Apple Cider in the Rockies
Lounged in the AM, Staunton State Park in the PM. Before leaving for the park I made some hot water in the coffee machine and mixed in some apple cider mix. For a year the cider packets had sat neglected in the kitchen cabinet farthest from the microwave, and I had to fight the urge to drink the aromatic fruit drink on the spot. I kept my composure though and poured the concoction into a thermos an old roommate left behind and I stepped out the door. It was amazing to hear the crunching sound of fresh snow on the stairs as I left the house! I haven’t heard that sound since last winter! With each step it tells me about the promise of a new world waiting for me in the mountains, which has replaced summer’s familiar.
A respectable drive later I arrived at Staunton State Park and brrrrr, it was cold! I bundled myself up and hit the trail.
The only other park visitor I saw.
I hiked 7 miles that despite the numbness building in my feet, I still felt the ache of distance and blisters in the hiking boots that I never wear and of which my feet decidedly hate. The good news is that the apple cider stayed steaming hot in the Thermos even as the temperatures peaked in the single digits. It felt a lot like my first time here, which had been another snowy day like this one. On that trip I had tried to scramble up a huge boulder to get shots for sunset and lost my grip falling a distance on to my hands. That fall wrecked my wrist for a whole year. So even though I didn’t really get any great captures on this freezing trip, I’m glad to have made the journey and not wreck myself this time.
Lion’s Head in the distance.
My favorite part of the trip was scrawling a Happy B-Day message in the snow for a friend and lighting it up in the darkening twilight with my phone’s screen colors. Not all trips end with amazing captures, but at the beginning of each of those trips, knowing how they would end, I would still make the journey. Sometimes the journey is the reward itself.