We are surrounded by grassy ridges, squared off with exposed volcanic layers. Technically these are laccoliths. Our first hike was up the western side of the nearest ridge. It was still unwarmed by the morning sun. I aimed at this tree whose flattened shape is perhaps a tribute to the ridge and its winds.
I wouldn't turn around and look at the RV until we crested the ridge. The view was a fine harvest from just a few minutes of hiking.
But it's more than the view. I usually avoid brown-signed hiking trails because, among other reasons, they are unnatural, that is, they follow no pattern regarding the terrain or the viewscape. The mathematical simplicity of a ridgeline is easy to notice when you walk it. It makes the walking sensible and purposeful.
The ease of motion, the expansive views in most directions...these put the hiker in a calmly euphoric mood. But there is still some mystery about where the top of the ridgeline is.
The present ridge had a dip, and on the other side, a half mile away, I saw three elk silhouetted along the ridgeline. I fumbled with the camera, but couldn't get a good photo. Finally I scolded myself for fussing over it instead of enjoying the experience.
There is something dangerous and glamorous about animals or humans creeping along a distant ridgeline. Think of all the westerns that you've seen in which Indians ride silently and menacingly along a ridgeline. Or imagine being a Han Chinese on the western fringe of one of their past empires, looking at pony-mounted Mongolians trotting along a ridgeline. And then there's that famous photo of the Great Wall following a Sino-sinuous ridgeline.
The ridgeline needn't be solid ground. Think of the terror experienced by an Irish monk at one of their island monasteries, about 900 A.D., when he spotted the appearance of a Viking long boat at the surf-line, still deciding whether or where to put ashore.
But my favorite image of people on a ridge line will always be the one at the end of Bergman's Seventh Seal, when the Prince of Death led his victims away.
We finally reached the edge of the ridge and found a cliff. In a way it was annoying to encounter any interruption to the calm euphoria of unrestricted motion along the ridgeline. But in fact the best is yet to come. The wind intensifies and it takes your mood with it.
Birds appear and pull your imagination off the ridge entirely. It wasn't big-winged soaring birds like you would expect. They were small birds, with iridescent blue wing tops, a white belly and a swallow-like silhouette. They flew around like combat fighter craft, but then they would catch the ridge lift and hover motionlessly like a raptor.
One of these birds did this about fifteen feet over my head, scrutinizing me. He seemed so playful and friendly, like he wished he could join our hiking club--or maybe he was inviting us to join his flying club?
I tried to photograph these little hot shots. Finally I just barely managed by pulling the zoom in and pointing the camera like a gun, without looking at the screen. It's a terrible photograph of a wonderful experience.
Standing on a rounded boulder at the edge of the cliff, and looking up at the fast moving birds, while the wind destabilized me...I was starting to feel vertigo. It seemed like the dream scene in the recent rendition of Pride and Prejudice. I wished that I was wearing my poncho so that it too could soar.
On the way back down the ridge I enjoyed the blooming yucca and cacti. It seemed too late in the year for blooming, but this is 8500 feet. One cactus flower had an iridescent fly or bee in it. I missed the closeup by two seconds.
