Scenes from high altitude
Maybe I should just get an instagram.
Portland is greener than I left it. At 6am, the air is cool, peaceful, sprinkled with birdsong. Six and a half weeks have been kind to the plants. I understand it’s been raining.
I got in last night, washed as much as possible, then crashed. For ten days since I left Wyoming, I mostly camped alone near the continental divide. Maybe each night deserved a little newsletter. I only have notes.
I found a small town with a municipal hot springs. Anyone can shower for free, then soak in one of three large pools by the river, watching songbirds in the trees.
A few days later, deep in a forest, I hiked a couple miles and discovered a field by a stream, where two men were swinging metal detectors, looking for artifacts. Apparently there had been a civil war encampment there, as part of a trail between forts. One man, from a small Wyoming oil town, wanted to find a pistol, but since there were no battles this far West, he hoped at best for a coin. He had so far collected several cartridges, some of them very old. Also beer can tabs. “You always find those,” he said.
One night it hailed. The cold winds tightened my jacket, but it was worth the sunset from the fringes of the western storm. The storm cloud crashed on a forested mountain like waves on a rock, fanning upwards and burning purple in an otherwise mild sky. Red soaked upwards from the mountaintop on fillaments like bloodied scarves rising into the stormcloud’s prow, until purple asserted evening, and I walked. On the ridgetop, barely a geological welt, lichen speckled gray sandstone blocks that surfaced from the turf. Wildflowers matched the lichens in purple, yellow, and orange. From there aspens, firs, and sagebrush rolled to the mountains. It was a sunset I could hike to. In every other direction, a gentler sky cleared and dimmed. I noticed the state highway winding uphill. Motorhomes and trucks had stopped at every pullout to watch.
I finally descended into canyon country. In the heat I removed a days-smelly pair of long underwear, and rolled the windows down. I even swam in the Green River, for a chilly minute.
Butch Cassidy appears to have slept everywhere.
A local told me about a special canyon. I spent hours looking for it, armed only with a photo of a section of paper map, and no service to navigate by phone. Tall sandstone fins jutted out to shade a winding little road. I climbed a ridge to see the tops of other canyons, and the map finally made sense. I hiked back to the car. All the land was BLM, so I crossed a gate, and drove a two-track dirt road into a flat stretch of rangeland almost more valley than canyon. Ancient seabeds snapped in angled fragments walled the grassland. A horse (wild?) ran by my car while music played from the window at my eblow. Then it left me, and the two-track hooked right into a deeper valley of sagebrush, and hugged one sandstone wall. When the road threatened the Subaru’s undercarraige, I hiked. Across a muddy river, through a patch of willows, I startled a bull. It hopped back and showed me its flank, to prove how big it was, then took a big inhale and snort, but bulls are always full of it. I sang a calming little song and walked past the herd, about five black cows.
At the canyon’s end a tall crack opened in the sandstone. That was my canyon. I couldn’t describe it. I wanted to climb every wall, but I had to beat sunset in order to explore. If I broke a leg in the dark, it would be weeks or longer before anyone noticed my car.
Rock formations ramped up towards the sun. The wind had carved jug handholds. A creek fell into pools and curved between reeds and flowers. Swallows had made hanging nests, but mostly I saw no sign of animals, besides antelope tracks and scat. The sun was blinding where it broke through, and it shined on the sheer rock edges.
Eventually the canyon opened to rolling hills, which meant I had passed my destination. I startled a snake. It had no rattle, and we went our seperate ways. Finally, my alarm rang, meaning I’d hiked halfway to sunset. When I turned back, I found doglike tracks, which concerned me, cause I didn’t remember noticing them on the hike out. Then, looking up, I finally noticed them: dozens of petroglyphs. Once I realized they could be etched so high on the rocks, they appeared to me. They were at least 650 years old. The images depicted hunts, humans, and animals. This canyon must have felt special, even then.
I hiked back past the cows, slept on a soft sand bed, and watched the stars.
