Very Long Trail 3 comments

31 Aug 2004 @ 03:26, by John Ashbaugh Monday morning, August thirtieth at the Red Rock Canyon campground. Long climb up the Red Rock Canyon trail late yesterday afternoon, to a turnaround point for the walk back to camp. Last twilight has turned into darkness as the rain clouds and lightning roll in and sparkle. Monday morning, August thirtieth at the Red Rock Canyon campground. Long climb up the Red Rock Canyon trail late yesterday afternoon, to a turnaround point for the walk back to camp. Last twilight has turned into darkness as the rain clouds and lightning roll in and sparkle. Looks like no fire in the night tonight, as first sprinkles splatter. Raindrops patter through the forest onto the eggshell thin membrane of the tent, continuously and continuously, while gusts of wind whip the fabric around and overhead explosions of light punctuate the dark. Finally, a calm settles in, and the full moon shines through. Fire in the morning to warm up the coffee, and turn some old wood into smoke for return to the sky, in the neighborhood of a field of daisies surrounded by adolescent evergreens under the watchful sentinel of the rising peak nearby. The trail last night was going on forever, level and rising and level and rising, with occasional picturesque rocky formations. This trail must lead to some peak or overlook with some majestic view, I think, and the closer I’m getting to it, the further it recedes. How far away, how far away, before it’s time to return, unless I want to sleep out here with the skunks and the cougars and the bears? Finally, there is a turnaround point. A break in the canopy covering the trail, along a bend in the ridge, framing a vista from the edge of a ledge to a range of forest clad hills across the way. This is as far as this evening’s trail goes for this walker. Rest for a while and drink the air, and retrace steps along the downward pathway. The parallel streamlet crisscrossing the descending slope flows in thimblefuls, and I’ll dip my hand in an occasional pool to wipe my face with wherever this water has come from. Formations seen first on the upward trail are now reviewed from another approach. The bones have been loosened up and the heart given cause to flex is muscle. Walking across the terrain, inhaling the mountain air, rained on in the night under a full moon, fire in the morning with smoke for the sky. Hummingbird hovers in morning sunlight, sipping nectar from the profusion of little red tinkerbell blossoms foregrounding the field of daisies. Getting time now to be getting on back to Circus City, where I can talk with some of the people I know about thoughts about where we would like to go, and how we are planning to get there.

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