Hiking with The Phantom of the Opera

“I love to go a wandering, along the mountain path; and as I go, I love to sing, my knapsack on my back.” Who hasn’t chortled that song at the top of their lungs whilst trekking with a group of young people? Though I have grown older, I am nothing if not a happy wanderer.

So often the things we love most to do in life dovetail. Hiking and Music. That’s the perfect combination for me. Hiking. Writing about it. Writing a musical about it. Even better.

Nowadays I don’t often sing while hiking. Silence is better in the great outdoors. I embrace it. I think better in solitude. But there are times a tune whistled or hummed is just the right thing to get you through a narrow passage, barren stretch, or energize you for extra effort.

I have learned something about hiking along the Colorado River or its tributary canyons: There be willows – sometimes tamarisk – in riparian areas and sand bars. Willows and tamarisk can slap you, lash you and poke your eyes out.

Further up White Canyon from Sipapu Natural Bridge, the willows tower above my head, yet in the undergrowth, the trail is clear. The animals who regularly roam these paths are short, maybe coyotes. And there, on the wildlife path, I discovered a new way to wield my hiking pole.

Keep your hand at the level of your eye, may be a famous line from Phantom of the Opera but it’s also the latest principle I learned while putting one foot in front of the other.

Take your staff by the hilt, but still pointing down. Now salute with your fist in front of your nose, thumb on forehead, fist, pole and forearm vertical. You can now see around either side of your fist, your walking pole will part the willows from your forehead to your knees and you just might come out of the brush free of most lashes and scratches and without your eyes smarting.

Cue marching music. Let’s go a wandering, friends, with our hand at the level of our eyes

Humans of Hometown

I stopped in at the grocery market on 12th Street and purchased a couple food items. It was Tuesday so the store was filled with Tuesday discount shoppers. In one checkout line four or five group home residents were lined up with an assortment of express lane items. In the lane I chose an older couple (as in, older than me) was slowly shuffling through the mechanics of buying groceries. The checker, a middle-aged high functioning special needs man, was cheerily and patiently providing customer assistance. A bottle blond and hairspray grandma a little younger than me approached with her six year old grandson. He flopped the purchases up on the belt. I reached for the divider bar and inserted it between orders, whereupon grandma said, “Oh. Sorry.” (“no problem”). And the odor of alcohol wafted on the air. Not too whiny and not too impatient, the little boy began to while away the time by singing:

Boy: Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool…”

Checker (as he begins to scan my items): Well all I have to say to that is, ‘yes sir, yes, sir three bags full.’

Grandma: ‘One for my master and dum dem dum, how’s that go? Lives down the lane.

Checker: sings the lines again and gets stuck in the same phrase.

The line has now been joined by a white female of approximately 35 in a tank top and tattoo looking like a muscle builder who needs to loose 50 pounds fast.

Grandma and Boy: Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full. One for my master and one ….????

Newcomer: One for my master and one……dum de dum…lives in the lane. How does that go?

Me (having completed payment): One for my master and one for my dame and one for the little boy that lives down the lane.

Where upon the pleased cashier spins and high fives me jubilantly.

We all slept well that night.

 

 

Making Tracks in the Snow

To take a hike every morning -on the clock – and be compensated by a roof over my head. What more could an outdoor loving woman want? Perhaps food? Food is a good idea. At some point – and soon- that will need to be addressed.

But savor with me for a moment an early morning rove through a pristine campground. First a half-mile walk through a piñon-juniper woodland, then a quarter mile trek around a lightly paved loop passing 13 campsites.

No one has been here in the past 24 hours. How do I know? Six inches of new fallen snow blankets everything. Mine are the only tracks. Wait a minute, what is that miniature train track, that zipper imprint in the snow crossing my path? Kangaroo rat? Deer mouse? I see the tail drag. Deer mouse, I conclude. I fill in the campground report.DSCN5348mousetracks

The next day more new snow has fallen.   Once again I am the only creature stirring on two legs. On the paved loop a cottontail found my trail and joined it for 20 yards. Day three I tramp through knee deep snow A jackrabbit has crossed my path of yesterday in bounding strides. On day four I am off work so I don’t have to rove the loop, but how can I resist? I borrow a pair of snowshoes twice my size and decide to break a path in 18 inches of snow. Day five I follow my snowshoe path in my hiking boots. Five days and still no tire tracks in the campground or human prints save mine. On impulse I fall on the undisturbed snow and make a snow angel right in the middle of the less travelled road, laughing to think how this will look from the elevated perspective of a Mini Wini driver. Day six, a mule deer has joined my path through the piñon-juniper woodland, leaving cloven tracks inside mine and a pile of deer scat to the left of the trail and then another to the right.

The sun has been shining these past few days, the snow steadily shrinking and melting. Each day there are new signs in the campground. A tent space cleared of snow and the footprints of a hardy camper. Tire tracks indicating arrival and early departure of a camper truck. And still, my boots make the only stride on the woodland path. And this morning? Blue and gray scrub jays scold and a juniper tit-mouse taps out a question and response to its mate. The sunshine is glorious. Clear and fresh inside my boot print, continuing for 15 feet I see them: Bobcat.