The Ahhhhh factor

[I realize this photo hardly says "spring", but due to some unfortunate circumstances involving our still camera, Isaac, a soldering iron, 8 feet of 2-conductor lamp cord, and a 7.2 volt nickel metal hydride batterie, our still camera is currently at the Canon factory service center in LA. So I have limited older photos to choose from... at least it gives the idea of a flower...]

It’s here, big time. Spring, that is. And with spring comes this thing I call ‘the ahhhhhh factor’. It’s still getting down into the 20’s at night, sometimes lower; it can still be cold in the shade; and for sure you can feel cold fingers sliding down your neck if the wind is up and your collar is off guard. But step into a patch of sun, find a cozy spot in the nook of a rock or up against the grassy swell of a hill, and you can’t help but close your eyes, smile and say “ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….”

Green-up is just starting to happen all over the hills. It’s not even yet visible as a whole really, from far away, but if you are walking through the dry grass from winter and look down, you can see green shoots underneath. The grazers know it too. Elk and deer have returned to the lower hills, and of course the bighorns that never left.

Fabulously Great Old Broads

I did mention earlier that we were at Thomas Creek, among other reasons, to meet “The Great Old Broads for Wilderness” who were staying there at the Lodge and gallivanting about the wilderness during the days. They were out to protest the helicopter dart-collaring of wolves during the annual sheep counts, which was supposed to be happening around that time, demonstrating that there were in fact people out in the wilderness at that time of year, whose experience could be affected by a helicopter buzzing about and chasing critters.
What we found, were three fabulous women (one of whom was one of the founding “broads”, and about to celebrate her 80th birthday) scrambling around the mountains, enjoying the heck out of the experience, hot springs included, and passionate (and feisty) about what they were doing and what they stand for. It was refreshing to talk to people who really wanted to share their story, who welcomed the opportunity to talk to us, after a year of people wary of the lens, and sometimes less than willing to share their perspective (I’m only talking of some, we’ve also run into plenty of people glad to share). But this was especially nice simply because they were such a fun and spunky group anyways. “No one expects older women to be trouble makers!” they say, smiling innocently and slyly at the same time.
I am greatly honored to have met them, and aspire to Great Old Broad-hood some day.

The "other" Hot Springs

[In case you were wondering, this is the hot pool I'm talking about in this entry, but obviously that's not me... didn't have the right picture, but Isaac managed to take one of himself the day before...so enjoy!]

Middle Fork Lodge aside, there are a couple of truly natural hot springs around Thomas Creek where we spent the last week. Not that the Lodge’s hot springs aren’t natural, because they sure are. They just have been fed into man-made pools (and into the buildings for heat, etc. Interesting fact: there aren’t any woodstoves at the lodge, and only one fireplace, mainly for aesthetics. They entire place is run off the heat of the natural hot springs…at least as far as I know, don’t quote me).
One of those other hot springs was just a mile or so down stream from where Isaac and I were camped, and Isaac partook in them one morning returning from a filming trek, so I decided it was my turn to check them out the next day. It was a warm (all relative, probably right around 35), sunny day. I took the sound equipment and trekked downstream, stopping occasionally to take some ambient sound in different locations. The hot springs are located in a wide open flat, just off the river. It is also a mineral lick heavily used by the hoofed creatures of the area. As I walked out into the flat, the smell of elk was strong in the air. At this time of year, it is brown and barren, dressed only in the stalky and trampled remains of the wild sunflowers that give the hot springs their name. A few graceful willows spread their brilliant orange branches into the blazing blue of the sky, but other than that surprising display of color, the area is not all that attractive. I walked for a ways across the flats, squelching across a few wet seeps, flowing brown and muddy from churning hooves up above. I tested every one of them by sticking my fingers into the trickle, and they were cold, so I continued. I was beginning to wonder where the springs were, when I came across the last tiny trickle. To the casual eye, this little stream looked like any little stream you would come across in a flat like this. But unlike the others, it ran clear, meandering across the flat, following gravity to the big river 500 yards away. Oddly though, this little stream was subtly, and delicately edged in brilliant green plants the color of emerald. Not a color you’d expect to come across this time of year. Odd also, that if you stared harder at the tiny stream, you noticed little wisps of steam rising from its surface, almost like it was breathing. So subtle that you’d think you were imagining it, and yet as I walked close, my smile widened. I had found the source. I got to the bank and took off my heavy winter boots and wool socks. Testing with a toe first, I waded out into the water, which barely licked at my ankles. The soft sand cradled my feet and the feeling was sensational. Hot water, soft sand, gentle steam, sun. What more could you want?
The only thing more I could think of to want, was my whole body in this stream, so I followed it a few dozen yards down to where a little pool had been built up with logs and rocks. It looked silty and shallow, but it was good enough for me. I stripped off the rest of my cloths and stepped in, sinking a few inches into fine black silt. Settling my body into the water, the silt came to rest all over my belly and legs, and I just grinned down at it without a care in the world. I can’t even begin to explain the feeling. It’s February. We’re in the middle of the largest wilderness in the lower forty-eight, and I’m laying naked in a pool of water that must be around 105 degrees, grinning up at a pure blue sky, rimmed with gorgeous snowy peaks, watching elk and bighorn sheep graze across a slope to the west, feeling the sun on my face…pure bliss.
After about an hour, I discovered the next best feeling to actually laying in the pool. That is, standing on the sun warmed rocks just outside the pool to dry off. Body now a brilliant pink from the heat, core warmed to the point that standing for twenty minutes completely naked in the sunshine of that February day in the mountains feels exceptional…

Pinching Myself (alternate title: I never Claimed to be Hard Core)

I don’t know that I have ever experienced such polar opposites within a shorter timeframe. Within a couple hours, we went from one extreme to another, and found ourselves somewhere I don’t think we ever expected to be during our year-long wilderness experience.
Situation 1: We wake in our teepee tent, to a hard-edged cold that could crack glass. We haven’t experienced these temperatures since way back in December when the cold snap hit and I wanted to move to Hawaii. And this was our first time camping in our hand-made tent. “Sure picked steller weather!” is all I could think at the time, not amused by the thickness of the frost on the inside of the tent in the morning, or the fact that our -20 degree sleeping bags had only barely been sufficient. Lets just say that we certainly were not “overly warm” that night. That, coupled with the fact that I woke in the middle of the night with a yoke of pain heavy around my collarbones and shoulders that had me fairly immobilized, and panicked. But Isaac dutifully crawled from his sleeping bag to help me prop my body up and get more comfortable. The rest of the night was spent staring at the crystallized tent roof in the cold glow of a waxing moon, concentrating hard on yoga breathing to ward off the just-under-the-surface panic that was never far away.
Situation 2: Isaac and I sit naked and immersed up to our necks in the 105 degree, mineral-laden water of a hot pool built of elegant grey stone, loopy grins laced from cheek to cheek (I think I was actually audibly giggling), while gazing out at the rushing expanse of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River dotted with glittering ice that had formed overnight, bellies happily filled with a gifted lunch from the owners of the Middle Fork Lodge.
[Does this bring up all sorts of raging contradictions in your minds, of wilderness values and uses? Well, it did for us, and yet at the same time we were (and are) extremely grateful for the incredible experience, happy to have met a slew of very kind people, and at least speaking for myself, so confused about what exactly this thing called wilderness is anymore, in my own mind, that I’m not even sure I can find any good reasons why a place like that shouldn’t be in the wilderness anyway. I mean, they are doing an awful lot of things to bolster appreciation of wilderness for some people who perhaps otherwise would not come to wilderness at all, that it is perhaps hard to prove they are having anything but a positive impact?]
How we got there: The polar opposite experiences of situation 1 and 2 hardly need any explanation of how we got from one to the other. It’s almost more interesting that way. But in brief, this is how it happened. Isaac was up on a ridge filming on our first morning there, and who should come hiking by but the owners of Middle Fork Lodge, with three “Great Old Broads” in tow. They immediately invited Isaac and I to lunch and a soak, that very day, which we gladly accepted. So all we had to do then, was hike the short mile up the dirt lane from the airstrip, across the bridge to the Lodge, and slip off our cloths and trip into the hot pools. Not too bad, really.

Flying solo

Wow, what a trip! I’m not sure what else I can say about six days spent in a new place, with hundreds of elk, wolves making regular appearances, three fabulously great Old Broads, a group of wonderfully gung-ho “protesters” (or should I simply say wilderness enjoyers) and hot springs in abundance… Ok, that’s a lie, I’m pretty sure I can find a lot to say about all of those things, so much that I may have to break it up into a few blogs.
Here’s a start: it went so well that Isaac is still there.
I returned on the 25th to finish out our caretaking stint back at Taylor Ranch, and for various reasons, Isaac stayed (reason #1: Ray, the pilot, was worried about too much weight for take-off as the airstrip there at Thomas Creek was extremely muddy after a last few days of warm daytime temps, reason #2: several wolves were lounging about on a high ridge just above our camp, after having gorged on a kill they made the night before at the edge of the river just downstream, so he wasn’t all that excited to leave such a good filming opportunity). So I’m here alone (well, alone with 4 mules, 2 horses, and a dog) and Isaac will return whenever Ray finds a moment to fly by and shuttle him back, probably tomorrow.
We arrived Saturday mid-day, flying in to a landscape that resembled Yellowstone in its grandeur, wide open rolling hillsides, literally littered with elk, deer and bighorn. After Ray (the pilot) dropped us at the end of the airstrip, we spent the next few hours wandering around in amazement, watching eagles hunting in cliffs just above our heads, basking in the brilliant sunshine, and exploring the flats where some of the hot springs are located. Finally, we decided on a campsite underneath a huge ponderosa pine, at the edge of a high bluff overlooking the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Although the temptation was strong to immediately run around with the camera, we first set up our teepee tent, and erected the titanium stove in it. This would be a trial run for both home-made items. And as it turned out they got a full-on test, as the first few nights bottomed out at sub-zero temperatures…
As soon as the sun sank below the far ridge, the chill crept over the landscape, and very soon we were extremely glad to have the tiny backpacking stove which we had considered not even bringing with us, as we were not expecting cold temperatures… Finding wood to feed the thing was a different matter, and that first night we fed it a sparse diet of pinecones and small sage branches, all that we could scrounge up in the falling light. Though it took continual feeding, it kept us happy until bedtime when we could crawl into our huge winter bags and stop fighting the heavy frost that had been creeping up the insides of the tent all evening, and had not been deterred by the warmth of the stove.
We woke the next morning with frost heavy around the tightly cinched peep-holes in our sleeping bags, and the insides of the teepee tent turned to blue crystal. Isaac braved the single digits to begin prowling with the camera, while I stayed put in my bag a while longer, as mornings bring a slew of discomforts (because of my Rheumatoid Arthritis) that are magnified by cold, sleeping on the hard ground, and just morning-time in general. But even though the night had been frigid, the day brought sunshine again which chased the teeth off the cold.