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Last week/weekend was our annual backpacking trip to Capitol Peak. We (there were eight people in our party) were gone 5 days, and returned last night around midnight.

Base camp was just below 12,000 feet, in the wooded area in the photo above. It's literally on the edge of the alpine tundra, just meters from the limit of where trees can grow. It takes the better part of a day to hike in.

The weather is always unpredictable in the mountains, and the higher you go the more extreme it can get in a hurry. We experienced baking sun, a hail storm, violent winds and freezing temperatures. And that was just the first day. The second day started with sunshine and blue skies, so after breakfast we hiked up above the tree line to the saddle to make trail repairs. At noon, black clouds sprang up from the far side of Capitol Peak and within ten minutes we were running back down a 40 degree incline through a vicious lightning storm, complete with hail and pouring rain, to the relative safety of base camp. We counted 35 lightning strikes around us in the time it took to run down. In an hour it was sunny again, but then the wind started. We had sustained winds of over 40 mph, punctuated by regular gusts much more powerful, which lasted day and night for two days. The last couple of days were gorgeous and sunny, with daytime temps in the 60's and nights below freezing.

Despite this, we had a good time. The company was great, and camp was, all things considered, comfortable. We had great food, a nice warm camp fire, and clear mountain streams running on all sides of us. Deer, marmots, chipmunks and gray jays were our constant companions. And the scenery, well, it's really indescribable, like something from a dream. You can't imagine the world can really be so beautiful.

I'm leaving out so many details, but there are a few interesting or quirky things worth mentioning. For instance, we found a dead cow on the way up. Ranchers lease the land (it's owned by the forest service) and they unleash their cows to get fat by trampling and destroying pristine alpine meadows. We don't know how that particular cow died, but the next day hikers told us they had seen a bear munching on the carcass. When we saw it it didn't have a mark on it. It's highly unlikely the bear had anything to do with the cow's death, but they are opportunistic feeders and are roaming the area looking for an easy meal. We were extra careful to hang all of our food and trash high in the trees at night and while away from camp during the day.

Had I seen the bear it would certainly have been the highlight of the trip. But the best part for me is always the cowboys. Every year we hire an outfitter to pack tools in for us. We backpack our own clothes, tents, food, etc., but the sledgehammers, picks and other tools and a few common base camp necessities are packed in on a string of mules lead by a cowboy on a horse.

This year our cowboy was Aaron. He was a taut twenty-something with a slow western accent, piercing glance, cowboy hat, boots, chaps, the whole nine yards. He was born on a Pennsylvania farm but moved out west when he came of age to learn how to be a packer. I'm sure there are a lot of dirty details I don't know about the job, but the fantasy of living on a mountain ranch and having city folk pay you good money to pack them into the woods is kinda nice. I mean, he only has to see us twice per visit: once to get our money and put all our stuff on the mules, and once again as he passes us on his way down. Five days later it's just the reverse. In between he's riding alone through a gorgeous wilderness and never even has to break a sweat. A horse with two stubborn mules loaded with gear can get up and back in the time it takes us just to get up. I'm not suggesting his job is easy, not in the least. Last year, for example, one of the horses slipped on an unusually snowy slope and rolled down to the switchback below with all our tools and gear on its back. Fortunately neither man nor beast was injured. I'm aware that the job comes with certain hazards and isn't all romance. No job is. But sometimes I wonder which is really the less desirable prospect: being crushed by your horse on a mountain slope or crushed in a car accident on the interstate. Somehow the car accident just seems like the more wasteful tragedy.

I've been reading the blog of this old packer in the Idaho Rockies. His accounts are beautiful, terrifying, alluring. They're full of his adventures, decades of them. They're heavily peppered with tips too: what can happen and what to do or what not to do, what others have done and the consequences of their actions or inactions. It's easy to imagine him writing in a leather bound journal next to a camp fire in the forested mountains of frontier America.

Anyhow, today I was back at work - back at my desk clicking away on the glowing box that puts virtual green in my checking account so that I can spend a couple weeks a year getting out into the world.

I really don't mean to rag on civilization or technology. I freely admit it was very nice taking a hot shower last night and sleeping in my big, soft bed with fresh cotton sheets instead of lying on cold hard ground. Instead of a freezing, howling wind there was just a cool breeze through open windows. Instead of bears sniffing me through ten microns of nylon sheeting in the wee hours of the morning, there was just the predictable stillness of home. Good things, to be sure. Yet all I could think about all day was being back out there, somewhere in the wilderness with my horses, a warm campfire, and a hot meal bubbling in a cast iron dutch oven. Somewhere in the mountains is my cabin; simple, warm and comfortable. It bridges the gap between the soft civilized world and raw nature. It allows me to live deliberately, carefully walking the line between two extremes.

I wonder what Aaron did today.