This is different.
Most winters, when I'm hiking on a snow covered trail in the Catalinas, I'm walking on The Red Ridge. But The Red Ridge has been closed by the Forest Service after The Aspen Fire, and even though I have sneaked into The Red Ridge area since the fire, to visit the ashes of old friends, I decided today to not press my luck. My footprints would show in the foot deep snow if I scampered up a slope near Red Ridge, and I don't need to get busted today. I almost got caught last fall by a forest ranger. Plus it's hard to relax into making images when my adrenaline is pumping. So today I'm on the Oracle Ridge trail.
The Oracle Ridge is a very long trail that runs the ridge line from roughly the Fire Station on Mount Lemmon to the town of Oracle, Arizona, twenty miles away. It's strange to me that the Forest Service allows hikers on this trail but not on The Red Ridge. This section of the forest was just as devastated by the fire as was Red Ridge. The Ponderosas are just as dead and black. The erosion is just as bad.
Frankly I haven't hiked this trail except once and that was years ago until this past fall when Janet and I were up here on our first date. Janet taught me that day, how to call birds by 'spishing', a technique where you make a high spishing sound with your mouth. It actually works. Small birds did come to us. She later admitted that she was actually trying to spish me. She succeeded but only for a time.
Now, it's just me and a bunch of equipment. My intuition tells me to take more than just my usual Rollei, so on top ofme carrying my medium format camera and its tripod, I have my Pentax 35 mm, my 127 Brownie and my cardboard pinhole camera. I have cameras slung on both shoulders plus the pinhole tucked under my arm, but I'm alright. The snow isn't too deep. I have wool socks on, and I'm toasty in my tan Columbia jacket I bought for the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. The sun is in and out of the fast moving clouds. It still might snow so more. Maybe more powder. I'm happy and a little sad. Sad about the forest and sad about Howard.
Howard Dean, the progressive Democratic ex-governor from Vermont, is apparently on his way down in the presidential primaries, after a skyrocketing ascent in the polls last year. He didn't win in Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, and though many are holding on to some hope for a win or two in the upcoming primaries, it doesn't look good for Howard. I'm sad about Howard on this winter morning in the mountains. I really love this guy. I haven't loved a politician this much since Jimmy Carter. I love his populist anger at both the Democrats and the Republicans for selling out to big business and the ultra rich by giving both of these special interests huge tax breaks. I love his fury at the unjust war in Iraq. Way back in early 2003, Howard had the courage to speak out against this insanely unnecessary war, when other Democrats were still cowering and looking at the polls. I love Howard's disgust with the neoconservative movement in America and their extremist fear mongering. and I love his bad suits, and his every woman wife who is also a doctor like himself. Doctor Dean. The Harry Truman of our time, and it appears he's going down to defeat.
"He would have made a great president," I say out loud.
We'll never know now. I sigh very heavily, causing a big cloud of vapor come out of my mouth.
My eyes mist up. It'll be OK.
Or not.
(Note from July 2004: Governor Dean never did win a primary, nor the Democratic presidential nomination. He came in third with 170 delegates. In recent interviews, he admits he made some mistakes yet he is proud that he brought the issues of the War in Iraq, of Health Care for all, and of Education for our children to the table. He is now active in an organization called Democracy for America, a political action committee dedicated to financially supporting local , state, and national progressive and liberal candidates for public office. In typical Howard fashion, he did state recently that he would be like better though, if he were president.)
This is a good snow for March I think. Cold but not deadly. Sunny but not completely. And so black and white.
The forest here was nuked by the Aspen Fire. Wiped of all life, sterilized right down to the rock and earth. But trees do remain, like black lodge poles. Dead. Very Dead Ponderosa Pines. The wind makes a high pinch sound blowing through the trees. Almost like a raven's call. Stones, black from burning, some the size of your hand, others the size of a truck, are here and there, along the steep slope, buried in the snow.
The white snow is Western powder, that flies and sparkles with every step. Not like Eastern snow which crunches and packs when you step on it. This snow flies with even the tiniest of steps, making miniature prisms in the sunlight. I descend down the western slope, away from the trail, and down to the valley below. Slow going with the equipment, but I have nowhere to go. I'm just here, walking and looking, not knowing what I'll shot or make. Joyous in the effort.
Still thinking about Howard from time to time. Sad that it appears we are losing our chance for the presidency. We, being Howard and I and Annie and Ronn and Blake, and thousands of other regular folk who actually gave money to the Dean campaign. Maybe we'll win the Arizona primary I think.
The sun is out again and there is a VW sized boulder up ahead. I stop and have a smoke, and drop my bundles of photographic equipment gently in the snow. Take another drag. Look at the boulder. Another drag. Another. Grab some snow and eat it. Look some more at the black rock. Another drag. I finish the smoke and eat some more snow and then begin to draw.
White snow. Black rock. And a spiral.
I have to shoot fast for the snow melts quickly in the sun. Shoot the snow spiral. Shoot again. Touch up the spiral a little. Shoot. Shoot with the Rollei. Shoot with the Brownie. Shoot with the Pinhole too. Shoot when the sun is out. Wait when it isn't. Time doesn't exist for me.
Shoot again. Redraw the snow spiral a little. Shoot again. And one last time and then I let the snow spiral slowly melt. No touch up. Just slowly fading away. Straight lines of water dripping to the ground, mixing with the curves of the snow spiral. Coming together and fading away. Now more lines of wet on the rock. I'll leave before it all goes away, I think. All melted and faded is just too hard today. Just too hard on a day when I'm grieving the fall of Howard Dean. I sling the equipment back on my shoulders and begin the slow stair-step up the white mountainside. Heart beating hard yet clear. Heavy fog from my lips but clean. One step up than another. Then another.
After a bit, I look back at Howard's Rock. Way below, I can still see a bit of the snow spiral. A curve of white. I give a half smile. I turn and continue my steps up the white blanketed hill.
I feel happy and sad at the same time.