Coastline Pilot

August 26, 2002

 

Chasing the Muse

By Catharine Cooper

 

The loud calling of an owl wakes me from mountain-saturated dreams.   I slip out of the tent hoping to catch a glimpse of his spinning gold eyes, but I cannot discern the owl’s ruffled feathers within the sea of pine silhouettes.  The sky, however, is a gift difficult to describe.  A million stars blanket the indigo darkness.  Redfish Lake spreads out before me, glasslike in a windless air, a perfect mirror of the iridescent lights.  Which is water and which is sky?  Only the soft gray of mountains that ring the lake mitigate the continuous shimmer.

 

To celebrate my sister Claudia’s birthday, we’ve traveled across two states to camp in the mountains.  She’s another of Laguna’s finest, transplanted along with scores of other locals, to the Sun Valley, Idaho area.  Her request, to join her and finance, Jim, at the lake, was too sweet to pass up.

 

Redfish Lake lies cradled in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area between Galena Summit and Stanley at an altitude of about 6600’. We’ve claimed a wide stretch of beach bordered by two stream outlets as our campsite.  Mornings are filled with hot coffee and lovemaking at the water’s edge, snug in our tent, sheltered by towering pines.

 

In the woods, no two days or two nights are the same.  There are marked subtleties in temperature, wind, cloud and sun coverage.  To be physically present and experience the shifts are remarkable.  The same is true at home, but too often, we are sheltered in our houses, our cars and businesses, and have lost the art of experiencing the climate.  Plugged into radios, televisions and computers, we gain our filtered experience from the broadcasts, and deal with what the media deems ‘important’ events.  

 

In the wilderness, stories told to one another, shared readings and song are the food for conversation and exchange.  Observations replace consumption, and we start to hear again, our real voices.

 

We have a chance to remember who we are – and to ask questions of ourselves that require reflective spaces to answer.  What am I here to accomplish?  Is there meaning to the life I have generated?  Am I on a path that truly meets my talents?  Answers come slowly. The ‘busyness” of back home is difficult to shed.

 

Steve and I climb to Alpine Lake, five and a half miles from Redfish with a 2500’ elevation gain.  Our efforts are rewarded with a clear and glistening jewel surrounded by glaciated granite fall just at timberline. A young woman dangles a fishing poles hoping for dinner’s catch, and at the far end, four male hikes bathe.  Their laughter fills the otherwise silent space.

 

Dragonflies dance - love sparring in the crystalline air – curled purple and black tails spun together in a wheel-like shape.  Large gossamer wings whir as they frolic and tumble. A female lights on Steve’s backpack and lays eggs in the webbing.  We expect small dragonfly-lets sometime in the spring.

 

We soak our feet in the water, ponder the glaciated rock fall and head down the mountainside through fields of late season wildflowers.  Violet asters, goldenrod, Queen Anne’s Lace and the teensiest of pink orchids line the trail. Ponderosa and lodgepole pines, white alders, poplars and big leaf manzanita green out the forest.

 

I  forage on tiny bright rose hips – tender sweet fruit with bitter and tart seeds.  Wild raspberries and blue-black currents round out my diet.  No wonder the bears love this place.

 

The last morning, a small family of wrens clatters outside the tent.  I peer out the window and watch as they eat their way through the low-lying brush.  At the campsite next to ours, Trapper, a golden Labrador, paws at his owner’s tent flap, anxious for his walk.  She unzips their door and he journeys to my campsite, lifts a leg, and wets a small tree. Thankfully, he didn’t go for my backpack.

 

The morning is eerily still.  The lake mirrors trees now instead of stars.  I’d like to linger forever, but the other world screams to be attended.  My goal, as always: to carry the freshness and insight from the wilderness – the call of the owl, dance of dragonfly and rush of stream water – into my daily-ness.  And in doing so, to keep life richer and ever so full.

 

Catharine Cooper chases her muse on dusty trails in out of the way places.  She can be reached at 949-497-5081 or ccooper@cooperdesign.net.