The Carousel of Happiness
Seventeen miles up Boulder Creek Canyon, the homes of Nederland dot the hills overlooking Barker Reservoir. Outdoor enthusiasts mill about town planning their climbing, rafting, and hiking excursions. Remnants of the area’s mining history, and well as its hippie history, peek through the modern existence of small shacks and mega-mansions. Tie-dye, dreadlocks, gray ponytails. Fancy cars. All of it.
Smack downtown, the refurbished octagonal carousel houses twenty six years of hand-carved whimsy—camels and moose, dolphins, and gorillas. Fifty six animals in all, most riding up and down a pole as the 1913 Wurlitzer Band Organ pumps out tunes for the one dollar ride.
The organ begins and the animals lift and lower, and I’m transported back to the simplicity of a child’s ride of fantasy on the Carousel of Happiness.
On my way through Boulder, I chance upon the district ranger station, where I inquire about hikes, permit fees, and free dispersed camping.
“West Magnolia near Nederland is always filled up for the summer,” the ranger informs me. “But up near the Caribou section of the forest, there are lots of sites if you have some clearance on your vehicle. Better to go there.”
He hands me a map of the forest roads and points out the exact road to try. But once I find it, I just want to go back and slap him. I’m not a violent person, but right now, anything could happen.
Plenty of marked campsites, he had said. So where the hell are they? The road turns from the anticipated dirt with some eroded gullies and protruding rocks, to a stream bed of boulders. The “road” narrows and I’m relieved to not have a vehicle coming in the other direction. Pine trees crowd whatever one would call this pathway with nowhere to pull aside. Two dirt bikes barely pass me by, and I wish the ranger had told me ORV’s are the preferred method of travel here.
After much swearing, and one mile an hour driving, if that, I see a marker for two sites down a side road, and I turn right onto it. But stop at the creek flowing across and assess the depth. Screw it, I think, and slowly wade my truck through and onto more boulders and stones until I find the first of the two sites. Legal, yes. Dark and dank in the trees, yes. Ideal? No. But, here I am for the night now.
……………………………………………………………………
The sun barely finds it’s way through the dense forest. Forget breakfast, I only want to leave this site and "road", and as I pull my truck back onto the graded dirt road leading back to Nederland, I’m practically in tears.
“I’m not coming back here.”
From the visitor center I procure a campsite map for the West Magnolia dispersed camping about three miles out of town. Crossing my fingers, I know that I just need one empty site available, and drive up into the camping area. The first site, #15, is empty, and I pull in and set up my tent as a site holder. Hallelujah! Damn that ranger! Three miles allows me to drive into town each day, use the facilities at the visitor center or in the New Moon Bakery across the parking lot from it. Wifi. Yummy pastries. Library up one block. Movie theater in the community center showing the new Mama Mia! movie for $6. This is what I wanted.
Just a day hike with some views is what I inquire about at the visitor center. When too many choices, I ask whoever is there for their favorite hikes.
"Fourth of July Road to the end, and the hike starts there—about 6 miles round trip," I am offered.
Nothing exists without the elevation. Along the trail up, I’m relieved to cross paths with three young women huffing and puffing too. I’ve gotten used to going slow, and stopping often to breathe in and out deeply while allowing my heart rate to calm down. But once at the Pass, the view awaits and the slog has been worthwhile once again.
"You will love the mountains there," they had said.
Originally home to the Ute Indians, once silver, then coal, were discovered in the Elk Mountains. Crested Butte found its prosperity by supplying coal for the Denver and Rio Railroad. When the technology changed for the rail system, the town closed down its last mine in 1952, and focused on opening a ski resort by 1962.
By the 1970's, battered Schwinn bicycles were the best way to travel on the pot-holed dirt roads. Crested Butte’s mountain valleys, laced with old mining roads and single-track trails, beckoned local garage-shop tinkerers to cross-breed the old junkers with ten-speed road bikes, motorcycle parts, and odds and ends like ski grips. The result, according to the Marin Museum of Bicycling website, was "Frankenstein bikes, monstrous and plodding, but with multiple speeds and enough intestinal fortitude to withstand treks into the mountains". ...then, in 1976:
“A bunch of guys used to ride their motorcycles over the pass from Aspen, hit the Grubstake Bar and steal all the Crested Butte women. Well, the Crested Butte guys who hung out at the Grubstake plotted their revenge; they’d ride their one-speed klunkers over Pearl Pass to Aspen, park them in front of the Jerome Hotel, and do their thing. In a way, the whole thing started out as a joke.”
But this joke started the mountain biking craze, leading this area to become the mountain biking capital of, perhaps, the whole universe! Read more about the history on their site:
https://mmbhof.org/mtn-bike-hall-of-fame/history/crested-butte-history/
My new camping neighbor removes his mountain bike from the back of his car to tweak it. From North Carolina, he's traveling the area for a few weeks to bike from the list of top biking trails in the country. The 401 is on his agenda, as is other view-laden rides. At night, we sip tea, chat, and watch the stars come out. But, only for awhile, the plan is to get up with the sun, and get out there into the cool and striking days. Plus, the nights are around freezing at this 9,000 foot elevation.
"My water bottle was half frozen last night, " my neighbor says in the morning. And I believe it. I could see my breath this morning, steam curling up to the ceiling of my truck cap. But once the cap door is opened to the sun lifting itself out of the shadows and clouds, the heat evaporates all evidence of what transpired during the nighttime dark.
Really—again?
As a meditation for the day, I pick one Tarot card in the morning. To center myself. But this is getting tiresome—the five of swords. Clearly I’m not understanding something important for it to come up several times in the last week.
The swords, having to do with the mental state, thoughts, intellect, cut—my hope is for the cutting through crap in my mind. But the five, yes, the five. Conflict. And that’s about right. “Productivity” is my nemesis. I’m wanting to be done with the last stage of the “work” I’ve been doing for so long, and patiently waiting for the next stage of work to reveal itself. What will it be? What am I missing?
On the southern end of the Maroon Bells/Snowmass Wilderness area, Crested Butte hunkers between a throng of other wildernesses and forests and peaks. Outdoor enthusiasts line the trails, on foot, or mountain bike. Others motor on their dirt bikes to the trails allotted for them. Horses are allowed, but I have yet to cross paths with many.
No need to backpack, since many trails leave from mountain passes, and picture perfect landscapes open to view within one or two miles. On trails gently rising for the mountain bikers, I arrive into a landscape painting feeling as if the paint is not even quite dry.
“Excuse me,” the first cyclist says as he whizzes by, barely missing me. “Three more behind.”
I saw him coming and had stepped off the narrow, cupped trail. From his attire, I recognize him from the group I saw pedaling up the switchbacked dirt road as I drove by. Eleven miles if they started from Crested Butte. Then onto the trail for many more miles? Don’t compare yourself to twenty-something extreme athletes, Gail.
I step cautiously back onto the trail, looking behind me as I do. Only a few other folks are on foot today among the throngs of cyclists. The view over the meadows to the panorama of peaks and passes moves more slowly for me than for them—I imagine the blur of greens, golds, browns, and reds melding together to make a muddy water-colored puddle as they focus on the dirt path ahead of them. I leave the trail for some quiet near a small grove of aspens, and for the shade from the sun, and for the safety against being run down by wide bike tires.
In the meadow, solace surrounds me, and the distant peaks hold steady in their grounding. Cloud patterns shift shadows in a kaleidoscope of lights and darks moving across the mountains. A slight breeze cools the sun’s heat, but could also be a premonition for rain and hail, so I watch the sky for clues. The wheat colored grass seeds sway in the wind, but hold fast to their pencil thin stalks, nowhere near ready to fly to the earth and dig in. More readiness needs time, and when the time is right, the seeds will fall.
Maybe this is the work—not some imagined or expected productivity scale, but the work of being the seed. Being the wind. Existing in the middle of the landscape painting. To learn to be as ease with just being, to “play” via any expression that wants voice.
But the mountains stand firm in their places, naked to the elements beating them down and turning their faces to talus. Summer heat and wildfires, winter storms, winds bending over trees. I listen carefully, but hear no complaints. Nor do I see one packing up its trees, rocks, and streams and saying, “That’s it, I’ve had enough. Moving on from here.”
Clouds gather overhead again, and the reds, greens and tans shift towards a completely different painting version of what is in view.
At the library, I converse with a young man, maybe thirty at most in age, who has chosen a life on his bicycle.
"I've never really had a job, or regular income," he whispers to me during our conversation. "I prefer to bike around, and will head to Mexico for the winter."
"What do you do for cash flow?" I ask.
"Food stamps, food pantries, and a friend sends me $100 each month. I just learned about translating for money, and my Spanish is really good, so I'm trying to get some work doing that."
No way would I want that life, but I celebrate his choice to create the world he wants to live in. How many of us dare to?
Five swords, because, for some of us, fewer won’t do. Too much slicing needs to happen, and the blades must be sharp to sculpt the details that need unveiling. No hacking with a dull blade. No time to sharpen one over and over. Just pick up a new one. Or another box of paints to vary the view.
Be the seed swaying in the breeze until the time is right.
Canyon: larger than ravine, doesn't have to have water flowing through it, but has steep sides
Valley: a low area of land between hills or mountains, typically with a river or stream flowing through it.
Ravine: gorge with river through it, but narrower than a canyon
Gorge: a narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it.
Okay, I don't know....................too many descriptions for similar landscapes. But I'm enjoying all versions of them, whatever they really are called.