I knew it was too early to be able to go all the way, but I had the time and thought I’d see how far I could go. There is a lovely hike up to Black Bear Pass, but you have to hit the time of the year just right, because when the snow is finally completely gone the jeeps appear by the score, as this is one of those jeeping trails where middle-aged men who own four-wheel drive vehicles get to imagine themselves as adventurers. Even if they are in a line of forty or more vehicles just like their own coming down the mountain.
The first pic is of the trailhead which is located less than a quarter-mile from Red Mountain Pass on Highway 550. BTW, this starting point is at just above 11,000 feet.
After slipping about in the white stuff for a mile or so I met a young woman coming back down the path, who was packing her back-country skis. She said there was still enough to ski on, but that it was melting fast and it wouldn’t be long until the season was over for her.
Later on I reached the point where I could see the tracks she had made, and the second photo shows them. I was impressed at how fit she must be to have climbed, skied, then climbed again. Six decades do make a difference.
For myself this was the turnaround spot. From where I stood the snow got deeper and the trail got steeper. Visions of me trying to struggle up that slope included only one likely result, which is where I make a misstep and set new records in the alpine downhill face-plant-position slide.
So my total mileage was only about three miles, but it was enough for the day.
Count of least chipmunks seen on the walk was > 40.
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I didn’t moisturize this morning, thinking I could get by for one day without that greasy process. Wrong again! The surface of the skin of some seniors turns to a powdery gray in less than four hours in this dry climate (8% relative humidity today) and is … what can I say … less attractive as a result.
If there were only some sort of trough like a sheep dip where I could wade through a pit filled with beneficial oils every morning. With coffee cup held high, perhaps. Even better, perhaps a longer channel while I relaxed on a float tube, drifting along.
It could even be perfumed with something manly, like the scent of bacon frying mixed with that of an old leather saddle.
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It’s been windy again the past several days. Nothing remarkable, mostly in the 15-25 mph range. But I tried to go fishing and had to quit early because I am using only lightweight gear these days, and I soon tired of having a straight-ahead cast ending up in the tules to my right.
Back in South Dakota, such a breeze would have been no problem. We jigged from small boats, and so were immune to such things. For those of you who are not pescadores, jigging means baiting a reasonably heavily weighted hook and dropping it straight down from the boat. Not much finesse required. No artful or pinpoint casts. Just let it down until it hits the bottom, then reel it up a couple of inches.
The art comes in deciding whether you have a strike or are only hooked up on rocks, grass, timber, sunken boats, or any of the thousand types of interesting items that can be found on the bottom of lakes and reservoirs.
My angling friends in South Dakota really were not general fishermen. That word suggests that they might be after a variety of finned creatures. They were not. They sought only walleyed pike, and all other sorts of fish were regarded as something nasty that they caught accidentally and would rather not have had to deal with.
They were walleyemen. Sometimes if I grew weary of sitting there staring straight down into the water I would suggest to friend Bill that perhaps we could try trolling or some sort of more active fishing. The look that I would get said volumes. He was mentally measuring the distance from the boat to shore and calculating whether I could make it if I were asked to swim back home. For him it was hard enough to put up with a slow fishing day, and there was little tolerance for mutiny among members of the crew.
On each of these occasions I would quickly resume staring down into the water. Swimming for miles has never seemed all that attractive to me.
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The question here is not Do I Exaggerate?, because of course I do and freely admit it. The question is … how much? These are my stories and I get to tell them my way. If I get started with a tale and as it develops it seems a bit pale and anemic I might add a bit of color to enliven it. After all, life does have more than a few drab days so why should we be limited by them?
For instance, in the fishing story I told earlier, friend Bill never asked me to get out of the boat and swim to shore. It is possible that he never even cradled that thought for an instant. However, he might have had it and how would I know for sure? It might even have been much worse than the episode I related. He might have been thinking – I wonder how well he would do swimming with the boat anchor tied to one leg? It would be easily understandable because I can be (you may not credit this) annoying at times. Irritating. Fingernails on the blackboard sort of thing.
Or he might have thought: Poor Jon, he doesn’t appreciate that this is the way, the truth of the angling life. Walleyes are the purest form of fish in appearance, intelligence, fighting abilities, and flavor (when fried properly). Jigging is the purest form of fishing, where it is only lead + hook + bait + you + time. Jon would rather we motor about aimlessly from place to place without a thought in our heads. The poor fool doesn’t know any better, and is to be pitied by all.
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We come into this world alone, and we leave it the same way. In between those dates we are mostly guessing.
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The graphic below is from a news item that is truly stunning. It is from a June 1 article on Page 12 of our local paper, the Montrose Daily Gazette. Robin and I live in the 3rd District, but we are kept from feeling too superior by the fact that the 3rd has sent Lauren Boebert to Washington. Twice.
An ignorance as profound as the article describes suggests a severe developmental deficiency, and if the topic weren’t so important I would probably let it pass with a tsk tsk or two, not wanting to pick on the less fortunate among us.
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But the difference is that this is the paper bag sort of ignorance, where the Party passes out those large brown bags that used to be found in every grocery store. After cutting out holes for eyes the member is pushed out into society and exhorted not to read anything that they can’t take into the bag with them. And not to listen to anyone who doesn’t have a bag on their head.
It doesn’t help that this past Christmas season the local Republican Party made the following gift suggestions:
- A Block The Boogeyman kit for their children’s bedrooms which is absolutely guaranteed to keep those pests from collecting under beds and in closets. It also comes in adult models to be used against anything that makes you nervous.
- Subscriptions to the popular Russian magazines PlayComrade, Gulag Review, or The National Interrogator.
- A locator device programmed to alert you when you are close to the edge of the Earth so you don’t fall off.
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Little Home In The Valley 