Mountains.......Part II

As one approaches the Rocky Mountains from the east, most will revel in their beauty, while I saw only the epitome of intimidation; daunting, overwhelming, imposing, massive - name your favorite adjective for something large that you fear, the Rockies were for me all of them combined, heaped one upon the other.

Living in the heart of the Rockies, in a space known as Middle Park, we were surrounded by these beasts. There was no getting to where we had to go, either home or away from home, without trekking up, over and down. (The term “park” as in North Park, Middle Park and South Park, refers to the relatively level, relatively flat area that encompasses the center of these mountainous areas, basins for the North Platte, Colorado and South Platte rivers. When seen from above on a topographical map, looking down on the Rockies in Colorado you can see three distinct ‘rings’ of peaks, the middle of each containing an expanse of land some 4000- 6000 feet lesser in elevation. Don’t consider it a valley, which is the sloping land between peaks – in Colorado, that vast expanse of river basin, each of the three 1000 square miles in area, is a park.) At the risk of being trite when referring to these mountains as a ‘fortress’, it is a truly apt description, and beyond the usual reference to their stony edified, castle-like appearance, as once beyond these granite peaks, safely ensconced within the walls of the park, you feel as if you are held prisoner, isolated from the rest of civilization. The often brutal weather compounds this feeling of forced remoteness, as the highway gates slam shut when the pass closes, literally locking you into this elevated hoosegow.

The mountains have a tendency to overwhelm you with both their precipitous height and their vast scope, constantly lording over you, eternally making you feel small and insignificant. As they flex their mighty muscles when blasting you with snow and wind, or while hurling vicious javelins of lighting at you, seemingly emanating not from the clouds but directly from their jagged peaks, they whip you into submission, while grinding you and your psyche down to that of a whimpering puppy. If you live there long enough, you will ultimately end up prostrate before them, submissive, broken, as you recognize that they are your lord, your master, and you learn that under no circumstance will they ever be inclined to show you mercy.

I actually began to view the mountains as animate objects, and not animate in the sense of the old cartoons where you would have things like jolly smokestacks, belching smoke and singing songs; rather, they were mean-spirited hulking masses, waiting to pounce, an enormous arm coming out of nowhere to smite you. Animate in having an intellect, certainly smarter than you, and animate in having a mood, always foul, and a heart, always cold.

As my time living in the mountains increased, I started to observe among my fellow mountain dwellers that my feelings towards the Rockies were not unique. The more I got to know the locals, most of whom had dealt with these peaks for far longer than I, I began to notice a common personality trait in them; a complex, many faceted trait that was composed of fear, mistrust, forlornness and demoralization. I had never imagined that we would move somewhere that was inhabited by a more unfriendly collection of people, a people that kept their thoughts and their words to themselves, as if they were all up there hiding from someone or something; the truth be known, probably most were. My guess is that they weren’t bad people at heart; they had just been oppressed by their environment to the point of resigned submission, and that submission manifested itself in their perpetually dark moods and sullen interactions.

The omnipresent darkness and despair that pervades the mountain dwellers psyche can also lead to some despicable acts of violence and desperation, the following of which is a classic example that would seem shocking were it to happen in sunny California, sultry Mississippi, or any imaginable green-lawned suburban expanse; but in the mountains, the shock was minimal, the reality predictable.

In early December of 2011, a Colorado Bureau of Land Management officer made a grisly discovery in southwestern Grand County, 20 miles SSW of the town of Kremmeling, off of County Road 102 – barely a spit of a road spun off from the infamous Trough Road. I’ve made mention of this road before as being not more than a narrow, winding path, devoid of guard rails yet flush with opportunities to dive your car over the edge, down hundreds of feet to the icy waters of the Colorado River, which the Trough Road parrots in their mutually serpentine westward journey. In my one time traveling the Trough Road, there were two features that scared me into never taking it again, the obvious one being the heretofore mentioned unguarded hairpin turns and the dizzying precipices, but the other, a frightening aspect that was a bit more subtle - the feeling of isolation and desolation, while not something you can point to and quantify, was overwhelming to me. I was cognizant of the fact that if something bad did happen (bad as in losing control on the icy road and toppling over the side of the cliff) it would be an eternity before someone happened upon us, and certainly not prior to the mountain lions or coyotes having their way with our corpses.

How long had the silent, mostly hidden early-model Chevy Van that the BLM officer happened upon been there? The vehicle was off the Trough Road, down a little gravel finger that lead nowhere, partially obscured in a cut of pinyon trees and sage brush. It would have been extremely rare that someone other than a BLM officer would have any reason to be on that road, especially in the dead of winter. Unlike my Trough Road fear of rounding a corner and free falling into river and woods below, this van had been driven to its current location, as there was no evidence of damage, and the van was quietly resting upright on all four wheels.

The BLM officer would quickly discover that he was not the first person to stumble upon the van, remote as it was.

To be continued……..