Cabin Journal

Summer Disrupted

It’s been a summer unlike any other. It started out late but full of promise. With snow and cold temperatures in April, the pasqueflowers didn’t start emerging until May, but when they did these first flowers of spring were profuse—covering hillsides with their cups of purple light. Soon came the aspens and willows leafing out, then the purple lupine, columbines and wild roses.

But by July, all that was left around my cabin were the shrubby cinquefoil and drought-tolerant sulfur flowers.  Every summer gets warmer now. When I first bought the cabin, some 12 years ago, I enjoyed temperatures in the 70s—a welcome respite from the heat on the plains. But  with the temperatures in Denver and Boulder creeping up to the high 90s for at least the past month, even at the cabin it’s been in the 80s and uncomfortably warm.  At night, the cabin barely cools down.

From the cabin I can look east and see the huge cumulus clouds (above) developing, which occasionally produce destructive hailstorms on the plains but no rain for the mountains. With almost no moisture for several weeks, the heat and drought have taken its toll. On the east side of the cabin, the grasses that grew tall and profuse in past years are sparse. The rose bushes (left) that line the road in front of the cabin are almost bare. The yard around the cabin looks more like October, when all the vegetation has dried up, than mid-summer.

 

It’s not just the natural world that has been disrupted this year but also the human one. Because of the pandemic, I haven’t been able to get to my usual hiking trails and my favorite alpine lakes. To get in Rocky Mountain National Park, I need a reservation, and they are often booked several days ahead of time. But when I do manage to find an opening, the trails are less crowded, because the government limits the number of visitors. Meanwhile, other trails that don’t have similar restrictions are  packed with more people than I’ve ever seen, with cars parked a half mile down the road from the trailhead.

This week, while hiking up the Arapahoe Pass trail in the nearby national forest, a friend and I encountered a parade of people coming down. One woman told us the crowds forced  her to turn around, as there’s almost no room on this narrow, steep trail to step aside for other hikers—a concern now when state rules mandate keeping six feet apart. There was a time, not so long ago, when my biggest fear on this trail was fording the sometimes high streams. Now it’s making my sure my mask is on when I see someone approaching and trying to move off the trail as much as possible.

Still, on the trail the blue harebells, orange Indian paintbrush and purple monkshood were blooming on the hillsides. When I look at my photos from the past two months, I’m happy to see the red crossbill (above), a bird whose beak is crossed so it can pry open pine cones to get the seeds. In June I was lucky enough to see the startling pinkish-purple of a group of Indian paintbrush (above) at Brainard Lake and a profusion of columbine growing among aspen near my cabin.

Either because of the bare ground around the cabin or a population surge, I’ve seen more small critters this year than in the past. Chipmunks and ground squirrels come up on the deck (left) to check me out, while gray squirrels scold me from the trees, and voles, a small rodent that lives mostly underground, scurry through the short grasses. With equal parts dismay and an appreciation for their adorableness, I watch as the chipmunks and ground squirrels eat the tops off my dwindling flowers.

Some of the birds that kept me company in May and June have fledged and gone—the house wrens and the Western bluebirds—but the swallows still cut through the sky at alarming speeds and angles. Last week I watched juncos pick bugs off the ground to feed to their squawking babies.

Like everyone else, I want to return to a normal summer—with plenty of rain, cool temperatures, no crowds on my favorite trails nor worries about getting infected. But I have a feeling that the world has passed some tipping point and that life will never be the same (and probably never was). I need to accept that and enjoy  the natural world that still teems with energy and beauty—even if some of that life is eating all my flowers.

There Goes the Neighborhood

When I first bought my cabin in Meeker Park, only two couples lived on my road year-round. The rest of the cabins and houses were empty through much of the year, used as vacation homes in the summer and on holidays such as Christmas.

Then Louise, who had lived in Florida part of the year with her husband, divorced him and settled down for a full-time life in Meeker Park. It took another five or six years before a minister and his wife bought the cabin that had been owned for decades by a couple who came here from Kansas for the summer. At about the same time, two men from New York City moved here to take full-time jobs and bought the house by the creek, which had been vacant for most of the year.

Just in the past month, two cabins behind mine have been sold: one to a younger couple who plan on living here all year along and the other cabin to a woman who is moving from the nearby tourist town of Estes Park to Meeker Park.

It feels like some tide has turned. In my neighborhood, full-time residents now equal those who come just on the weekends or for a few weeks in the summer. Traffic on our narrow, dirt road sometimes can be heavy. And it’s happening all over Meeker Park, as I see new houses going up or old cabins being enlarged.

It’s not just more people but a new mix. In the old days, only retired people lived here, and seniors formed the web of support here, especially in winter. But some of the newer, young residents prefer to keep to themselves, and I can feel the loss of community.

I don’t know precisely what’s driving this population “boom,” but since the pandemic started, there’s been a rush of people leaving congested cities for more remote areas, where there’s more space to move around, even during a lockdown. When everything else is shut down—restaurants, stores, museums—nature is always available. For many people,  being among the forests or by the ocean has proved to be the balm for fears and anxieties about COVID-19. During the darkest days, how many people were cheered just by the sound of bird songs?

As the pandemic closed down previously accessible parks and open space, and restricted access to places like Rocky Mountain National Park, it started to become clear that, for those who could afford it, the easiest way to get outside and experience nature was to own a piece of it.

Even before the lockdown, housing prices were increasing in Estes Park and I’ve noticed in the past year more earth being scraped and trees torn down for new subdivisions in the gateway town to RMNP. Now I’m wondering if people being squeezed out of Estes are moving to places as remote as Meeker Park. It used to be that only the hardiest people would endure our six months of winter, because many homes were originally uninsulated and without plumbing, but a few years ago the county decreed that all homes needed to have septic systems, and new homes are built tightly for warmth. Then came satellite dishes for TV and the Internet, although you still can’t get cell phone service here.

Since I bought this cabin, more than 12 years ago, housing prices have doubled in Meeker Park. The dream of owning a cheap cabin in the woods is long gone, as is the fantasy of a place largely isolated and unconnected from civilization. When I moved here, I was looking for a place to escape the world, but the world is starting to catch up with me.

Retaming the Park

A few days after Rocky Mountain National Park reopened, about three weeks ago, I saw three male turkeys cross the road near the popular Cub Lake trailhead. Since all three had their tails fanned out, apparently to impress the lone female walking behind them, it was a memorable sight, especially because wild turkeys generally avoid roads and trails.

A park shuttle was behind me, so when I stopped at the next parking lot, I asked the driver if he had seen the turkeys. He had and added that he had never seen these huge birds there before. We both wondered if, in these past months of the park being closed—to humans, that is—animals had gradually taken over some of their old territory.

On my hike, I encountered a woman who had been frightened by seeing a bear on the trail. I think the bear was just as surprised to see her, because it immediately fled. For almost three months, it had the trails all to itself (along with some elk and deer, I presume). Now we humans were invading its space again.

I had been hearing stories about wild animals coming closer to town while people were shut in their homes during the pandemic. A friend who lives in Estes Park often saw bighorn sheep near the park entrance, a congested place where, in normal times, cars are lined up to get into the park—an area that shy animals, like the sheep, avoid. Without the humans around, the bighorn sheep were reclaiming some ancestral route or winter home, even if it now is an RV park.

I read a study that found that wildlife—bears, mountain lions, deer, elk, etc.—avoid humans and their trails and roads, keeping a wide berth from us. (One exception is moose, like these young ones, above, at Lily Lake a few years ago, that don't seem bothered by all the humans taking their pictures.) The shutdown of the park since March must have been a treat—and revelation—for them. They didn't have to tiptoe around our human presence. Unfortunately for the animals—and for humans who like peace and isolation—that respite has fast come to an end.

Last week, at Lily Lake (top) for my first kayaking of the season, both parking lots were full and cars were parked along the road. Compared to the past few months of emptiness, it was a scene of mayhem: people not staying on designated trails but treading across hillsides; walking with their dogs (not allowed) and riding bikes (also not allowed); children chasing ducks and throwing rocks in the lake; and a teen boy taking his remote-controlled toy truck on the path around the lake.

I try to remember that people are here because they want to enjoy nature—and everyone does it in their own way. Maybe the teen's toy truck made him feel more comfortable in  nature.

There was nothing for me to do but paddle out to the middle of the lake and watch the natural wildlife: the salamanders that swim like a fish but have legs like a lizard; the ducks that seem unbothered by all the people and the dragonflies that touch the water briefly and then fly off. On the Twin Sisters and Longs Peak, the last light of day shimmers.

I take a deep breath. The park is open for business again, in all its glory and chaos.

 

World According to Birds

Last April, I was walking my familiar trail at the cabin, which goes through a grove of aspen that leads to the pond. In front of me on the ground was a female finch, probably a rosy finch and probably a young one, because it didn’t seem to have the natural fears of an older bird, allowing me to get as close as a foot away.

On one side of the path was a small snowbank, and the bird pecked at the snow. Was it enjoying the wetness or were there bits of food in there, undetectable to a human eye? From small puddles in the path, the kind that I would smash as I walked over them, the bird delicately took sips of water, and I could see the small gulps going down its throat.

How could something so small exist? Have a life most people are unaware of? From time to time it would pause, as if it were sensing things around it, and I imagined life on the ground, feeling every piece of dirt, every small watering hole, every breeze that ruffled its feathers.

In the past few months, as life has slowed to a crawl, my world narrowed to the natural world right in front of me. Rather than long hikes that end at spectacular waterfalls or vistas, I'm watching birds at the cabin and at my house feeder, and entering into their world as much as I can.

One morning at home, I was sitting in the backyard near the bird bath when I saw a house finch followed by young ones. After the parent left, the babies sat on the edge of the bird bath, contemplating, it seemed, this water and what should be done with it. One bird stuck its beak in and took a sip, seemed to like what it tasted, and then took a few more sips. Without warning, it jumped in, bobbing up and down in the water and fluffing out its feathers. I silently shared its joy at discovering water and all its indescribable  qualities.

At the cabin, I've been waiting all spring for the house wrens to arrive; their clear and melodic songs can pierce my heart. Just when I had given up and assumed they had found better lodgings elsewhere, they are suddenly everywhere. On the side of the garage, behind the cabin, a pair has been building a nest inside an old bird box (above).

From the back deck, I watched as one wren landed on the ground in front of me and poked around for the perfect-size twig, which seemed to be around 3-4 inches long, discarding others that were too long, too short or too thick. It then flew to the bird box and attempted to get this four-inch stick into a one-inch hole, having to maneuver the stick around in its beak before it was able to get it in the box. While it was doing that, its mate had found another stick and was waiting impatiently for the first one (males and females look alike) to add to the pile. Sometimes one got impatient and pushed the other one aside, much like a married couple: "Oh, let me do that, if you can't."

On the other side of the garage, the violet-green swallows have taken over the bird box (above), close enough to the house that, from my table, I can watch them swoop and sail at my eye level. They are amazing flyers, able to turn on a dime to catch a passing insect.

Meanwhile the hummingbirds dart from tree to bush and back, while a vulture soars just over the tops of the trees, close enough for me to see its giant wings. One day I saw three ducks fly overhead, an unusual sight here in the mountains where ponds are few and far between. This landscape of dense coniferous forests broken by a few open meadows and cabins would have meant nothing to them. I knew they were looking for one thing: the glint of water, something round and reflective—a safe pond to land on.

There are so many other worlds out there--complex almost beyond our imagining. Through an intervention from the human world, we've been allowed to glimpse one of them. It's taken a pandemic to get us to slow down and notice what's been there all along. For that, I'm grateful.

A Final Note

Every year, I promise myself that I won’t write another blog about pasqueflowers, like I do every year at this time. What more can I say about these flowers that bloom early in spring, when everything else is brown and spring is just a glint in my eye, possibly from the sun getting higher in the sky?

Yet this year, I’ve seen more pasqueflowers than ever before, probably caused by the mid-April snowstorm that delayed their blooming plus providing moisture for even more to flower than usual. Every week on my walks around Meeker Park, I’m astounded by their profusion as well as their beauty.

Yet now, as we creep toward spring, with the aspen starting to leaf out, these flowers that for the past month have cheered me are starting to pass into their next stage. The petals are becoming more limp and drowsy, and fading from dark purple to pale gray. Soon they will go to seed, producing tassels that stream in the wind, and then they'll become invisible, burying back into the ground for another 11 months.

This is the story of all plants, and yet I can't help but wonder why. What is the point of their existence? Of their bravery in being the first plant to emerge after winter—before the lupines and columbines blossom, before the hummingbirds arrive and before the last snowfall?

During this pandemic, many people have been pulled out of the darkness of their isolation by the song of a bird or by seeing tulips and iris bloom. To see life emerging among so much suffering, illness and death seems somehow nothing short of a miracle.

And yet. Nature doesn't exist for us. The pasqueflowers don't bloom to make me happy but to ensure their species continues. The swallows don't soar in the sky to lift up my heart. The creek doesn't run full so I can enjoy the sound of rushing water. The clouds don't pulse across the sky to pull me out of my sadness.  

We're part of nature, part of the living and dying. When autumn comes again and nature pulls back for the season, we'll be part of that, too, perhaps witnessing more suffering. So now, as I say good-bye to the pasqueflowers for another year, I’ll hold their tenderness and light that they shed so easily and generously.

Discovering New Lands

I was supposed to be in Alaska next week but, like everyone else, I’m not going anywhere. And, like most people I know, I’m feeling desperate to see new landscapes, but the state government discourages travel beyond 10 miles of our homes.

As much as I love my walks around Meeker Park, last week my brain needed some new stimulus, even if it was just driving five miles down the road to the big metropolis of Allenspark—population 500.

Sometimes we just need to reorient our brains, jolt them a bit. From Allenspark I can look up at the southern side of Mount Meeker rather than the majestic eastern flank that I see from my cabin. It’s a slightly different view, enough to make me rethink the landscape a bit, to remind myself there is no fixed view of anything.

I’ve driven to or through Allenspark hundreds of times—to eat at one of the two restaurants in town or to get water from the springs. But I don’t think I’ve ever explored the town on foot. The “downtown” area is a cluster of a few commercial buildings, the post office, a tiny log church, an historic tourist lodge and many cabins. Realtors use the word “rustic” for these small log buildings that look like a good wind would topple them. One cabin sits precariously on tree stumps. Yet some have been sitting there since the late 19^th century, when Allenspark became more than a gleam in a prospector’s eye.

I walked west out of town on one of the main roads that dead-ends at a Forest Service trailhead. There were few cars, so I was free to let my eyes roam, without worrying about traffic.

Scattered throughout the hillsides and aspen groves are cabins, both big and small. One looked like the original cabin had additional rooms tacked on to it, but not in any cohesive manner, as if they were added by different people at different times who had conflicting ideas as to the best design. Another cabin was nestled up against a boulder three times as large as the cabin.

Like Meeker Park, instead of street signs, Allenspark residents tack boards onto the trunks of pine trees, with the names lined up vertically, like a ladder. They form a kind of group sculpture, each board reflecting the creativity or personality of the owner: different colors, shapes, lettering. Each assembly is unique, much more interesting than a government-issued street sign.

A bit farther down the road, someone had neatly stacked wood that could have won first prize for most artistic wood pile. And farther down the road, horses softly greeted me from a fenced enclosure.

Along the way, I heard hummingbirds and the lilting sound of a ruby-crowned kinglet. Water was running everywhere: through aspen forests, alongside the road, and forming pools in the fields, from which I could hear the sound of frogs. In these fields, popping up from last year’s dead grasses are this year’s first pasqueflowers, almost the only color now in this still barren landscape.

I thought of one of my favorite quotes, from Marcel Proust: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

But one of the things I love about traveling is that I see everything with new eyes. In this newly closed world, even a trip down the road is enough to awaken me.

Sharing my Space

In some ways I love being at the cabin more in winter than in summer. Summer is glorious (and short)—a multitude of wildflowers and wildlife—chipmunks, hummingbirds and bears—plus roaring creeks and hillsides of green aspen. But winter, with its blanket of snow and absence of people, provides peace and quiet that departs once the summer visitors arrive. Out walking on the lonely roads in winter (the season still lingering after 3 feet of snow last week), where I see almost no one, my heart fills with all the space and emptiness, and the almost depthless sky.

When the summer people start returning (in a normal year that would be in May), I feel some resentment, like they are disturbing my tranquility and invading my space—the one I’ve held all winter—through blizzards, strong winds and bone-chilling cold.

So I can partly identify with the residents of Colorado mountain towns who want to shut their doors to out-of-towners, especially city residents along the Front Range of Colorado who are trying desperately to escape their quarantines and enjoy the mountains. Residents of towns like Vail or Estes Park don't want crowds of Denverites bringing their germs and don't want them buying scarce groceries at their markets.

As both a mountain and plains dweller, I can see both sides. As someone who needs nature, I can understand why people are turning to the outdoors, now more than ever. It’s not just to escape the constrictions of their homes and neighborhoods, but to see and experience a different reality: one that is open and free and full of life now: migrating birds, fields turning green, trees leafing out, flowers starting to emerge. It makes me happy to see so many people using the trails and open space around Boulder. In one of our darkest times, people are turning to nature for comfort.

At the cabin, I’m noticing more cars around Meeker Park, more people looking for places to exercise and be in nature, especially since Rocky Mountain National Park is closed. Most will be met with “private property” signs and fences, which leaves the county roads the only place to walk.

Even as someone who has a cabin in Meeker Park, I resent these “no trespassing” signs that essentially say: This is my land, and you’re not welcome here. Places I used to explore are now closed to me, and the original inhabitants of this valley—the bears, the deer, the elk—have to climb over fences to get to the creeks or up the hills.

For those of us lucky to have a place in the mountains, I think we need to be more open to “outsiders,” more willing to share this beauty and freedom, especially now and especially to those who respect this place and the wildlife, who don’t drive fast on our narrow roads and don’t throw their beer cans on the ground. Perhaps we can see our way out of this catastrophe by focusing on the splendor of nature. Perhaps those visitors who come to our valley seeking hope and respite from the torrent of daily bad news will find it here. I hope so.

 

Love the Place You’re At

These days the old folk-rock song (by Stephen Stills) keeps going through my mind: “Love the One You’re With,” except now it’s my neighborhood I’m with and that I'm getting to know intimately.

In these times of restrictions and shutdowns, I can’t get to many of my favorite places to hike. Rocky Mountain National Park is closed, which means that I can’t enjoy the waterfalls and deep pools along the St. Vrain River in nearby Wild Basin nor see the first bit of green in the meadows below the Twin Owls rock formations, where I often see a herd of elk in spring.

Around Boulder, many of my favorite trails, usually empty during the week, are crowded with hikers, dog walkers, runners and others. Not only is there no place to park, but social distancing guidelines would be hard to maintain on these crowded trails.

So I’ve narrowed my world to within a few miles of where I live, both here in Boulder and at the cabin. A mile from my home is a nature preserve (above), formed after a gravel mining operation left several open pits that filled in with water and gradually became marshes. Over decades, these ponds attracted frogs, ducks, geese, muskrats, foxes, hawks, eagles and other wildlife, while the land was reclaimed by cottonwood trees as well as cattails.

Because it’s so close, I’ve hiked there hundreds of times, so I know the land intimately. I know where the great horned owls roost, and I have a favorite cottonwood tree (above), so massive that its numerous limbs are bigger than most trees.

Because I know this place so well, I slow down and try to notice even more: last week it was an osprey couple on their platform, a kingfisher hovering above one of the ponds and, most gloriously, the sound of frogs emanating from each pond, like a huge chorus of life.

At the cabin this week, I had thought to drive down to Estes Park. Even though the park was closed, I could still walk around Lake Estes or even explore this now almost empty town, usually packed with tourists. But I had a strong feeling that I needed to stay where I was, to get deeper into the place I loved so much, notice all the spring changes around Meeker Park: the small white flowers, the aspens starting to bud out, and the pond now almost entirely free of ice. Two weeks ago, I saw my first bluebird.

If home is where the heart is, I’m just getting closer to my heart.

The Earth Softens

Desperate for something promising in a world that now seems to offer only obstructions and complications, I did my usual walk this week around Meeker Park looking intently for new signs of life. I found it first in the barely discernible new shoots of green sage (below), one of our hardiest plants in this harsh climate. I wanted to inhale its familiar pungent smell, get as close to the earth as possible, so I tore off a small bit of these plants, which hug the ground, staying low in these still cold nights.

Last week, on the road leading to the pond, I had to detour up the hill to avoid the deep snow, slush and mud on the dirt road. But this week most of it had melted and dried, and the ground has become soft and yielding, releasing some bounce in my own step, some joy at this landscape springing back to life.

The aspens are starting to flower, producing catkins—soft furry seeds (softer than my cat’s fur) that will disperse in a few months, sending a green pollen across the valley. And the willow bushes (below) seem more intensely red and yellow. Is it just the spring light or my new vision?

Best of all, the pond is starting to thaw, just an opening at either end, but enough to rigorously spill water across the road, through the dense aspen grove and down into the valley bottom where it will blend with Cabin Creek flowing northeast to merge with the St. Vrain, which makes it way through the canyon before joining with the South Platte and eventually the Mississippi River.

In this time of new restrictions on traveling, I come up to the cabin just for the day. On the drive up, the St. Vrain Canyon is almost empty of cars, and on the roads around Meeker Park I see few cars and no other people, just a huge sky held together by these mountains. When I think of all the people packed into cities, their lives threatened by this virus, I feel grateful for all this emptiness, but the gratitude is combined with sorrow and fear for all of us, mixed like the creeks that blend together almost effortlessly and like last year’s dead grasses lying together with the tender new shoots.

A Brief Thaw

 

Last week, on the Big Thompson River, I witnessed this group of pines breaking free from the layers of snow, as the temperatures warmed into the 50s. In this spot, where the river was wider, the sun's warming rays had melted the snow and opened up this clear pool. I could have sat there forever, watching spring emerge, and I was lucky enough to see a river otter run along the bank—only the second time I’ve ever seen an otter in Colorado.

But this week, returning to the cabin, I found more snow—one neighbor measured 18 inches—and the landscape again is all white. I can’t get back to the Big Thompson, as the government decided to close Rocky Mountain National Park. So life goes now: a little opening and then it’s shut. We’ll have to take our openings where we can.