Today I learned that there are still a few gentlemen left in the world and I was given hope for humanity after all. It was a good omen for the day's hike even though it occurred at a small town gas station on the way to the mountain. I was simply cleaning my windshield as I often need to do after taking my trail truck on too many dirt roads. But let's be real....I am 4 foot 10 inches tall and I love big trucks. So that means cleaning the center and top sections of a windshield take some real stretching on tip toes and often throwing one leg out behind me as I lean in to really get the job done. During summertime hiking, I am usually wearing short hiking shorts and this only leads to men at any gas station watching me do this for their own entertainment. But not on this day.
Today, a man driving the vehicle on the other side of my pump, was walking out of the small store and approached me to offer to clean my windows for me. After recovering from being struck speechless, I assured him that I was fine but thanked him profusely for his kindness. He tried again, telling me he would be happy to get the other side or the top for me. I laughed and promised him I could get it.....as I am far too stubborn and independent to allow him to do this. But by then, he had seen the Wolf in the backseat and we had a good conversation about dogs and hiking. As I drove away, I couldn't believe that this was the first time in 49 years of life on planet earth that a strange man had offered to clean my windows (without being the paid gas station attendant of course). I shook my head and smiled to myself that chivalry was not dead yet. It just took half a century to find it. Now for my girlfriends who will not allow my story to end there, I will admit that yes, if I had been a single woman, you better 100 percent believe that I would have let that bearded man clean any and all of my windows.
With that, I drove with joy in my heart and a smile on my face all the way to my mountain of the day. I was super excited about getting out on a section of trail on this mountain that I had not yet done. The exploration bug had taken ahold of me and would not let go until boots hit that trail! There would be one brief section I had done before, then the rest of the day would all be new. There would be a lot of bouldering, deep ravines and trenches beneath glaciers, and some very exposed trail for this first hike in September. But we were ready for it. The Wolf has now been hiking every week with Nova and I for fifteen consecutive months and although I knew we were going to be faced with some difficult challenges, I was confident in her skills and abilities at this point in our journey as hiking partners. It wasn't long before we started to break above treeline and get our first views of the day.
This is when the bouldering began. So bouldering is when you basically walk and hop from rock to rock, picking your way along the lava rock, basalt and shale making up the upper shoulders of mountains. The boulders often have large and deep gaps between them just waiting for a misstep to snap your leg. They also can look stable, until you step on them, and then they rock and roll on you! Bouldering takes time and an awful lot of concentration. Most people use trekking poles to help maintain their balance and go very slowly. Well, slow is not exactly in my vocabulary as anyone who has tried to follow me in a grocery store has learned. I also don't use poles as I have two dogs tied to the tactical belt around my waist and need my hands to manage those two 6 foot lines. Bouldering is difficult to do solo, but when doing it tied together, you better have some real good trust and communication with your partners. We have been doing this long enough and up on enough mountains that we all move in unison now and feel each other through the lines. We don't even need to speak. We all step when the leader steps and move at the same pace. If one of us hits a wobbly rock, we all hear it and pause to allow that partner to reconfigure as needed. It really is like a dance and I love it! There were very few other hikers on trail today, but two stopped us to say that they were shocked I had dogs up here doing this kind of hiking. I assured them that my dogs were professionals and handled it sometimes better than I do! Here is what some of these areas look like, but they truly go on for miles and miles!
Now if you look closely in the photo above at the top center to the right of the large tree, you will see a leaning wooden pole. Let me tell you about poles!! Oh, how I love them. As a matter of fact, at the bottom of this story please stay tuned to my ode to poles. So when you are under conditions where a trail is not going to be very visible, but you want to make a hiking trail, you drop poles into the ground to allow hikers to sight them and move from pole to pole staying on track to the path set forth. Sometimes these poles are a half mile apart and you get to one and then squint hard to search for the next one far in the distance. When you are high on a mountain side though, poles can be fairly easy to spot as you often are away from any and all trees. Other times when you are climbing in and out of trenches and ravines and your line of sight is limited, the poles can be every hundred yards or so apart. After spending a day moving from pole to pole for dozens of miles, you become rather attached to them. They are your newest and dearest friends trail side. Now, back to bouldering. Nova adores hopping from rock to rock. She often chooses the rear position though and I think this is because she secretly knows it is actually the hardest of all! She rocks it of course!
One of the things I so appreciate about bouldering is how you absolutely must clear your mind and focus only on where your body moves, how your body moves and be able to make instant corrections at any moment. Balance is everything. There are few situations you can put yourself into in life for hours at a time, where your mind is completely clear of every other thought and notion! It is just you and your breathing and your body. Nothing else. Bouldering mountainside will do this for you. It becomes addicting I can assure you of that! As we moved from rock to rock and pole to pole, we were getting glimpses of the mountain peak above. Today however, she was keeping her face hidden in the clouds. While we were climbing up her skirts, she seemed to grow angry and her clouds grew darker.
Despite what was happening just above us, we were staying in the sun for most of our hike. The wind would whip at us at times, but it was overall, a very comfortable day. There were a few times however when huge flocks of birds would suddenly and startlingly flush up into the air and fly in a panic all around. It kept making me think of natural disaster movies where right before a volcano explodes, birds all do these sudden movements. We all stopped to look and listen to the mountain beneath our feet a little more seriously. "Well, if something does happen", I said to the girls, "we are getting a front row seat!"
I put Josie in the lead for most of the day, which she loves. She has truly taken on the role of first woman in and protector for her clan. She also is a complete rock-star when it comes to trail finding. She has virtually never been wrong and I trust her completely to find our way. I do not need a map most of the time, I just need my Wolf.
Before long, we climbed up onto a high ridge crest that was like an island in a sea of boulders and deep ravines. This island literally took my breath away and made me feel as if I had lightening in my veins. The beauty was as good as it gets. I don't think any other trail has moved me as much as this section. There were blueberry bushes as far as the eye could see and they were all turning red to welcome Fall. There were small alpine trees dotting the landscape and we were high enough to see two other volcanoes from where we stood. The path was easy to follow here and drew me forward like a moth to a flame. It was so incredibly stunning that I found myself thankful that the peak was still covered in clouds as I surely would have died on the spot had I had any more beauty! My eyes could not have taken it in all at once. Don't even get me started on the number of blueberries! I have never seen the likes of this and it made last week's blueberry gorging seem like a mere snack. I spent the time obsessing about how many calories were in a pound of berries as I surely left a personal record for berries eaten in one hike and maybe in one lifetime. Also, as a sure indication of how smitten I was with this trail, I broke another record....that for the number of photos taken! Even I was shocked when I found out that I had taken 3048 photos on one 15.5 mile day hike. I clearly lost my mind from the beauty. But can you blame me??
We were all gobsmacked and it was hard to leave our island. I wished I had my overnight pack with us, but we had gone light today and only had a day-pack. I instantly knew we would have to come back here some day to spend the night on this island in the Fall. I even picked out the perfect camp site already! It would be a bucket list moment to watch a sunrise and sunset from this location! Now bouldering for miles with a heavy overnight pack would not be ideal, but seeing gold in the sun reflecting off the red and gold bushes covering the ground would surely be a life changing experience.
As we left our island, Josie was once again in the lead and ready to start some distance and canyon hiking. This area has a long section of very dusty trail moving from post to post while dropping through a series of deep and potentially treacherous trenches. I did love the island, but I also love these canyons!! They are fascinating and not something you can do on many hikes. They feel a bit like what hiking on the moon must be like. When we hit our first canyon, even the girls stopped to just stare in awe at what was in front of us.
When you are inside one of these ravines, you try hard to not think about a flash flood or mudslide from the glaciers above. This would not be the place to be in those moments! Even Nova knew this and had her game face on for leading us quickly out of each ravine. But the girls were ecstatic when we found water in one of the deep trenches. This was in a pocket right above what would be a spectacular water fall when the water would be running full force.
We went through 4 or 5 canyons in a row before climbing up onto another island. This one was covered in low growing plants and mountain goat scat and we could see it was a favorite place for them. By now, we were starting to feel a bit tired from all the ravines and our long day. I will admit that bouldering is hard on your feet and, at least for me, my bad left knee. My shoulders were also starting to strain from gravity's pull on my pack. We decided we needed to chose a place to stop and eat supper before turning around. I checked my pedometer and knew if we chose this location, we would be doing a 15.5 mile round trip hike with much of that in bouldering or canyons. While my soul longed to just keep going all the way around the mountain, I had to remind myself that we were not geared up for that. I was also concerned if we dallied too long, then we would be stuck bouldering in the dark. If I was the only one holding a flashlight it would truly put my girls at risk for breaking a leg between boulders. So whatever we did, I knew we had to get across those boulder fields and back to tree line by dark. I pulled out supper for the girls. After so many berries, I only had one thing in my pack that sounded remotely good to eat for my poor, abused stomach.....which even I will admit was strange. It was only the nectarine that I wanted.
We didn't stay long and I am sad to say, I never took my quilt or book from my pack. The wind was super strong on this ridge, forcing me to put most of my upper layers on, but I was worried about chasing sunset and losing at the wrong time. It would be miserable to be stuck on a steep boulder field for the entire night! So I told the girls we needed to start heading back. I like inhospitable, but I didn't even have a sleeping bag with me! As we started back the way we had come, I enjoyed watching the sun drop lower into the sky and kiss our faces. The weather truly had spared us today! We climbed in reverse savoring every moment.
If you look closely at these white dots below, you will see that we found our mountain goat friends! I will admit I was once again saddened to not find a bear in what was surely bear country. We found their fresh scat, but our friends alluded us once again. They must be in comas from blueberry poisoning I figured!
We moved quickly and made it back to tree line just as it got dark. For my final mile and a half to the trail head I refused to turn on my flashlight as a final evening challenge for myself. I was tripping and stumbling over roots and rocks, but made it back in one piece. As I share a few more of my favorite photos below (just before my ode to poles), I have to say that once again leaving a place of such beauty was more than my soul could take. I felt pieces of it shattering within me. As I forced myself to hike away from what is most assuredly heaven on earth, I realized that perhaps the reason I love hiking so much is for these very moments when my soul is shattered. I need these shattered holes and pockets within me so that God can fill them with His love, grace and mercy. He renews my spirit with each hike that seeks to destroy me. If I wasn't shattered He could not fix and fill me anew! I suppose the same is true of daily life as we struggle through the circumstances that try to destroy us. After this hike, I have a new appreciation for holes and for poles. Now if only I could not be so prideful and just let a man clean my window I'd be all set.
Okay....and now....the long awaiting Ode to Poles!! Oh mountain poles, let me count the ways that I love you!! I love you when you are near and I love you when you are far. I love you in the shadows and I love you in the sun. I love you when you are strong and tall and I love you when you are broken and leaning. Oh mountain poles, thank you for all our hugs!! I will never forget you! Alas, I am not a poet, just a girl who loves mountain poles.
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