June 23 2018
I went to the mountains. Left the familiarity of the coast, went east. I went through burnt forests, crossed serpentine ridges, splashed in a creek or two. I gazed at the swallowtails feeding on flowers, remarked at the conifers, breathed. Deep down I just sort of knew I was looking for something. So I kept on rambling down bumpy dirt roads. And then I met Alice.
I was having dinner at a beautiful 5000’elevation campground. It’s the kind of place where you can smell the needles and the dust underfoot, where the vistas are long; the sky a lovely shade of blue on the dark side of the spectrum. Flowers were dotted here and there, popping up like subtle little wonders. The cool air felt thrillingly clean. My body was tired, ached all over, but in my heart I felt really content.
I had already pitched the tent, explored with the dog, gathered firewood. It was time to savor my dinner. The map that led me there open like a tablecloth before me, between mouthfuls I scrutinized the titles given to the mountaintops looming in the distance. Up walks Alice. She walked with a bit of a waddle and a limp, her hair white and cut choppy. What I noticed most was her face, soft and weathered, worn in like a favorite flannel. She had to be in her 80’s. “Oh I thought you were someone else”, she says. No, it’s just me I’m thinking. I remark about the sun tracing across the unnamed mountain. “Nice isn’t”, she says, “Caribou always catches the best light”. I perk up and ask if that’s the mountains name. “Oh yeah, that’s Caribou, through the trees is Black Butte and to the North Packer’s Peak”. I find myself slightly amazed at her knowing these mountains and blurt out something to that affect. “This place is home,” she tells me. “Grew up playing in my Papas mining claim on Coffee Creek, rode horses all over these mountains running cattle with the women down the road a piece, it was a working ranch before becoming a guest ranch, married a Forester who became the Happy Camp District Ranger, lived down there for a long bit. But this place, this place is home”, she says, with long stare toward Caribou. I felt a breeze in the fir trees but the trees were still. I smile large as I realize the breeze was a wave of emotion that rippled through me because I’d met a kindred spirit. “I know what you mean, I say, how your heart knows you’re home. “These days,” Alice exclaims, “I spend as much time as I can here, usually one week here, one week at home, I’m the campground volunteer”. Alice turned to leave calling over her shoulder, “the usual camper stays only a night coming or going from the Wilderness”. I guessed I was a bit of an anomaly. “But Alice”, I wanted to shout to her shadowing form disappearing into the trees, “I think I’ve found home too!”
Wild Escape Guides 