Part 2, Colorado

Flowers in bloom on arrival.

Packed up and ready to go.

Day One: Heading to first camp 2.5 miles in.

Looking Up. Watching weather.

Camp was set up just in time for the afternoon shower.

It is better to lessen the weight of the pack by eating the heaviest foods first; beans, rice, cookies, things that take the longest to cook thereby burning more fuel in the canister. It is better to have no rain in order to cook the heaviest food first. So we eat the heaviest snacks instead, because it's raining.

There is a fire ban in the wilderness. But it's raining!

WhaHa, Pilgrim.

Christmas in July, also known as the Feast of St. James, Santiago de Compostela.

It has been one week since visiting a grocery store. While the cupboards at home are not close to being bare, I miss seeing all that food on shelves and walking by huge stocked refrigerators.  I miss the hubbub. I dream of celebrating the Feast of St. James with a barbeque; hot dogs, corn on the cob, skewers of roasted vegetables, baked beans, potato salad that's never the same twice in a row.

Jim accuses me of trying to fatten him up for his 50th class reunion so that he'll be unattractive to his classmates when he visits Wisconsin in August.

He has been studying his 8th grade graduation picture, going over the faces with a hand lens.

Yesterday he asked that I call him Big Jim. Today it will be Saint James.

Cleaning Up

Before the rains came we had a smoky fire to burn up the wood stacked on the patio. The blueberries are ripening on the low bushes on the side of the hill. The thermometer reads 108 degrees in the sun and the fire doesn't make it much hotter. It's a kind of day where you sit in the swing under the shade of an awning and yell at ducks swimming by.

Mt Cabot

This time I remembered the GPS and made a new track of 9.2 miles. The trail started and ended in a two-mile field of head-high ragweed and red raspberries, narrow enough that the trekking poles were a hindrance.

There is always a moment of anticipation and pause at the entrance to the woods and the beginning of the climb. Sometimes it is a question of which stick or stone will leave its mark on me this time. Sometimes it is excitement about what feather will turn up.

It was 11:11 AM when I passed the "no maintenance" spot. This trail from the west has been closed for years. It would have saved a couple of miles. But I suppose landowners at the bottom do not wish to have spitting and smelly hikers traipse across their property.

There is a rough and dirty little cabin near the summit that led me to believe I had made the top. But I was wrong.

It was a pseudo summit, faux success, a place where the fire tower used to stand.

I was eating a peanut butter and cracker lunch, thinking about the downhill trip, when two Canadians came through speaking Quebecois. They hailed from somewhere further up the trail, and I realized that I would have to keep climbing another hundred feet to reach the true summit. So I look sheepish.

It was a long hike, hot at the bottom, not as long as some: 4,180 feet, 9.2 miles, 5 hr 13 min.

Lake People

This morning gives promise to a glorious day.

That's what the metal bird bath has inscribed on its rim, along with the symbols of the zodiac. Yesterday was a pirate boat parade lasting a couple of hours. The Zodiac made me think of it. The boats started on our end of the lake and motored north, the crew arrghing and shooting water out of cannons.

Those lake people. They're a different lot.

Word Finding

Penbob? Wiggins? Cliggens?

When I first learned the word for the little glass ring that keeps the candle wax off the table, I was very pleased.

Recently I forgot the word. For three days it settled into my psyche, and today it surfaced.

Bobeche!

And bobeches!

Whatever the word, these were dirty, waxen, dusty and speckled with charcoal. So they received a bath in soapy water and were put on display. See the bobeches, how they sparkle!

Caps Ridge Trail

Yesterday I drove on a road through the hills, through Crawford Notch, to the trailhead with the highest elevation in the White Mountains, Caps Ridge Trailhead.

From the trailhead the path led up a narrow ridge,

scrambling up three rock faces (caps),

and finally up and across a half mile boulder field.

At the top I found the pin that marked the summit of Mt. Jefferson, 5712 feet.

Then I had lunch with Pete, a nice man who shared the wind break.

He talked about climbing ravine trails and having a fear of heights, always carrying iodine tablets in case he ran out of water or clogged his water filter. This while eating slices of pepperoni and cheese and watching the line of tourist cars drive up to the top of Mt. Washington.

On the way down, it is always amazing how high I climbed, over what rocks and difficult handholds,

and how much I missed on the way up.

Reflections

Cooler, drier air prevails today. The water has vacated the space between the air molecules and there's more room to move for the rest of us. So hiking it is, in the high and dry. Nine more peaks over 4,000 feet. Would you go for the view or the protected walk? The pool or the reflection?

Psychography

Admittedly, I am having trouble piecing together coherent and rational thoughts. Symbols will have to do.

Jim finished wiping his brow after our afternoon flight a couple of days ago.

The flowers are lush at each intersection, mostly composed of all varieties of lilies. The lilies of the field neither toil nor ...

And pink never shows up very well on my camera, but this pink heart was for the neighbor's birthday. The neighbor who has been ill and doesn't return our phone calls.

Sweat, ease, and pink hearts unable to be delivered. That is all.

Pea Picker

No peas make it into the house.

After picking, the pea picker turns his back.

Like magic, the harvest disappears.

Omnivorous

While in Colorado, keeping watch over the flowers and front lawn on the resting days, we discovered that hummingbirds survive not only on nectar, but on bugs too. Omnivores!

Our kitchen-in-the-wild also produced a mishmash of vegetables, nectar and bug protein. Simple but effective. We did not run out of food. But this time I was more concerned with keeping my feet warm than my belly full.

Yeah, right.

French Fries Cure Jet Lag

So one of these days I will have to revisit the great hike(s) of 2012.

Like catching the 5 AM bus to Boston to get on the jet to Denver, the planes lined up on the taxiway, waiting to be released for takeoff.

 Like taking off to the south and staring zombie-like at the Boston skyline.

Like waking up the next day to a red sun in Nebraska from all the fire particulates blown over from Colorado.

One of these days I'll revisit, but not today.

More French fries, please.

Bastille Day

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Summit of Mt. Bierstadt, Colorado

I first learned about Bastille Day in 8th grade when the class read A Tale of Two Cities. In Paris years later, Jim and I had to walk to the footprint of the Bastille, laid out in paving stones at a busy circular intersection. There we drank coffee at a sidewalk cafe, next to a little bistro and watched the traffic zoom by, composed mostly of little beeping Smart cars and bicycles.
On Mt. Bierstadt, the traffic was also heavy, all of us panting, arms dangling down, feet shuffling up. Fortunately, there was no guillotine waiting at the end of the journey.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

Heading Home

Another long hike yesterday to the Blue Lakes by Mt. Sneffels, "the most beautiful place on earth", one hiker woman said.

Tomorrow maybe a hike out of Denver, depending on the weather and the leftover legs.

Keep looking up.