Cabin Journal

Nature Disrupted

Last winter, I finally had the opportunity to see what was left of Moraine Park after our destructive fires the previous fall. One of the most beautiful and iconic landscapes in Rocky Mountain National Park,  this wide valley is bisected by a meandering river and surrounded by the tall peaks; it’s a favorite place for elk herds to graze—and for tourists to take photos. Only a few months after the wildfires, the nearby trails were still closed, but from the road I could see the blackened soil and charred and burned trees and bushes—a seemingly lifeless landscape.

This spring, the Park Service opened one of the trails—to Cub Lake—and I wanted to see if there was new growth. Walking through the valley (above), I saw grass  lusher than usual but also more death: groves of blackened aspens, some still standing while others were collapsed on the ground, perhaps blown over by the winds that pushed the deadly fires. Although some ponderosas still had green needles on the top while the bottom of the trunks were charred (left), other pines were laid flat out, their trunks now charcoal.

I knew from past wildfires that, in the aftermath, plant nutrients are returned to the soil, and new growth is more fertile—and greener—than what was there before. Taking advantage of this nutrient-rich vegetation last week were several large herds of elk, their heads buried in the deep grasses, while around them the Big Thompson River was surging, almost over its banks.

For every heartbreak, there’s also an opening. Somehow, this part of the Colorado escaped (so far) the horrible drought that is affecting the rest of the state and most of the West. Snowstorm after snowstorm in March and April resulted in a full snowpack, brimming reservoirs and overflowing rivers.

Hiking through the valley, I saw more ponds than I’ve seen in decades—enough water flowing and pooling to attract ducks and geese—while on the other side of the trail were the dead and fallen pines (above). Even some of the rocks looked charred.

Last fall, we experienced four destructive wildfires, intensified by hot, dry conditions and fast-moving winds. One of them, the East Troublesome, came close enough to my cabin to warrant an evacuation advisory. Researchers are only now starting to assess the damage and predict what the future landscape will look like.

For decades, wildfires in the West were repressed, resulting in a build-up of dead material that contributed to the intensity of the fires. Ponderosa pines that may have survived past fires are now in jeopardy. In many places the pines are being replaced with shrubs and grasses, which, in turn, will cause a change in wildlife, forcing some species out and bringing in new ones. While the West has always been subject to hot, dry weather, climate change is exacerbating these conditions.

As I hike through this bedraggled and new landscape, on the hillside I spotted a pincushion cactus—a round prickly ball with startling pink flowers. I rarely see them anymore, perhaps as a result of a flourishing market for cactus and succulents. But there were dozens spread across the hillside. Had the fires triggered this exceptional growth?  Or with the trail closed off for most of the past year, had these plants been allowed to grow without interference from our species?

At the cabin, after seeing one house wren a few weeks ago, I haven’t seen or heard anymore. Did they leave because the insects haven’t emerged after a late spring? And why are the aspens still not leafed out?

It’s hard to know. But with a climate change, it’s a whole new world. Hopefully, it’s a brave one, because we’re going to need courage to face this uncertain future.  

Nothing Is Lacking

When I first arrived at the cabin this week, the first thing I noticed was the bare ground. The absence of snow is startling after six months of winter. In Wild Basin, the several feet of snow that dazzled me all winter has melted from the creek, which is roaring and open for the first time since last fall.

But the snow was such a powerful presence, creating its own austere and elegant landscape, that it feels like something is missing. Especially because the earth is still raw. Only a few pasqueflowers (below) have emerged around the cabin, looking battered by all the snowstorms. The aspens haven’t leafed out yet, so the world seems colorless, even with a few grasses coming up among the brown and rocky earth.

Yet, if I look closely, sit still and listen, and peer under rocks and trees, there’s more life emerging than I think. Last week, I saw one hummingbird; this week, the sky seemed full of them, chasing each other and doing crazy loops in the air. Last week, both bird nest boxes around the garage were empty, but this week violet-green swallows had reclaimed one.

I thought the other was abandoned until I heard a brilliant song above my head one morning while I was outside meditating and looked up to see a house wren, one of my favorite summer visitors. Holding as still as possible so I wouldn’t spook it, I watched the bird fly over to the nest box that had been used for several years by these small birds. When another wren appeared, the two appeared to quarrel over which one had tenant rights. Finally, one gave up, and the victor flew into the box and started getting rid of last year’s (or perhaps its competitor’s) debris: Out came  bits of leaves and twigs and one feather, sailing softly to the ground. It was time to start a new nest.

When I drove 1,000 feet down into Estes Park to hike the Twin Owls trail, at first I was disappointed to see that, at even at this lower altitude, the aspen were still bare. After the pandemic, all I’ve wanted is for life to return to normal, to visit my favorite trails and have them be just the way I remember from years past. But that hasn't quite worked out. I partly blame the pandemic and all the unforeseen changes it has wrought, like twice as many people visiting the mountains. Or should I blame climate change for an unusually wet spring that has delayed the start of new life? This late in spring, snow still covers the range of mountains that encompasses Mount Meeker and Longs Peak.

However, in a springlike gesture, thunderstorms rumbled to the south and east as I hiked. Alongside the trail, I found pasqueflowers blooming. Down in the meadows, a herd of elk (above) warily eyed me, their winter coats molting. On the return trip, I slowed down, training my eye to notice what was present on this May day: the leaves on the currant and sumac bushes starting to unfurl and, under the protection of small boulders, tiny ferns (left) rolling out their leaves. Ferns are one of the most ancient plants on earth, munched on by dinosaurs when the landscape was much wetter. Here in these dry mountains, they find small pockets of moisture, like under these rocks, to thrive.

As my wonder increases at spring unbounding, I can see that life slowly and haltingly starts to fill in, like a patchwork. The world is not lacking. What is lacking was my faith in this process.

Water Running Everywhere

At the cabin this week, the warm temperatures have gotten ahead of the snowstorms. Everywhere I go, in any direction I turn, water is running: off the roof, down the gutters on the cabin and shed.

When I go for my walk, both Tahosa and Cabin creeks are rushing, stirred up with brown organic matter and flecked with bubbles. At Fritz’s pond, a small stream pours into the pond and out the other end, into a small meadow of willow bushes, their branches tipped with soft buds.

Along the way, water flows alongside the roads and from the fields, where the strands of grass are yellow/brown and flattened from snows. All this water creates ponds that will last only a few weeks.

It’s even dripping inside the cabin, as the snow melts on the roof and finds cracks in the ceiling that I’ve never been able to fix since the 2013 flood.

As the snow melts, things are uncovered: the door mat that blew into the side yard last winter and I haven’t seen since last February, and a pile of rotten wood that needs to be relocated. And I hear the first hummingbird of the season—a welcome sound and sight.

I see one pasqueflower in the front yard, only two or three inches high, the flower not ready to open yet, and I think of the other pasqueflowers still underneath the ground, feeling the earth turn warm, the sunlight finally free to penetrate the soil. All that life underneath, just waiting, even as Mount Meeker is still blanketed in white and framed by aspen blossoms. It could be Mount Fuji bordered by cherry blossoms—the same blend of strength and delicacy.

As spring comes to the high country, releasing all this water, something in me wants to break open, too.

The Odd Behavior of Tourists

A few weeks ago, I ran into a middle-aged woman who was floundering in thigh-high snow on a steep slope above Alberta Falls in Rocky Mountain National Park. Apparently when she and her son arrived at the sign that says “Alberta Falls“ and they didn’t see any waterfalls, they headed up a steep hillside, where no trail exists.  Apparently, being from Florida, it didn’t occur to her that all that snow might be covering the falls and so set out to look for the popular attraction, which the Park Service had cleverly hidden someplace else.

A bit farther down the trail, I found another curiosity: a bridge over a small creek (about 5 feet across) roped off with orange cones. I can only assume the ropes were meant to prevent people from jumping into the creek, which was obscured by snow. Park rangers must have had to rescue people enough times that they decided to take preventive measures. Maybe they also needed to add some signs:

Warning: Creek below. If you jump in, you might get wet, and you might get cold. Just so you know.

As has been widely reported, since the pandemic started more people have turned to the great outdoors, both for distraction and spiritual solace. These newbies apparently haven’t spent a lot of time in nature, because they seem easily confused.

Last month, some hikers on the Glacier Gorge trail apparently didn’t expect snow on the trail in March, Colorado’s snowiest month. I saw women wearing leggings and tennis shoes that would have been proper wear in downtown Denver but didn’t hold up on a snow-packed trail where a few inches off the trail you sink into deep snow. On a steep section of the trail, a bottleneck formed with people lined up, unsure how to navigate down the slippery, icy slope in their shoes that had no tread. Some  decided that sliding on their backsides was the easiest way down.

I just read an article about a rescue group in a remote part of Wyoming that is now getting 10 times the requests for rescues than it did a year ago—some from wilderness users who just got tired while hiking and wanted to be helped back to their cars. One Denver newspaper article last winter mentioned a woman walking on an avalanche-prone mountainside, dressed only in shorts and a tank-top (somehow, she came through unscathed). By not being prepared, some of these backcountry tourists are putting others in danger, like the rescue groups and rangers who must search for them, often in bad weather, and bring them back to civilization.

But there’s another danger: that too many people see the world through the lens of our screens—whether social media, TV, video games or something else—so the natural and artificial worlds blend into one. Nature becomes a commodity that can be plucked for our amusement rather than being a world unto itself. Last month, two tourists stopped me at Wild Basin to ask how to find the spectacular mountain views, someplace they could take photos to be admired on Instagram. Another time, two young men asked me where they could find elk, their sole reason for coming to the park.

I love the high mountains and the huge herds of elk, but the tourists’ consumerist attitude—I want an experience that I can record and post—leaves out any genuine interaction with nature, any appreciation of this complex world where nature exists on a different plane than the human one. If you’re not so intent on finding the falls or getting that prize photo, you might glimpse an amazing world: lichen thousands of years old, ouzel flying behind the waterfalls or tiny forget-me-nots that can only be seen by crouching on the tundra floor.   

Part of me hopes the pandemic tourists return to the human world opening up again: fitness clubs, shopping malls,  bars and restaurants. I would love to get rid of clogged parking lots, endless lines of hikers on the trail, and visitors who let their dogs chase the chipmunks.

But that’s not the world we live in anymore. I can only hope that those who came to take a selfie with a nearby elk leave with more than a picture. Maybe a taste of a different world than the human one, some small bit of silence and calm outside of the chaotic human world, a brief brush with animals who struggle to survive with grace and courage. Maybe they’ll even learn what snow is.

Cycles of Ice and Life

Last November I started my search for one of the more ephemeral forms of nature: ice. Even though the autumn had been warm, ice was already forming on the St. Vrain River. I found it first on the pond below Copeland Falls, where it resembled a thick layer of slush, with a greenish tinge (right).

All winter long I walked along the creek, which gleams in this dark forest of pines, as the cycle of melting and freezing produced ice sculptures and formations that changed from week to week. When I returned to the falls in December, the pond was clear and frozen, and the falls themselves were a spectacle of frozen icicles and rounded ice clusters.

There’s something reassuring about this cycle. The whole world might be in chaos, but the river keeps flowing, insistently finding its way lower, moving downward. As the water continuously freezes and forms a new dam or impediment, the river finds a new channel, skirting the main one, going to the side or deep underneath. I can hear its beat, its thrumming under the ice: sometimes hollow sounding, sometimes like glass bells.

 

 

In the first few months of winter (which starts here in November), there was a lot of back and forth on the river: melting and then freezing and then melting, so every week there were new formations, something new to delight. There’s no end to the ingenuity of the creek. Between different weather conditions, gradients in the creek, boulders and rocks that block the way and divert the waters, the variety of ice formations is limitless.

In fact, I found hundreds of terms for how ice forms in lakes, rivers and the ocean. In addition to border ice, which is formed along the shore, there’s candled ice, which looks like thin vertical crystals shaped like candles; and frazil, which are fine, small, needle-like structures or thin, flat, circular plates of ice suspended in water.

I couldn’t find the name for one of my favorites:  the rounded ice goblets formed as the ice first melts in the sunlight and starts to drip into the creek and then freezes—all the while these crystal orbs getting bigger and more complex.

Before climate change, many towns celebrated winter with ice sculpture contests. But no human sculptor could create the intricate pattern of lines in the pond or the ice that forms along the edges of the creek. Water is the best sculptor because  it’s malleable and able to yield to changing conditions—from sunlight to darkness, from cold to warmth.

About a month ago, the creek went silent after more than two feet of snow smothered the whole landscape. I was happy we finally got a good snowfall in an otherwise dry winter, but I missed seeing the creek. Then last week, I was surprised to see clear dark pools among the piles of snow as thawing temperatures opened the creek again, with the river making hopeful, gurgling noises, as if life was stirring again. No matter what happens—a year of isolation and too many unnecessary deaths, destructive wildfires last fall, and horrific shootings across the country, including here in  Boulder—the cycle of life keeps going.

Teach Me to Fly

It had been two years since I last saw the sandhill cranes, after visiting them for some 30 years every March during their annual migration through southern Colorado. But last spring the pandemic intervened, with its restrictions of not traveling more than 10 miles from home. I was bereft at not being able to meet up with them last year and promised myself, no matter what happened, I would see them this March.

So despite only getting the first Covid vaccine and living in a still restricted and uncertain world (would restaurants be open? the hotel properly sanitized? crowds at the wildlife refuge?), and the threat of a massive snowstorm on the horizon, a friend and I made our own migration more than 200 miles south to meet up with the cranes.   

When we first arrived, the cranes weren’t in their usual fields where they feed during the day, and I had to counsel myself to not feel disappointed if I only saw a few. It was enough to be close to these elegant birds with their long necks and legs, watching them peck at the ground for food, or even better, craning my head to watch them fly, their huge wings beating the air, combining strength and grace in what looked like effortless movements. I especially love to watch them descend from the sky, as they spread their wings out, and float like parachutes down to the earth.

As the day got later, we finally found thousands of cranes on the west side of the wildlife refuge, a place where I had never seen them before and that I thought was good only for the rabbitbrush spread across the flat land. As it got darker I could sense the restlessness in the flock—more honking and chirruping, and more anxious behavior as individual cranes hopped straight up, like  they might take off, but then changed their mind. It wasn’t quite time.

But then, at a signal known only to them, they started running into the wind, beating their wings and lifting off in huge flocks, and soon hundreds were criss-crossing the sky, their long silhouettes stretched across the mountains and the darkening sky. Although different flocks were going in different directions, and it seemed surely they must run into each other, there were no collisions, only a sky filled with moving black patterns and their almost unearthly sounds.

We spent the next day with the cranes, and I could start to see the simple rhythm of their lives: waking up as soon as the sun pokes its head over the Sangre de Cristos, scattering orange light over the fields and ponds. After heading to the surrounding fields for the first meal of the day, it’s time for a good nap—bodies curled up, heads tucked under—before needing to stretch their wings and take to the sky. The cycle is repeated throughout the day until darkness starts to descend, the sun dropping below the foothills of the San Juans to the west, and they head back to the ponds for the night.

I envy them. No agonizing over what to do every day: should I go for a walk? What should I make for lunch? Should I get my hair cut? Should I clean out my closet? Or the garage? For the cranes, it’s simple survival. They carry an integrity and purpose to their lives that I crave for my own. Our human lives have gotten too complicated, even in this pandemic. I want to learn from these cranes how to exist in harmony with the world. Teach me how to fly, teach me how to live with such dignity and joy.  

Lessons from my Wood Stove

I’ve learned a lot—about myself and about fires— from making fires in my wood stove. One of the biggest is patience, because a good fire takes a while to establish itself. The first hour or so I’m just working to keep it from expiring, throwing small branches and pine needles and bunched-up newspapers into the stove so it will get hot enough to sustain itself without much help from me.

It’s not just patience that’s required but persistence to start over when the sticks collapse and the flame has dwindled to almost nothing. It’s distressing to see, maybe because somewhere deep in my brain is our ancient ancestors’ need for fire; if they couldn’t start one, they might not survive. So I feel a small joy and relief when the fire finally roars into being.

I’ve learned that both too much isolation and too much togetherness will kill a wood fire. A good one needs space to breathe, for air to circulate, but if the pieces of wood are too spread out, they lose their cohesiveness and intensity; their heat dissipates and the fire starts to falter. The logs need to be close to the other pieces but not too close. Each piece of wood helps the other one—either ignite or stay hot.

Fires are perfect for meditating. Watching the flames curl up and under, and stretch out—always reaching upward—while listening to the crackle and pop as the wood disintegrates is enough to keep my brain occupied while leaving enough empty space to settle into some deep calm and quiet. I feel far removed from earthly concerns, except for the strong winds buffeting the cabin. That humans have been settling themselves in front of fires for thousands of years connects me with some ancient traditions.

But I also feel a certain sadness when I watch the flames, because this is the final gesture of a long life—and it’s heartwarming in every sense of the word. In order to grow, these trees absorbed carbon dioxide, and they end their lives with a return to air—and the release of energy in the form of heat.

Many of these logs were here when I bought the cabin, more than 12 years ago, and who knows how long they were there before. Cut down years or decades ago, these remnants sat in the dark garage through many winters, springs, summers and falls, their energy trapped until I put a match to them.

The other night, before I went to bed, I threw a locust limb on the fire, expecting that it would be too dense to burn all night without the help of some smaller, more ignitable sticks. But in the morning, not only was the log totally incinerated, its remnants  still retained some warmth. This thick log, from a tree that sprang up in my backyard without any prompting from me, had kept the cabin warm all night.

Gratitude is the only word that comes to mind.

Stuck in February

February is my least favorite month. It’s halfway between winter and spring, uncomfortably residing in something that’s neither here nor there. In this month of little snow and warm temperatures, it doesn’t feel like winter, but there’s no new growth to indicate it could be spring (which is still two months away here in the mountains). It feels like a gap, like a hump one has to get over. It’s like a river that’s been dammed by sticks; eventually, some force will push the sticks out of the way and the river will start moving again, but right now nothing’s happening. Life seems stuck, unable to move forward or backward.

The creeks are silent under the snow, even as the willows around them are bare. On my walks, I’m stopped by the quiet that encloses the empty cabins. Some days, it feels like the whole world is deserted, that life has left us. Maybe, like everyone else, I have pandemic fever, a yearning for the world to be whole again and to start moving.

The only life I see are the Steller’s jays, and I’m grateful for their raucousness, yelling at each other while they dig into the gutter, looking for something to eat. I’m grateful for the rabbit that eyes me warily when I step outside.  

Aside from the jays, the world is almost unnaturally quiet. Even the tree branches are still. But then I look up at the sky and see gray clouds churning, sending shafts of hopeful rays to the earth. Snow clouds spill over the top of Mount Meeker, spreading their moisture down the giant granite flanks. To the north, patches of blue sky are interwoven with puffy clouds that could almost be spring clouds.

Life is moving, whether we notice or not.  

Graupel Followed by Snow

This week at the cabin, a gray day had a hint of moisture in the air—maybe snow? But temperatures were in the high 30s, so what came out of the sky was graupel, a German word I love to say because it sounds like what it looks like: hard, round kernels of snow, somewhere in between hail and snowflakes. It came down fast, like hail but not as destructive, pelting the deck and roof with a hissing sound.

It didn’t last long, because it’s something intermediary, caused by temporary weather conditions. So I headed to Wild Basin, just a few miles up the road, to wander through the forest that goes along the St. Vrain River. Much to my delight, it started snowing—big, thick heavy flakes.

Instantly the world was transformed. What was sharp and clear was now fuzzy and obscure. The hillside of green pines was hidden behind a veil of white. A tall pine loomed above the creek, like a ghost tree, stranded among the willows. The creek was a blur with sudden bursts of clarity where a dark pool emerged from the snow and ice.

The road back was an unbroken expanse of white. The only tracks were from a small animal that eventually wandered off toward the creek. From the woods I heard a strange cry, something in between a cat, dog and bird, something  plaintive that I’ve never heard before. It was just me and this unknown animal sharing an empty landscape on a rare snowy day.

In Search of Winter

When I arrived at the cabin this week, I was happy to see it snowing. It wasn’t a real snowstorm, where the snow descends from clouds overhead. Instead, it was small flakes blowing off Mount Meeker to the west. Still, we’ve gotten so little snow this winter that I’ll take whatever I can get.

Instead of storms that deliver a half- to a foot of snow, we have gotten 2 or 3 inches at a time. While in the woods it slowly piles up, in the open areas either the wind blows it away or the sun melts it, especially when the temperatures reach into the unseasonably warm 30s or 40s.

My neighbor told me that she has pocket gophers eating her grasses, and it took me a minute to realize what was wrong with that picture. In most winters, the ground is too frozen for gophers (which could be the voles I saw last summer) to be crawling around in. Is it possible that the ground hasn’t frozen solid yet?

I miss winter—the whole landscape covered in snow, while I glide through it on my skis or enjoy the powder under my snowshoes. It’s what makes winter pleasurable. I even like the cold, as long as I’m bundled up enough. Breathing in the sharp air makes me feel alive, especially after a summer full of smoke.

So if winter wouldn’t come to the cabin, I would have to go looking for it. I knew just where to go. I had read that Bear Lake, at an altitude of  9500 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park, had received 16 inches of snow last week. It was sobering to drive through through  most of the park and see a dry and brown landscape, as if it were November not January—before I started encountering anything white.

But at the Bear Lake parking lot, it was snowing—thick flakes, not the wimpy kind that I had seen at the cabin the day before. Once on the trail I reconnected with winter: trees and rocks covered with clumps of snow, layers upon layers of snow, deep enough that if you went off the trail by a few inches you would quite happily sink into it. The snow was whiter than the aspen trunks, which stuck out of the snow like toothpicks.

Around me, the higher peaks were obscured by blowing snow, and the humans trudging across frozen Nymph Lake were colorful dots in a sea of wind-whipped white. In the summer, Nymph Lake can be covered by lily pads, but now it’s a flat sea of white.  

The higher I got, the higher were the piles of snow, so huge that boulders were  unrecognizable piles of white stuff. At Dream Lake (top photo), the winds were even stronger, the pines contorted over decades into strangulated shapes by the wind. My eyes were tearing, my sunglasses were fogged up from the tears and mask, and I could barely see where I was going. The cold was starting to penetrate my three layers of clothes.

But I was in heaven—winter heaven.