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My Special Place
This tiny little burbling stream isn’t spectacular, but it will always have a special place in my heart. I’m very fortunate that I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. Within two minutes walking time from our front door, I can be on an unmarked trail into the National Forest. This unassuming little trail is deeply woven into the fiber of my being, it is my “great escape” when I need to relieve the stress from family or work, my route to solitude when I need to be alone to think, my link to untold adventures exploring the natural world just over the hill from civilization, a way to invigorating exercise that strips away my worries, clears my mind and recharges my soul.
The lower part of the trail is unspectacular, steadily climbing through scrub oak until it enters the ponderosa pine forest at about 7,000 ft elevation. But if you look, and listen, the trail will deliver a never-ending stream of small, wondrous delights. In the spring, you can hear the doppler-shifting buzz of the hummingbirds’ wings as the males try to attract a mate with their daredevil dives and acrobatics. They dive straight down toward the tops of the scrub oak, and then just before certain death they pull up in a tight loop and zoom back up high in the sky, and plunge back down again, over and over. Like the whine of a high-strung sport bike, the pitch of their buzzing wings changes as they zoom by at breakneck speed. Once you’ve tuned your ears to the surrounding landscape, you can hear the calls of mourning doves, western robins, and countless other birds. And see the fleeting flash of blue as a western bluebird flits from tree to tree, or the signature undulating flight of the tuxedoed magpies as their lazy wing beats propel them in a lift-glide, lift-glide, lift-glide across the valleys.
From the first green of spring, until the first snowfall, an attentive hiker can see a delightful sampling of wildflowers. At the lower elevations you can find the florescent orange-reds of the Indian Paintbrush, the blues and whites of the lupine, and countless small patches of yellows, pinks and purples of other wildflowers I’ve never taken the time to identify. A little higher up the trail are scattered patches of wild iris, so delicate and dainty compared to their domestic counterparts. Next come the waxy yellow blossoms of the prickly-pear and hot-pink blossoms of the barrel cactus. At the fringes of the ponderosa pine forest are small groupings of pasque flowers, their soft fuzzy petals belying their hardiness and ability to survive at the windswept higher altitudes in the mountains.
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Pasque Flowers
Along the way, intriguing capillary trails split off in all directions. I’ve hiked this network of trails for over 15 years, and I’m still finding new trails to explore. Many of these capillaries dwindle into game trails, becoming fainter and harder to follow until you are standing in a clearing in the forest, in a place you’ve never been before. You take a moment to explore, then turn and try to work your way back to the main trail, returning home with the quiet satisfaction of having found new places to explore. There are several spectacular alpine lakes within a days’ hike that I could choose to visit if I wanted, or I could stick to the game trails and bushwhacking, and explore areas that are rarely visited. I know that if I want to, I can continue hiking for many days, probably without seeing another person.
Shortly after the main trail enters the ponderosa pine forest, it turns deeper into the foothills, traversing the side of a steep ravine. The trail becomes noticeably cooler in this section, transitioning to a spruce forest that shades the trail and patches of moss on the north-facing slope. You begin to hear the sounds of a burbling brook down in the ravine on your right, faintly at first, and then louder as the trail approaches closer to the brook. On your left the ground slopes up steeply, topped with jumbles of granite boulders that look like the perfect haven for a reclusive mountain lion. I’ve never seen a mountain lion on this trail, but I know they inhabit this area, and sometimes I can feel something watching me as I hike this section of the trail. Danger, even if it is only imagined, has a way of heightening your senses and making you acutely aware of everything around you.
The small twists and turns, rises and falls of the trail as it follows the contours of the ravine serve to keep me always wondering and anticipating what is just up ahead. Eventually the trail rounds a small bend and crosses over the brook to the other side of the ravine. This brook is often my destination when I only have an hour or so to enjoy a short hike. There is something magical about the soft murmur of the brook cascading down through the rocks that helps to dissipate the tension from my body.
On more adventurous days, or when I need a little more relief from the stresses of everyday life, I’ll continue on to the more difficult sections of the trail ahead. Sometimes I NEED to continue on. One day several years ago, I had a very stressful day at work. I was working for the Missile Defense Agency at the time, and we were scrambling to get our fledgling missile defense system into shape so that if we needed to, we could react to an impending launch from North Korea. The launch was imminent, and we were running out of time to get the most pressing issues resolved. After working furiously all day to resolve the most critical issues, I suddenly found myself wanting, needing, to get home before Evan’s bedtime to give him a hug and tell him I loved him. The traffic was horrendous, and my stress levels shot through the roof as I raced through traffic trying to make it home on time. I got home minutes after Rebecca had put Evan to bed, and she insisted that I shouldn’t go in his room to tell him goodnight. Rebecca couldn’t know why I was so stressed (our knowledge of the impending launch was classified) and had no idea how badly I needed a hug from Evan.
Suddenly I felt an overpowering urge to escape from it all. I threw on my hiking boots, grabbed a jacket and headed up the trail, striding furiously to get away from the stress and the irrational anger I was feeling at Rebecca. I powered up the trail through the scrub oak, into the pines and past the brook, and on up the steep, snow-covered, treacherous sections of the trail. My lungs and thighs were burning, and still I pushed on, needing to get AWAY! I continued to push up the mountainside harder and harder, out of breath, my heart pounding and my legs aching until they were numb, until finally my exhaustion and the encroaching darkness tipped the scales in favor of my returning home. When I got home, Rebecca was out looking for me, crying, not understanding why I had left the house so furiously. I couldn’t explain why I had been boiling over with so much stress, but my hike had defused all the stress and frustration and I was able to function again.
Throughout the years there have been many other times this little trail was my savior when I needed a place to get away. Providing me with the solitude I need to think, and helping me to reconnect with the priorities in my life. Describing this “favorite place” has been a little bittersweet, since we will soon be moving to Wichita, Kansas, exactly 500 miles by car, and two minutes of walking, from this special place that keeps me whole.