NATURE DOESN’T LIE. It doesn’t cheat. It doesn’t demonize. It doesn’t hate. It offers only honest truth.
It is there, always. Reliably itself.
Going back to nature isn’t an escape – it’s a return home, a return to the way all things ought to be, a return to truth and beauty and meaning. And it’s a return to awareness of ‘the bigger picture’, to an understanding of where we truly stand in the scheme of things… a return to reality, and above all, perhaps, a return to connection with it.
Or so it is for me, anyway. Returning to nature is returning to a reality that I know will never deceive me. It is returning to The Source – a source that cannot ever be adequately described, only experienced, only felt.
Well, you’ve felt it too, I hope? Then you’ll understand. In a world that often seems unhinged, at least we who know nature can still find sanity.
The photos in this blog were taken during November’s first weekend, directly before the US election. For weeks – no months, if not years – the lies and divisiveness and hate have been practically inescapable. So I went seeking the opposite, seeking sanity, seeking truth.
The walk began late on a perfect Colorado morning, with the sky deep blue and the temperature unseasonably mild. This year, winter has been slow in coming to this part of Colorado’s high country. But it is most assuredly on its way. Ice creeping across the mountain rivers is one clear sign of it.
Another sign lay in the aspen groves, now leafless and bare. I’d stood in this exact spot six weeks earlier. What a difference between now and then!
The bright colours might have faded, but treasures still remained. Perhaps they were far less showy, but there’s something about being able to look into the de-cloaked woods that always gets to me. Every year, it hits me as though for the first time. It’s as though, without leaves hiding the secrets, I can know and see the woods as they really are.
A short distance on, I spotted these mid-creek boulders, slowly disappearing beneath ice. It would be a good spot to return to in another month, I thought, to witness the change.
As I walked on, upwards, higher peaks came into view, dusted with snow.
Eventually I reached the first lake. Six weeks earlier, I’d swum in it. The idea of doing it again was no longer especially appealing!
I sat for a while, looking about. Watching sunlight and shadow play across mountain crags is as fine a way to pass the time of day as any ever invented.
Higher up the trail, I spotted the first of nine moose. At almost exactly the same moment, the moose spotted me.
A little higher, I noticed these two antlered fellas. They were roughly a quarter mile off trail – a good distance for moose watching.
I was in no special hurry to get to camp. I found a good overlook atop an outcrop, then put the zoom lens to good use. It was interesting to note the two very different styles of antler, from sharp and spiky to broad and well worn.
There were several more moose in the willows below. Including one cantankerous female who kept chased any others who ventured too close.
Mother and calf.
The bigger antlered of the two bull moose eventually left the willows.
Just look at that beard! How it swung when he walked!
I could have happily remained on my rock and watched such a perfect scene all day…
But when the moose finally grew aware of the nosey biped perched above, and seemed as though he might come on over to investigate, I decided it was time to move on.
The day’s destination was a side valley that I’d first passed though roughly fifteen years earlier. I’d ear-marked it as a perfect spot for a future camp, and now the time had come. On this day, it was sheltered from an increasing wind, but – unfortunately – the creek running through it turned out to be dry. So, instead of stopping, I merely paused to enjoy the view, resolved to return in the spring if fate would allow it, then moved on.
Happily, I didn’t have to trek on too far. On the broad ridge directly above I found a spot too view-drenched to pass by. Water was still a minor issue. For a moment, I toyed with the idea of gathering and melting snow for water, but instead opted to walk half a mile to the nearest running creek and carry it back to camp. That done, I settled in to savour the location.
There was magic in the air above camp!
To the southwest, the panorama was wide. And profoundly peaceful. And empty of any signs of my own species. It created an illusion of being in a wilderness far vaster than it really is.
I ate dinner in the shelter of the tent entrance, beyond the reach of a chill wind now gusting hard. The view was fairly acceptable! I feasted with gratitude on both the food I’d carried to camp and also on the ‘nourishment’ all around – the nourishment that I’d come here specifically to find.
Time passed, with little going on. I used to read a great deal in camp during such moments. It was an escape and a distraction, perhaps, from my own thoughts during the long walks I used to take. But on the shorter trips I now take such a distraction isn’t needed. I’m happier now to let my thoughts just happen, and equally happy to let them fade away. To let them be what they will be. Or to not be. Either way.
These slow moments in nature are the central part of why I now come here. I come to wallow in a place, to soak it all it in. I come to let go, to just be. I come to find full connection with a moment that might be brief if measured on a clock but in practice during the living of it seems absolutely timeless.
The perfection to be found in these moments of stillness cannot adequately be described. Words really do fall short. Such ‘Moments That Are Complete’ can only be experienced, not told.
Evening light on the rugged slopes above camp.
The day slowly slipped into night…
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The morning dawned cold. Minus eight Celsius (seventeen Fahreneit), and a brisk breeze. Snow squalls drifted over the mountains to the west, passed away, rebuilt. The day’s forecast called for heavy snow starting later in the afternoon and it looked as though, this time, the snow would truly stick. Winter was finally coming.
But despite the cold I didn’t rush from camp. There was still time to savour this final high country outing on the rich exposed earth. In a few hours it would be covered, and likely won’t be seen again for seven long months.
The zoom lens made the distant mountains appear closer than they were. But it does a good job of hinting at how high the camp was: roughly 12,300 feet (3,750 metres).
As I began down, the first round of weather drifted in.
Looking back toward camp, it looked as though I’d left just before winter had arrived!
The first round of winter was brief, a few minutes of falling snow only, then done. But it left the mountain wall at the valley’s end dusted white.
A strong ambiance of change permeated the moment. Change, that most reliable feature of nature. All things have an end…
Soon, I was back down in the aspen woods. Gentle flakes were falling, settling on boulders.
Finally, on the walk out, winter arrived. Soon the air was full of it, a maelstrom of falling white. It was chaos, swirling chaos, but there was such glorious sanity to it. It wasn’t trying to deceive in any way. It was simply snow, falling, and nothing more.
I finished he walk coated in the stuff, my pack and hat and shoulders covered. But I felt renewed, as always. Renewed, because nature had provided exactly what I’d sought. This doesn’t mean the visit had been dull or predictable. Far from it. It had still surprised, delighted, and awed. But it had also done so much more. Perhaps, during this toxic election season in America, the greatest gift from the visit had been the reassurance it had provided – reassurance that, while the human world might fail to make sense, nature always would.
That’s the truth of it. Nature doesn’t lie. And what a glorious truth that is!