Thou Shalt Not Kill; Smith Rocks State Park

11/29/16

                Packing up we got ready to hit the road from the hot spring to smith rocks state park.  The water from the water hydrant was hot, almost too hot to touch! It was coming straight from the mineral hot spring.   Alice took care of filling the tank with fresh water and I worked on emptying the tanks, and pulling the shore line from the power box.  James stood guard, groaning about the cold.  After we were filled up, emptied out, and ready to go I sprayed down the septic compartment with the pet odor remover that I bought from the South Sister trip when James got sick.  It may be formulated to combat dog piss and shit smell, but it works just as good for people excrement and urine.  No matter how careful you are, and no matter how much you wash out the septic hose, there’s always an odor. 

                We rolled down the highway just after 1100 towards smith rock state park, only a 2.5hr drive.  We arrived just after 1300, the park was almost empty accept for a few hard core climbers cars.  An ugly mostly black Honda Del Sol alarmed every few minutes, a lone car in a massive and vacant lot.  After buying a day pass, for $5, we headed down the trail with three liters of mineral water from the hot spring and some energy bars in the pack on my back.  Alice had a hard time making it up the hill, while James and I scrambled quickly up the crag.  The switchbacks of the misery ridge trail towered high above us clinging to the cliff side looking down on the slowly meandering river.  The ducks below slid like marbles on a glass table top zigzagging downstream from one side of the river to the other. 

                As we wound up the cliff side the sun sank below the three sisters, the mountain range to the east.  The story goes that the natives named the three mountains Hope, Faith, and Charity.  A beautiful myth made up by the settlers who now inhabit the land.  However, it is fairly well known in the native community that they were actually known as Big sister, ugly sister, and little sister. 

                The sport climbing routes which dotted the trail had specks of shining stainless steel adorning them, new bolts placed for sport routes.  I fantasized about having a belay partner who would be able to let me soar even higher above the valley below.  Free from the bonds of the trail system.  Alice fell far behind, and ran to catch up. 

Her breath coming almost as a pant as she ran up the trail after me.  I feel like my heart is beating so hard its going to go to the other side of my chest.  I'm light headed, she said.  We stopped and took a rest.  I guzzled half a Nalgene bottle of water, and encouraged Alice to drink the rest.  The mineral water tasted delicious as it slid down my throat. Alice panted as she struggled to get down 250ml of water.  

                The air was calm and crisp, the sun disappeared behind the east side of the cliff as the shadow covered the valley below.  We rounded the last set of switchbacks and started our way up a long staircase to the final scramble to the top. 

The waning sunlight showed a menagerie of colors on the walls opposite the canyon, reds, whites, greys, and even sand stone browns adorned the spires of stone that reached like fingers pointing from the earth to the sky. 

                As we crested the final scramble of grey basalt small shards of sand stone crunched and crumbled to sand beneath our feet. I felt my eyes begin to salivate over the remembrance of past summits on the ridge, none of which gave me the opportunity to view the sun extinguishing its self on the horizon.  Sunsets, are by far my favorite astrological occurrence. 

                I was not disappointed, as we stepped out on to the crest, a large flat topped rock, we headed towards a large outcrop on the edge of the table top of stone.  Our efforts were rewarded with a breathtaking sunset. 

We sat on a flat part of the outcrop watching the sun sink, as it had since people have existed to watch it, Alice thanked me for bringing her.  James eagerly slurped water from my cupped hand as I poured from one of the bottles from my pack, his entire body wagged in excitement.  This hike was a far cry from the 80 degree hike mom and I had taken him on last time he was here.  That time he became very sick and we had to take him to the emergency vet.  We had the summit to ourselves, and soaked up the view along with the heat of the sun exposed rock for a half hour.  As we rose and headed down the stone face, I smiled to myself, thinking of the time Kate and I had climbed the same ridge three seasons before in the summer heat.  Before the trim mom and I had taken.  Today it was just above freezing, and the air was calm.

                As we crossed the bridge over the river, and started back up the cliff side to the bus in the gathering dusk we passed several other hikers. 

In the parking lot several dogs off leash attempted to harass James. Each times a dog rushed at us Alice recoiled with fear, a childhood of being bitten by dogs in Kenya had left traumatic memories.  As we reached the parking lot one particularly aggressive dog came after James.  I chased it off by growling and yelling at it.  The owner who most people would consider an attractive female of breeding age, assured me that he would not bite.  I glared at her, and without raising my voice informed her that there is a law that all dogs must be on leash in this park.  “It is the law.  Not a suggestion.  If you can read, you should know that by the big signs in the parking lot.” I told her.  We continued to walk, and I ignored her false apologies and ridiculous excuses.

                We started up the bus and it warmed as we found our way up the west side highway of the park and to our resting place for the night.  We pulled in and I put down our levelers.  As I went to pull the pot to boil asparagus from under the stove I saw a soft, pudgy mass, trapped in the mouse trap below.  I felt a pang of guilt as I realized it was not dead, but only half of its body trapped with its head out.  The middle of its spine broken.  Anger welled up within me, anger over the fact that life ended, I knew what I had to do.  I had to kill it the rest of the way or it would suffer to death.  I retrieved some leather gloves from the cabinet above my couch, the incense smell of lavender poured out when I opened it. I slid the gloves on, and apologized to the terrified animal for what I was about to do.  I stepped out the door in to the crisp air, the smell of the two broiling T bone steaks that I had started moments earlier rolled out the door around me.  I looked at the fuzzy little grey mass, twisted his head with a snap, and dropped him on the ground stepping on his head.  It was over.  That was the second mouse I had found in my home after staying at that hot spring. 

We ate dinner, Alice forgave me for having to kill the mouse.  We munched on our steaks and had a lovely conversation to end the day.  After dinner we had tea, and watched the movie ‘invictus’.

Little House on the Prairie; Summer Lake Hot Springs day two

11/28/16

                I woke up late, the smell of eggs, cilantro, and tomatoes mixed with cheese, frying away on the stove filled the bus.  The view from my bed was the mountains that rimmed the valley.  Funny how the view from the bed, or the chair, to the window never changes, but the outside environment does. 

My great grandmother used to tell me that, though she would say it in regards to aging.  Dusted with snow by the storm that had rocked the bus all night  they were quite beautiful.  I slept while the bus rocked like a boat on rough seas.  It reminded me of sitting through the hurricane Rita, after I deployed to help out after Katrina in 2005.  The storm raged outside, and we hid, like mice, in our safe little shelter hoping that it would pass us by.  The brisk air outside had frosted the inside of the windows, I lay and watched as the sun rose melting it away revealing our surroundings more clearly.  Alice told me she would have taken James out for a walk, however there was 4 dogs running around the campground without  leashes on.  She has an innate fear of dogs because in Kenya dogs chase and bite people on a regular basis.  I took him out,  walking stick/club in one hand and leash in the other, and he did his business.  We came back in and all had an 11:00 am breakfast.  Mine smelled better than James's.  Afterwords we went to the pool, and enjoyed what was left of the morning soaking and Alice, for the first time in her life, swam.  I helped hold her up a little while she mastered floating and then doing the back stroke.  Afterwords she took a nap and James and I went for a walk around the estate.  There were cattle and game trails covering an surreal amount of acreage. The prairie seemed to stretch on forever, with only the distant hem of the mountains signaling  their end.

                We found an old abandoned farm house that had collapsed, as had the root cellar next to it. 

It was a late 1800’s or early 1900’s building.  The lumber was thick, beams, and wide slats.  Milled out of old growth fir. 

The shingles were thin shakes coated with tar.  The nails that held them in were skeletons.  Relics of a time when nails were scarce.  They were not stout thick like modern ones.  Their thin shafts looked more like pine needles than nails.  They looked like thin toothpicks sticking out of a cheese plate.  The material to make nails then was precious, and the labor that went in to making them was far more intensive.  People lived in small houses then, tiny houses, a few hundred square feet, maybe a hundred square meters, these were the normal not the acceptation.  I recounted the last home my father and I built, 20,000 square feet.  It was an acceptation for sure, not the rule.  However, in the last twenty years we had watched the homes we built go from 1,500 square feet to 3,500 square feet.  A lot of the burden of our construction costs fell to permits, and regulatory burdens.  Where we lived the standard permitting cost before breaking ground stood at about $30,000 USD.  Bigger houses were almost the same cost as small ones, materials were almost a negligible cost.  It was the fixed costs that were expensive. 

Economy drove the old ways, the evidence was written in the sparse nails which stood testament to the frugality of the times.  The cellar was built of logs, sparsely hewn, and planted as posts.  The food storage, located adjacent to the home stood in ruins.  I wondered what it must have been like to live, in a time long before refrigeration, when food was the primary concern.  Politics, given the past presidential election, and any other thing that people thought might be important, were regarded as luxuries back then.  No one cared about their face book status, or their online dating profile.  Their primary concern was scratching out a life in conditions that were so harsh the tallest plants grew only knee high.  I would not romanticize that life, the average life span then was only 19.  There is a lot to be learned from a way of life that emphasizes working to live, not living to work.    

                James and I started walking back to the bus, through the sage brush.  We watched as the steam from the nearby lake swept skyward with the wind as it rolled across the valley.  A plume of cold dust followed it as it left the ground.  This would be one hell of a hard place to winter over, I thought, as we walked past the stone maze that the hippy lady had placed near the walking path. 

                The heat of the bus embraced us as we entered, thawing the ice from my face.  The eighty degrees, 26 C, in the bus would be a far cry from what the settlers in this valley would have known in a cold November like this.  We watched “seven” a Morgan Freeman movie, Alice's obsession with Morgan Freeman knows no bounds, and waited for night to fall. 

                After dressing in a few easily pealable layers, we headed to the outdoor soaking pools.  The sky was clear.  The air was calm and cold.  The black night twinkled with infinite stars.  The clouds framed the heavens like cotton stuck to the edges of the horizon.  Only one stone pool was open, and it had two men in it.  As I undressed to climb in, Alice decided she was going to go back to the bus.  I gave here the keys and the big flashlight and she headed back as I waded in to the chest deep water.  Again I thawed as a sat on one of the stone benches submerged in the 106 degree water, 41 C.  The air chilled my wet whiskers.  The slick mineral water warmed me up to my chin, leaving a sheen of steam on the rest of my face.  I laid my head back on the rocks behind me, and looked up.  A view as old as the universe looked back at me.  Humans have always looked awestruck at the same heavens.  The entirety of humanity, looking at the same stars. From kings to peasants, all looking at the same universe.  All equally powerless over it. 

The two men got out, leaving quickly to get their things from inside the main building before it closed for cleaning at 20:30.  I had the pool to myself, I lay for over an hour gazing up, half asleep, at the stars above.  Kate and I had enjoyed this pool in the day light the year before.  Then the wind ripped, and we had submerged ourselves to protect our skin up to our noses.  Today was a different day.  Tonight a different night.  I finished off my 1L Nalgene bottle of hot springs mineral water and thought about getting out. 

A head lamp rounded the corner of the main building that housed the big pool, my eyes were temporarily blinded while my pupils adapted. “Oh, hey, sorry” a voice came from a blurry figure wearing a blue rain coat. “No worries” I said, “im just enjoying the worlds oldest movie.”  “Yeah, totally.”  Replied the blur “im Craig.”  “Good to meet you craig” I said.  “Have a good night” Craig said “sorry I interrupted you.”  “No worries” I replied, “its all good.”  “Cant wait to soak in there tomorrow” he said, as he turned and walked away. 

                I stood up, my testicles immediately retreating in to my body and shrinking to the size of small raisins.  The cold of the night turned the warm slick water, in to icy cold slick water.  I stood on the flag stone steps.  It felt like my feet were freezing to them.  I stripped, quickly toweled off, and dressed in my bathrobe.  As I scurried through the dark towards the bus, and across the lawn, I felt my clothes start to ice.