Snow Hiking in Colorado High Country

Detail

Introduction & Afterwords by Chuck Smythe

Photos by Ed Schmahl

A couple of friends and I have been doing weekly “social-isolation hikes” out here in the high country of Colorado (Caribou Top). Colorado in the spring, it’s wonderful! Ed Schmahl’s photos from our April 30 hike try to illustrate it, but, as Moristotle’s poems attest, if you weren’t along you can’t really get the wonder. Ed sent me the four photos that appear here with the note, “Let’s go someplace up there again!”

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Four Poems by Moristotle

I

I didn’t go on their mountain hike.
I only have the photos.

I try to imagine I tagged along.

Did any breezes bless the hours
to ruffle our collars and touch our faces?
What said any sounds of wind we heard?

II

Chuck wears heavy coat and cap and gloves.
It’s cold, it seems, despite the sun.

Would the clothing that does for winter
in my Piedmont of the South
keep me warm in Colorado’s early spring?

Did Ed have to remove a glove to take the pics?

III

Chuck and his companion in blue look tired,
or are they merely contemplating?

I’m not used to breathing at altitude.
My daily walks are mostly flat
And cover only a mile or two.

If I had been along, could I have kept up?

IV

Pasque (or Easter) flower

How would it be to see Chuck again?
We haven’t visited for many years.
Did we ever even go for a walk together?

What would his friends be like to me –
the friend in blue and Ed behind the camera?

And does that Pasque flower have a scent?

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Afterwords from Chuck. The day wasn’t particularly cold, but Caribou is one of the windier places I know. The sounds were those of wind and heavy breathing. We were at 10,000 feet, so any lowlander would have struggled. My friends and I were tired, but we had the odd postures shown in the second photograph because the snow had a breakable crust, and any badly chosen step could drop your foot half a meter. We shouldn’t have left our snowshoes in the car. Pasque flowers have no scent. They show up here and there in the mountains just about the time the snow melts. They are one of my favorites.
    Ed Schmahl is a great photographer and a lifelong traveler. A couple of years ago he got an especially stunning picture of the Torres del Paine in Patagonia.

    A number of Ed’s photos have appeared on Moristotle & Co., and the July 9, 2014 article, “What’s blooming in Columnist Chuck Smythe’s Colorado? Glorious mountain flowers!” was published under his byline.

Copyright © 2020 by Chuck Smythe, Ed Schmahl, & Moristotle