Snowfall

We had a little snowstorm yesterday and I decided to gain some elevation a little bit to check out the accumulation. It wasn't really piling up, so hiking through the two inches of new snow wasn't difficult, but I moved slow to take it all in. The flakes were the size of marbles and falling slowly through the still air. You know the kind, they were the type as a kid you’d run around and try to catch on your tongue. So I stopped. And wondered. Have you ever really looked at those huge flakes falling on a winter day? There isn’t a sound to be heard, but the world is a constant slow motion film. It’s almost enough to make your legs feel heavy and really pushes your feet into the duff. I found a big spruce tree with a bare patch of thick needles under it and decided to just hunker till the weather broke. A small warming fire of dry spruce branches sent smoke up through the canopy, making the air become pungent with the smell of pine. I relaxed and did nothing but spend a little quiet time with the chickadees in the branches above me, simply watching it snow and thinking.

I recalled a winter snowshoe trip Zach and I took up to Stanley hot springs in the Lochsa country. It was snowing the same huge flakes and our tents were perched serenely beneath a Grand fir that must have had a four foot diameter. We sat silently in the shallow hot springs and became mesmerized by the same slow motion stillness that you really only see once in a while. After a cold night, I woke up in my tent and felt something moving under me! I batted around the floor of my tent and finally rousted a mouse that had cuddled up beside me, between my ground cloth and tent floor, just keeping warm. I remember him having long rear legs and he hopped off into the woods like a rabbit.


Zach in camp at Stanley hot springs

I threw another small stick on the fire and got lost deeper in thought. Thinking of that trip reminded me of Zach's close friend who recently passed away after a long fight with brain cancer. Now, I didn't know him, but from the photos of the adventures he and Zach had the last couple of years, he definitely didn't give up. It then occurred to me that a lot of people around here have been having health issues and/or have relatives with health issues; many of them terminal. Consequently, I’ve been thinking a lot about quality of life versus quantity of life. I read an article a while back that really got me thinking. Its main point was about “no code” and people having bracelets (or even tattoos) that indicate that person’s desire to NOT be resuscitated. The doctor writing it expressed what he and a lot of other doctors thought, “Why do people put themselves through such misery before they die?” Basically the thought is, rather than go through the trauma of surgery and drugs, to take yourself home and be able to live what little life you have left, comfortably. One doctor he spoke of was given the prognosis of imminent death, so he sold his practice and went to live with his brother. They enjoyed two months of fishing and screwing off until one night the doctor passed away silently in his sleep. The ultimate in Quality versus Quantity.

Death is a tough thing to accept, especially when it concerns you. I think this is because it’s just a great unknown and the underlying thought, for some, is that it’s just over. Everything stops. But with these thoughts in your mind you can start learning to appreciate things at a new level, hopefully before you reach that critical timeframe.

Now, I really don’t know what to think of death. I’m part scientist and part religious, so my thoughts bounce around continually. But I truly believe that if you are comfortable with it, then it will happen easily. I’d like to think it’s about the same as hibernation; you finally get the rest you desperately want, and then arise to a new world.

The warmth of the fire and the silent motion of the world around me are comforting as I feel my eyelids getting heavy. The chickadees sing soft songs above my head as I easily succumb to slumber. All of a sudden I’m walking up the creaky steps of the old Lochsa Lodge, standing only four feet tall. It’s dark outside, but the streetlamps glow off the three feet of snow on the ground and illuminate the sign to the right of the door that distinctly says, “No one under 21 allowed.” I open the door as if it’s my house and cruise into the dark, cozy interior. There’s a woodstove in the middle of the room, blazing happily, and a bar to the right with the adults laughing quietly. They all regard you as their kid and look after you accordingly; Powell was a small close-knit community. Despite the sign outside, you were welcome to come in and play the one video game in front of the window. The logs that made up the Lodge are that dark, resiny type that came from decades of wood and tobacco smoke. They hold the heat of the stove and are comfortable to lean against. Once I warm up a bit, I head past the pool table and through the kitchen / gift shop area to the restaurant. The tables in the restaurant are all made from one log apiece, cut in half lengthwise and bolted together. They too have the same dark exterior from being in that same place for years and worn smooth by countless patrons. There are 60 year old deer, elk, and moose mounts on the wall, put there by the people who built the Lodge from the ground up. I always become intrigued with the full raccoon mount, perched on a log underneath the black bear hide and beside the pine marten…I definitely have a thing for raccoons. I almost sit down near the huge hearth fireplace made from stones straight out of the Lochsa River down below and burning full rounds of Douglas-fir, but then choose the small table near the window. This spot has a great view of the mountains across the river, now obscured by the darkness. But the streetlamp placed above where the horseshoe pits are give me enough light to see the giant cedar trees in the yard. The table was unique as it only fit two and was made from a single burl, cut in half. I have fun sitting there; tracing the wood grain with my fingers. While I wait for the best curly fries I had ever eaten to come from the kitchen, I become mesmerized by the marble-sized snowflakes falling slowly from the sky.