I rose on this cloudy morning and met my friend, Robert, in a nearly imperceptible drizzle at the Oso Trail head. There were no other cars in the lot. The river bottom was alive with its smells; the usual dust of the trail, a soft red; the tracks of animals strikingly more distinct: deer,…
All posts in January 2014
Commencement
This morning I was walking up a trail above the valley, pondering the vagaries of retirement, and a forgotten moment came up for me, one that left me deeply missing the work that I did for many years. Like all schools, we ended the year with graduation, at HVS a tender and heartfelt event,…
In Praise of Dogs
I spend a lot of my time these days with our dog, Doc. Doc is a Golden Retriever. His full name is Dr. Teddy Benson, due to diverse views about naming him. He was Benson for a couple of days, but the kids wanted to call him Teddy. I prefer single syllable names for…
…..And then there was the evening
that I stepped off of Bulla’s porch to peer over the side of the garden at the running creek below. He claimed to have seen a good-sized trout down there the night before, so I stood staring into the pool. The next thing we know, we have left his other guests lounging in the…
Getting out
My pal, Bill, wrote a fine little book called Small Trout. While the book seems as much about Bill and his general proclivities as it is about trout, it is a fine treatise on appreciating solitary afternoons, small creeks, frisky little wild trout (OK, and frisky big ones on occasion),the idiosyncrasies of friends and the…
Golden Globes
We watched the Golden Globes last light for the first time. We did not plan to; it just came on after the Denver/SD game and Meredy’s nap. Being Tina Fey fans, we stuck around. We didn’t see much of Tina, but we did end up feeling steeped in Americana…which is an odd side effect to…
Leo
From the first day of our freshman year we could tell that Leo was different. He wasn’t different in the way of some special education candidate. Oh, he was educationally challenged all right, but not in any way that you could stick a label on. He just wasn’t made for school. The rest of…
Base camp
On the final morning of our trek, it was never a problem to get students up and going…as a matter of fact, the challenge was to keep the anxious from packing up and bolting out ahead of us. After some accidents early on, we finally learned to put the packers behind us as we wound…
Avalanche/Moraine Meadow
On the 5th morning of our trip, we would arise early and usually quietly, each person lost in their own thoughts in anticipation of the day. Being day 5, our packs were lighter by a dozen meals, our legs were stronger, and we were more acclimated to the altitude. Yet none of this made…
Roaring River
To reach the Roaring River, one must trudge up a rise that serves to take one’s breath away. At the top, before we would ascend into the river gorge, we would get a good look at Avalanche Pass hovering across the valley…across and far above. This comes, of course, with a moment of doubt, as…