Alina's Adventures

Wild roses surround us in Summit County.

Dew-covered wild rose leaves along Elysium trail.

Between blooms and rosehips, the herb-drier in me can't get enough of all the wild roses around. Since we are officially roamschooling our way through the alpine meadows and forests of Colorado, it makes sense to observe the differences between the species.

At first, we thought the only difference was in the color of the petals- but we learned our lesson by observing the tiny prickles on the stem of the prickly roses.

WILD ROSE
(Rosa woodsi)

PRICKLY ROSE
 (Rosa acicularis)

Long, skinny rosehips

Robust, hippy rosehips

Hiking through White River National Forest.

Hiking a favorite trail earlier this week.

White River National Forest is a wandering, SAHF's dream. One of our favorite hikes- the hike that doubles as a snowshoe trail during the winter- is located just past the Ski Tip Lodge on the road towards Montezuma. The Ranger called it the "social area" because backpackers and campers like to stop there.

You can park on the left near the large map, which, alas, does not include a sign or name. We dubbed it "Elysium" for lack of a better descriptor. Certainly, the gurgle and gush of the Snake River running along the trail feels heavenly.

After hiking for a few minutes, Gnome spotted a lounge chair away from the trail. We wandered over to theorize while Bunicu snapped a picture.

Recent rainstorms revealed a plethora of fungi peeking up from the moist soil.

Alpine daisies or tansyasters

Soon, the wildflowers and wild shrubs beguiled us in their honey-tongued language.

FIREWEED patch

FIREWEED up close

Between cool shaded areas filled with brilliant purple fireweed, there were patches of sunlight and red clover carpets.

DWARF GOLDENROD 
(Solidago nana)

And the dwarf goldenrod, so small and delicate compared to the gargantuan Alabama variety, attracted a ceaseless stream of little butterflies. Gnome calls them "flutterbys".

SMALL-LEAF PUSSYTOES
(Antennaria neglecta)

Bunica samples the resin from a pine tree. Our fingers stayed scented for so long afterwards. The Eldest used the resin to seal a papercut on his finger. Just because.

Never underestimate the creativity and skill set of backwoods campers and backpackers.

The smiley face a hiker left behind at the trail's end... I can only imagine the keys had been there for a while- the joints were covered in a light sprinkling of orange rust.

WILD STRAWBERRY SNACK

After hiking Elysium, we wanted to take a longer trail- one that allowed us to bring the kids and get a summit view of Summit County. We dropped by the Ranger's station to learn more about local hikes, and finally settled on the Lily Pad Lake trail (details forthcoming).

In the meantime, here's a collection of family-friendly hikes in White River National Forest:

Lily Pad Lake (Easy, 3 miles RT)
Lower Cataract Lake Loop (Easy, 2.02 miles RT)
Gold Hill (Moderate, 3.02 miles OW)
McCullough Gulch (Moderate, 1.27 miles OW)
Mesa Cortina/South Willow Falls (Easy, 4.71 miles OW to South Willow Falls)
Old Dillon Reservoir (Easy, O.77 miles OW)
Sapphire Point Loop (Easy, 0.67 miles loop)
Tenderfoot (Easy, 1.84 miles OW)

Our horse and pony show at Keystone Stables.

This is a story about a happy Gnome- the kind of gnome that says, "My wish came true", after hanging out with horses for an afternoon.

It was Gnome that prodded us through the gates of the Keystone Stables, lit with the hope of horseback rides. And it was me, laying on my back on the gravel, my legs extending beneath the horses, who took these horse-face photos.

After deferring her desire for a few days, Gnome's insistence made it clear this was more than an expensive fancy but something she longed to do.

When she reported one morning having dreamed about riding horses all night, the song of the stables lured us straight into a fun (though pricey) adventure.

Gnome and Prophet pet the horses' noses and declare them to be "wet and maybe snotty".

The Eldest prepares to ride Tex.

Gnome gets excited watching her big brother mount his horse. She cheers once he's established in the saddle.

Brian shows the Eldest how to use the reigns and stirrups.

Tex gets frisky and tries to run noses with a nearby horse. Brian and the stable employees immediately warn the Eldest and other trail riders against allowing horses to rub noses.

The Eldest gives the impression of feeling safe and secure atop Tex, even after Tex stomps his feet and gives a little snort.

I helped get Gnome and Prophet situated on their ponies. We were warned not to run or allow them to bicker with one another. Prophet and her pony, Sage, somehow resembled one another in their nut-brown lankiness.

Prophet tries to get in the rhythm of Sage's walk- but it's hard for our most competitive little person to enjoy pure, unabashed leisure.

Gnome couldn't get enough of riding this pony named Stormy. "I never want to get off my pony," whispered Gnome when she overheard Prophet asking Bunica when the ride would end.

"Thanks Tex," says the Eldest, who is now a horse-trail riding enthusiast.

Hammock days.

Buni took these photos of the kids hanging out the in the large hammock on the back porch. The alpine sun is intense. Even a stint in the hammock requires the application of sunscreen.

I wasn't present when the photos were taken, so all I can do is imagine why Gnome pulled away (the bright sunlight). Whenever the tenderness between emerges naturally, I am insensibly happy and deeply content.

And I'm grateful to my mother for capturing these precious moments between my brown-haired fledglings.

How we learned about the Girl Riders Organization (GRO).

Prophet and Mary climb the ramp after co-skating.

Why not wander around a park in Silverthorne and spend those last minutes of daylight surrounded by local chatter? Before you could say lickety-split, the Eldest made a playground friend. 

The Eldest and his friend climbed rocks around the skatepark before daring one another to race through the ramps between skaters. I tried to warn them that watching out for little folks reduces the flow state of skating for the folks on boards.

Just as I was about to launch into my lecture, a nice girl wearing kneepads asked if the kids would like to try skating.

Mary takes Gnome for her first skating spree.

Having watched her skate for half-an-hour or so, I felt confident in her skills and abilities.

"Sure. Why not?" I replied.

Prophet couldn't get enough.

Mary told me about a national group in which female skaters teach young females how to skate. Meanwhile, Gnome and Prophet begged for "one more ride" and "one more try". 

I'm so grateful to Mary for extending a hand, inviting the kids to try her skateboard. Mary is affiliated with the Girl Riders Organization (GRO), which hosts regular free skating clinics at skateparks across the country. Check the GRO Facebook page for details of a skate session near you. 

Silverthorne Skate Park is located at 430 Rainbow Drive right next to the Silverthorne Rec Center in Summit County, Colorado. Though more land sits and waits to be added to the park, the city of Silverthorne has not put this land to use yet. 

If you're interested in putting your skateboarding skills to use to make the world a better place, you MUST check out Skateistan, a nonprofit that teaches Afghani kids to skate. 

High-altitude tennis.

Who are we to turn down $15 drop-in tennis clinics for kids of all ages at the Keystone Tennis Club?

All of us love walking from the house to the Club through mazes of quaking aspens along fireweed-filled paths. While Gnome and explore nearby wildflowers, The Eldest and Prophet chase fuzzy green balls with their rackets.

Today, when it started sprinkling, the tennis clinic simply moved to the indoor tennis court. I'll admit to be relieved at the smooth transition.

The pine beetle leaves a sad legacy in Colorado.

Prophet strolls through trees on a trail near Breckenridge.

The Eldest noticed many stacks of trees, cut and oriented like toothpicks towards the sun- the legacy of the pine beetle in Colorado.

According to the legitimate authorities on such matters, Colorado's current pine beetle epidemic is the largest ever recorded in state history. And there isn't anything you can really do to stop it.

Described by many dendrologists and foresters as a "perfect storm", multiple elements came together to give rise to this epidemic.A University of Colorado study that charts the evolution of the current pine beetle epidemic in the southern Rocky Mountains says drought conditions in the early 2000s helped pine beetle populations surge to unprecedented levels.

It stings to see so many miserable, half-living lodgepoles up and down the hills of Summit County. Dwindling reserves of the beetle's choice food, the lodgepole pine, have limited its ability to proliferate in some western states. 

 

The Eldest tells the girls,
"This isn't how a healthy pine forest looks."

Alas, the pine beetle outbreak poses a threat to endangered trees like the whitebark pine as well. So far, the pine beetle epidemic is the only part of Colorado I'm not currently loving.

Primitive, unpretty emotions about soil.

Hiking along Snake River on a cloudy day.

"No, I’m no patriot, nor was I ever allowed to be. And yet, the country of my childhood lives within me with a primacy that is a form of love. It lives within me despite my knowledge of our marginality, and its primitive, unpretty emotions.

Is it blind and self-deceptive of me to hold on to its memory? I think it would be blind and self-deceptive not to. All it has given me is the world, but that is enough. It has fed me language, perceptions, sounds, the human kind .... no geometry of landscape, no haze in the air, will live in us as intensely as the landscapes that we saw as the fi rst, and to which we gave ourselves wholly, without reservation.” 

So writes Eva Hoffman, in a book I've read and re-read numerous times. 

Yarrow, yarrow everywhere.

Being in Dillon, Colorado means the notebooks now double as field guides for various plants and trees we observe. One of the local plants we keep stumbling over is yarrow. 

Also known as Soldier's Woundwort, yarrow grows along hillsides all over North America. This aromatic wild edible herb grows as a single, stout stem that produces tiny ray and disk flowers. A perennial plant, yarrow boasts handsome flower craniums that look like individual bouquets.

The Latin name for Yarrow, Achillia millefolium, is supposedly named after Achilles.

Yarrow has fern-like leaves which are generally 5 to 20 cm long, feathery and grow somewhat evenly in a spiral design along the stem. 

 

Although the leaves are bitter, they can be eaten raw or cooked; young leaves mixed in with a salad are recommended. Yarrow leaves are also used as a hop-substitute for flavouring and as a preservative for beer.

Ryan Drum reports on a sad turn of events in the history of yarrow:

The oldest alleged use of Yarrow is as a funerary herb in a Neanderthal Stone Age burial in Shanidar Cave in Iraq. A swatch of Yarrow lay beside a human skeleton dated to over 100,000 BP. The plant material (including three other herbs) was stored in the Archeaology Museum in Baghdad and apparently destroyed during American bombing during the first Gulf War in early 1991. 

Tiny green spider visiting a plant near Lake Dillon.

Drum describes the historic uses of yarrow during war and battle. In the past, yarrow was used to pack wounds as a functional antiseptic and means of stopping bleeding. It was much preferred to the other materials used to pack deep open wounds resulting from idiotic serious combat, clay, moss (sphagnum moss was still used to make antiseptic dressings for WWI, harvested in large quantities, traincar loads, from the bogs around Southbend, WA), spider webs, and horse manure (a favorite of the Napoleonic wars during winter and in Russia during the Russian evolution).

Yarrow is also an analgesic and antiseptic, so that it stops bleeding, lessens pain, prevents infections, and is often abundant in the open meadows favored particularly by the ancient armies in the Mediterranean wars.

The Eldest reports that yarrow is being used by landscapers these days as a border flower. You can learn how to harvest yarrow or make a yarrow tincture from Ryan Drum's website, which includes an interesting case study of how yarrow has been used to treat influenza virus.

Taos, briefly.

We drove through Taos and wandered the streets for an hour. Prophet declared that she was "going to live in Taos when I grow up". Gnome seconded the sentiment.

"You can't live with me in the same house, though," insisted Prophet.

"Yes, I am," declared the unstoppable Gnome.

"No you're not! Mo-o-o-o-m, tell her she can't live in my house in Taos!"

Mom declined to get involved.

"I'm going to live with you just cause that's what I'm a gonna do," announced Gnome. I admire the way she doesn't fear rejection and doesn't get defensive or catty (which tends to be the usual response). Fortunately, there was much to distract them from this minor disagreement.

Including piles of delicious food. We feasted on tex-mex at The Alley Cantina.

I slipped away for a few seconds to jot notes in my journal. If it weren't for the bewitching effect of the drain pipes- their linear form contrasting so sharply with the rounded silhouettes of the pueblos- I might have used my "alone time" more wisely.

Imagine the noisy fun of a torrential rain on the streets of Taos.

And then this juxtaposition of metal pipes with a lodgepole pine fence. Lovely, beguiling Taos.

Reading Maximus the Confessor in the mountains.

Gnome eats wild strawberries found along a trail
near the small mountain town of Montezuma, Colorado.

For Maximus the Confessor, the kingdom of God is one of love. Outside it, man is divided against other men and himself. He clings to distinctions generated by culture and ego- "human beings begin to feel themselves at first distinct; later, isolated; and, finally, opposed to each other in fear, greed, envy, lust, etc."

So, distinction leads to isolation- that familiar feeling of anomie and loneliness revealed in the writings of Kierkegaard, Walker Percy, and Camus. The isolation fosters a opposition- the sort of thinking that frames life as a battle, us vs. them, America vs. Russia, and so on. 

For Maximus, faith is a twofold experience which involves first opening our souls to God's grace and love and then applying this faith or fidelity toward other men in a way that heals the divisions that separate us. 

To love is to be penetrated or inhabited by the other.

The existence of one is the condition for the other- lover and beloved, loving and beloving. 

To be truly undivided, one must re-create the self as belonging to another. And, by belonging to another, one is no longer divided against the other. 

There is a way in which this undergirds my ecological thinking- this desire to keep things whole, to feel myself as living in a world in which bees are not merely "other", nothing separate.

"Garment", a poem by Langston Hughes.

 

GARMENT

by Langston Hughes

The clouds weave a shawl
Of downy plaid
For the sky to put on
When the weather's bad.

I love this brief poem by Langston Hughes for the way in which it personifies the sky. The image is unforgettable- accessible to little folks once you explain a shawl.