Woodpecker Ridge

        It feels as if I am the first of the explorers to see this land.  That's what winter travel does.  Nature's great eraser blots out the past sins of man and gives the illusion of wholeness.  Thus I pretend, wishing it were really true. 

The Trip In

          The road, with its frozen, white coated contours, winding its way through the remnant of ancient forest beckoned us forward.  Ochre earth slowly exposed itself on the banks of the softening scar as the sun's heat loosened the snow's resolve and sent it dripping to the Pacific.

          Our skis slid forward in a bio-rhythm with our own beating hearts and pumping lungs, leaving endless sharp edged trenches in the crystalline whiteness.  Our backs were burdened with our daily needs for the next 5 days.  The suns hot glare burned through the thin, chill air beading the sweat on our reddening faces.

          Old giants recently prodding the heavens like warn, broken teeth had succumbed to the powerful push of the winter winds and lay tumbled in a winter's death across our path. slowing our progress towards the ramparts of Mt. Jefferson in the Cascades of Oregon.            

The days that we spend together flick by in a fleeting flurry of activity spiced with conversation and individual fulfillment.  Our leisurely approach is the antithesis of our everyday reality and is our antidote.           Our last day together broke clear and crisp.  The trees were painted starkly against the morning blue.  I was to ski out with my friends to the highway where the home made sled was buried with my two weeks worth of provisions.  I decided to take a chance and leave the pack with all the equipment in it behind at the base of Woodpecker ridge, except for the tent which was going to be exchanged for a smaller one already packed on the sled.

          We made rapid progress.  By one in the afternoon, I said my goodbyes and tied the sled's poles to the straps on the outside bottom of the pack and headed back up.  I attempted with little success to sync the movement of the sled with the rhythm of the skis.  It was to prove a long uphill slog with a recalcitrant body reminding me of my forgotten vow to stay in maximum shape.