Minnesota – Page 2 – Tom's On The Move

May 13, 2015

The Trail is My Dance Partner

Where’s the motivation?

I woke up with the sound of howling wind bending the tree branches, the patter of rainfall on the roof of my Minnesota apartment. Temps were supposed to be in the high thirties that day. I was also planning to hit the trails for a weekly long run, putting in the miles that I’d need to compete in a 50-mile trail run on July 25.

If I was going to race this thing, I was going to have to train ruthlessly, to laugh at rainy days, hail, heat and other obstacles that stood in my way. I ate my large oatmeal breakfast and procrastinated the next couple hours inside reading Robert Frost poems.

Finally, at 11:30 am, I knew I could wait no longer, lurched outside with my guts sloshing from the big meal and started jogging up the pavement towards the woods. Nothing cramped or puked, so that was a good start.

I wore my Boston Marathon tech shirt, running shorts, a thin balaclava and my iridescent orange shell. I placed a small tube of Vaseline in the right pocket, along with some athletic tape (to prevent chafing and to splint any catastrophic ankle sprains respectively.) For the left pocket, I put a small baggie full of Trisquits. There was a compass strung around my neck too. It was probably unnecessary, but what the hell?

Soon I was cooking underneath all of my gear as I ran uphill.The rain had turned even the tiny streams into torrents, surging brown and furious as they flushed sediment down the slopes. One of these would almost be good for a kayak run, I thought, thinking of my new eight-foot whitewater boat that I was itching to use.

I traded the pavement for a logging road leading up into the woods, felt the ground squelch beneath my feet. The shoes would get soaked real thorough-like on this trip.

I kept running uphill for about a half a mile until I reached the Superior Hiking Trail (Also called the SHT or SHiT.) I turned north,towards nearby Leveaux Mountain and Oberg Mountain. I planned to run up the two of them and loop back home. This particular section of woods had a lot of maple trees growing and that meant that it was prime territory for wild leaks. I saw huge clumps of them, glowing radioactive green amidst the dull colors of the leaf litter.

I also saw puddles. Sections of the trail were completely submerged. It was possible to scamper delicately from root to rock to board and cross these areas with dry feet. This took too much time and there were too many puddles so I adopted a “fuck it” attitude for them.

The water splashing up my legs was cold, but not frigid and a nice antidote to the sweaty heat I was building up inside my shell.

I scrambled beneath the cedars at the base of Leveaux Mountain where the roots made for fancy footwork, jumped a fallen tree and bombed down a steep hillside to the Onion River, which was wild with rapids. Newly submerged boulders seethed with foam.

I ran up the other side and through another mile of puddles until I got to the parking lot at the base of Oberg. There was the loop I was planning to run; there was the sign pointing to the Lutsen Mountains ski resort in 6.8 miles on the SHT. I had to climb over Moose Mountain on the way. How ambitious was I feeling?

I pulled the Triscuits out of my left pocket and munched them while I pondered this. The run left a few permutations, including just going as far as Moose Mountain in less than three miles and turning back, or running down the ski slopes and down to the bike trail that could take me back to my apartment in eight miles.

I decided I’d figure these things out as I went.

Going past Oberg took me beneath two-hundred foot basalt cliffs on a windy downslope.

Trail running sometimes feels less like running and more like skipping and dancing. It really does.

I find myself putting my feet down to a weird rhythm and flinging my body around in a way that — well it isn’t dancing — but it feels like I’ve tapped into the harmony of the trail. You can call that a bunch of sentimental bullshit, but I mean it. The trail is my dance partner.

I know I look far from graceful out there, I flail my arms and I fall down plenty, but I love trail running for its weird contortions. There’s the stutter step before hopping a log, there’s twisting a foot at a weird angle to land perfectly between two roots while angling my body to divert my momentum away from the tree trunk. How satisfying it is to use mind and body together in order to navigate a sudden dip in the trail. The same principles apply to mountain biking, sking — well pretty much all the sports, but with running it’s just you and the shoes doing the work.

The trails are a nice change from road running where consistency of form is crucial to success. Out on the the trails, I feel at liberty to be delightfully irregular. I will jut an arm out to balance myself on a steep curve or drop into a crouch after a steep jump. I will swing my head out of the path of a tree branch before it slaps me in the face. I even switch to power hiking on the steepest hills, where I find that I can keep the same speed at a walk as I can hold running and with less effort.

Trails are obviously much slower for me than the roads, but I also feel like I can stick it out for longer on trails where there is plenty of variation in form an intensity. Those windy trails only let me go so fast in places and sometimes I’m happy for the enforced break.

The summit of Moose Mountain was draped in freezing fog, buffeted by wind. I found shelter in a ski patrol cabin where I ate more of my Trisquits and left some crumbs for psychological sustenance down the trail. When I stepped outside,I discovered an untied shoelace and barely had the strength in my freezing hands to re-knot it. The trail wound beneath basalt overhangs, then it crossed some of the black diamond ski runs. The machine-made snow hadn’t melted yet, was still packed firm against the slope. I was loathe to take that ride to the bare rock and brush waiting at the bottom. I broke a tree branch and used it as an ice axe (well, more of a dagger) and kick steps into the snow. I was able to cross two slopes like this no problem, but met my match on a patch of wet brush. The reeds all pointed downhill and down I went.

I descended the rest of the way down the mountain with greater caution. In the disorienting fog without a map, I used my compass to point myself north in the direction of the ski lodge.

Up from the valley below came the roar of the Poplar River. And lo! What a beautiful stretch of whitewater. The rapids looked like a healthy Class III with no obvious hazards (at least until the deadly canyon narrows that waited further downstream.) I feasted my eyes and even took some time out to do a bit of scouting.

Verily, there was a bounty of exciting opportunities for my new kayak and I, but that is a story for another day.

The trail switched back over various bridges, so I could drool into the whitewater, then I veered off to climb a miserable scrub hill in the direction of the road I wanted. In a short while, this road goes back to the SHT right where it crosses the river again at the place I like to call You Will Die Falls. There are a series of cascades here, boiling with angry water. Maybe a real pro could take this on, but on a high water day like this the name definitely fit.

I went back to grooving and jiving my way up Moose Mountain when the hunger hit. I drank my remaining Trisquit fragments and licked the precious salt off my fingers. I drank out of a creek halfway between Moose and Oberg, putting my head down in the silty flow. I wouldn’t have done this a year ago, but I’ve heard from many authorities that the risks of contaminated water in the wilderness have been greatly exaggerated.

Soon after, I found a half-trampled wild leak lying in the trail where a forager must have dropped it. I ate the bulb. ‘Wonder how long I could live on these things if I stayed out here,’ I found myself thinking.

The bonk was definitely coming on now. I knew the slightly out of body, fairly stupid feeling that comes at the end of a long workout where I haven’t refueled enough. Basically, the exercise had stolen the glucose that my brain would have been using otherwise, and now my brain was taking a vacation in La La Land.

“La la la,” I sang to myself.

I pictured someone paddling on the easy stretch of river leading up to You Will Die Falls.

“La la laaaAaaughh!”

The brain was draining, but I was familiar with the feeling, and this made it easier to deal with. I tried not to think hard about anything and pooled all my mental resources onto the Tripping and Falling Avoidance line item.

There were still miles of muck to spat through before I finished. It would be at least a 20-mile day and would take up about four and a half hours. Though I was tired, I knew from experience that I had enough to make it through.

I crashed through puddle after puddle and the cold water splashed up to my knees. I was long past giving a damn.

March 1, 2015September 22, 2015

Walking on Ice

_MG_5128 — Waves carved this small cave into the ice alongside Lake Superior.

It’s important to stand in the right place, get the angle right.

Come over here and look this way, out over the miles of ice that stretch clear to the horizon. If you’re patient, you might see one of the snow devils, 15-feet high whirlwinds, silent and barely discernable against the clouds. It’s the closest thing to life that you’ll see out there — at least through squinting, sun-tormented eyes.

In the foreground, see how the wind has smashed the ice into itself, forming curious piles that flash iridescent blue from within. It’s beautiful, but reminds us of the treacherous nature of our location. Even now, we hear the occasional grinding of ice against ice and the loud “chunk” sound beneath our feet. Perhaps we shouldn’t stand here.

This ice has only been around for a few days. Before that, it was open water. Before it was open water, it was a field of ice much like the one we are standing on. The winds came out from the north and blew that ice over the horizon in one night. The open water looked deep blue and innocent, as if it had always been that way.

Turning back toward the mainland, a very different world comes into view. Now we see the rental units at the resort, where guests can take the in the drama of the Lake Superior ice from a cozy armchair, maybe a Jacuzzi.

_MG_5154 — LeAnn explores another ice cave

OK, so were not in Greenland. We won’t be sleeping in an igloo tonight. I’m thinking about renting a movie before we go back to my apartment with its hot running water and heated floor. I’m grateful for the conveniences at my back, but also glad that I can make them disappear if I look in the right direction.

The biggest ice walls are at least 12 feet high. They were born several weeks back when six-foot waves crashed up against a thin ice layer along the shore. The bay looked like a churning field of broken glass. When all those shattered pieces smashed up against the beach, the waves bulldozed them into massive piles. The freezing spray welded it all together and added more height to the already impressive heaps.

If we climb over those heaps to the other side, we can really make the shoreline disappear. Plus, there might be some cool caves and alcoves worth exploring. We should take these ice axes, firstly because ice axes are badass, but also because we can use them to tap the ice in front of us and see if anything is suspect. If one of us did fall through, an axe could be a useful self-rescue tool. Hopefully, this will not be necessary. I hope I’m not being an idiot.

I do want us to use the axes, but mainly to see if we can climb up a formation I call “The Blowhole.” When the waves were crashing in a couple weeks ago, spray had erupted through this opening in the ice like a miniature Old Faithful geyser. Now that the waves are gone, I’d like a shot at going up myself.

_MG_5150 — The frozen Lake Superior as seen from another ice cave. A few days later, all of the flat ice would be open water again.

Before we get to the climb, however, there’s plenty of other cool stuff to check out, including all these caves. Right next to the dock I’d kayaked under in the summer (it’s completely caked in ice now) there is a small cavern barely tall enough to crawl through and even then I don’t go far because I don’t want to bring all the icicles on top of my head. What is really striking is the sapphire glow from within the ice. It reminds me of photographs of containment pools for depleted nuclear rods.

You whoop at the wild isolation of our locale. I’m glad you’re so adventurous and that you take so much joy in this simple outing. You climb up into alcoves for me to take pictures, taste the murderous-looking icicles above our heads.

Climbing up the blowhole won’t be so difficult, I realize, when I see it from the bottom. It starts as a gentle slope, and the fact that I will be ascending in a cylinder offers numerous holds for both axe tips and the crampon points. Nonetheless, I strap my crampons on and take both ice axes. It only takes me a few seconds to wriggle up and flop out onto the bright ice.

I come back around so that you can try it yourself. You elect to skip the crampons, and clamber up, no problem. Fine. I’ll skip the axes and climb out of there with crampons alone. I manage, though it takes some awkward footwork.

We spend another twenty minutes exploring the network of caves and alcoves. I try another climb above an overhang. It gets tough when I have no ice to sink my crampons into, and eventually I reach out and grab a knob of ice to pull myself up the last stretch. Eventually, we leave to drive to another point along the shore, which supposedly has some other impressive formations.

Indeed, when we arrive, there are several piles that look like shattered plate glass. Most are about six-inches thick and anywhere from a foot to seven feet long. It is possible to pick one up and look right through it like a window — or marvel at the tiny trails of bubbles in suspended animation.

You talk about building a fantastic see-through igloo. I’d be tempted to try if my feet weren’t so cold. There’s so much more to explore and do, but right now I’m getting cold as all hell.

We walk out to the far point, which is a defiant stone bulwark jutting out against the lake. The waves have absolutely pummeled this rock. It is about 25-teet tall and utterly draped with ice. 19^th century traders traveling along the shore called this the “Sugarloaf” because the rock resembled one of the old sacks of sugar that they would have shipped up the coast. The white ice glaze certainly goes well with this name. Of course we have to climb it.

I’m too cold to put crampons on, so we go around to the easier sloping side. My jaw and other muscles are clenched tight against the cold. You seem to be doing just fine. It figures. You were raised near this latitude.

The wind howls from the other side of the stone. I make the first ascent, semi-clumsy with cold and eager to get back to the car before that tingling in my feet becomes frostbite. The wind smacks me head-on at the top, rips away at what little warmth I have left.

I beat a fast retreat, allowing myself to butt-slide on some of the gentler sections of ice. I hop from foot to foot as you make your own climb.

Perspective is everything again. From down here, the barren stone outcrop looks like it could be some oxygen-starved peak above the Tibetan highlands. It is easy to imagine the month-long trek, the thousands of feet of elevation gain, lost toes and fluid in the lungs — all for the chance to stand on some godforsaken rock. I say that as someone who loves to climb thousands of feet to stand on godforsaken rocks. It was one of the things that I worried about when I moved to Minnesota, with its shrimpy mountains. But latitude has a way of making up for altitude. Here, we can have our rock within a 25-foot climb. The miles of tortured ice are a bonus. Also, I have someone to enjoy it with.

You reach the summit; raise the axes in a war whoop. It might as well be the top of the world.

January 21, 2015January 21, 2015

Bottled Water Everywhere

Plastic bottles wrapped in plastic. Absurdity.

Amidst the troubled backdrop of our planet’s state of violence, injustice and deepening environmental crises, it might seem trite to launch a diatribe against bottled water.

But what choice do I have? I’m the guy who stocks the fridge at work.

Perhaps one of these days I will have to stand before some tribunal as the prosecutor questions how I, how anyone with a conscience, could have allowed the crates full of bottles to roll off the truck and into the office. Further investigation will reveal how I regularly restocked the fridge downstairs so that resort guests could snag them (when clean, potable water was available from several nearby sinks) and eventually discard the plastic husks. Compounding this idiocy, many people will throw their bottles out half full.

“I was just doing my job,” I’ll protest, knowing in my heart that I was part of a senseless problem that didn’t need to exist.

OK, I really don’t want to explain why bottled water sucks because I feel like I’m not saying anything new. The verdict’s been settled year’s ago, and we’re all supposed to be drinking tap water from trendy (if pretentious) Nalgene bottles, aluminum flasks, that funky glassware I’m seeing in stores now, or some kind of goddamned reusable vessel. But all these people who keep swilling the bottles that I stock in the fridge, haven’t got the memo yet.

So here’s what they need to know:

Strike One!

Putting water in bottles is a stupid waste. The plastic comes from oil, so already the bottles support a polluting industry. Ironically, oil extraction comes at a heavy price in water, and the industry has a crappy track record when it comes to spills. Burst oil pipes have ruined people’s water along the Yellowstone River in Montana this month and back in 2011*. The next big oil bonanza, the Alberta tar sands, which so many of our beloved members of congress are so keen on shipping via the Keystone XL pipeline, has created its own health crisis. The indigenous people who rely on the Athabasca River** for its food and water, have suffered a huge risk of cancer cases, which studies have linked to leaks in the tar sands mining operations.

The Aqua Fina bastards actually have the gall to put “Eco-Fina” on the side of their bottles because they figured how to make the bottles with 30 percent less plastic. Sorry, but I’m not so impressed when 100 percent of those bottles shouldn’t exist.

Yes, plastic bottles are just one part of a vast web of petroleum-based products that our society has become dependent on. But while it may take some sacrifice to cut down on driving, turn back the thermostat or take the bus, it’s pretty easy to stop drinking out of bottles and start drinking out of the tap. Actually, it could save a bunch of money. Even if the drinking habit only costs a buck a day, that’s $365 down the toilet by the end of the year.

Strike Two!

Shipping bottled water is a stupid waste. Semis belching diesel fumes rumble along thousands of miles of highway so that a consumer in California can swig Poland Spring water from Maine (only some of it actually comes from the “Poland Spring, the rest we have no clue. ) *** Presumably the Californian has water available nearby, even if much of it goes toward keeping lawns green and the vineyards watered.

Normally it would be economic insanity to pay the gas to ship something as low-value as water across country. Unfortunately marketers are very good at assigning value where there isn’t much. “You’re not just drinking our water, you’re drinking our brand!” I can imagine some scummy ad-exec telling a boardroom. Hence the elongated, extra-wasteful bottles from Fiji (the name of the brand and, incredibly, where they ship water from.)

When I trundle one of the cases of water toward the fridge, I imagine the energy that it takes to haul this, multiplied over thousands of miles, the gallons of fuel burned into the the atmosphere, to provide a trivial convenience.

The companies have cashed in on this status value, paying themselves with something both unnecessary and harmful. If you’re like me, you might rankle at the idea of someone hoodwinking you into buying something you don’t need by convincing you it’s necessary. What’s next? Bottled air from British Columbia? Stay tuned.

Strike Three!

What the hell makes their water better? There have already been studies showing that bottling plants often have to abide by lower standards than city water systems. I’m not going to wade into each bottled water company’s processes, in part because I doubt many customers even consider what the processes mean either, but just assume that something in a comforting, plastic package is necessarily safer than whatever pours out of the sink.

For those who are convinced that the local water is really tainted, do they take the next logical step and stop using it to prepare meals, stop drinking soda at restaurants where it comes from syrup and tap water.

OK, so there’s no accounting for taste, and if you really don’t like the taste of your local water, you’ll probably just have to suck it up and keep drinking. Or get a filter if it comes to that. You probably don’t like the way some water tastes because you’re used to drinking the water you grew up with. Once you start drinking from the tap regularly, you’ll probably get a tolerance, in the same way that many people come around to the taste of coffee or cheap beer.

If your water explodes or is actually full of poisons, you might have to reach for a gallon jug sometime.

I doubt most Americans are in that situation — not yet. In fact, I’m sure many of the bottled water drinkers who visit the fridge I fill have heard something about how wasteful and destructive this habit is. They persist because ‘aw, what the hell?” Then they get into their Subaru’s tricked out with all the green and lefty political stickers, unaware that they debase what they claim to believe in, because they aren’t willing to make a sacrifice as tiny as drinking out of the sink.

We’ll have a chance of reversing the planet’s catastrophic course if we start making comprehensive changes to our personal habits, redefining our wants and needs so that we don’t take more than our share and we give back what we owe. There’s a lot of work to do, but maybe we can start by throwing down the fucking bottle.

* Un-fucking believable. When I was writing this blog post, I wanted to mention the 2011 spill. I did a web search for Yellowstone River oil spill and I found out that another disaster happened today. How long are we to keep destroying life and beauty for the conveniences that fossil fuel gives us in the short term.

** Check out this fine article in Outside Magazine: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/nature/The-High-Cost-of-Oil.html

Better yet, pick up a copy of This Changes Everything, the Naomi Klein book that came out in 2014, which talks about the cancer rates suffered in the community around the Tar Sands, and does an altogether excellent job explaining the various destructive pathways carved by the fossil fuel companies, and the toxic effect that unchecked capitalism has on our planet.

*** Mother Jones backs this up. MJ pressed Poland Spring’s PR guy to admit that only one third of the water in those bottles comes from “Poland Spring” in Maine. Personally I wouldn’t give a damn where the well was drilled. I’d rather have the water be a well nearby, or drink treated water from the abundant Lake Superior, which is right next to me. The article also underscores the lack of transparency that bottled water companies have when it comes to identifying where their water comes from. I suppose we should just take the companies at their word, because who’s heard of a company being dishonest to customers?

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/03/bottled-water-poland-spring-rubio

**** Here’s another source that has some damning numbers about bottled water:

Note that the author found a Columbia University study showing that water in a bottle costs 2,900 times more than what’s on tap.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100310/why-tap-water-is-better/

December 13, 2014December 17, 2014

Two Ice Axes, One Bike, No Car, Good Times

_MG_4697 — The view, halfway up the Onion River falls

It’s only a couple miles from my apartment to the Onion River, so I prefer not to drive there if I can help it.

I prefer not to drive if there is an inch of snow on the bike path, and I’m going to be pedaling through that snow carrying crampons and ice axes in my backpack. It’s all for the greater glory of the adventure, the doorstep adventure.

Doorstep adventure? That’s the term I’ve started using to describe any adventure that starts under my own power from the minute I leave the door. If I run from my apartment to the top of nearby Carlton Peak, that’s a doorstep adventure, but if I were to drive a couple miles up the road to the trailhead, than it’s not. The part where I was in my car wasn’t part of the adventure. That was driving.

Lately, I’ve been trying to make as many of my adventures into doorstep adventures as I can, whether it means running somewhere from my door, biking from my door or — eventually — skiing from my door.

It would be really cool if this blog were some influential publication that everybody read, because I think it would be neat to make the doorstep adventure into the hot new trend. It has that extra challenge of requiring people to cover more territory under their own power. Plus, it forces people to put more value on what is near to them, rather than coveting some far away place that they will need to burn many gallons of fuel to get to.

_MG_4762 — Little holes in this rock along the Onion River were caused by hot gasses in the lava before it cooled

By cutting cars, planes, aircraft carriers, whatever out of the adventure equation, the doorstep adventure keeps pollution out of the atmosphere. This, many would argue, should be kind of a goal for those who take the time to appreciate the natural beauty that pollution threatens.

For this particular adventure, I sought to fill a couple of hours traveling to the river, climbing up its frozen waterfalls, taking in some scenery and biking back from whence I came. Hardly a major expedition, it was far less of a commitment than some of the doorstep adventures of my past such as when I biked from the doorstep of the raft company where I’d worked in Utah and went out to Washington and Oregon; or more recently, when I left town with my girlfriend in October to spend five days on the Superior Hiking Trail. Kids’ stuff compared to the badassery of Göran Kropp who biked from home in Sweden to Mt. Everest, climbed it, and pedaled back.

Perhaps the greatest peril that I would face would be the ice patches along the bike path. Often people’s footprints or a tire tread coming out of a driveway would leave icy zones where I didn’t dare turn the handle bars or hit the brakes. Arguably, the breakdown lane on nearby Highway 61 would have been a safer travel option, but I was in no mood for huffing exhaust from semis or from all the non-doorstep adventurers traveling up the North Shore.

Progress was slow, but I made it to the trailhead without wiping out.

_MG_4708 — Reverse icicles as seen underneath a ledge along the falls

The Onion River carves a canyon a couple hundred feet deep through layers of dark gray basalt and pinkish rhyolite. Both types of stone are remnants of the billion-year-old lava flow that formed the basin where Lake Superior sits today.

The main trail went up and to the east ridge of this cut in the rock; my path was along the riverbed below.

Here I could look up at the gnarled cedars whose roots extracted their meager sustenance through cracks in the canyon walls, cedars that had grasped the walls in unreasonable over-leaning perches for centuries.

In places, the rock looked almost spongy, beset with tiny bubbles that had once been hot gasses fizzing out of the lava. When quartz or calcite sediment infiltrated these chambers, they left little stones within the stone: amygdaloids they call them. There were places where I could see constellations of these tiny gems embedded within the duller rock above my head.

The river itself was a scarce trickle beneath slabs of ice. There was the occasional place where the ice cracked and exposed a small piece of the rushing water beneath. Here, I would find animal tracks.

As I got further from the highway, I began to hear the murmurings of the hidden river. In places it thrummed like a drum, elsewhere, a quiet gurgle.

_MG_4741 — Icicles beneath a small overhanging ledge

I threw my pack off at the base of the frozen falls and dug out my gear. I made sure to sit on the pack, not the snow while attaching crampons to my feet.

It wasn’t a particularly steep climb, but going up the slick ice would have been next to impossible without the crampons and ice axes. I was wary of a couple places where I could see the water flowing beneath the curtain of ice. It would certainly suck to break through and get sprayed with cold water, or lose my grip and fall over backwards. Fortunately, there were other places where the ice was solid and the climbing was easy.

At the top of the first cascade was a plunge pool where the ice was a cracked, mushy yellow. Steep cliffs climbed up on both sides. I knew from swimming there in the summer that the water beneath that ice was well over my head, and was in no mood to go through with a backpack on my shoulders and a camera around my neck.

Either I would have to take my crampons off and Gollum-crawl along the steep ledge to get to the next falls, or I could trust the ice on the far left side, which was tilted slightly and looked sturdiest. I chose the later option, banging away at the ice in front of me with an axe before I trusted it with my weight.

The second set of falls was steeper and higher than the first. From the left side of the plunge pool, I had a somewhat awkward ascent between the weak ice where the water was flowing and an overhanging ledge — not a lot of elbowroom.

Stalagmites of clear ice lay beneath the ledge, including some that were wicked sharp at the point. Like some inlayed dagger, they shone with beauty and malice both.

I swung the axes into some solid holds and kicked my way up to the top of the ice, turned around to see the blue of Lake Superior shimmering above the birches.

_MG_4746 — Cedar trees along the canyon edge

That might have been a satisfying enough conclusion to the doorstep adventure. A spur-trail went back up to the main path and to where I’d left my bike. But I was curious about exploring further up the canyon.

While I had hiked along the top of the upper section here, I hadn’t gotten down to where the river moved between the narrow walls. Now the frozen water offered an easy way in.

Some things are worth waiting for. The canyon here had all the feeling of a sanctuary, the air still and soundless between the walls. The droning highway noise in the background as I climbed the icefalls was gone. One could well pretend that humanity itself had vanished in such a place. The only voice was the occasional gurgle that issued from some kettle beneath the ice.

A three-foot mound of frozen foam stood at the base of one falls. I nudged it with my axe and the blade moved through it as if through icy feathers.

Here and there, I saw overhangs, places where the canyon could offer shelter in poor weather (though the broken rocks at the bottom of these overhangs would make me think twice.)

_MG_4744 — Cedar needles dropped on the rock make for excellent moss-growing conditions

In another spot, a shallow cave lay a few feet above the riverbed. No doubt an earlier course of the river had carved that cave, its momentum coming down from the hills had brought it crashing down against the bedrock. I crunched up a small tongue of ice to crawl inside. I turned around to survey the scene from the cave mouth: tall, proud bulwarks of stone, the majesty of cedar and white pine growing out from the cliffs.

It was probably only a mile to the highway as the crow flies. Thousands of noisy, polluting cars went by here each day transferring people to the places they had to go, the places they thought they wanted to go.

Here in the canyon, I’d left the only set of human tracks.

_MG_4755 — A monument of frozen foam stands in the center of a plunge pool