A Wilderness Love Affair

Laughter, joy, contentment and exhaustion conspired as climactic emotions fleeting around our ten thousand five-hundred-foot encampment. Like fireflies suddenly released from a captive force.

Six spent humanoids and two snow-encrusted canines busily consumed our third meal of the day at roughly 0900 hours. Oblivious to the morning clamber of winter life, we were experiencing post descent euphoria. We ate and drank, each composed within our own delights, imbibing deeply in excitement and accomplishment with heated infusions satisfying our thirst. The air was crisp but warming to a golden glow wherever the sun lay down. The melt had begun. Cold sparkling droplets slipped serenely off snow-laden pines, spruce and hemlock from above. The sun infused our wintry wonderland with a multitude of colors beyond its icy blue grasp. As I stuffed my mouth with wheat thins, sharp cheddar and golden delicious, my mind meandered, speeding again, rushing and lapsing through the day’s earlier path of enlightenment.

Mount Sopris, a twelve thousand, nine hundred fifty-three foot lone massive in the Elk range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains had long been the purpose of some desire.

With skinny skis and skins under foot, a rookie’s ignorant seventy pounds of gear including my new snowboard on my back, we had trekked, two days earlier, five miles into base camp at Thomas Lakes, two crystalline alpine lakes situated at timberline under the saddle of Mt Sopris’ glorious dual peaks.

For many, the most exhilarating moment in mountaineering is Summiting with the sun on your face gazing across endless remoteness and incomparable beauty.

I subscribed to this particular summit delight, until experiencing the sensation of hundreds upon hundreds of vertical feet disappearing beneath my careening body, propelled by gravity, pursued by friends and canine companions, ripping and sliding, unencumbered by anything but the moment.

I now understand why ski mountaineers climb, only to abruptly turn and rip madly back down the mountain. I love the climb, while exhausting its rewards are so sweet the gain. Topping off an alpine peak, any alpine peak, to view miles upon miles of jagged terrain fraught with dangerous topography is an incredible sight to behold. But I now subscribe to a new sense of freedom. The weightlessness, the melding of grace and nature, of dropping-in! Like a brush to canvas, swishing and carving a world of steep and deep on a pristine wilderness of open scale.

Earlier that morning I awoke to the song of icy winds blowing across our alpine terrain. But for the darkness I could visualize the limbs, needles and cones of the forested slopes blowing in unison with the stark winter branches of aspen composing their natural melody, braying, whistling, scratching and howling in tune to a seemingly private ballad for those on this particular pursuit.

I crawled out of my seven hundred-fill goose-down sleeping bag to begin preparations for the climb. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one awake, as I discerned movement beyond the shallow coals, our fire still glowing from the preceding night’s folly in our able shelter, of which, we would be calling home for the next five days.

Home! A ten-foot trench dug to solid ground beneath two towering spruces soaring seventy feet to the heavens above, five feet each in diameter, and ten feet apart at their respective trunks.

In teams of two we dug, revealing multiple layers of differing snow-pack providing insight to conditions we could expect on the mountain above, although we knew our late spring conditions provided a relatively safe snow-pack. The trees formed a natural canopy over our abode covering a floor space of about thirty square feet. Utilizing excavated snow, we packed walls up to the lowest branches giving our shelter a cave like appearance with bough filtered skylights beaming throughout. The entrance was dug in a ‘Z’ shape blocking wind while providing passage to the lakes, access to our water hole, and the mirrored peaks beyond. It had not been our intent, but one could barely make out the shelter until you came upon it. Inside we carved three sections, a sleeping area, common area and kitchen area. The latter consisting of benches and pits dug into the walls for storing food and preparing meals.

This, our second night of six was spent embroiling past feats, future conquest and praying to the sun gods over a bright fire with popcorn sacrifices and unintended sock roasting’s.

Preparation for the following day was also at hand. Swilling moderately in false hopes of blunting the pain of tomorrows climb, clambering around with headlamps in place, fondling our skis, warming our boots, and convincing each other the clouds moving in would not be there in the morrow. Finally, setting all lies and preposterous stories to end, the bottle licked clean and our hearts warmed, we turned in hastening the morning’s adventure.

Waking in the dark to the first sounds of a mountain bivy at ten thousand feet, with snow under bed and overhead is a most fascinating and stimulating experience.

On rising and dressing I guessed the temperature at ten degrees. The sky was clear, and the wind had seized completely. The stillness was frightening and erotic. My pulse and respiration quickened as we packed our packs to begin our ascent to the summit. The soft light of a morning moon glowed off the snow assisting efforts in discerning the route out of camp. My feet were already frozen. I imagined what the critters of this winter environment had accomplished to adapt, survive, and flourish. Crossing the smaller of the two lakes we took bearing towards the first steep ascent. Taking turns breaking trail, we made considerable time. The grade to the ridge was the slowest going. We used our boot toes to kick steps in the frozen snow for traction. Placing one foot in front of the other in an arduous progression of deliberation and concentration we moved forward, single file, and up.

This, in every conceivable fashion, satisfied some unconscious need to beat my body to a pulp. To challenge the irrepressible need to push myself further than I ever had. To prove beyond a doubt the truth or lie in one’s capacity to overcome pain, fatigue and exhaustion through mental strength, focus, desire and concentration. One could likely hear my sputtered gripes and groans down in Carbondale, a small river town in the shadow of Mount Sopris, bitching and promising myself false aspirations to quit smoking for good.

Topping off the ridge we encountered the first glow of the rising sun. We could not have asked for a better day. Our late-night offerings had been answered with resounding prosperity!

Once on the ridge, those with skis and skins were able to strap in and move at a quicker pace, while I trudged on continuing my progress to the summit with diminishing energy.

As I stopped to rest, I became spell-bound in my vision. The sun was shining brilliantly off distant peaks as far as the eye could see. Mt Holy Cross, Gold Dust Peak, Independence Pass, Pyramid Peak, Maroon Bells. The entire Continental Divide painted before my eyes. Like an artist working in watercolor, oils and pastels all at once, with hues of white to blue to brilliant orange across a frozen landscape. As I stood to continue, my knees wavered and I once again became one with the earth. Supine and content in my collapse, I was fatigued yet transfixed with the beauty of the surreal scene awash before me. Never before had I experienced such exhaustion and harmony together.

And then it hit me. Energy cascaded throughout my entire being.?I became light as the breeze, an eagle ready to lift and soar its domain. Ascending the final three hundred feet to the summit I felt completely revived. So alive!

Nothing could have brought me off the natural high I was on. Nothing that is except gravity and twenty-five hundred vertical feet of open bowl riding on the first snowboard decent of Mount Sopris.

Swoosh…!

Wilderness Experience #9

May 24th, 1983

? Kent McCracken

Image Credit Adobe Stock