29 Sep (Fri) Woke up from a sound sleep at dawn, surrounded by fe-lions [two cats curled up on my sleeping bag], to an amazing coyote duet out behind the cabin somewhere. Most people would be dead certain they were hearing a whole pack of coyotes, at least six or ten. But I know better, having watched them at it many times. It’s only two. Probably standing face to face, maybe six feet apart. When you both hear and see this show you can hardly believe that two scraggly mountain-dogs can make so much racket. Truly astonishing. It was a fine show even if I was 85% asleep, echoing off the canyon walls in otherwise total silence. Lay there listening for several minutes before drifting back off. Came back to life maybe an hour later, Lucy still curled over my right arm. Neither of us had moved an inch. ◦◦◦◦◦ Today: rode Woody to Cascade Creek and on up the hill to stashed shovel. Finished cleaning waterbreaks and rocking the trail all the way to the Cinko Lake junction. Tons of rocks. Tons of dust. Welllll, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, in terms of dust tonnage. But today’s version of powdered mountain was incredibly fine and all-pervasive and prone to becoming airborne. Loose rocks very numerous. Worked like the proverbial non-native dog. ◦◦◦◦◦ Home around white-man quittin’ time. Redtop very glad to see us back. Took a necessary river bath. And it was a cold one, brrrr, here at the tail-end of September. But had to wash the dirt outa my ears—it was actually kind of drifted in the dips and hollows. Lucy followed me over to the gravel bar. Sun had just left the peaks for good until tomorrow morning. I told Lucy, “Ooh! It’s cold!” No sympathy from the cat. ◦◦◦◦◦ Bit later: warm stove, warm lantern light, pot of chili bubbling away. No complaints, even with my aching back.
→ no visitors → 5½ miles → 26 WBs cleaned → 750 lbs rock
Quote copied inside the cover of this volume of Piute Log:
Consider that in a sort of cosmic reincarnation, every atom in our bodies resided inside several different stars before the formation of our sun and has been part of perhaps millions of different organism since Earth formed. Planets, stars, and organisms come and go, but the chemical elements, recycled from body to body, are essentially eternal.
—from Rare Earth, by Peter Ward and Don Brownlee
©2020 Tim Forsell 25 Aug 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment