Cabin Journal

Gems of Nature: Look Closely

The technician from Century Link was taking apart the old cable box in front of the cabin as he installed a new Internet connection. “Look at this,” he said, showing me an old paper wasp nest. A symmetrical whorl of delicate layers of paper, it’s a smaller version of the larger nests that I find under the eaves of the cabin. But attached on the bottom was an even smaller piece  (below, on the left) that resembled the spinning tops I played with as a child. I can only guess that the wasps were trying to create another nest inside this cable box but ran into space limitations, so it’s only half formed or a miniature nest, long abandoned. But the larger question for me is: how can an insect with such a small brain create something so perfectly shaped?

Everywhere I go in the natural landscape I find small bits of beauty that surprise and delight me. If I look hard enough, I’ll find something I’ve never seen before, that makes me appreciate this natural world and realize how much more complex it is than I ever imagined. Even an object as common and simple as a pine cone is something to admire: a perfectly symmetrical structure with layered and spaced scales from which the squirrels pry out the seeds for eating.

 

 

 

On one of my walks, I found a skull (left) that likely comes from a small mammal, perhaps a weasel. I love the simplicity and shape.  It’s also a reminder of life and death, a totem of something that once lived but is gone. In Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in New Mexico hangs a cattle skull with curved horns, a skull she painted many times. It was a thing of beauty to her, and I think of power also.

 

A tree is a good place to find nature’s handiwork. It’s always a treat to find bird nests— each one a different size and shape, a display of a bird’s inventiveness in using whatever it can find in its environment: weaving together grasses, loose string or downy seeds. I have one sitting on my mantel, where my resident mice occasionally appropriate some of the nest for their own.

I always stop for dead trees, especially if they’ve been stripped of their bark. The insects that once lived below the bark left behind their tracings (right)— circuitous routes up and down and around, deeper into the trunk than I could imagine a small insect making. I admire their steadfastness, although I’m not sure of the purpose of their travels. That’s another mystery of nature.  

 

 

 

 

Nature effortlessly provides abstract paintings. This aspen leaf (top) landed on a boulder with different shades and patterns of lichen, and then raindrops fell on the leaf. This accidental juxtaposition is a combination of the trajectory of the wind that dropped this leaf, fragile and short-lived, on this boulder, which has been sitting here for hundreds of years at least and plays host to the lichen, one of the oldest organisms in the world. Everything came together perfectly.

In summer I’m dazzled by the dragonflies (left) who swarm my kayak on Lily Lake. When I look closely, I can see the parts of their tiny bodies, the different shades of blue, and their gossamer wings that look so fragile. If they were in an art museum, we would be dazzled by just one. But there are hundreds on Lily Lake.

So much in nature is circular: ponds, aspen leaves, flower heads, the eddies in a river, sea shells, clouds, mushroom caps. Time goes in spirals and is not linear, writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, when she talks about  the indigenous perspective. Like this tree trunk (below), where the tree’s patterns form almost a spiral. The older the tree, I’ve noticed, the more delineated are the lines in the bark.

I'll keep taking my circular route around Meeker Park, keeping my eyes open, waiting to be surprised and dazzled by what I find.

Beneath the Ice, Life Survives

Walking through a nature preserve near my house recently, the landscape appeared lifeless. The ponds are still frozen, and ducks won’t migrate through until April. I heard no songbirds, and the only life I saw were one squirrel and a few Canada geese sipping from a pond’s surface where it had slightly melted.

At the cabin, five inches of new snow last week buried any thoughts of springtime flowers, still several months away from emerging. The aspens and pine trees are waiting for warmer temperatures and longer days. Even the gray squirrels, which cache as much food as they can before the snows come so they don’t have to traverse the deep snow, are hiding themselves somewhere.

Yet I know that life is slumbering, not dead. Beneath the snow and ice, life is waiting—slowing down its metabolism or existing in some kind of frozen suspension. Warm-blooded animals such as bears fill up with food and find a cave to spend the winter. On the other hand, snakes stop eating a month or so before they brumate (the cold-blooded version of hibernating) because undigested food can kill them. I read that hundreds of snakes, some of different species, spend the winter coiled together underground in what’s known as a hibernaculum. Some are species that might kill each other during the warmer months, but maybe, like humans, they need each other’s warmth in the cold months.

At the nature preserve, turtles submerge themselves beneath the ice, somehow able to breathe through the pores of their skin, while slowing down their metabolism. Most amazingly, I recently discovered, frogs literally freeze, turning into “frogsicles” when the temperature dips below freezing. The common chorus frogs hide under leaves while waiting for the temperatures to get above freezing.  

I have to wonder if the tiger salamanders I see in the summer on Lily Lake (right) are also frozen in the depths of the pond. A few miles away from the cabin and at almost 9,000 feet altitude, the pond won’t start thawing until May, when I can hopefully watch from my kayak these strange creatures who stubbornly stay in their larval stage.

The record for the longest hibernation has to belong to the marmots (below), the rotund animals that live on the tundra, above 10,000 feet. While the strong winds tear across the frozen ground in winter, the marmots are deeply asleep for at least six months. Like the snakes, the marmots bundle together to preserve warmth. I like to think that this long period of rest, snuggled with their comrades, is why they appear so relaxed and playful after they emerge. In summer, I often see marmots sprawled across boulders basking in the sun. Meanwhile, their fellow tundra animals, the pikas, are busily, if not frenetically, collecting grass all summer to line their rock caves for winter food and shelter.

We’ve reached the midwinter point, with spring a month and half away, although at the cabin, spring doesn’t arrive until April at the earliest, when the pasqueflowers might be lured out of the ground and when the aspens produce buds that promise green leaves in May. In the meantime, I’m happy to light another fire in my wood-burning stove, snuggle under my blanket, read a good book and wait—as patiently as possible.  One day the creeks will thaw, the bluebirds will come back and the aspens will leaf out again.

"Is It Worth It?"

Hiking in Wild Basin recently, I was asked the question that always puzzles me. Before starting out, I had noticed more cars than usual in the parking lot, many from out of state—Texas, Florida, Nebraska. And then I realized that it was Christmas break, the time when visitors come to Rocky Mountain National Park for their vacations.

It was a windy day with temperatures around 40, with some snow on the road and empty patches where the wind had blown the snow off. But once I got a mile up the trail, the landscape became more dramatic. Here in the deeper woods, the snow had piled up, outlining the boulders in white, forming large mounds along the trail and on the creek.

Enclosed in the ponderosas, which were swaying in the wind, and the deep snow, I felt like I had entered another world and left behind the slightly dirty and worn one. At Copeland Falls (above), the waterfall was smothered in snow, although the pool at the bottom was still open, forming a dark blue slit, like a glimpse of a hidden universe below the snow and ice. 

Coming back, I encountered a large group, and one man asked how far was Copeland Falls, a popular and short destination for most tourists. Not far, I told him, maybe about a half mile. How long would it take, he wanted to know. I guessed a half hour at most. His final question: Was it worth it?

I never know how to answer that question, one I’ve been frequently asked on my hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park. When I told him the falls were covered in snow, he looked surprised and crestfallen, as if he hadn’t expected snow in the mountains in winter. It turned out he and his group were from Florida. Maybe they had never seen snow and didn’t know how it transformed the landscape.

Yes, I wanted to say, it’s worth it, because up ahead on this trail is a landscape you’ll never see in Florida. All the snow on the river has disguised the boulders as something soft and fluffy; some look like Hershey’s kisses, but you can use your imagination to find other shapes. In some places the water has broken through the snow and ice and formed into an eye. If you’re lucky you might see an otter pop out of the creek, like I did one winter. Or if you look across the river, you might see a moose in the woods, almost disguised among the trees.

But is it worth the hike up the trail? Maybe they should turn around and head to the main part of the park, where the rugged line of tall mountains can take your breath away. In fact, I’m often questioned by tourists, who took the wrong road or were led astray by Google maps, where this trail leads. Because I know they’re looking for the spectacular views, I don’t argue. Instead I point the way back to the road, tell them to turn left and look for the sign that leads to the main entrance of the park.

Here in this side area of the park, it’s just a walk through the woods along the river, a hike many would regard as boring, but for me it’s always worth it. Although I love the high peaks and the alpine lakes in the main part of the park, I’m just as happy to walk along the river and observe the different ice formations, while surrounded by the conifers and boulders that line the trail and creek. If I somehow get bored with that, I can turn my head up to the sky and see the clouds skimming east; or listen for the occasional bird song in winter, like the Townsend’s solitaire making its lonely cry; or hear the creak of the trees rubbing against each other in the wind.

Yes, it’s worth it, but only if you open your eyes –and heart.

A Fleeting Landscape

Arriving at the cabin this week I was greeted with a rare treat: ice crystals covered the whole landscape: every needle on the pine trees, every dried plant stalk, every branch of the willow bushes and aspen trees. With a sheath of light enfolding every plant, the effect was dazzling. On the ponderosa pines, the ice encased around the green needles turned the trees a sapphire blue that was paler than the sky, casting the whole valley and hillsides in a blue light.

I think this transformation was caused by a rare fog when conditions are just right: near-freezing water droplets attach to the vegetation and immediately turn into ice—a phenomenon called rime.

Because I knew this wouldn’t last, I ignored my work projects and set out as soon as I could to walk around the valley, stopping every few minutes to take in this unfamiliar and glittering landscape. But as soon as the sun started to warm the earth and the wind arrived to shake the tree branches, the rime started to disappear. I watched, half with sadness and half with enchantment, as small bits of ice flew off the trees, filling the air with sparkles, as if someone had thrown down shards of glass.

By the time I returned to the cabin, it was almost gone, and the valley had returned to its normal winter state. No matter how hard I tried to hang on to this short interlude of beauty, it had already melted away.   

First Light

On the day of the solstice, the sun is just barely above the ridge across the valley, so the road is in shadow, and ice from a snowstorm more than a week ago still lingers. On my walk, the two Highland cattle watch me warily—or is it curiosity? When I observe them, I realize they exist in a totally different time frame than I do. They sit calmly for hours, and when they walk it’s slow and plodding, as if they have no particular place to go. I envy their lives, which moves at one one-hundredth of my speed. What do they see or feel that I don’t?

I follow their example and slow my walk, looking for any sign of life. Under ice and snow, I can hear the creek running. Soon I start to hear and see birds. A red-tailed hawk soars over my head, and two ravens perch in trees next to the road, calling to each other. I like to think they are keeping me company, but perhaps I’m just as much an amusement or distraction to them on this gray cold day.

I hear the familiar cry of chickadees and nuthatches, while pecking from the tree indicates a woodpecker is nearby. These are all familiar winter birds here, but the ponderosa pines around me are making strange ticking noises, and I see flashes of red and yellow, like exotic jungle birds could have landed in Meeker Park. Or maybe it just seems exotic because I never see red in winter except for the rosehip berries.

When I finally get my camera to zoom in on a bird, I’m delighted to identify red crossbills (left), a bird I rarely see here. Their crossed beaks, which allow them to bite into tightly closed pine cones, are something special. When they extract the seed, parts of the cone fall to the ground, accounting for the soft thuds I heard. I take their arrival as an early Christmas gift.  

The next morning I awake at 6, but sunrise is at least an hour away, so I must patiently wait for the sun to arrive. When it does it, it bursts onto the scene, ready to make a big statement. Its golden light floods the whole valley and illuminates each snowflake being blown down from Mount Meeker on this shortest day of the year. I watch the light hit the east side of the pine trees, which, like me, have been waiting all night for this one glorious moment.

Time of the Turkeys

I wouldn’t say that turkeys are my favorite animals, but now, as winter descends in the form of snow and cold, they at least entertain me. And there’s little other life now—mostly the Steller jays and an occasional rabbit. But the turkeys are always there. Every morning, a flock of at least 30 makes its rounds around the valley bottom. My neighbor, the same one who feeds the hummingbirds all summer, puts out seeds for the turkeys, who arrive in our mountain valley every fall.

But where they come from I’m not sure, presumably higher up in the hills and certainly not by migrating huge distances.  They can fly, but usually only up into the trees to roost for the night and find shelter from the coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions. I would love to see them fly, because I can’t imagine them lifting their big bodies upward or being able to hide in the tree branches.

From my neighbor’s house they amble around the neighborhood, pecking food from the ground. I love their walk, something slightly stiff and yet deliberate, almost comical, because they’re not graceful or elegant looking animals; their gait has been referred to as waddle, not a complimentary term. As they waddle along, making tracks in my yard, they make a variety of sounds, some of which sound like a cackle and others like a saxophonist warming up.

It's a far different cry than the coyotes’. One night I heard what sounded like dozens, coming from all over the valley, as if they were encircling us. I thought I heard them behind the house across the way. Their howling is chilling, and I imagined any animal out there—the rabbits and mice especially—quivering and alert. Even the turkeys, hopefully safe in the trees, must have shivered in apprehension and squeezed themselves farther into the tree branches.   

The next morning I awoke to 5-6 inches of snow, the kind that smothers all the trees in white. As the sun came up, strong winds blew the snowflakes down from the trees, sometimes lightly and other times so thick that I couldn’t see the house across the way. Either way, the sunlight illuminated each snowflake. On top of the ridge, the wind formed small tornadoes of snow, looking like plumes of smoke (above). It felt like the world was alive, full of movement and light.

Before the snows, the turkeys spent their foraging time pecking seeds from the ground, sometimes in a single file line, like soldiers going off to war. But after the snow, they were enterprising enough to grab seeds off the top of the grass stalks. Turkeys aren’t known for their playfulness (like the mice that chase each other in the cabin), so I laughed out loud when I saw them chasing each other around the base of the ponderosa pine, forming a complete circle. All they had to do was join hands and sing to make a perfect ensemble.

I hadn’t been looking forward to our first substantial snow, mostly because I love seeing the ground—the grasses that have gone to seed, the low-lying kinnikinnick, and the pine needles and cones. But when I went for a walk that afternoon, I remembered how much I love the snow, especially when it’s new and fresh, how it embraces and enfolds the forest. The sun on my face, the sweet moisture from the almost blinding snow, the fresh breezes and the view of snow-covered Mount Meeker were invigorating.

After the snow arrived, I put out food on the front deck for the Steller’s jays and any other bird that came along. So I was surprised, when I glanced out the window, to see at least four turkeys (above) on the front porch, gobbling up the seed.  Welcome, I wanted to say, and glad to have you in the neighborhood.  

Belonging to the Wilderness

For some people, what they are is not finished at the skin, but continues with the reach of the senses out into the land. … Such people are connected to the land as if by luminous fibers, and they live in a kind of time that is not of the moment, but in concert with memory, extensive, measured by a lifetime. To cut these fibers causes not only pain but a sense of dislocation.

—Barry Lopez in in Arctic Dreams

People come to the mountains for different reasons. There are the city dwellers who come up once or twice a year. The most popular time is in fall when the aspen turn gold at the same time the elk gather in huge herds and the males compete for the females with exciting clashes of antlers.

Other folks come for adventure: rock climbing on cliffs, mountain biking down steep trails or hiking up to alpine lakes or the high tundra. Around Meeker Park in warm weather I see caravans of trucks carrying ATVs to Forest Service roads where they make a lot of noise and scare the wildlife. In the winter those who love snow head for the big resorts to ski or snowboard, while others prefer the quieter pleasures of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing through alpine forests.

In the summer, people seek out wild flowers, starting at lower elevations in May or June and then working their way upward into summer and fall. Others are birdwatchers, intent on seeing the hummingbirds and other birds that only stay for the summer before migrating to warmer climates. Others want to see the wildlife: herds of elk, the moose hidden in the willow bushes and the unbearably cute chipmunks.

I love the animals, admire the wildflowers and enjoy hiking. But it’s more than that. People ask me why I visit my cabin all winter long, when most of the birds are gone, all the flowers have turned to seed, the bears and chipmunks have gone into hibernation, and the aspen trees are bare. On cold days the temperature can be 15 degrees inside the cabin. When I go for a walk, I have to be careful on roads that are rutted with ice.

Except for those exceptional days when the sun comes out after we’ve gotten a foot of snow and Mount Meeker is outlined by a brilliant blue sky, the winter landscape is not beautiful. In fact, on days when the skies are gray and the wind is blowing the trees so hard that I hold my breath waiting for one to crash on the roof, I question why I’m at the cabin when I could be in my less drafty and more comfortable home in Boulder.

Yet when I step outside, I know why. The stillness wraps itself around me like a blanket, cushions me against the worries of the world. There’s an emptiness that leaves room for anything else. I can hear my heart beat, a pine cone falling from the ponderosa, a stray dog barking across the valley, a chickadee calling and the creek muffled under ice.

I like to call it silence but it’s more than that. I love the wilderness, something apart from the world of commerce and busyness. Here I feel connected to a realm that has its own rhythms and reason for being. I belong here—among the trees; close to the deer, gray squirrels and Steller jays; and beneath the broad dome of sky. I'm part of nature, and nature is part of me.

The World Exposed

Last week I enjoyed that rare in-between time in the mountains. The leaves have fallen from the aspen trees and willow bushes, but snow had not yet covered the ground. So I could see the bones of the land—how the aspens cluster together in groves, how the willows fill the valley bottom, how the ice starts to form on the creek and ponds, and the sharp outline of the mountains, especially Mount Meeker, its wide profile that is briefly pink every morning as the sun sneaks up from the east.

The rabbits can’t hide in the grasses that have gone to seed, nor can the turkeys that strut through the yard every morning pecking at the ground. The moose are more visible without all the vegetation that otherwise obscures them.

I keenly feel the loss of the leaves—on both the willows and aspens—because their leaves blowing in the wind felt like the world was alive. Now it’s the strong winds that remind me that the world is still moving, as I watched the pine branches swaying, like a conductor leading the orchestra. And I could see more clearly the few birds that stay for the winter—the steller jays, the ravens and crows—especially as they caught the wind and lifted off into the sky. It was the ravens that alerted me to the carcass of a large animal--probably a deer--that I wish had been hidden by snow in the meadow. The night before I had heard the coyotes yipping, so this was probably their kill.

The winds cleared away any haze or pollution, and the air was so clear it felt like the world was being illuminated, that everything was in extra sharp relief: the Highland cattle basking in the sunlight, one leaning over to rest his head against the other; the stark white trunks of the aspen trees; the white clouds that streaked across the sky, as if coaxing my eyes across this infinite expanse. It was still warm enough (in the 50s) that I could linger, listen to the ravens, trace the clouds in the sky, watch the fish in the creek dart away.

When I stopped on my walk, the silence was tremendous, filling in the whole valley. Mount Meeker was barren, its quiet presence looming over the valley. I could feel the stillness, as if everything was hushed before the turmoil of winter. I wanted to hang on to this peace and quiet, because I know it won’t last.

Drop All Expectations

I should have this Buddhist slogan tattooed on my arm, because I never seem to remember that it doesn’t work to anticipate something—either good or bad—because we don’t know what will happen.

Two weeks ago, I hiked to Bierstadt Lake (below) in Rocky Mountain National Park. At this time of the year, I’m usually engulfed in a sea of glowing aspens—not just on the trail but looking up the valley toward Bear Lake: whole hillsides of green, yellow, orange and red. But two weeks ago, the aspen were still green, with only patches of color way up high.

After the momentary disappointment of not seeing a rich panorama of colors, I still enjoyed the hike, especially the views of the gray, granite peaks across the valley and in the sharp cirque to the west. I looked forward to being at the lake, to sitting among the autumn grasses on the shore and eating my trail mix and apple. Possibly, like the previous time, a moose might step out of the woods and into the lake. But when I got to the lake, I saw an ominous dark gray cloud to the west, and soon I was being pelted by hail and cold rain. I made a hasty retreat back down.

This week, I was looking forward to hiking one of my favorite aspen trails in Rocky Mountain National Park. The park isn’t known for colorful displays, as its hillsides are covered mostly with conifers. But the Hollowell Park trail was logged before the park was established, leaving an empty gash for aspens to thrive along the creek. I love the combination of the luminous aspen canopy over the trail and below the dark water and boulders, many emblazoned with yellow leaves. Hiking this trail has become an autumn ritual for at least 20 years.

But halfway up the path, the aspen trees had already dropped their leaves. I grumped along for awhile before remembering the teaching I had learned: stay open to whatever is in front of you. Soon I started noticing the hillside across the creek (above), full of golden grasses backlit by the sun, and the thick trunks of the pine trees—dark shadows among the golden light.

And yet, still I hurried up the trail, eager to get to the large grove of aspens whose trunks were thin and tall, reaching up to the sky. But when I got there, the trees were dead. I had forgotten that the wildfire two years ago had come through here. Or maybe I had hoped that the trees weren’t totally destroyed in the fire and that new leaves would have sprouted last spring.

So many times I’ve sat in this grove and let the brilliant light wash over me, tilted my head back to the tops of these trees, where the golden leaves fluttered against the brilliant blue sky beyond. But that experience is gone, and so I wanted to keep going, to find something else, but the trail had been flooded, so I had to struggle over downed trees and through gravel beds that had been washed down from the slopes where the trees and shrubs no longer held the ground in place since the fire.

I finally gave up, but before turning back, I noticed that young aspen had sprung up among the dead trees in the two years since the fire. They were only 3 or 4 feet high, but they glowed among the dead trunks. It was a sign of life that I had nearly missed, because at first I only saw the loss of one of my favorite aspen groves. Let the light shine in.

As the Earth Turns

The hummingbirds left a month ago, the ground squirrels disappeared two weeks ago, most of the flowers are gone, and the aspens are in their final fall plumage. I grieve for the passing of summer and the coming onset of winter, yet part of me rejoices that nature is still on schedule.

With the world entering climate uncertainty—not to mention climate disasters in places including Pakistan, Puerto Rico and, most recently, Florida—I take comfort in the changing of the seasons.

In early September, after being gone for a week, I immediately noticed something missing. The hummingbirds had left, and I felt the loss of their energetic buzzing and darting, and their dazzling colors. But their mass migration—a 1,500 mile trip to Mexico, happens every year at the same time. They are heeding nature’s call—whether it’s due to the dwindling flowers, fewer insects or colder nights or some internal urging—I’m not sure. When they arrive in May, there is usually snow on the ground, almost no flowers blooming, and few insects to eat. But the same urge that brought them here last spring is sending them south in fall, as the days shorten.

Last week, the ground squirrels disappeared, presumably into hibernation, as they do every year at this time, although I wonder if the goshawk I saw last week may have something to do with their disappearance, or the mountain lion that appeared on my neighbor’s wildlife camera.

On Lily Lake, most of the ducks that have been here all summer have taken off for places unknown. Yet, in the midst of some creatures leaving, other animals are returning. In the past two weeks, the wild turkeys have come down from the hills to make their usual rounds around our cabins in the cold months. The herds of elk that have been in the high country all summer have come down into town.

The flowers are mostly spent, although I’ve spotted a few lingering blue harebells on my walks. Two weeks ago, the blue gentians bloomed on schedule, the last of summer’s bounty. This week, I can’t find a trace of them.

On top of Trail Ridge last week (above), the tundra has turned rust colored and the thistle flowers are spent, their white seed heads flapping in the wind. Although the elk are gone and the marmots have retreated into their eight-month hibernation, the pikas (left) are still active, gathering more grasses to line their rock homes for the long winter.

And the aspen, which didn’t start leafing out until June last spring, took their time changing color, but the shorter days are finally catching up with them, and this week are lighting up every hillside and valley—a luscious gold that melts my heart every year. Can something be so beautiful that it hurts? Or is it the pain of losing all that will slumber for the next six months?

Meanwhile, more storms have been rolling through. Last night, the mountains got their first snow, so there’s no doubt that we’re moving into a different season. I, too, need to get ready.