Category: 2020

We paused to refuel and rehydrate at the foot of the final ascent towards the lake. A furrow in the snow among the trees denoted the course of a stream. In two places its waters were exposed, flowing sparse and crystal-clear over a rust and tan bed that seemed to glow softly in the surrounding white. A fallen log lay across one of these patches of open water, across its topside a winter’s worth of snow accumulation shaped by the elements into the form of a breaking wave, frozen in time.

“What have you got to eat?” she asked.
“The food I brought for myself,” I replied. “You?”
“I want to see what you’ve got first.”
I rolled my eyes and showed her my selection of energy bars, and she chose out her favorite.
“I knew you’d have one of these,” she smiled.

We ate in silence, each mentally preparing for the aching calves, burning thighs and over-taxed lungs that would accompany the next half-mile of trail.

“I usually put my head down, just focus on the ground right in front of me, and count off a certain number of paces—one hundred, two hundred, five hundred, whatever—before looking up again. Other wise it seems you never make progress. Same when I’m grinding my way up a long climb on my bike. My breathing gets into a rhythm, and it seems to go by quicker.”

“I’m the same,” she said, “except I sing a song to myself.”

We re-fastened our packs and began the ascent, one foot in front of the other, the snow crunching softly beneath our snowshoes, the fluctuating tightness in my calves and shortness of breath a reliable barometer of the changes in gradient of the trail
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“It’s like quarantine,” she observed as we trudged. “If you look too far into the future, the end seems a long way off. I’m trying to take it one day at a time, one step at a time.”

I knew she was missing that part of her life, the camaraderie of her housemates, the interaction with professors and fellow students, the clubs, the vibe and bustle of the city. It meant making the effort to get out and move, breath fresh air, and return home with muscles tired but mind rejuvenated all the more important.

A quarter hour later, we stood at the foot of the final push, presented with a choice. Beyond the ridge line in front of us sat the lake. A prior hiker had broken a trail that switched back and forth to the top, or we could take the direct route, shorter but steeper.

“I vote we go for it,” she said. “I’d rather get it over and done with.”

I nodded, and we took the straight approach, scrambling on all fours the last few yards until we stood atop the ridge and looked down on the frozen expanse of the lake. Across the far shore the ground rose steeply again, above tree line, to the spine of the Continental Divide, the distant snow fields overhung by several ominous-looking cornices. Mottled grey clouds blotted out the sun, flattening the light and speaking of an impending storm.

We descended to the shore of the lake and drank once more while the dog cavorted about on the flat ground. Three quarters of the way across, a dark patch in the ice gave the first hint of spring’s thaw, of light at the end of the season’s tunnel. The wind blew, as ever, but not with the same bite as in the the heart of winter.

I called in the dog off the ice, and took in the view one last time—such time and place retains memories more special with no other person in sight. We turned our backs and began the descent from the ridge.

The snow yielded softly underfoot as we walked up the steady incline of the pass. Ahead the dog ran free, following her nose first up a south facing slope largely clear of snow before crossing down into a grove of trees where she was forced to bound through drifts chest-deep, all the while a smile on her face as bright as the day.

“I’m hot,” she said, not words usually associated with my wife in the month of January. “Even my feet.”
“It is a gorgeous day,” I agreed. “I don’t even have a thermal top on, and I’m sweating some.”

The road turned to the north and for the next quarter mile we walked in shadow, the snow deeper and softer, the air noticeably cooler and the light taking on a bluish hue. Somewhere in the distance a flock of jays squawked from a hillside bathed in sunlight, otherwise our footfalls and intermittent conversation were the only sounds to break the silence.

Having each been born at the beginning of a new decade, years ending in zero hold extra significance. While age is but a number, and clocks and calendars a fleeting attempt to impose our structure and control on something called time, still commencing a new decade of life brings pause for extra reflection.

“A friend told me, for her, turning fifty seemed a bigger deal than sixty,” she said. “How did you feel at fifty?”
I tried to remember back that far. My sister, nephew and a friend had traveled from New Zealand to stay a few days and help celebrate. I recalled the joy of their company more than any feelings of regret or foreboding regarding the milestone.

“I read somewhere that your forties are the old age of youth, and your fifties the youth of your middle age,” I replied. “I still feel pretty young at sixty, but next decade I’ll be turning seventy. That seems old.”

“I do feel wear and tear on my body,” she said, “living with certain aches and pains.”

I agreed. Despite regular stretching, a certain amount of lower back ache is my constant companion. As the saying goes, if I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.

Once again, my mind turned to that me, thirty years ago, arriving in the Arkansas Valley for the first, and I’d assumed only time, a pack on my back, and no clue the path would lead to us walking side by side up this mountain pass, talking about the vagaries, fears and challenges being parents and of growing old, together.

My heart filled with gratitude, for her, for life, for contemplating the future, for remembering the past, but most importantly, for the here and now, of the warm winter’s day, and the soft yielding of the snow beneath out boots.