Cabin Journal: Belonging to the Wilderness

For some people, what they are is not finished at the skin, but continues with the reach of the senses out into the land. … Such people are connected to the land as if by luminous fibers, and they live in a kind of time that is not of the moment, but in concert with memory, extensive, measured by a lifetime. To cut these fibers causes not only pain but a sense of dislocation.

—Barry Lopez in in Arctic Dreams

People come to the mountains for different reasons. There are the city dwellers who come up once or twice a year. The most popular time is in fall when the aspen turn gold at the same time the elk gather in huge herds and the males compete for the females with exciting clashes of antlers.

Other folks come for adventure: rock climbing on cliffs, mountain biking down steep trails or hiking up to alpine lakes or the high tundra. Around Meeker Park in warm weather I see caravans of trucks carrying ATVs to Forest Service roads where they make a lot of noise and scare the wildlife. In the winter those who love snow head for the big resorts to ski or snowboard, while others prefer the quieter pleasures of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing through alpine forests.

In the summer, people seek out wild flowers, starting at lower elevations in May or June and then working their way upward into summer and fall. Others are birdwatchers, intent on seeing the hummingbirds and other birds that only stay for the summer before migrating to warmer climates. Others want to see the wildlife: herds of elk, the moose hidden in the willow bushes and the unbearably cute chipmunks.

I love the animals, admire the wildflowers and enjoy hiking. But it’s more than that. People ask me why I visit my cabin all winter long, when most of the birds are gone, all the flowers have turned to seed, the bears and chipmunks have gone into hibernation, and the aspen trees are bare. On cold days the temperature can be 15 degrees inside the cabin. When I go for a walk, I have to be careful on roads that are rutted with ice.

Except for those exceptional days when the sun comes out after we’ve gotten a foot of snow and Mount Meeker is outlined by a brilliant blue sky, the winter landscape is not beautiful. In fact, on days when the skies are gray and the wind is blowing the trees so hard that I hold my breath waiting for one to crash on the roof, I question why I’m at the cabin when I could be in my less drafty and more comfortable home in Boulder.

Yet when I step outside, I know why. The stillness wraps itself around me like a blanket, cushions me against the worries of the world. There’s an emptiness that leaves room for anything else. I can hear my heart beat, a pine cone falling from the ponderosa, a stray dog barking across the valley, a chickadee calling and the creek muffled under ice.

I like to call it silence but it’s more than that. I love the wilderness, something apart from the world of commerce and busyness. Here I feel connected to a realm that has its own rhythms and reason for being. I belong here—among the trees; close to the deer, gray squirrels and Steller jays; and beneath the broad dome of sky. I'm part of nature, and nature is part of me.