November 2024

This hike was a gift from God. It was truly a once in a lifetime kind of hike; even though I have been on this trail many times. This time was different. This time, all of time and space aligned to give me the most magical views of all eternity. It took my very breath away and was virtually impossible to leave, except for the whole body shivering and blocks of ice that were my feet.

But let me start at the beginning. God and I had been discussing what hike to do for a solid week. By discussing, I mean we were arguing about it. He kept telling me this was the hike He wanted me on. But I explained how the trailhead road was likely blocked with snow and the weather was suppose to be nothing but clouds and very cold temps. I suggested some nice lowland waterfall hikes. But when God is persistent, I know He has a good reason. Boy was he persistent on this one too. So off we went encased in dark clouds to the hike He chose. It was so dark and dreary at the trailhead that I left my sunglasses on the dashboard of my town truck. Since my trail truck is still getting repaired from our recent near death experience, my 4Runner has been enjoying getting some gravel in his tires and using his 4wd. I gave him a pat on the door as we left him and told him to behave himself with the seven other trucks I was surprised to see parked at the trailhead.

The climb starts in earnest right away on this one and up we went. It didn't take long at all before we were in total ice and snow. I stopped briefly to strap my crampons to my winter snow boots. I wasn't going to mess around on this steep trail without my ice spikes! Clouds circled around us as we climbed, almost like being inside of giant bowl of pea soup. The snow was hard and crunchy with a good layer of ice. I could see my breath with each and every step. Temperatures were in the low 40's and dropping rapidly into the 30's as we climbed higher. After only a couple of miles, I started to see the clouds thinning in front of my eyes and a bit of blue sky peaking through. "No way!" I thought to myself. I heard a chuckle from above.

But before I could fully digest what was happening to us, we were suddenly standing above an immense immersion layer, as far as the eye could see. We were above all the clouds as we stood above 3,000 feet, with at least another 1000 feet to climb. "Great" I started to grumble to God. "You could have told me to bring my sunglasses if this is what you were going to do!" I felt Him smiling down on me and shaking His head. "I know!!!" I yelled and waved my arm in the air at Him. Even Nova was wishing she had her sun goggles with her today. It seemed particularly bright after the darkness, and with the glare now coming off the snow.

Hoping I wouldn't become snow blind, I pulled out my stocking cap and placed it low over my eyes to try to create a brim. It sort of worked. We worked our way along the ridge walk and over boulders covered in snow. I couldn't help but recognize that the trail conditions were absolutely perfect for spikes. It was hard enough to not be post-holing through, but just icy enough to make my spikes stick like spiderman. I realized that hiking today was easier than in the spring when it is all mud, rocks and ankle breaking boulders. We could move faster in the snow with our spikes. As the immersion layer and snow seemed to blend into one another, I felt as if we could walk straight off the trail and onto the clouds. I wanted to try, but Nova gave me the look telling me that was an unsafe idea and to not even think about it.

After a while, we just had to stop our assault on the mountain trail to watch the clouds flow like water over the surfaces of the earth. It is surreal to watch them move like that. They swallow up lower peaks in wave like patterns. It is truly one of my favorite things to watch from high elevations, but you normally only get inversion layers like this first thing in the morning after spending the night. It was so strange to see this late in the afternoon. While Nova and I were overcome by watching the splendor around us. Josie was overcome to the point of having to lay her head in the snow. Nova and I looked at each other and laughed. Neither of us were ready to push our head into the snow, but pretty soon I would be so overcome with the views that I would drop to my knees in the snow with the wind knocked right out of me.

We only had another mile and a half or so to climb before we reached the summit. In that section of climbing we had to navigate our way through our nightmares.....other dogs and humans on the trail. There were two female hikers talking non stop that we could hear for some distance heading toward us. Then there was the solo male hiker listening to his audio book on his cell phone who didn't see us hiding under some trees to give him room to pass until he was almost face to face with the Wolf. Man, I love to see men jerk to surprise when they find themselves in her sights. She is very intense, I will admit. I think he might have wet his pants a little. I hope it taught him to pay attention to his surroundings and not his stupid phone.

Then there was the couple with two smaller dogs. At least one of them was not on leash, so I drug my girls half down an embankment clinging to a tree trunk to keep from sliding farther. But I needed as much space as possible between the Wolf and those dogs, especially if the off leash one wanted to come say hello. The man was hiking in front and once more was almost directly parallel to me before he noticed us. This was only because Nova gave a little huffing sound just then. He jerked to attention, but had a quick comeback. "Are you the wild woman in the woods.? I've heard about you!" He asked me. I smiled and told him yes, which got his little 20 pound dog barking as he clearly hadn't seen us either. Not a very bright trail dog I thought.

But the worst dog encounter was on a stretch of steep trail with a long embankment going both above and below as the trail cut between them. From some distance ahead a huge dog that looked to be a Husky-Lab mix came running around the corner and stopped to stare at us. Of course there was no human in sight and no leash. So, of course curse words started to fall from my mouth as the dog did a slow run straight toward us. As I pulled my girls off the steep embankment to my left, dropping my right knee into the snow and keeping my left leg straight with my spikes dug into the side of the cliff to hold us, I yelled up trail. "Call your dog back!!!!" I prayed the human was close. The only thing holding the three of us onto that cliff's edge were the spikes on my left boot. I was pulling back on both leashes to keep the girls as close to me as I could. But by now that giant dog was standing on the trail right next to us. Now I know who started it. Even though I was behind her, I could feel the vibrations start in the Wolf. She was barring her teeth and snarling at the beast who stood in front of us while I was on the ground. That strange beast then started to show us his teeth. "Bad life choice" I muttered to him as his owner finally came around the corner at the commotion. He started to profusely apologize as he came running toward his dog. By this time, Josie was full out snapping, lunging and snarling at the would-be attacker. That beast was snapping as well trying to copy her, and although he was not on a leash, he kept himself just out of her reach. Guess he wasn't so stupid after all. But it was all I could do as I clung to that cliff with my ice spikes and knee embedded in snow, to not let Josie lunge a wee bit closer and teach that boy a lesson. The dog's owner finally came and grabbed his beast asking if I was okay as he ran past the snarling Wolf. I assured him I was and that is when his buddy with a huge red dog, not on a leash, came around the corner barely in control of themselves.

More curse words fell out of my mouth. Seriously, what is with off leash dogs on trails??? I have said it before and I will say it again, if your dog cannot be verbally recalled to you 100% of the time, it should not be off leash!! I am always the one who gets hurt because my girls are tied to me in these situations. "I'll just stay where I am." I said as the men were trying to figure out how to get that bouncing and lunging dog past us just holding onto a collar. Josie was all kinds of worked up and even Nova was getting in on the action. Every time this happens it re-solidifies to the Wolf that she should hate all dogs (and humans), that they all want to attack us, and that she should kill them first and ask questions later. I have worked so hard to help this Wolf have trail manners, but when off leash dogs do this every few months, I cannot win this battle. I vow I will not feel bad when she kills an off leash dog some day on the trail. I blame every stupid human for doing this to her!

But at least after counting humans and trailhead vehicles, I knew we had now passed almost everyone who might still be on the trail. We should mostly have the evening to ourselves now. So we all took deep breaths, climbed back up to the trail and headed for our final ascent. There were two more groups of men coming down in that final push, but luckily neither group had dogs. I was feeling spicy towards humans as I smashed each boot step into deep snow to get purchase with my spikes on the final steep wall. But the moment we popped up onto that destination saddle between peaks, I felt as if I had stepped inside of a postcard. I uncontrollably dropped onto my knees in the powder covering the surface here and felt as if each breath I drug into my lungs was too big to hold inside of me.

Yup, those pics were taken while on my knees. I couldn't believe the beauty. I have stood here many times, but with the 360 degree immersion layer surrounding us and only tall peaks standing above them, with snow covering everything in sight, the beauty was beyond breath taking. After a few poses, we decided to first climb the peak to our left. Once again it was hard to not step off the snow and onto the clouds. Everything was white and beautiful beyond description. If only I had my sunglasses, I thought. But Nova was back to her trail Diva games and I could only laugh and not worry about how blind I was becoming.

As we climbed the deep powder on the left peak, I had to be careful to not step out onto a snow cornice. That would be a real fast way to die up here. I made the Wolf go first to test the summit just in case and kept myself leaning back so I could catch her if she fell through. Nova, wisely stayed behind me until we made a stable bed on the surface of the summit. It was about 3:30pm in the afternoon and I knew sunset was only about an hour away. God how I wanted to see it. But Nova started to shiver as we laid on the snow waiting. I pulled off my fleece lined battery pack heated balaclava to put around her neck and turned the temperature up. She almost immediately stopped shivering and smiled at me. "Guess that is yours now" I told her.

Since it was the day after Thanksgiving, I opened up our packs and pulled out a summit feast. I, of course, had Tofurkey, but I had stolen some of my husband's real turkey for the girls. I also had a container of to die for Raspberry Pudding Bundt Cake. I cannot tell you how amazing this meal was while sitting on a snowy peak staring at five volcanoes and a sea of clouds as the sun neared the horizon. This is the stuff dreams are made of. Turkey dreams for Nova and dreams of Heaven for me.

As we were embracing the raw wildness of the scene unfolding in front of our eyes, I started to think about how the moments between the beats of my boot strikes when hiking is truly the space where I find true peace and joy. There is nothing else like this that I have found. It is funny how when you are in a place like this the minutes just slip away unnoticed. I sometimes feel that I live my whole life on these peaks on trails. When I am at work, or doing something that is not as much fun, time stops and seems to never end. I wished that time would stop as I was laying in the snow in this moment. If it wasn't for my girls I would have happily closed my eyes and died right here.

Eventually as my bones were starting to freeze into the snow beneath me, I decided we should head over to the other peak next to us and try it out. Apparently I was the Goldilocks of mountain peaks today. I knew they both had incredibe views, but like a kid on Christmas morning, I was going to run back and forth between the two to check out each moment as the sun set.

During the summer, Josie and I were doing this sunset hike where we got to make shadow puppets against a snow bank. When Nova, who was recovering at home, heard about this, she was so jealous as she had never done that with me. So as the sun was setting behind us, she virtually pulled on my fleece lined snow pants and pointed at the snow. Okay, baby girl, let's do this. The three of us lined up to make shadow puppets in the setting sun. Ah, I can really die a happy girl now I thought. In case you can't tell, Nova was on the right, the Wolf on my left and I was in the middle.

As we had about 45 minutes left for the sun to completely set, Josie heard something. She told me a human was coming and so we watched together. Sure enough a solo man climbed up to the highest peak where we were lounging. He seemed surprised to find a solo woman laying in the snow already. Now, I am a person very comfortable in silence. I like humans best when they are not near me. So the idea of sitting on this tiny peak with a stranger to watch the sun set was a bit unsettling at first. But then I started to learn that this talkative man and I were kindred spirits. As he was pouring sweat down his face and arms from the difficult climb, he wisely started to layer up immediately before it could freeze. He put on a sweatshirt, puffer jacket, balaclava, stocking cap, gloves....his pack was like pandora's box of goodies. The man clearly was prepared. When he pulled out a cold beer and popped it to guzzle I laughed at him. I wanted to lecture him on that poor health choice, but since he was clearly 20 years younger than I, I figured he had years ahead of him to learn healthier choices. If he packed it up here, he could enjoy it.....but I worried about the increased risk of hypothermia that alcohol would bring him. Maybe that was just because I was shivering and could no longer feel my own feet.

As we sat watching the show, we started to talk about all our favorite hikes, compared gear choices, discussed this trail, shouted appreciation for the views and were basically like two kids in a candy store. He kept saying how he had never met someone who had hiked as much as he had. Every trail we listed, we each knew. The harder and more dangerous trails and peaks got us telling our favorite stories. That 45 minutes passed so quickly while the stranger and I shared our love for the trail. What I loved most is that we both (minus the alcohol) were like the same person, and were enjoying this once in a lifetime type of sunset comfortably with one another....but we never even exchanged our names. It was perfect. Except once, when he tried to come a little closer to sit near us and Josie barred her teeth and snarled at him. He quickly backed off to his little boulder a safer distance away. I laughed and apologized for the beast, but was secretly even more in love with her and her need to keep me safe. It was impressive and I almost wet my own pants with her toothy growl. Remind me never to be on that Wolf's bad side (like when I have to pull cockleburs from her fur).

As the sun was drawn down closer to the horizon, my nameless new friend started to run back and forth between the two peaks, just like we had done earlier. I smiled to myself while laying in the snow snuggling my girls. I will share a series of sunset photos for you here, but have to say that the true prize was not what was happening in front of me as the orange blob disappeared. It was the pinks and purples happening behind me that truly had me at a loss for words. Never have I seen anything more beautiful in my entire life. My bones felt as if they were softening inside my skin and my body rebelling at the thought of ever leaving this moment. It was surely a post Thanksgiving feast for my soul and boy did I have a lot to be thankful for. I raised both my hands toward heaven and gave my deepest thanks to God above. He is always right.

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning.

Genesis 1:31