Cabin Journal

A Day of Contrasts

I knew snow was forecast when I went to the cabin this week. Still, it was a shock to see the grass coming up through the snow and hear the hummingbirds buzzing, while the drifting flakes changed from hard grauppel to lightly feathered, as the temperatures flirted around the freezing mark.

My brain was confused. It appeared to be winter—snow on the ground with  more snow coming down and the pine trees heavily smothered in white, —and yet the calendar says May 21, and there’s new plants coming up, the aspens are starting to leaf out, and young ground squirrels are running around.

I headed for the Fern Lake Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, where there were more incongruent sensations: as the snow drifted around me, waterfalls spilled off the cliffs to the north; small purple violets were popping up; the leaves of the willow and dogwood bushes were starting to unfurl; and the small meadow by the river seemed impossibly green.

After a while, my mind stopped trying to compute this paradox and accepted it, because the landscape was truly beautiful.

 

There’s the soft brush of lime green from the aspen trees across the creek; the tenderness of the whirling snowflakes; the intense colors of the moss and lichen on the boulders; and the fragments of clouds that circle the mountains, muting their harshness. On top of all these visual sensations, all this moisture has released deep, fragrant smells that haven't existed since last fall.

But it’s a cruel beauty, too, because nature has to suffer, has to endure colder temperatures than usual. The hummingbirds, in particular, have to work harder to stay warmer and find food. The usual food sources for chipmunks, bears and birds in spring are delayed, so animals must find other sources—sometimes at the cost of starvation.

And it’s ominous too because this cold weather that has persisted for weeks would indicate a new and disturbing weather pattern –one with the potential to disrupt life. I’m torn: do I enjoy this day of new sensations or worry about the future of this planet? A little of both, I guess. It's the paradox of our lives now.

The Place at the End of the Road

I often wonder how people find Meeker Park.  It’s tucked off one of the main routes to the tourist town of Estes Park. Most people speed by Cabin Creek Road, the dirt road that leads down to this assemblage of cabins grouped around the valley bottom (referred to as a park in the classic sense of the word) and in the shadow of 13,900-foot Mount Meeker.

Passing motorists might notice the historic Meeker Park Lodge on the main road and slow down enough to be curious about Cabin Creek Road, which is just past the lodge. I first found Meeker Park, more than 10 years ago now, via a real estate listing. Others find it through family connections or word of mouth. After visiting my place, my sister and her husband bought two cabins here. Many of the cabins are owned by families that go back several generations.

Of all the stories I’ve heard, I like Kyla’s best. She and her husband were taking their yearly summer vacation to Estes Park from their home in Kansas. One day, the weather  wasn’t cooperating with their plans for hiking, so instead they decided to do some exploring by car. Heading south from Estes toward Allenspark, something made them turn onto Cabin Creek Road. Through a series of serendipitous turns, they ended up on Bill Waite Road, just a few houses down from my cabin, where the road splits in two.

That’s where Kyla and her husband turned around but not before noticing a red wood-slatted cabin (in the center of the photo)—and the people inside curiously watching them, as if the residents didn’t see a lot of people come down the road.

Something about that cabin and about Meeker Park sent Kyla and her husband back to Estes to look for a real estate agent to help them buy property in the area. Not knowing where to start, they asked the proprietor of a gift shop if he knew of a good real estate agent. Coincidentally, this man had friends who wanted to sell their house, and he gave them the directions.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that, the next day, the directions delivered them to the same red-painted cabin they had seen the day before. Sometimes fate delivers us to the exact spot where we want to be, even if we didn’t know it before we found it.

I didn’t know Kyla then, but I presume she and her husband enjoyed the cabin for several decades until he died prematurely young. After that, Kyla made the trip every summer to the cabin alone, stacking her van with everything she would need for three months.

Even though I'm not far from Kyla's house, I didn’t get to know her until the great flood of 2013, when Kyla, then in her 80s, and a few other neighbors were stranded together, our exit blocked by washed-out roads. Daily, we traded the latest rumors and information about the extent of the flood’s damage. One day, she caught me transporting back to the creek, in a pail, a fish that the flood had dumped in a ditch that had only a few inches of water.

A few years later she told that story over dinner to neighbors who weren’t here during the flood. It was the last time I saw her. She died of cancer the following winter. At dinner that summer night, with the hummingbirds still buzzing in the early twilight, she didn’t tell any of us about the cancer that must certainly have been already ravaging her body. I have a feeling she knew this would be her last summer in Meeker Park.

I miss her and wish she were still here to help me fill in the details of the story she told years ago of how she found her cabin. Maybe we find places because our heart draws us to them, and these places are just sitting here, waiting for us to find them. I know there will be others, like me and like Kyla, who will find their way to this magic little kingdom without knowing how they actually got here.

What Spring Feels Like

With all the snow still on Mount Meeker (right), it may not look like May, but the signs of spring are unmistakable. After being gone from the cabin for two weeks, I arrived to find something missing—something huge. Almost all the snow had melted, so when I looked out the back window, I could see the picnic table that had been covered with snow all winter. On the east side, the septic system was now visible. The back porch was unburied.

Small shoots of grass are coming up among last year’s dead grasses, and I can hear the frogs down by the creek, singing quite lustily. A few weeks ago, the ground squirrels and chipmunks were out, looking a little dazed after a long winter underground. This week I heard the unmistakable buzzing of a hummingbird. Around the valley, the aspens are blossoming (below), a pale pink against the deep blue sky.  

It feels like the shackles are coming off the earth. Now that the weight of the snow is gone, the earth is rebounding, and life is emerging: the chipmunks and bears from hibernation, the pasqueflowers and spring beauty poking up from the ground; the hummingbirds, house wrens and swallows arriving from other parts of the world. All of nature is responding to the sun’s warmth, as the earth turns toward the sun. Even the creek, silent all winter under a mantle of snow, has come alive, filling every corner of the creekbed, speeding down the hillside, finally free to go where it wants. Every crease in the hills is filled with running water.

It feels like an explosion of energy that can’t be controlled, like something that has been tightly held in check has been loosened. Who knows what this could lead to?

 

Another Boring Day in Paradise

A popular bumper sticker in the tourist town of Estes Park sports the saying, “Another Ho-Hum Day in Paradise.” Some tourists are confused by it, but for those of us who live here, it’s a reminder that a ho-hum day in the mountains is better than a fantastic day almost anywhere else.  Even on a gray day when the wind is whipping the pine trees back and forth, you only need to look up and west to see the cirque of high peaks covered in snow, and there’s paradise right in front of you.

When I arrived last week at the cabin, it seemed about as ho-hum day as you could get. The skies were hazy, and melting snow revealed brown ground, seemingly flattened of all life. It was a far cry from the fields starting to green up on the plains.

I headed to Wild Basin, several hundred feet higher than Meeker Park, where the snow was still deep and covered the road that serves as a trail in winter. The landscape was etched in black and white, stark and beautiful in its own way. The dark trunks of the conifers appeared to be growing out of the snow, while in the distance the granite mass of Mount Copeland was engraved in white. Along the creek (above and left), the pale bark of aspen trees contrasted with gray granite boulders. On the St. Vrain river, enough snow had melted in the past week for the creek to break through the chunks of ice, forming ink-dark pools and narrow slits of running water—the creek just starting to edge toward spring rambunctiousness.

Above me, the sky’s mood shifted between sunlight and snowstorms. If I looked up at the top of the cliffs, I could see a blur of white, then watch it sink lower into this valley. Suddenly I was surrounded by big ornate flakes, so thick I couldn’t see the tops of the cliffs. And then the skies would lift again, and some light would be let through, making more shadows in the dark woods.

It was a reminder that in the mountains there are no boring, ho-hum days. Each day brings its own rewards, if we just stay awake.

Mountain Dreaming

Above the Twin Sisters Peak Thursday appeared two thought bubbles in the form of clouds. It was a typical spring day, with clouds forming and reforming, racing at different altitudes, some slow and steady, others whipping across the sky in a rush to be somewhere else. But these two clouds paused for a moment, as if to recognize some synchronicity, some parallel destiny with the rocky spires below.

Some exchange was passed, and the clouds moved on, leaving the mountain in its own thoughts. And leaving me to watch other clouds form shapes that I could barely grasp before they melded back into the atmosphere.

Just Basking

Although there is still a foot of snow on the ground, the temperatures last week climbed into the 50s, enough to melt the edges of the snowdrifts--the places, I like to think, where the pasqueflowers (right, from last spring) will be emerging in a few weeks. In fact, they might be under the snow right now, just biding their time, ready to spring to action when the right time comes.

After a cold winter, is there anything more pleasurable than basking in the warm sun? Because the winds coming off Mount Meeker are still strong, I seek shelter on the east side of the cabin, where it forms an “L” that blocks the strongest winds. Instead, they angle around the edge of the building and become more breeze-like than tree-whipping gale—just enough to cool me off when the sun’s rays become too intense.

Although sitting in front of a heater or radiator provides the same warming benefits, the sun’s rays deliver something beyond heat. The same life-giving properties that cause the pasqueflowers (also known as western anemones) to open or the aspen buds to blossom also nurtures something in humans.

I think of my father, when he was in his 80s and always cold, finding a basking spot in the senior facility where he and my mom lived. In the afternoon, the sun’s rays hit a bench in a hall at just the right angle for an hour or so of good warming. Or my cat, who stretches out his body on the carpet where a wedge of sunlight pours in when I crack open the front door in the morning.

In a few months, I’ll be complaining of the heat and of the omnipresent sun. But for today, it feels just right.

My Slow-Walk Movement

With a brace on my left foot to combat tendinitis, I’ve been forced to slow down. Not that I’ve ever been capable of storming up steep mountain trails, but my injury (and doctor) have left me with no choice but to walk on level trails (or as level as one finds in the mountains) and at a gait that allows me to view individual pebbles in the road.

Better yet, I’ve used this occasion to allow myself to take frequent breaks when I’m walking. My doctor doesn’t want me walking at all, but I have a strong need to be outdoors—seeing what’s new every week, breathing in the fresh air, hearing the wind and the crows—so I compromise with my doctor’s orders by walking slowly and mindfully and stopping every 10 or 15 minutes.

On my walks around Meeker Park, I pause to admire the rough textured wall of an old barn (below) or notice the small opening of water in the white snow (bottom). I find little nooks where I can rest—a smooth rock or fallen log, someplace protected from the constant winds.

Two weeks ago, in front of an old cabin (boarded up for winter), I sat on a bench and noticed a circle of ponderosas that I had walked by a hundred times but somehow had never appropriately appreciated. The trees were tall and straight, probably more than a 100 years old, and framed Mount Meeker in a slightly different way than I had seen before. From this view also I could see how our small enclave of cabins circled the valley, a ring of civilization around the willow bushes by the creek, impenetrable except to the moose that chew their way through.

 

Last week, after a blizzard had dumped a foot and half of snow on the mountains, it was difficult to keep my balance on the road, which was covered alternately in snow, slush, ice and mud. When I paused to survey the valley, from the height of Cabin Peak (top photo, on the right) to the willow bottoms, and to listen to the quiet, I heard water running, even though there was no obvious source; the stream that cuts through the valley was smothered by snow. I realized that underneath these white piles, the snow was melting and trickling down the hill. If I had been walking at my usual pace, I would never have heard it.

And if I hadn't heard it, I wouldn't have been reminded that spring—and life—is slowly returning to this high mountain valley. Just wait for it.

 

Entering Crane Space

Despite there being some 20,000 sandhill cranes that descend on or around the Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge every year, it’s not always easy to find these ancient birds, which migrate every spring from southern New Mexico to northern Idaho. This year was tougher than most, probably because the unseasonably cold weather had frozen the ponds on the refuge, and the cranes sought their night-time roost elsewhere.

And possibly the increasing crowds that descend on tiny Monte Vista in southern Colorado for the annual festival are making the birds more skittish, sending them off to more remote parts of the valley to avoid humans. Every year I would regularly see them in the fields on the southern edge of the refuge, the cranes close enough to the parking lot to hardly need binoculars to view them. But this year only a few hung out in this popular (for humans) location, and the long-legged birds kept their distance from all the gawkers pointing their long scopes and cameras at them.

Every winter, I count the days until I can drive the 250 miles from Boulder to Monte Vista and welcome the cranes on their migration. For me, it’s a sign that winter is coming to an end, that spring will soon be here, and that the natural order of the seasons and nature is intact.

This year I had an extra reason for wanting to be with the cranes. While I was in Monte Vista, my elderly mother went into the hospital, and I desperately wanted to be uplifted by the cranes, which have been visiting this valley for at least 2,000 years (as dated by a rock petroglyph of a crane). I needed their purity of spirit, their integrity, their strength and willingness to endure through the centuries.

But this year nature’s rhythms seemed disturbed. First came a strong storm that caused high winds and road closures farther north, then an unseasonably late and large snowstorm (that knocked out the electricity in town) and cold temperatures, followed by high winds the next day. It wasn’t until the fourth day that the sun came out and the winds died down, and it was possible to settle down into the crane's territory and give them my full awareness.

It was the last chance to see the birds before we had to head home, and we ended up at the pull-out where in past years the ponds were full of cranes and Canada geese but were now frozen and empty. To the west are the foothills of the San Juans, covered in snow, and across the valley are the rugged Sangre de Cristos (above), gleaming white. Somewhere in this broad mountain valley were thousands of cranes—but where?

There was nothing to do but wait, be patient and pay attention. After a while, I heard their characteristic cry— a hollow kind of honking with a lonely, yearning tone—but very far off. When I lifted my binoculars to the sky, I could just barely make out the cranes flying in groups of four or five, soaring in circles, their wings flashing white against the blue sky when they turned toward the sun. Once I became attuned to them, I started to see many small flocks across the sky, although still very high up. I locked my binoculars onto them and watched as they descended to earth, dropping their legs, opening their wings like parachutes, and softly landed in a field where, I could now see, were hundreds more feeding at the base of the foothills.

Their sound was like heaven, filling up my head and heart. Nature may have gotten a little off course, but the cranes were still here. As long as they were still flying, the world was still alive and rich.

A Sliver of Dark on a White Day

Friday, the winds were whipping the snow sideways across Lily Lake, so hard that the opposite shore was a blur. The lake itself was frozen and blanketed in snow. To the south, Longs and Meeker peaks were hidden in a  shroud of white. It seemed impossible that there would be any life on a day like this.

It’s far different in summer, when mallards and other ducks cover the pond, while muskrats ply the surface, and salamanders gather in the shallows. In mid-summer, the dragonflies emerge and produce a great fluttering above the water. But today, everything is buried in white, smothered under layers of snow. The fish and salamanders are deep down, in suspended animation, while the muskrats snore away the winter in their burrows.

But then I heard what appeared to be geese, a familiar sound on the plains in winter but not in the mountains. I noticed that one sliver of the lake was open, a dark slice among the overwhelming white. As I got closer, I could see maybe seven or eight geese standing on the edge of the water or in the water itself. They looked smaller than the Canada geese that fill the fields around my house in Boulder, and, after consulting with a bird guide, I concluded they could be a subspecies called cackling geese, which are not common in Colorado.

So what are they doing here? Especially since one mile below, near Estes Park, several lakes have open water and the air temperature is at least 10 degrees warmer. Lily Lake lies about 1,400 feet above the valley that holds the town of Estes Park. At the lake, where I’m surrounded by a blizzard, I can look north and down to the valley where the sun is shining and the hills are brown and bare.

Surely, anyone or anything that could fly would leave this seemingly lifeless and cold place and head to lower elevations for the warmth and sun. But perhaps these cackling geese, if that’s what they are, have been chased away by the larger Canada geese that frequent the warmer Lake Estes and St. Mary’s Lake in the valley. Or perhaps these geese, which live most of their lives in Canada and Alaska, find this harsh landscape more familiar.

For whatever reason they have landed in my corner of the world on this day, I’m glad to see them, heartened to see some exuberant life on this seemingly lifeless day.

In the Bleak Midwinter

Driving up to the cabin this week, the winds were strong enough to nudge my car off the road and onto the shoulder. At the cabin, the driveway was blocked by a limb that had been blown off a nearby pine tree. The winds had torn off the sign on the cabin and tossed it into the side yard, and ripped the wind chimes from the post on the tree in front of the cabin. Even the door to the cellar had been blown open, exposing the underside of the cabin. Not even the birds dared to come out in these strong, destructive winds, probably above 60 mph with gusts of up to 90.

It was one of the bleakest landscapes I’ve experienced at the cabin. Much of the snow from the past month had melted and froze in a repeated cycle, cementing the snow into hard shapes. Not just hard but dirty, as the winds had picked up the loose dirt from bare spots and scattered it across the remaining snow, now covered in black grit. From the road, I saw several tall pine trees blown over and smashed in several pieces.

Around this time of the year and on days such as this, I’m so desperate for any signs of new life that I almost hallucinate colors for the landscape. Looking out my window that morning, at first glance I saw the tender new leaves of aspens, but we’re still at least three months away from spring here. At second glance, I’m looking at the just slightly paler needles of a fir tree, lighter than the ponderosas around it.

The next day the winds were a bit calmer, although the skies were gray and ponderous, and the thin clouds blanched everything. Even Mount Meeker was just a pale smudge on the horizon. I had to force myself to leave the warmth and coziness of the cabin for my afternoon walk.  

Once outside, I look for the solace of nature. I find it in the lone cry of an unseen bird, in the gray and white clouds building up that resemble spring rain clouds, in the slight smell of moisture in the air, and in the chickadees’ cheerful cries, as they dart from tree to tree.

In the fenced field, I’m happy to see the two Scottish Highland cattle, which I look for on each walk. Even these animals that are bred for the worst of Scottish gales and cold are bowed by the weather and huddle on the ground together. As I approach, one stands up, as if to guard the other. Perhaps this is a couple, and he is protective of her. I’m overwhelmed by the tenderness of these large animals with their sad-looking eyes.

Down the road, in a thicket of aspen, trees that have been felled in previous windstorms are now held up by other trees that seem to cradle them in their arms.

There is this now: the tenderness of nature when everything is harsh.