Hike: Mt. Yale

I climbed my eleventh fourteener, and first Collegiate Peak, Mt. Yale, this past weekend with Jared who came for a visit over a long weekend.

Meditation: Haiku

Rain on ageless stone
Pools on beds of aspen leaves—
Yellow, silent tears.

*

You, down autumn hills,
Bearing stems of cardamom—
I await you here.

Meditation: Approaching Autumn

There is something about the first chill of autumn air that can turn my mind to the past like nothing else. It has been nippy here the last several days with fog and low-hanging clouds coming in from the west, and there was thick fog on the pass this morning and it was misty, not quite raining, yet requiring the windshield wipers. It has been jacket weather outside, and, inside, the furnace has been on in the mornings when I wake. Granted, I live at 8,200 feet above sea level in Colorado, and it is early September. I remember it snowing rather heavily on Labor Day above Silverton, Colorado when I was there with my family a few years back; it dumped on a friend and I huddled at the top of Handies Peak the same weekend a year later; and my first year living in Colorado, I, a wide-eyed Ohio boy clad all in cotton with no jacket, stood shivering on a switchback of the Ice Lakes trail marveling at the sight of wet, heavy snow in September. So the current weather is not exactly an anomaly.

Several times yesterday I found myself standing over a basket of clean laundry, having just returned, with a start, to the present. I looked out the window to see the clouds gathering and parting, mists passing in front of the piney hills across Crystola Canyon, the ponderosa pines in the backyard sparkling in the sun one moment and blending into blue the next. I pulled a sweater over my head and broke out a New York Times crossword that’s been giving me trouble, partially, I suppose, to keep my mind from wandering. There is a melancholy beauty in memories that come this time of year; they are close and tangible, and they remind of youth and wonder and less cynical times.

I must admit I’m not ready for the snow. There. I’ve said it. In Colorado, you can be exiled for thinking that, let alone saying it. (I have a feeling that “The Natives”, as they like to be called, already have their collective eye on me, and I don’t want to press my luck.) In fact, I’m surprised at myself. My first years in Colorado I prayed for it, reveled in it, measured it. Today, as I drive down the pass, I can almost feel it in the air. The dry, stinging bitterness of it clinging silently to golden aspen leaves and creeping into my bones.

Hike: Mt. Elbert

I hiked to the highest point in Colorado sunday: Mt. Elbert. I went with the singles group. We camped together the night before and had a great time. I wandered off for a few minutes with my camera saturday evening and took a few snapshots of the summit of Mt. Elbert in the distance under some foreboding clouds and Half Moon Creek (where we camped), but I forgot my camera sunday morning. So you'll have to take me at my word that the views were beautiful up top. The hike was, I believe, only class 1, but was strenuous. Out of 11 who attempted, 8 summited, and one of those experienced some altitude sickness as well. The height of the experience, however, seems to be directly proportional to the difficulty of the ascent. (Final photo courtesy John Adams.)