Ellen Wohl - Rhythms of Change in Rocky Mountain National Park

RHYTHMS OF CHANGE
IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN
NATIONAL PARK

Rocky Mountain National Park. Courtesy of Annette Patton.

Rhythms of
Change in
Rocky Mountain
National Park

ELLEN WOHL

2016 by the University Press of Kansas
All rights reserved

Published by the University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, Kansas 66045), which was organized by the Kansas Board of Regents and is operated and funded by Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wohl, Ellen E., 1962
Title: Rhythms of change in Rocky Mountain National Park / Ellen Wohl.
Description: Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016028702
ISBN 9780700623365 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 9780700623372 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Natural historyColoradoRocky Mountain National Park. | SeasonsColoradoRocky Mountain National Park. | GeologyColoradoRocky Mountain National Park. | Landscape changesColoradoRocky Mountain National Park. | Rocky Mountain National Park (Colo.)
Classification: LCC QH105.C6 W645 2016 | DDC 508.788/69dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016028702.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication is recycled and contains 30 percent postconsumer waste. It is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

January
Wild Basin: Punctuated Rhythms of Geology and Climate

February
Upper Colorado River: People Alter the Rhythms

March
The View West from Moraine Park

April
Lily Lake: Animal Rhythms

May
Cow Creek: Alternative Rhythms

June
Loch Vale: Secrets within the Scenery

July
Forest Canyon: Enduring Rhythms

August
The High Center: Drama Visible and Invisible

September
Lawn Lake and Fall River Valley: Flood Rhythms

October
Big Meadows: Rhythms of Wildfire

November
Glacier Gorge: Rhythms of Air

December
Bear Lake: Contemplating Rhythms

Usually, time slides by us as water ripples away from a small boat, a kayak or canoe slipping quietly across the reflected sky. Often we dont notice. Or else subtle waves mark its passing, a pattern of soft hills and dips you want to feel beneath your palm, even though you know that touching them will change them.

But once in a while, minutes pool into moments of particular intensity and meaning. Rarely, these are the personal earthquakes that dramatically change the ways we inhabit and understand the world. More often, they are what the poet Wordsworth called spots of time, quiet moments in which our minds / Are nourished and invisibly repaired. Mostly we have only to recognize them as they come, unbidden. Or with no guarantees that they will arrive, we can invite them and make ourselves ready.

And so I am standing here alone waiting for the sun to rise on New Years Day.

As a magical gesture of hope for the shape of the year to come, I like to spend this holiday doing something I love, and often this means being in the mountains. Even the most arbitrary cultural markers carry meaning, and this one, the day for new beginnings, also marks the depth of winter in my half of the globe, that space between the shortest and the coldest days. I have chosen this spot on Trail Ridge RoadMany Parks Curve, just where the road is closed for the winterbecause I know it offers a good view to the east. My husband, John, dozes in the car behind my back, giving me this solitary time outdoors.

I had hoped for a brilliant sunrise, the silvery glow of midwinter flooding over the valley and peaks. But I know now I wont see the sun enter the day, any more than I will see the new moon appear just a few minutes earlier. A thick layer of white hides the horizon. And I am wrapped in a mountain cloud. Snowflakes swirl around me, lost against the matching sky, soft white against the dark needles and bark of the trees. The moist air itself dances a ghostly dance, obscuring nearly everything, then offering gauzy frames of forest and rock, valley floor and surrounding hills. The only sound is the winduntil a raucous jay lands on a branch nearby, then another. My face is cool, damp with snowflakes, but I am warm enough. The only tracks on the road are from a snowplow. Above the horizon, a bright glow strengthens behind and through the clouds, saturating their flat white with drama and motion. I stand still, take a few steps, pivot, stand still again. I am the tiny human figure in a Chinese landscape painting, giving scale to the vast mystery and power of the mountains.

Minutes become a moment. In a swirl of snow, cloud, silence, wind, solitude, and expectation, the year begins.

A couple of hours later, at the end of another road, the scene is very different. In the Bear Lake parking lot, we find ourselves in an impromptu New Years Day party. Its crowded by winter standards, and most cars have Colorado license plates: good company, neighbors who would rather celebrate the day outside in the mountains than indoors watching football.

We strap on our snowshoes, put lunch in our packs, and head up the trail to Emerald Lake. New snow cushions our steps, more snow falls steadily, and the light is flat, soft, and shadowless. Its quite a contrast from a week ago, when we climbed here on packed snow in the diamond-dust glitter and blue shadows of a sunny day, the warmth of distant fire on our faces, hat brims pulled low to shade our eyes. Now, sheltered by the trees, we feel just a slight breeze, but we see snow plastered on one side of every trunk and, above us, flakes sailing sideways.

Last week we also had the place mostly to ourselves. Now we share it with cheerful dozens of others: snowshoers and skiers, singles and couples, families and friends, babies in baby-packs and sturdy, weathered, walking stickwielding great-grandparents. We exchange holiday greetings and small talk about the weather and the trail. The crowd thins at pretty little Nymph Lake, frozen and white, and soon the path steepens and grows edgier. We pass giant pink boulders, a frozen waterfall, friendly hikers moving uphill and downhill.

Just before Emerald Lake, our intended destination and lunch spot, the forest opens out and suddenly we are walking directly into the wind. And its quite a wind! Cold, sharp, loud, straight from miles and miles of mountain snowfields and the ice of glaciers and high lakes. In an instant, tears squirt from my eyes, my nose runs, my skin burns with cold. I wrap my muffler over my face, duck my head into my parka, and turn my back to the wind. John does the same. After more than thirty years of hiking together, we dont need words: we start quickly back down the trail. We arent here to suffer. Instead we find a sheltered spot where John carves a pair of seats into the snow, then pads them with our extra jackets. Settled in, alone and quiet except when fellow celebrants pass us by, we savor our holiday meal.