Bull of the woods

A long haul.

Looking over the map and navigating our path. Slipping into the cool waters of Opal Creek in the morning. Caricatured dives into deep glassy pools clear as a mirror amongst green mossy rocks under the shade of fir trees. A natural spa in the wilderness. Pleasure before the pain of the day ahead. Passing under the cathedral like shadows of ancient conifers near the creek bed and through the ghost town of Jawbone Flats. Ascending zipzaggedly up the seemingly inexhaustable slope. Burdened down like weary mules, a vast watershed of sweat streaming from our pores. The beginning of blisters forming on my heels. Dripping wet, stinking, exhausted and nothing to do but laugh as the flys deepen the discomfort and plod ahead.

Finally reaching the ridgetop and looking out on the expanse of conifers marching away across the hazy mountains and just making out the white spire of Mnt. Jefferson poking out far away past crested folds of green descending away in the distance. Marching over an arid brittle world of rocks and boulders along the ridgetop. Almost above the tree line amidst the gnarled dwarf bushes and alien alpine desert adapted succulents and wildflowers of the high crags. The shrill squeaks of pikas and gruff calls of distant ravens punctuating the very palpable silence up here....and making me smile end to end.

As the sun sets just an hour from dusk we descended down, down, down the far ridge past more monstrous giants, the understory dense with all kinds and colors of huckleberrys and thimble berries. Eventually arriving at Silver King Lake and our campsite, essential water for the haul tomorrow. Disturbing the peace of a family of ducks and swimming out into the warm marshy water of the lake. Filling up our empty water bottles by the shoreline and just making out the eerie black silhouette of newts in the water below hunting along the bank and bumping along the muddy bottom as night drops like a cloak.

....falling hard as a stone into deep sleep and not waking until morning.