Some Mostly True Facts About True Mountain Living
By Tricia CookI steered clear of the prosthetic leg that was lying in the middle of the lane. The road was pretty slick with compact snow and ice, so my swerve was a cautious one. For a few seconds, I entertained some curiosity about the leg just lying there all still and peaceful-like and human-less. You would think something like that would be missed right away. But I could see both up and down the two-lane highway for a ways and nobody else was around. So I kept driving down-valley to the brewpub, leaving the leg behind.
No one appeared to be missing a leg at the brewpub. But I didn’t know of anyone around who had been missing a leg or recently acquired the need for a prosthetic leg; you would be sure to hear about something like that. The pass was closed for the winter, and I pretty much knew everybody there anyway. The band was good. For about three hours, the bass guitarist thrummed his strings beneath a painting of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. The painting shows them as a happy threesome out for some quality family time.
When I drove back home, up-valley to the land of perpetual winter, I noticed the leg was gone.
My defrost doesn’t work very well and so I continually need to use the ice scraper on the inside of my Wrangler’s windshield as my breath freezes on the tempered glass. Thick icicles hang from the bumpers and the outer side of the wheel wells. The back gate and passenger side door have frozen shut. This makes it challenging to load up big dogs and skis. Friends have to climb over the emergency brake if they want a ride. It will be this way until at the very least mid-April.
In late-December, if it’s 10 p.m. and 10-degrees F, you might think there’s a warming trend.
Last summer when it had been very hot and very dry for seven weeks and the sun hung in the smoke-thick air looking like some angry, neon maraschino cherry, one of my very few neighbors told me, “We love it here but we could never live here full time.” She looked a little embarrassed when she realized she was talking to someone who could, someone who does live here full-time.
It is not uncommon for us to unbuckle our seatbelts and pop a cold one if we have one handy as soon as we turn for home, traveling a road ending shortly in deep Forest Service land and later gated at altitude. We do this because no one is watching and because it feels good to know there are still places like this around. During the snow-free months, a taxiway runs down the middle of our community. It is a wide spot between pine and fir and cabins, made of dirt and rock and noxious weeds. It can be weeks between any takeoffs and landings.
Way up the Rendezvous Canyon, for a while a car had been parked just above the snowplow turnaround. It was an old, crappy front-wheel-drive of some compact sort that was being buried alive by the snow. One day I saw that it was gone and in its place, resting against a big ponderosa, sheltered from the generous snowfall, were a pair of skinny skis and poles, and a heavy plastic grain shovel. Those skis, poles and that shovel have been resting against that tree for over a week now.
Heavy plastic grain shovels are the best for shoveling snow.
The other day I heard someone brag, “We’ve been coming here for twen-tee-five years now!” I had to laugh. Their cabin is nice and big and their snowmobiles are big and new. They ride those snowmobiles around and around our small community on roads that are thick with ice and snow. They never carry any skis onboard with them to venture out into the backcountry. They are more than a little overweight and they don’t keep company with even one big dog.
When I need someone with a chainsaw, I call a girlfriend and even if she is busy using it on her own logs, she’ll be up here in a day or two. I met her through a friend of a friend when I was dating his friend who used to be married to another woman who has since become a friend. I am also now friends with this former boyfriend’s former girlfriend, and she peddles amazing herbs. It is a cozy community. Much can go wrong way out here and while the learning curve is as steep as the mountains that surround us, it is a good idea to keep as many friends as possible. You will learn this quickly. This is why we recommend that we all become friends and that we all remain friends. Pretty much, anyway.
It is really comforting to know you have an extra full cord of seasoned firewood covered for the winter and a wheelbarrow full of healthy rounds next to the front door.
A couple up on Rainbow live on the other side of the mountains during most of the week. There it is all saltwater and noise and commerce and careers. When they are here and it is winter, up against the tall mountains and above the cold, clear rivers, they glide on their fatties between tall trees, through drifts of cold pow. They invite me over to sip Baileys while we sit by the picture window looking up at Last Chance Mountain and Scramble Peak. Their woodstove rocks and most often, Neil Young is on the stereo. In the winter it looks like the Alps around here.
We like to say we are feeling very European.
Her eyes get misty every time the weekends near their end, and the pipes are drained and the shutters are battened down. She doesn’t want to leave because here is where it is home. They love it here and they say they want to live here full time. In a few years, after they retire, they say they will live here year-round.
And I am certain they will, too.
