High Country Camp
Larry: Our last morning up here for awhile. It's been an interesting week: lots of physical challenges, not only getting up and down to the creek but then hiking the creek itself. C took us on a hike down the creek to our early diggins. I didn't believe we could make it. She hatched a plan in the night to put on our river shoes so that we could wade the creek if we had to and we climbed, waded and crawled our way over boulders and we made it!! Then we clambored out of the canyon up our old trail - sort of. The gold is non-existent for us this week. But we have discovered (re-discovered) something more valuable - time in the woods, facing our challenges, spending quality time with each other in solitude. I realized too that this summer isn't about any one week or one destination or for that matter, any particular result. It's about learning to listen to Spirit, learning how to live in the flow, unlearning our old patterns of lack and fear.
The gold is actually incidental to the success of our summer. A pileated woodpecker is announcing his presence this morning! I'm not sure what to think about this creek - gold wise. I would readily come back up here to camp and I'd still like to do some creek crawling but I wouldn't come up here specifically for gold. I'm thinking we are destined to find our gold somewhere else?
Charlotte: Cool with a few clouds and mosquitoes. Finally a night of sleep! We moved our camp yesterday after we climbed out of the canyon. Larry was not too enthusiastic but I persisted. It only took about 30 minutes. We moved into the open area where we had our camper years ago. We had a much bigger view, a level bed and more time without mosquitoes. We sat, drank wine and discussed our week, relatively, mosquito free until they finally found us. We took an exploratory jaunt down the creek yesterday - climbing, wading, crawling over boulders. I was determined that we would make it to our old diggins and WE DID IT! I was determined NOT to retrace our steps. It only took about 3 hours. The hike out of the canyon was very strenuous but we are finally getting our mountain goat legs. We located some of the old trail - it had really sluffed away over the last 20+ years. I don't think it would take too much work to make it usable again. We may consider that as a possibility. A few clouds moving over this morning and it is humid.
