Our trip to the mountain lake began with a slow glide. Everywhere we saw flowers- yellow, blue, and pink dotting the green flood of leaves and grasses on both sides of our single track trail. The basin was open and wide with the trip up miles ahead of us. We didn’t talk much at first. I was looking for bears to be honest.
We passed the sign before the tailhead with a big grizzly picture, telling us we were in bear county, but we were both looking for other signs. So every once and a while we would both say something louder than usual. The dog, Oakley, ran ahead at first, having to be reminded that she needed to stay close. She was sniffing and running and have a day of it. Of course, once I got walking, I forgot about looking for bears almost as much as Oakley. We were both sniffing the wind and having a day of it. “Dogs and their owners,” I guess. But also, I love to be with Quinn someplace beautiful and new and quiet. I had been on this trail before, but it was so long ago, in such a different lifetime it felt new.
The stream crossing was a good shift for us. We quick-stepped on the slippery black rocks in the stream, a bit too far apart but doable. I partly missed once, trying to be as fast as Quinn and got a muddy shoe. But he didn’t laugh or even comment except to say, “good job” and keep walking. Quinn likes to walk with a little steam but not so fast I mind once I get going. He usually blames it on me and says I’m driving him up the trail.
We looked once at the map but mostly this trip was in my head because I had been there before and his head because he had done his homework. We are a good match that way—guts and facts. He usually likes to like walk in front and I usually like to walk in back. We don’t take many breaks, but we are not in a hurry. A few times I said things that he couldn’t hear because of the wind, so I talked a little less and paid a little more attention. The climb was full of tree falls and switchbacks and water crossings. Oakley was in prime form and leapt up and over everything in her path like a steeple chase pony, including the time she climbed three skinny logs like a ladder. Once the mountain got serious, we were pumping a little harder, talking less again and at one point I got that feeling we were not exactly alone. But by the time we got to the lake I felt fantastic.
The tree falls were dense at the entrance to the lake, so we had to do one last push through to get to water. There was a full-on dam of downed logs at the mouth of the stream that flowed down the mountain. The water had actually started to bog up, making it muddy going. But we played at the inlet and watched fish jump, sending rings into rings across the surface of the lake. Finally, out of the tress, the sun warmed us up and dried us off. We sat on a log, kissed for a while, ate some snacks, and enjoyed having our packs off. The lake was even lovely than I remembered.
On the way back, I felt the twinge I’d felt on the way up, but more. I felt it enough that I didn’t mind speeding up going down. We both had bear spray so I was not as worried as I might have been if we didn’t. But bears are not always impressed by a can of smelly gas. And people are always impressed by grizzly bears. One way or the other. So I paid attention, and I also paid attention to how it felt to pay that much attention. That part was not so bad. To be so aware. When we got to nearly to the bottom of the trail we found fresh bear scat. No prints. Just a little shiver down my back. But we saw no bears. We finished the last bit of our hike with not much more awareness that we were being watched than I had felt since the top of the mountain. Not a skippety-do-da feeling. Not a bear jam, or wilderness park feeling. But a wide-awake feeling. It’s good to be in a world where I can still feel it. Where there is wildness that still exists–minding its own business, but still existing.
People say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But maybe what doesn’t kill you also makes you love your life a little bit more, and the world you live in. And also, I love Quinn. I love that I can go a place and feel his competence and his humor and his kindness and love of me and the world. I am glad we are both strong and curious enough to do things like hike eleven miles in grizzly country on a whim, saying all along we might not hike the whole thing but knowing that we will. I am glad that in a wild place I feel a trust in him that makes me feel safe not just because he is capable. But because his love for me is the wildness in my life I am not afraid of.
