A blissfully warm September day. The earth's revolution pulls the peaks of the Gore Range between us and the clear ball of sunlight as we climb a winding, rocky, rutty road up onto a ridge. The earth's shadow chases us as dusk settles in.
A hang glider floats around a craggy cone that spikes up from the valley's floor, teasing us with the freedom of the air. The lake which fills most of the valley behind and below us turns pearl gray and draws farther away as we reach the road that traverses the ridge. The sky is absolutely clear.
We reach the campsite in near dark, our friend's car parked at the turn-off to guide us. Soon the crew is laughing, trading jokes, chowing down the burritos that the evening chef prepares, and settling in for talk around the fire. There's enough coolness to appreciate a winter jacket, particularly away from the trees and out in the open.
The moon shifts through the trees until it hangs above the tallest of them. Its brilliant almost-fullness makes of the night, lightness.
I leave the fire circle and walk to the open hillside, where the brisk, unceasing wind is not quite cold-cold, yet no longer warm. We are, after all, at 10,000 feet of elevation. Before me, the hillside sweeps down and down, a slanted meadow of low grasses and shrub, with occasional clumps of aspen marking shadows. The lake gleams with a different shade of pearl and, distantly, lights glitter from homes on its farther shore.
No sound but the wind, where I sit on the roadside verge. No light but the moon on this ridge and on the mountains across the lake and to the north, where wilderness lies. Faint stars are outshone but, still, they appear – the Big Dipper, Cassieopeia, Deneb and Vega.
How utterly grand!
I have hungered for months for a night such as this—away from the constant glow of city lights, in high country, outside, in the silence. With such a surrounding scene, the only paean I can sing is, thank you, thank you, thank you, for this place, this time, this wonderment….and wonder why haven't I done this before? What keeps me from venturing into the mountains by myself?
Tents are put up in the dark shadows of trees and, finally, to sleep we go, until grey dawn brings the whiskey jacks – the grey jays – to investigate the crumbs. I rise and return to the hillside verge to watch the sunlight catch the tips of the western peaks and slowly warm their flanks and shadow their hollows. Our ridge casts a shadow over the valley for a long time.
I seek a path away from camp through the spruce trees and find mountain chickadees searching for bugs and seeds. Old fire-char blackens stubs of trunks and some that lie on the ground. This ridge has seen the long flames pass. Clintonia leaves promise springtime's beauty to come, and winterberry patches promise a minty herbage. An occasional crawk of a far-off raven comes faintly. Otherwise, silence reigns.
Gradually camp-mates waken and some kind soul brews coffee for the ones who enjoy that prompting to wake up. Eventually, breakfast is cooking and the last of the sleepyheads come forth. When the breakfast cookery is cleaned up, we walk a path up through the woods to the crest of the ridge. An open patch of grasses spreads its welcome to the scene before us. The Williams Fork River lies below us, and the mountains of the Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks Wilderness brace the east and northeast horizons.
The sky remains clear and the sun's warmth encourages the shedding of coats and lazy stretches on the grass. After three days of frenetic activity at a conference in the middle of the city, this soaking of time and space nourishes us deeply. Plane schedules are ignored as the earth turns us pass the sun's zenith.
At last, seeming full to the brim of the goodness of the place and the company and the sun's warmth, we slowly return down the path among the pines and the fir and the spruce and the Oregon grape.
A round of hugs sends the first group off for the airport, two hours and another world away. We practice defending food from the positively neighborly grey jays as the rest of us continue slowly packing up for the next carload to leave.
When they have gone, we go out to the hillside overlooking the westerly valley and spread out mats and sleeping bags. It is quiet for a while as we lay in the sun's warmth and snuggle against the still-cool, ever-present breeze.
A four-wheeler rumbles down the road, and we are drawn out of the somnolent silence. Stretching, uncocooning, we realize that the afternoon has slipped away, and there are other places we must be.
A Windy Silence finally the last ones have settled into their tents or snugged around the stone ring of firecoals or out on the verge open to the wind and the blazing moon at the woods' edge faced by the sweep of mountains within beauty we pursue our dreams in the bright darkness in the windy silence after the comfortable camaraderie of folk drawn together by their choice of work who have grown to love each other's humor compassion heart spirit
Truly,
Cherie
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