This time of year the trail passes through golden aspen trees, which are always a delight to see. The aspen leaves catching in bluegreen spruce branches gives the spruce a decorated Christmas tree look, in my view, and gets me in the holiday spirit a couple of months early, which is just fine as far as I am concerned.

I may even been inclined after the trip put some Xmas stockings up for Ben and Maggie (border collies) and maybe the two cats my daughter left when she went to college. (Is this solid proof that I am getting even more eccentric living alone?)

I probably should be letting someone know where I go, to be on the safe side, but wouldn't that lessen the freedom of the trip a notch or two? Sometimes I leave a note at the top of the stairs just in case, but it would be quite a while before anyone might find it.

In reality though the biggest risk I will ever face on these trips is probably the drive from my home to the trailhead. Once up the trail I am go slow and cautious and keep a clear head so nothing bad happens. This is not only for my own sake, but also because of the two full-of-life border collies who go along with me, who are depending on me for shelter and dinner.

Border collies are thought to be an old breed, not as far removed from their wolf ancestors as most dogs. I can believe it, based on how I have seen them act up there. At dusk they don't want to go into the tent right away. They prefer to sit on rocks for a long time, and watch and listen from the high campsites I usually choose. It seems as if they are paying attention to the ancient rhythms of day turning to the cool and quiet of night, which up there is close and personal, not buffered by a roof and the clatter of technology. On cold and windswept nights scores of stars are present above the tall and narrow spruce, that carpet the skies with brilliance, which alone is worth the effort to get to such a place.

Yeah, there are no friends like these two dogs. We have shared a lot in the just over two years both have been with me, while backpacking in Colorado and Wyoming and Idaho and Montana. Maggie came to my house when she was only six weeks old; Ben at almost a year. The friendship and ease between us will grow over the next ten years or so, God Willing, considering all the mountain adventures and living we have ahead of us, before their time is through and I am a lot closer to the end of mine.

So a couple of nights from now us three will be watching the last glow of dusk fade over the divide, reflected in a high Colorado lake, with towering spruce at its side and the start of ice in its shady edges. I expect to hear some elk bugling about then, this being near the peak of the rutting season.

All of it - the forest, the mountain peaks, the elk, the approaching night, we will just take in, quietly, those dogs and me. They have the same feeling for these mountains as I do, and the strongest loves are those avowed in silence.

"there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted"

from Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver.