Cabin Journal

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.