Cabin Journal

Back to Nature

The pandemic has driven a lot of people out of cities and into rural areas. At first, I thought it was because people who could work remotely felt less exposed to Covid-19 in the country instead of congested cities. Or was it because housing was cheaper than in urban and suburban areas?

But now I’m wondering if people are being drawn to pristine landscapes—the ocean, lakes, mountains or forests—because we desperately need the solace of nature. Not just from the pandemic but in a time when the world seems to be coming apart at the seams: more floods, fires and droughts; and more hatred and violence.

When the pandemic first started, people took refuge in parks, beaches, mountain trails—anywhere there was a bit of nature. Partly there was nowhere else to go when businesses, schools, libraries and other public places shut down. But I think nature was a refuge: a source of beauty and calm. Just to see clouds moving across the sky or hear birds sing was a release and a relief from being cooped up at home, from all the bad news about the pandemic. Despite the state of the civilized world, plants were still flowering, trees were leafing out, squirrels were building nests and birds were sitting at our backyard feeders.

In the middle of darkness, nature provided hope.  And now people are leaving the cities and buying homes in places where they can watch ocean waves crash or gaze at the top of mountain or walk through forests. They don’t care that there’s no Starbucks, no brewpubs, or sushi restaurants.  

It’s not just Americans. Canadians are moving to remote coastal towns in Newfoundland, while one-third of young Japanese workers plan on moving to the country, according to a Washington Post story.

I think there’s a deep yearning in people for something beyond our urban and civilized world. When I watch the visitors in Rocky Mountain National Park, I can see the awe and joy in their faces when they first spot an elk or moose (like this one, below, dwarfing my car a few weeks ago)—or even a chipmunk begging for food.  There’s few places left now where people of different political persuasions can share the same pleasures.

I know that this back-to-nature movement has created challenges, mostly for long-time rural inhabitants who now must deal with rising housing prices that can force them to look elsewhere for affordable housing. While some rural dwellers welcome newcomers who might keep a dying town alive, others feel strongly the loss of their community.

The world is on the move—people leaving their jobs, immigrants fleeing social and environmental strife, urbanites leaving the cities. Perhaps nature has become the one stable thing in our lives, even as the losses pile up—shrinking glaciers, decreasing forests, many species disappearing forever.

Because I choose hope over despair, I’m cheered by all the people seeking the natural world, even as I get frustrated with the crowds and mourn for the people who can’t afford to live in their small towns anymore. Maybe between human ingenuity and nature’s resourcefulness, we can find the right path.

Husks of Summer

As I wander through the fall landscape at the cabin, the fields and hillsides are covered with the remnants of last summer’s abundant growth: dried stalks, leaves, flowers, berries and seeds.

Everything crackles, snaps and pops as the autumn wind circles through, under and over the fields. The colors are every shade of beige: tawny, russet, sandy and tan. The only bright colors are the red berries of the wild rose bushes (right), a shiny and deep crimson. Last summer’s yellow sulfur flower has seeded into a surprisingly bright  orange and yellow arrangement, while the sage retains a  pale blue color, both in its leaves and berries, which I rub between my fingers and inhale its pungent smell that whispers of windswept plains.

I can’t identify all the plants, although I recognize the tall plant in the backyard as the green gentian that blooms in early summer, with pale white flowers flecked with purple strokes. Even though I know that, it’s not easy to correlate the soft petals of June with the tough shell of fall (top photo, in foreground).

I recognize the hull of the blue gentian, partly because it was one of the last flowers to bloom, and I remember where I saw most of them (left, in a bouquet with the sage). And I can identify the skeleton of the fireweed (below), as startling in fall, with its curly translucent seedheads, as in summer with its bright fuchsia colors.

Others I’m not sure of. Like the small plants bursting with glowing white seedheads. Or the straw flowers that still retain the shape of its petals and center disc: Are these the purple asters that grew so profusely in August?

Although I miss the color and delicacy of last summer’s flowers, I have to admire their tough skins now, their complex structure and the different ways each plant has produced a perfect basket for the seeds to mature and then disperse into new frontiers.

When I start to look closely at the evolution of each plant from flower to seed, the complexity of life is overwhelming. I could spend a whole lifetime appreciating each plant’s life cycle. I still have much to learn.

In any case, if you see someone on the path shaking a gourd of white seeds and watching the wind spin them into the sky, that’s me appreciating impermanence and the beginning of another season.

 

Life in the Slow Lane

I just spent a week traveling in the Midwest, which required moving around as swiftly as possible: catching planes, running through airports, and driving the tangled and crowded roads of northern Illinois.  

To  meet up with friends and family, I jumped from one destination to another, guided by the familiar female voice on Google: "turn left, stay in the right lane, continue for 8 miles, turn right.” Each trip ended with “You’ve reached your destination” before I reprogrammed for the next stop.

When I returned to Colorado I was ready to slow down and leave behind the big city, fast-paced life. In fact, my sanity demanded it. My first day back, I went for a walk at a nearby wildlife preserve.

Pumped up on too much adrenaline from trying to make too many connections in too short a time, I welcomed nature’s pace: the leaves catching the sunlight as they gently floated from the cottonwoods, the ducks meandering on the ponds, and the great blue heron, stalking its prey in slow motion.

I wanted to move as slowly as the heron, as the ducks with their heads down in the water scooping up plants, as the glowing milkweed seeds drifting across the shorn fields, with no destination in mind but to follow the wind.

When I got to the cabin, after being gone for two weeks, the landscape had changed drastically. Although a few aspens have held on to their leaves, the rest were stripped bare. The air is so clear now that each blade of dried grass stands out sharply and the aspen trunks gleam. Nature is laying itself down, preparing for winter. I want to join it, curl up in the grasses in the still warm sun.

I walked as slowly as possible, in sync with the swaying pine trees and the grasses bending in the wing.  Still snowless, Mount Meeker loomed above the pond that was ruffled by the wind. A Steller’s blue jay soared from tree to tree, and the chickadees called to one another.

There’s no reason to rush, to hurry on to the next thing. I’ve arrived at my destination.

Let There Be Light

After an almost unbearable summer of extreme heat, smoky skies and unbreathable air, we in Colorado are being blessed with an autumn of incomparable riches: perfect temperatures in the 70s, breezes light enough to stir the aspen leaves, a sky so intensely blue that it must have been electronically enhanced.

There’s nothing to be done except enjoy it. Sitting outside on the front deck, I try to concentrate on the book I’m reading, but it’s no use: the golden light, the soft air and murmurings of the aspen demand my attention. At night, the clear skies have revealed  more stars than I’ve seen all summer.

It’s the last of the year’s opportunity to sit outside with friends who don’t want to be inside restaurants in a time when Covid is still lurking. So we gather on porches, under the embrace of the aspens or among the tall ponderosas, or have campfires in Rocky Mountain National Park, listening to the bull elks issuing their calls to domination. We talk about politics, about the peculiarities of our families, about the fragility and preciousness of life. Conversations meander, like the leaves blowing off the trees, or go deep, like the roots of the pines.

Usually by October, most of the aspen trees have dropped their leaves, but this year a late spring delayed the onset of the aspens leafing out, which has resulted in an extra week or two of ripening colors. The mountain roads are full of leaf peepers, stopping at each pullout to snap another dazzling display. In Rocky Mountain National Park, they’re joined by the hordes jamming the roads to see and hear the elk bugling. In these quickly changing times and after last year’s horrendous wildfires, it’s comforting to see this ancient ritual continue.

But 70-degree temperatures in the mountains in October are not normal. Nor is the lack of snow on the mountain tops. I have to remind myself that this remarkable autumn is courtesy of climate change that has kept the weather abnormally warm.

Last October we were victims of the more destructive aspects of global warming: two seemingly unstoppable fires that threatened Estes Park and burned parts of the national park so badly that trails still remain closed one year later.  Even last week, a wildfire in the central Colorado mountains wasn’t slowed by rain and 40-degree temperatures. The ground is so dry that we can’t yet let our guard down until we get snow.

Although the warm weather is unnatural, I can’t refuse this gift, especially when more destructive weather will come soon enough. For now, let me enjoy the beauty, the radiant light, the hush before winter.

 

The Time of the Gentians

It’s fall already on the tundra, where most of the alpine flowers have disappeared: the blue forget-me-nots, the pink phlox, the cheery yellow sunflowers. What’s left of life at 10,000 feet are hillsides of white cottony seedheads, glowing in the sunlight, and a few animals.

In a small rockpile on the Ute Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, the pikas (below) are frantically gathering more grasses to store up for the long winter. Meanwhile, the marmots (below, right), already fattened up for their eight months of hibernation, are relaxing  on the boulders, soaking up the last of the warm sunlight before the snows come—any day now.

But here on the the dried out, bronze tundra, one species of flower is not daunted by the coming of winter. For reasons unknown to me, the arctic gentian (above) has chosen to bloom at the tail end of the growing season. Because its colors are muted, most people don’t notice this small white flower with forked green tendrils, glowing among the decaying plants. But once I see one, I start seeing them everywhere.

 

 

 

At the cabin, the lushness of mid-summer has faded, as the fields are being drained of color. The purple asters are pale and tattered remnants of their earlier glorious selves. Even the yellow sulphur flowers, which have hung on for months, are going to seed. Petals from the yellow and red blanketflowers litter the ground.

Now is when the blue gentian, cousin to the arctic gentian, shines. Like its higher-altitude relative, the blue gentian makes its appearance when all the other flowers are dying. But unlike the arctic gentian, this blue one can’t be missed. Amid the decay of summer’s end, the blue gentians are stunning, blazing a darker blue than the Colorado sky.

They are life itself—brave, insistent and almost reckless as they arrive now. Already the nights are cold, and the first frost could come at any time. And yet they are not daunted. The gentians are like the pasqueflowers of spring, flowering while the snow still flies and the ground is hard and cold,

When I look to the natural world for sustenance and inspiration, I’m always replenished.

Warning: Animals Crossing

Do you know that deer can slip quietly out of the woods and onto the road without warning? I silently ask this question of the driver behind me, who is on my bumper, eager to push me forward and make me go faster down this mountain road in late afternoon, even though I’m driving at least 10 miles over the speed limit.

I think of the time last year when I was driving back to the cabin from Estes Park in the dusk, driving the speed limit because this was the time of the day when the animals emerged from the forests along the road. That time, too, another car was on my bumper, and when I saw a deer step from the dark woods, I started to slow down. When the irritated driver behind me started to pass me, I had to honk the horn, as much to scare the deer back into the woods as to alert the driver, who stopped just in time.

And so I find myself in the position of being the old lady slowing traffic and irritating the impatient drivers behind me. The ones who drive seemingly unaware that herds of elk sometimes wander onto the highway and pause, as if unsure where to go. The drivers who don’t know that bighorn sheep descend from their high rocky perches to lick salt from the road in the winter.

These aggressive drivers likely don’t care about the chipmunks and ground squirrels that dart out from the bushes without looking, running as fast as they can to get across the road before a car comes. Or that birds sometimes fly low and can get hit by an onrushing heavy car.

Even in Rocky Mountain National Park, where tourists come to actively seek out wildlife, I see cars speeding down Trail Ridge Road, seemingly ignorant of the whole tapestry of life that exists alongside this ribbon of paved road: deer and elk in the forest and meadows, moose among the willow bushes and aspen trees, birds perching in the high trees or squirrels running through the tall grasses.

It’s an ignorance bordering on arrogance, one that presumes our human existence is the most important, that we can mow down animals that get in our way, and that getting to our destination as quickly as possible is more important than respecting the lives of other beings.

I could pull over, let these impatient drivers pass me and speed on their way, but I feel responsible for protecting my animal brethren, if just for that evening or that hour.

If I can save one animal from the crushing weight of a car, I’ll be happy. Meanwhile, I’ll mourn all the others.

Smoke Gets in My Eyes

It’s a sign of the times that, rather than check the weather forecast in the morning, I check the air quality index. Last Saturday, the Denver area had the worst air quality on the planet: 192—a combination of smoke from the fires in California and Oregon and Denver’s historically polluted air.

It used to be that the mountains provided relief from the summer heat and pollution on the plains. But with climate change, temperatures at the cabin often are in the 80s, and the smoke from the western fires affects the whole state. In fact, last week,  the air quality index for Estes Park was higher (144) than it was in Denver, possibly because this mountain town sits in a basin where noxious air collects or else because the jet stream is moving the pollution in unexpected directions.

At the cabin, I could barely perceive the outline of Mount Meeker (left), just a few miles to the west, and the whole valley below was sunk in a white haze. Even the birds have seemingly fled. The swallows that were here the previous week, raising a new brood in the birdhouse by the garage, are gone. I miss their chirring sounds as they darted through the air catching bugs.  My neighbor who puts out feeders for the hummingbirds has noticed fewer of these tiny flashy birds in the past week. Even the birds that are still here—like the Steller’s jays—are quieter and less raucous. Does the smoke-filled air make it harder for them to breathe and thus vocalize?

Yet amazingly, amid all this gloom, the wildflowers are still going strong. The lupine have died out, but the purple asters, yellow sulfur flowers, white yarrow, yellow and red blanketflower, and mauve fireweed are still blooming, joined by the goldenrod.

I know I shouldn’t go out into this polluted air, but I can’t help myself. In only a few weeks, most of the flowers will dry up for the winter, and in another month the aspen will start changing color and dropping their leaves.

But today the creeks are still running, and the the wind is softly rushing through the aspens. The chipmunks and golden-mantled ground squirrels are still running through the grasses and flowers, as if there’s no time to lose. I watch from the porch as one ground squirrel (left) makes repeated trips under the cabin to steal the pink insulation and stuff it into its underground nest where it will make for a cozy and warm winter retreat.

Yet walking under these unnatural skies, I have to resist the urge to close my heart to this harbinger of our future under climate change. A part of me wants to huddle inside the cabin, close the curtains, distract myself with the Internet or a good book. But shutting out the world feels like death, like I’m cutting myself off from the source of life. Instead, I choose to cast my fate with the birds, the wildflowers, the pines and aspens, the chipmunks and the bear that wandered through the neighborhood that morning. Whatever happens to them happens to all of us.

Flowers Gone Wild

In a summer with record-breaking heat across the West, wildfires so hot that they are creating their own weather storms, and reservoirs, rivers and lakes drying up, here in the Colorado mountains a small miracle is occurring.

A late spring with snowstorms into May followed by daily rain showers in June have produced more wildflowers than I’ve ever seen here before. On my septic field, flowers are blooming that have never grown here before, and on ground that in past years would have been barren if not for the thistles.  Last week I counted at least 20 species of wildflowers in the yard around the cabin, and I’m sure I missed a few of the smaller, less showy ones.

The wild roses that grow here sporadically are flourishing along the roadside and among the aspen, their pink petals littering the ground. The columbine that usually flower for a week in mid-June are still blooming in late July. The modest sulphur (buckwheat) flower, short and with tight yellow blossoms, has taken over whole hillsides (above).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the past few weeks, the view from my front porch has been a sea of purple lupine, sulphur flowers, yellow cinquefoil, pink wild geranium, and the tall needle and thread grasses, which I’ve rarely seen.

This week, as the cinquefoil begin to fade, the yellow blanketflower (gaillardia, right), purple asters, mariposa lilies and blue harebells are making their appearance. I love the blanketflower with its smart golden petals and red centers, but the asters (bottom photo, with harebells) are one of my favorites.

 

 

A simple flower with the thin purple petals around a yellow center, they usually appear in bunches that light up their surroundings. Around them the mariposa lilies (top left) float serenely—white delicate bastions of light. The blue penstemons (left) aren’t as plentiful, but amid a field of white yarrow and green grasses, their color is startling.  

On my walk around Meeker Park, I stopped at a field where I always see a few angelicas (below), but this year there are probably 50, raising their thick, juicy red stalks above the grasses that are now turning brown.

 

 

 

Another tall plant is the green gentian, 2-3 feet high, its flowers a subtle greenish-yellow, but the whole plant is a marvel, an intricate and yet delicate structure. I always have to wonder: how was such a perfectly proportioned thing created? And for what reason? It doesn’t need to be that beautiful and elegant to attract bees or other pollinators.

I don’t know the answers, but I know I need to get out as much as possible—brave the heat and smoky skies—and admire the wildflowers for the short amount of time they light up the landscape. I need to stand respectfully in their presence, trace their intricate patterns and let myself be awed by their wealth of colors and forms, and by their profusion.

A wildflower season like this one is rare and will likely never happen again in my lifetime, especially as our climate becomes more extreme. In a summer where the environmental news gets worse every day, I have to rejoice at this source of wonder.  

Here and There

In Glacier Bay, the water is an unearthly and milky blue: something in between turquoise and jade. On a boat, plying the channels and bays of southeast Alaska, you feel that you could sail these waters forever and never reach an end. Always in the distance are white-capped mountains, which never get closer or farther. They’re always on the horizon—seemingly unreachable.

On an Alaskan cruise last month, I was overwhelmed by the vastness and emptiness of this landscape. For days we saw no other boats among miles of open water where the only signs of activity were the spouts of humpback whales and a quick view of the tops of their sleek bodies as they briefly surfaced before slipping back into their watery homes; sometimes we saw their tails flip as they took a deeper dive into a place invisible to us on the boat. Occasionally, we would come to an island teeming with life:  sea lions lounging on the rocks or playing in the water; sea otters floating on their backs; and puffins and other seabirds in the water.  

Evidence of civilization was scarce: only a few fishing boats and yachts; and almost no human habitation. It would be difficult for humans to get a toehold in this monumental landscape, even though the early natives found a rich life here. Pristine forests come down to the water’s edge, and waterfalls plunge from the tops of mountains so tall that I got dizzy staring up to the top where snowfields dazzled the eyes. At the terminus of bays, glaciers creaked and groaned while we wandered through a maze of blue icebergs big enough to get lost in. I felt that vastness most when we kayaked, where we were tiny dots in a landscape that seemed too big to comprehend. Here we were insignificant.

Coming back to Colorado, I dreaded returning to a place crowded with humans and their detritus. Even in the mountains, there are masses of people, especially in popular places like Rocky Mountain National Park. Yet once back at the cabin, I fell into the ease of life here. In southeast Alaska there is no easy way to enter into the hundreds of miles of wilderness except by boat. Hiking is difficult because the mountains are so steep and are covered with dense and almost impenetrable forests—and also full of huge brown bears.

But in Colorado, I can drive to the nearest trailhead, park my car and start walking. Or I can walk out my cabin door and hike into the forests around Meeker Park. This ponderosa pine landscape is spacious enough for flowers, shrubs and grasses to grow, so I don’t have to bushwhack through dense and steep woods, like the sitka spruce forests in Alaska.

Although the flowers in Alaska are huge—the purple lupine reaching almost 4 feet tall—the number of species is small, because there are few open and sunny meadows in which they can flourish. Here in Colorado, especially this summer, the wildflowers are profuse: whole fields of Indian paintbrush, yellow buckwheat, purple lupine and blue penstemon.

The only deciduous trees I saw in Alaska were alder, which are outnumbered by the more plentiful and somber spruce and hemlock. Here in Colorado, aspen cover  meadows and hillsides, providing a sheltered space for the columbine and other flowers to grow, and for birds to nest. In this landscape of intense sunlight, the soft rustling sound of their leaves and filtered green light provide havens of coolness and calm.

On the waters of Glacier Bay, I never heard song birds, perhaps because there’s not enough food. Here at my cabin, hummingbirds, swallows, nuthatches, Stellar’s jays, western tanagers and bluebirds fill the skies from morning till night.

In a world that is fast becoming overrun by humans, Alaska is one of the few places on earth that’s still pristine and untouched by civilization, a place where humans are vastly outnumbered by bald eagles. I’m grateful it’s still wild, but I also appreciate the intimate landscape at the cabin, where I can sit among a field of flowers and listen to the soft whispering of the aspens and the chirping of the swallows. In Alaska, I’m awed by the grandeur, but here I feel enclosed in nature’s sweetness.

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.