Tag Archive | mindfulness

Saturday, September 22

Sep24

Stellar flies over a fallen aspen on the access to Ruby Anthracite trail.

Climbing up Kebler Pass Road yesterday.

Mount Marcellina

Driving Friday up on Kebler Pass. These fleeting fall colors. One cold blowing storm and they’re gone. It happens every fall. You look outside and see perfection, in aspen turning on the mountains, gold and warm, winter just a breath of frost away. “It is the perfect day,” you think, “I’ll go tomorrow.” It never fails. You wake and find that winter’s come: overnight, the trees are barren. But not this year! I’m taking advantage of every free half day to get up and out in it.

 

Maybe the most photographed patch of aspen on the planet.

 

Saturday, September 1

Sep4

Two nearly perfect bear tracks, front above and hind below, from the path of tracks we saw this evening.

When I walk through the woods I am surrounded by bounding dogs, and keep my attention on them, or on the trees, or the birds, or any overt evidence of another being. I’ve trained myself over many years not to look down at my feet, so that I don’t miss all the wonder happening around me at eye level or above. My company this weekend, on the other hand, is practicing mindfulness meditation, sitting and walking. I headed home with the dogs to start dinner, and she meandered through the woods bringing her full attention to each step. This involved looking down. I hadn’t been long in the kitchen when she returned unexpectedly early, and showed me a photo she had taken of a track. In great anticipation, I hooked the dogs to leashes and we returned to the arroyo where she had seen the track. We followed the path of a bear along the drainage for a good way, all four of us extra alert.

This will make morning walks more exciting. The bears are entering their hyperphagic phase, in which they consume mass quantities of food in preparation for hibernation. We will be extra mindful.