from my cabin to the main highway, where I enter into the traffic that suddenly seems too fast, as if everyone had important places to go and things to do. Gradually, as I drive down the mountains and into the canyon, I’m pulled back into the real world of daily commerce, where everyone is caught up in their daily lives with no time to admire a sunset or slow down for a deer crossing the road.

Maybe, if I ever get good enough at this, I can bring a part of my cabin world into the other world, keep that openness and tender feelings as long as possible. Maybe that’s the ultimate dream: to combine both worlds. Or maybe to make the real world as sane as my cabin world.

Why I Love National Parks

    Last week, while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, I was surrounded by elk.  One agitated bull kept crossing back and forth on the trail, while another had its head down as it drank from the Big Thompson River. As a friend and I hiked up the Cub Lake Trail, we could hear the elk bugling their challenges from all sides of Moraine Park.  

It was a supreme wilderness moment and yet not unusual this time of the year when elk mating season draws thousands of people to the park to watch this event. And because the park is so close to my cabin and I’m here almost every week, I have to remind myself what a rare treat this. There’s nowhere else in Colorado (and probably in the West, outside of Yellowstone) that you can see so many elk—and almost close enough to reach your hand out and touch them.

In watching Ken Burns’ documentary about the national parks, I’ve gained a new appreciation for them, even as I’ve scorned the crowds that sometimes make them feel less than wild. Yet, we’ve managed to preserve whole ecosystems and animals, such as the buffalo that would have been exterminated by hunting. It was shocking to find out how close we came to losing several national treasures, including Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. Shocking how vested interests, not just mining and timber but people who didn’t want the federal government in “their” back yard and would have let the last buffalo disappear and  the last redwood be cut down.
     

Yosemite could have become a playground for the rich and the Grand Canyon a mining pit. And what would we have lost? Practically speaking, we don’t need wilderness. We don’t need to go out into the mountains or forests and forage for plants and hunt deer or elk. It’s been a long time since humans figured out how to control food production.

We don’t really need snowy egrets or bear or pikas, the tundra dwellers now threatened by global warming. They are superfluous to our daily lives, existing in a parallel universe where survival is often precarious. But, on another level, I think people are drawn to wildlife. That’s why we hang paintings on our living room walls of an elk buck, standing stiffly and proudly, a symbol of strength and fortitude; why there were traffic jams in  Rocky Mountain National Park in the last few weeks, as people flocked to get close-up views of the elk; why Boulder residents speak with reverence about the bear that was in their backyard. 

I think we need something that is non-human, something outside of ourselves. Some people call that God. To me, it’s recognizing that we are not the only creatures worthy of life; that there are other kinds of wisdom in the world: of a hawk that knows how to ride the thermals; of a buffalo that knows how to survive temperatures of 50 below zero; of a bear that knows how to hibernate. It’s acknowledging that we humans don’t know everything. 

It also means there’s something unknowable out there, something outside of our small and sometimes narrow lives. There’s a vastness that we can only imagine, millions of acres of wilderness that most of us will probably never see and untold riches among the mountains, forests, lakes and rivers. It’s something I feel every time I stand on my cabin deck at night and see all the stars in the black sky or hear the elk trumpeting among the wide and wild mountain valleys.

 

Life in the Fast Lane

Although humans sometimes make life more difficult for wild animals (such as the bears), sometimes we make it easier.

Sitting on the front deck of my cabin, I’ve been watching a chickaree run back and forth on the rails of the fence that separate my property from my neighbor’s.

Carrying a pine cone in its mouth, half as big as the animal, it runs quickly along the rail, a much faster route than plowing through the grasses below. On this chickaree highway, this gray ground squirrel  can  carry the maximum amount of  pine cones in the shortest amount of time. 

I can almost time my watch by its commute. In about five minutes, it’s up the ponderosa tree to grab a pine cone, then down and over to the fence rail, a quick sprint and jump to the ground, where it heads around the corner where I can’t see it from my front porch. A minute later it’s back on the highway, moving so fast I have a hard time snapping a picture. 

Curious about where it was taking these pine cones, I walked to the corner of the house and saw it go into the open shed on my neighbor’s property. There among stacks of wood, an old chipped bathtub and miscellaneous items, it’s storing food for the winter. So not only is the chickaree taking advantage of our fences but also our buildings.

The chickaree is one of my favorite animals up here and the most industrious, never stopping to pose for photos or look around but constantly on the move. (“Sorry, no time to chat.”) Of all the small animals here, it’s the only one that doesn’t hibernate in the winter, so the chipmunks and ground squirrels can take a more leisurely approach to life, enjoying the moment, sprawling on a tree branch in the sun, looking forward to several months of uninterrupted sleep. But the chickaree doesn’t have that luxury, has to make hay while the sun shines.

It takes life seriously, and I can’t help but respect its single-minded pursuit.