Thoughts from the mountainside

I know you can backdate posts, but that's not really true to this moment.

I'm transcribing a journal entry from my traveling this weekend:

15 July 2004 - 10:45 pm - Canon City, CO

Today Mom, Dad and I drove a several hundred mile loop from Woodland Park to Hoosier Pass to Breckenridge to St. Mary's Glacier and then down the face of the front range in Canon City.

At Hoosier Pass we took campy photos in front of the sign and then mom and I set off to see how high we could climb.  We followed a muddy, rutty road for about a mile until we came to several large fields of snow.  We climbed up to the snow (maybe 200 feet above the road)--I climbed on up into the middle and made a snow angel.  Then I made a snowball and threw a perfect strike--gently hitting my mom on the shoulder of her jacket, her jacket borrowed from me.

I was excited about visiting the glacier--and I wasn't disappointed.

To get there you climb a twisty and steep mountain road for ten miles or so. Then you have 3/4 of a mile up to the base of the glacier. The trail up is full of boulders and gravel--not an easy hike, but by no means terribly treacherous.

This trail dumps you into a little plateau and a lake fed by the glacier.

Mom and I scrambled up to the bottom of the glacier's snowfield. I wanted to go higher, but that meant climbing steep rocks--and eventually scaling the snowy mass itself.

Mom was happy where she was.

So I headed straight up.

I knew that the ridge in sight wasn't the top--my goal was the top. And knowing I could climb out of sight allowed me to come prepared. I'd hoped to spend a few minutes and reflect. I had my pen, my notebook, and the following poem by William Stafford in my backpack:


Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made.  Ask me whether

what I have done is my life.  Others

have come in their slow way into

my thought, and some have tried to help

or to hurt:  ask me what the difference

their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say. 

You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait.  We know

the current is there, hidden; and there

are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us. 

What the river says, that is what I say.


I think I was about halfway up--I stopped to catch my breath (the air is thin at 12,500 feet).

There had been storm clouds tumbling on the horizon--I watched the lightning dance miles away.

I turned to clamber up some more. I came to a place where the glacier met sheer cliff. I was going to have to leave the rocky path along the side and traverse the icy snow.

I paused to take some photos and it started to gently rain. Thunder quickly pealed across the ridge and lightning cracked--no longer miles away. And then it started raining: torrential, driving rain. I quickly stowed my cameras and threw on my sweatshirt. My ascent had ended.

I ran down the now treacherous mountainside in a mixture of rain and hail. I was already reading the story in my head: Ohio visitor...climbing in a storm...no raingear...fell and suffered broken bones...

My time for reverie and reflection over this poem shared with me by a friend had ended before it began.

Or had it?

Perhaps it is better this way. Perhaps instead of looking back and looking forward I can simply echo the thunder and lightning. Perhaps as I was running down the mountain I was living out the words of William Stafford: what the glacier says, that is what I say.

What have I done in my life? I have climbed a rocky glacier during a thunderstorm in solitude. Someday, I am sure, I will be able to look back and find significance in that.