Trekker's Pilgrimage

Yesterday was the first day in a week I was able to wear shorts. You have no idea how thrilled I was by this circumstance. We were lucky; the maelstrom that made national news was an upslope. At ninety-one sixty, we got our fair share of rain, but we were up top. The river swelled but one night like early runoff and then it was murk and dragons and rain like Africa.

Since it was the first day it didn't rain at all, and, of course my solitary walkabout day, I fucked off for the outback. The Rosalie Trail runs along the southwestern edge of the Mount Evans Wilderness, from which one could trek as far as Abyss Lake-a commitment I'm up for, it's just finding the time. Were I given to pride-a sin, I've heard, there was even a film about it with Brad Pitt-I'd be proud of myself for keeping my bastard new year's resolution.

Looking down along Scott Gormer Creek...

 I have never been one for titles, finding labels to be oh so limiting, creating a social expectation-and we all know I'm no good at being social or doing what's expected. Be that as it may, I could not help but wonder if with recent walkabouts I could call myself a trekker or mountaineer, but perhaps I give myself way too much credit. I like to walk. It's meditative.

Today Sabina and I mean to wander Butler Gulch. Woods, tundra, and mine ruins. Everybody wins. A week to the day we made our annual pilgrimage to the Great Stupa. We got home just before the maelstrom truly hit. The stupa was one of those places that was cut off by flooding. We were lucky.


And we are lucky enough to go on walkabout. Just as we are lucky enough to live in an extraordinary place that others come to vacation at and be acquainted with extraordinary people. As we finish breakfast and get our packs together, I cannot help but muse how as we head into the Backcountry we are once again going on pilgrimage, and such a thought pleases me.