Dec. 21st, a.m.  As I started out, temperatures bumped around in the low 20s.  A ragged ceiling of waxy yellow clouds sometimes let through bright sunlight.  Mostly, though, the cloud cover took the polish off the snow.  An unexpectedly cold breeze chilled the denim of my jeans and cut through my gloves, making my hands ache.  I pulled the overlong sleeves of my parka’s polar fleece liner over my gloves to better protect my hands.

Usually as I keep moving I warm to the point of having to remove gloves and open my parka.  I’ve found I can hike barehanded in pretty cold temperatures as long as I’m walking.  I trusted those conditions would recur during this jaunt and continued up the road and past the cattle guard, picking my way up the icy slope to the trailhead, weighing the decision to go further with each step.  When I reached the trailhead, I stopped to study the snow-drifted trail, trying to see in its white curves and silvery dips some hint of my accustomed route.  Snowfall had blanked out everything.  The slope seemed steeper, the way deeply buried.  I found no hint of my established footholds.  Nothing to do but try.  I stepped off the rim and sank into eighteen to twenty inches of snow.  Wow, I thought—that’s a lot.  Nonnegotiable in just hiking boots, if that was how it would be the whole way.  But probably, this was only a drift; the snow in our yard had melted from twelve inches to about an eight-inch depth.  I doubted average snow-depths in the piñon-juniper forest that lay ahead would be much different form my yard.  So I took another step into the drift, sinking again, then another, then another.  Snow powder packed into gaps between boots’ tongues and my woolen socks.  With each step, I had to pull my leg up high, extend it, balance carefully on the snowbound leg, rock forward to sink the raised foot, then settle my step into the softly yielding snow.  The sensation was that of walking through a half-frozen cloud.  Not that I’ve ever done that—except maybe then.

Note to self: Snowshoes are no longer an option.

As I worked my way down slope, at times sinking my walking willow nearly half its height into powder to keep my balance, I had so much fun maneuvering through the drift—step, sink; step, sink—that I missed the trail’s turn-off and had to double back.  Another reason I missed the turn-off: re-imagined as it had been by snowfall, it hadn’t quite looked familiar.  The turn-off trail  runs across the incline rather than down it.  I found the snow depths there similar to those of my yard, about eight inches, give or take a drift.  Generally, I could move through it more quickly.  But unstable rocks lay beneath the deceptively smooth blanket.  I had to alter my course several times to avoid guessed-at obstacles beneath the snow drop cloth as well as large branches and tree-portions the storm had broken down acrpss the path.

At one point, I lost the trail.  The white blanket muted every meaningful landmark and my eye became completely confused.  Here’s where something interesting happened.  As I stood, visually canvassing the landscape for some hint of which way to go, I felt a tug inside my body.  Instinctively, I gave in to it, and my body turned slowly to face a particular direction.  It lined me up with a vaguely familiar arrangement of snow-faced trees.  Looking down, then, I could just make out the dimmest intimation of the trail showing through the snow’s rumple.

Yay for kinetic memory!  I had been down this trail so many times that, even as my eyes doubted, my body exercised faith.  It acted as a compass, lining me up spatially with an established pathway in my mind.  After this, I felt able to trust myself to know the way and encountered no further disorientation.  The trip was worth it to learn this lesson alone.

At about the halfway mark, I reached where the trail drops down and follows the canyon wall along an eroding ledge of rotting sandstone.  Here, I stopped for two reasons.  One, a mountain lion has moved into the canyon, and I won’t be walking beneath any ledges (or through trees) without looking up.  Often.  Two, the scene was utterly beautiful.   Bared knees and elbows of bleached-out Navajo sandstone cliffs poked through holes in crumpled quilted white fabric.  Because of the cloud cover’s thin yellow cast, the sandstone glowed buttery yellow through all the white.  The heavily shadowed greenery of pinion pines and junipers broke up glare off the snow and feathered in a texture of darkness where my eyes took some relief from the off-and-on light.  On any day, the faces of the cliffs are full of complexity, a moving canvas for the genius of shifting sunshine.  But here, the furrows, caves, and straight edges, frosted with snow and ice, appeared completely new.  I’d never hiked into the canyon before when there’d been this much snow.  I was discovering the place all over again.

Furthermore, clean silence, so rare anymore it’s hard to imagine, lay in the snow-lined canyon.  No breezes, no ghost drums, no sounds of distant traffic, chain saws, or airliners scraping past overhead.  I stood listening to the soundlessness, thinking how the mind craves it just as much as my eye seeks in the p-j forest’s shadows relief from snowlight’s glare.  Our minds are so accustomed to filtering and fending off noise we don’t realize the strain they support until we plunge into these pools of quiet that form in potholes of time and place.  Silence so perfect, so deep, it gathers you up.  You feel yourself at the center of the universe at such moments.  Not something I’d want to live with always, but when I stumble across it in moments like this—and it was a product of the moment, only slightly longer-lived than my thoughts about it—I let it swallow me whole, just for a little bit.

This part of the trail, lying as it does along the western wall’s slope, has the warmest exposure this time of year.  The snow here, compressed by deer hooves and coyote paws, had melted, exposing alternately crumbling yellow sand and, further down, chocolate brown or—looked at from the other direction—dark purple soil, very loose and branny, easy to slip and fall along, even when dry.  Striping through this purple/brown earth, green-grey bands of clayey bentonite soil.  The dampness of snowmelt stabilized these and I made it down this steeper section without trouble.

I found the sage flat, actually a teeming community of tall sage mixed with towering, older rabbit brush plants, much changed.  The heavy snow had glued down the plants so that they were half their established heights or lower.  I stepped as well as tripped over frozen-down branches that shortly before had stood clear of the path, then only dusting my upper arms and shoulders with pale fluffy seed, or in the case of the sage, speckling my fleece jacket with tiny, dart-like grains, to my nose, more fragrant than the plant’s turpene-laced leaves.  On this day, I supposed any remaining rabbit brush or sage seeds to be plastered to their decaying flowers stuck in clumps of half-melted snow or encased in beads of ice.

I reached the canyon-bottom trail and found it well used, its recent history a jumble of coyote, fox, cougar, and deer tracks.  Also, within the last couple of days, somebody had ridden a horse through in company with a dog.  The horse tracks had partially melted, in some places down to the frozen ground, and I made my own use of them rather than wade through the slightly crusted snow, which banged my shins.  I felt pleased I’d made it so far, though plowing through the snow for approximately two miles already had become tiring.  Snow had melted inside my shoes and my socks had become squishy wet.  This was, I knew, a circumstance to be avoided in cold weather, but experience has shown that as long as I keep moving my feet will generate enough heat to keep themselves warm, if wet-warm.

This portion of the creek that winds through the canyon contains the only water for miles, upstream or down.  A pair of springs feeds this section.  Before the beavers moved in, the creek went dry just above and just below these springs every summer, and the springs themselves and the pools they fed in the creek dwindled down to barely-there wet spots.  Under the beavers’ influence, the creek has plumped up.  The animals have stretched the water further downstream and longer into the summer.  On this day, I found it a series of grey panes of snow-rimmed ice capping the engineered ponds.  Wonderment over the thickness of the ice tempted me to slide down the bank and find out, but given how much energy I’d already spent, and knowing I had a steep climb up a snowy trail ahead, I let the question go.  Making it into the canyon under these unpredictable and somewhat stressful conditions and then making it back out in good shape was the goal for the day.  I kept to the main trail, dodging several new broken limbs and fallen tree sections, more parings of the storm.  Tracks showed that the horseback rider had been forced to go around these, so they had been down for a while.  I crossed the spring and began the steep ascent, and here walking became strenuous.  In some places, the path had thawed and re-frozen.  On steep inclines, ice slicks had formed.  At one point I slipped and pitched sideways into a snow bank.  Having worked up a sweat long before, I’d taken off my gloves, so when I fell sideways I caught myself by planting a bare right hand in the snow.  When I pulled it out it was covered in glistening ice crystals that prickled as they melted rapidly.  I shook the water off, dried my hand on my jeans, and pushed on.

The rest of the climb took a lot of strength.  Discovering I had it made me happy.  I reflected on how if I hadn’t taken this hike as many times as I already had done and if my fifty-three-year-old body did not retain knowledge gained through a busy childhood of out-of-doors adventure, I would have come out on the short end of the stick, probably suffering injuries and possibly exhaustion.  But I do have that childhood aptitude for outside movement still alive and thinking inside me, a body-wisdom that, given any chance, still rises quickly to the call for it.  Also, I have the new knowledge of this particular trail, gained since I moved to the area.  This canyon and I are becoming fast entwined.  I had my first dream about it a few weeks back.  Here’s the version I wrote to a friend:

I was walking through a section of my “circuit” where the sand is very heavy and deep.  It’s one of the most readable parts of the trail, always inscribed with the tracks of passers-by.  This is where I found … bear tracks and where I’ve followed cougar tracks inset into mine.  Deer make deep impressions through here, coyotes lighter ones.  Turkey tracks, showing every crease, cross-stitch everything.

… I was walking this section, eyes turned to the ground to read what had come through, when I looked up to see something strange coming down the trail from [the mesa to the east].  It was two men in their late twenties floating along in personal hovercrafts about the size of inner tubes you’d use to go tubing down a river.  I felt fascinated.  They stopped to tell me how much they liked their hovercrafts for hiking and extolled their profound virtues.  One great advantage was that the hovercrafts leave no tracks and so make no unsightly impact upon the environment.  One of the young men made it clear that this was a superior stance to take with nature and that his use of the hovercraft to “experience” nature had raised “hiking” to an art form.  Meanwhile, there I stood in the sand in my falling-apart Agitator boots, listening politely, feeling the tinge of amusement flush across my mind.  Both young men were well-dressed, wearing all the right khakis and other high-end hiking apparel as they sat in their ‘crafts.

They finished their speeches and then floated off, north, toward the … mountains, which in my dream I could see, though you can’t really see them from this part of the canyon.  I stood watching the hoverers go, still fascinated with the cleverness of the craft but also thinking, “I trust the earth, its winds and rains, to erase all sign of me.  Give me the physical involvement anytime.”

July 11, 2009.  As I take Coyote Way into Crossfire, I find its coyote gate keep reduced to little more than a fur doormat.  The carcass’s light bones seem to be floating away downhill.  Many are missing.  So that took, what?  A little over three months?  Three months for decomposition to the point of fur and bleached bone. 

We’ve had a run of hot weather, so I’m curious about how the beaver ponds in Crossfire are faring, especially the last one located along my route.  Around this time last year, that pond dried up completely.  Dozens of small fish locked in between its dams died in the mud as its last pocket of creek water turned inside out, summer’s heat having emptied it of its currency.

As I approach the dam, I can see the creek bed below it has run dry.  That means there’s no flow out of the dam.  That probably means … yes, the pond is empty. 

But walking to the bank and visually following the curve of the muddy pond bottom to its lowest point, I discover a puddle, three feet long and two feet wide, sunk in a crease.  Its murky, greenish-brown surface roils.  Desperate fish, I think, trapped in the last shreds of water heating up fast in the rising morning temperatures, losing oxygen, losing volume. 

I have to get a closer look.  I walk into the creek bed examining the mud not just for a passable route to the puddle but also to read something about who else has been here and what they did.  Raccoon tracks down to the water’s edge—can guess what that animal was doing here; deer—one, a fawn, tiny smiling hoof prints leading to the puddle; turkeys, large and small.  As I approach the puddle the scene stops me short.  Yes, there are fish.  Their backs show right at the water’s surface or just below it.  But there is something else in the puddle, too—something driving the fish into a frenzy of fear. 

Snakes.  Garter snakes.  The water seethes with them and with fish squirming, writhing, trying to get away but having no place to run.  Three snakes spot me.  Two abandon their fishing spots to wriggle through the mud into the tall bank grasses. These are wandering garter snakes, very common around waterways in Utah.  The third snake, the largest of the bunch, a beautiful animal over a foot long, remains half in, half out of the pool, watching me warily.  It refuses to abandon the bounty. 

My eye travels back and forth between the garter snake half out of the pool and the frenetic activity in the water.  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement in the mud to my right.  I look down to see a giant water scavenger beetle, approximately one-and-one-half to two inches long, rowing itself along the muck to the puddle’s rim.  It pauses there a moment then plops in.  It’s a fearsome-looking creature with a pair of large, jointed black forearms that have evolved to grasp, hold, probe, and tear.  This species of beetle feeds on the decaying remains of aquatic animals and when the opportunity arises will also catch live frogs and small fish.

Looks like the opportunity has arrived, and the beetle knows it.

The mud is very deep here, so to avoid sliding down into the puddle I step up carefully to its edge and sink my feet down into the ooze.  The drama in the pool transfixes me.  Small fish wriggle frantically through the murky water, the long, sea serpent-like backs of garter snakes gliding, twisting through the water all around them.  For the fish, it’s a nightmare.  The sight unsettles me, too.  I’ve never seen anything like this. 

With my walking stick, I pick up the big garter snake on the opposite side of the puddle, just to see what it does. It hangs in the air for a moment, then slides off the stick and falls in the mud with a thunk.  Then it glides away.

I want to know what kind of fish are meeting their end under such pitiable circumstances.  That necessitates reaching into the turbulent puddle, and who knows what else abides in the clouds of agitated mud.  Keeping an eye on the giant water scavenger beetle, whose carapace remains visible to my right just below the water’s surface, I swirl the water tentatively with my hand.  Mistakenly, I suppose that there are so many fish trapped in the pool that if I just reach in randomly I’ll catch one.  No.  The snakes having already stirred them to terror they flit away at the slightest touch.  I focus on the visible backs, pick one out, and plunge in my hand.  I come up with a bluegill or perhaps a bluegill hybrid, its broad silvery sides marked with stripes.  It’s about four inches long, wearing electric blue war paint on its cheeks, and sporting a black tab on each gill. 

I’ve held many bluegills in my hands. They’re lively when just out of the water, hard to hold.  Any healthy live fish will flop and writhe vigorously in a piscine version of the reptilian death roll as it tries to escape and flop back to the water.  Not this fish.  Exhausted from its nearly useless efforts to escape the inevitable, it lies weakly in my hand, gaping for breath but otherwise barely moving.  I put it back in the puddle, sample again.  Another bluegill.

These fishes’ prospects are about the grimmest I’ve ever witnessed.  Hot weather is predicted for the entire week; probably, the puddle won’t last through tomorrow.  Even if it does, its oxygen supply is being rapidly depleted.  The garter snakes are on top of the matter, taking every advantage.  When the sun goes down, fortunate raccoons and other predators will arrive for their share.

Pulling my feet out of the sucking mud, I pick my way back to the bank.  It turns out that the turkeys that left the tracks here in the mud haven’t gone far.  They break from the weeds on the opposite bank and take to the air— dirty-yellow fledgling chicks, scattering everywhere, their mother hen clucking nervously as she keeps low to the ground.  Images of the snake, fish, scavenger beetle flash in wild sequences as I regain access to the trail and head south.

In something of a daze at this unexpected encounter with nature’s rough side, I’m really not very interested in the rest of the trail.  As soon as possible, I loop back by the pool.  Three snakes lie out on the bank now.  Two of them are fat with a single fish each.  One fat snake and one yet lean and hungry snake flee, but the third makes only a short dash, its full load making it less inclined to spend much energy.  Its body is already deeply involved in the process of moving the fish down its digestive tract.  It stops and turns an eye toward me.  I return its look then allow my eye to slide down the snake’s body to stop at the bulge.  Muscles visibly contract around the fish, squeezing it slowly down, down, down.  After a couple minutes of us gawking at each other, I leave the snake to the business of converting the fish’s energy into its own, a process that will take several hours.  After this heavy, protein-rich dinner, the snake won’t need to eat again for a couple or three weeks. 

Now I want to see what the upper dams are like, including and especially the one just above this one.  Are similar assaults on stranded fish populations unfolding all along Crossfire Creek?  Walking around the full-bellied snake, who still does not move though it’s fully aware of my presence, I follow the drying creek bed north toward the next dam, soon hitting spongy ground.  Eventually I come to what’s left of the stream’s flow, a sluggish, brackish trickle containing a milky sediment, and clogged with small black snails making a clicking noise.  As I reach the next dam I’m faced with the question of how to get up the creek bank.  The only apparent trail requires I walk through water grasses two feet tall.  I haven’t seen any rattlesnakes in Crossfire any of the four years I’ve hiked here; still, one shouldn’t assume, especially when it comes to venomous snakes.  I feel uneasy over the prospect of walking through grass that hides the ground.

But wait!  This is one of the reasons I carry my willow walking stick. I beat the grasses then part them with the stick, making it with no trouble to a cattle trail leading up out of the creek bed.

All the dams above this point—or at least between this point and where the springs empty into the creek—are in fair to good condition, though algae has blossomed in bright green clouds in the summer-warmed waters and the water level at the dams shows the pools’ surfaces have dropped about eight to ten inches.  Still, fish are romping comfortably in the ponds, dipping at bugs trapped in its surface tension, chasing each other in the shadows.  Lucky, lucky fish.

A couple hundred feet downstream, life looks bleak for their comrades.  Great for the snakes, raccoons, and giant water scavenger beetles, but ineluctably unfortunate for the bluegills.

“Nature’s way,” I say, quoting a dozen or more people who speak of the privations, misfirings, and seemingly insensate conditions that nature gives rise to.  Saying it, I remember a runt puppy from my husky’s only litter who stopped nursing and crawled off into a corner, howling piteously.  “It’s nature’s way,” the vet said.  “But if you feel like you have to do something, get yourself an eyedropper and feed the puppy Gatorade.”

When I reach home and walk through the front door, I find my son. “Hurry and do your morning chores and eat your breakfast,” I tell him.  “There’s something I want you to do down in the canyon.”