Take me up around the next bend

where the unknown awaits me

with what little time is left.

I’ve got more miles behind me

than what lies ahead.

Old friends have come and gone

and new friends come along

as time keeps moving on.

Winter Blues

An old crow caws up in a naked oak tree 
and the ground is covered

with frost in the early morning 
as the sun slowly warms the cold crisp air.

More long nights lie ahead with little work outside 
but more inside.

It is time to retreat into the fog for awhile
and take a long rest.

The cat lies at my feet sleeping
as my eyes grow heavy

and my mind becomes weary.

The short days slip away into the darkness 
and then they gradually grow longer 
with intervals of sunlight between
the heavy rain and

light showers.

There is a feeling in the air of death 
before rebirth. 
Then the Winter Solstice comes and

the Canadian geese fly north in a

v formation 
filling the cold wet skies with song.

Central Oregon Sojourn with my friend Bruce

We climb over Santiam Pass heading east from the maritime climate to the dry desert air. Newberry Crater is our destination for the night and the fee at Chief Paulinas Campground is only ten dollars. The forested slope behind us is scattered with dry dead limbs fallen on the forest floor from lodge pole pine reaching the end of their life cycle, some are broken off from windstorms, plenty of wood for a fire and a good place to spend the night.

Then it’s on farther east dropping down unto the desert floor and into Christmas Valley passing cattle ranches, hay fields and thousand acre spreads of alfalfa with double metal wide mobile homes. Sage, scrub, bunchgrass and rabbit brush are signs of life out on this barren landscape. Rundown shacks and old beat-up pickups and travel trailers and campers are a sheepherder or ranch hand’s shelter. A broken down fence and dilapidated barn is remains of what was left behind from a ranch owner that went broke and his dreams turned to another drink. A black thin tired looking horse stands in an old dusty corral and a few miles down the road sits another manufactured home with a jumbo new satellite dish. Off to the north below Squaw Ridge a herd of cows graze on the open range.

The old settlement of Fort Rock sits on the other side of the highway with weathered log cabin structures and a church, signs of white man settling here back in the 1800s. Ravens greet us at the entrance and more wheel above us as we head out to the base of the ancient rock face, carved out from volcanic eruptions and the ice age. The high noon sun casts shadows on the walls with layers of basalt millions of years old. There is no wind where we stand and the sun beats down with little mercy. What was this place like before man arrived? Seems one could see the four corners of this world from the bottom of this lake which is now called Christmas Valley.

Every direction you turn you see more volcanic craters, natural landmarks in the middle of wide expanse of flat desert, fossil beds with ancient markings in the rocks dating back to the prehistoric times. Fiery histories of hot molten lava and old bleached bones lay out in the desert sun. Here in this place called the Lost Forest our thoughts drift in the desert wind in an empty barren land of ponderosas, stunted white pine and juniper crisscrossed with the gray sandy washes.

How do these ancient ponderosa pines survive in this dry desert with only half the amount of rainfall the trees some forty miles away receive annually? How do men’s souls survive in this wasteland here in America in the 21st Century with no place left to go, no more roads to take that haven’t already been taken, no raw land to wander across because it has been hacked away and devoured by industrialization and urbanization?

A jackrabbit scurries through the scrub brush on it’s late afternoon hunt. Rattlesnakes are also local residents here though we don’t encounter any. Two desert wrens take flight with the red glow of the sun as it starts to sink lower on the horizon reminding us of the afternoon of our lives. The north star appears over a ponderosa pine and we build a fire and listen to the night wind and a family of coyotes howling under the new moon. In a few days we will be heading west back over the mountains and into the valley known as civilization.

white bark pine

Green Ridge and Mt.Jefferson from Black Butte

Black Butte

At the end of the trail beyond the black burnt snags
of white bark pine vistas open up towards the top.
Mt. Jefferson rises into the silver layered clouds,
its peak buried in the tufts of gray billowy masts.
The craggy peaks of Three Finger Jack jut up to the west.
Mt. Washington stands solid and erect to the south
below a regiment of white saucer-like clouds.
Farther on the trail to the north the fire lookout towers
into the patches of blue sky.
This mountain was struck by lightning in July.
Only the trees at the edge of timberline caught fire.
The rest of the subalpine forest survived.
Two hawks soar across Green Ridge to the east.
Chipmunks gather at my feet as I toss them
some nuts and seeds from my trial mix.
A gentle mountain breeze blows from the northwest.
More chipmunks scramble over rock piles and granite boulders
for scraps from my lunch.
Most of the balsamroot and larkspur have lost their blooms.
On the way back down I spot a lonely red indian paintbrush,
its petals pale and fading in the early autumn wind.


.

Three Finger Jack from Black Butte

Mt. Washington from Black Butte

Mt. Jefferson from Black Butte

Washington and Jefferson from Black Butte

Close to the top on Black Butte

Snag in the clouds on Black Butte

Mt. Jefferson from Triangulation Peak

After hiking Black Butte I decided to spend one more night in the mountains. After picking up a few food items in Sisters I headed up the Santiam Highway and found a campground on the North Santiam River and hiked up to Triangulation Peak on Tuesday.

Tom Prasada-Rao's wife singing some catchy folk songs

Anastacia performing at Billy Broncos

I went over to Sisters for the Folk Festival last weekend and saw and heard some good artists, some more well known like Joe Craven, Susan Warner, Todd Snider, Alison Brown and Peter Rowan and then some more recent upcoming artists like Anastacia who sang her own ballads and played guitar and harmonica. She is making a name for herself in Central Oregon. Tom Prasada-Rao and his wife sang some nice harmonies with an Eastern Indian influence and a blend of folk songs of spiritual insight with a strong message about the times we are living in. The Belleville Outfit cranked out some great sounds of hard driving combination of bluegrass,swing and folk rock. They had the crowd up and dancing. I choose to stay at a campground 6 miles out of town surrounded by Ponderosa Pine and sagebrush. To my surprise there were very few campers there and it was quiet except for the traffic out on the highway close by. It was sizzling hot in the mid 90s the whole weekend. But the weather started changing late Sunday afternoon as Alison Brown was closing out the show at the Village Green. The clouds began moving in and the temperature dropped considerably and it looked like a thunderstorm was likely. When the festival ended my friend Jules and I decided to stay Sunday night and I joined him at the city park in town and split the camp fee with him there. We waited out the pending storm that never came and hiked Black Butte on Monday. I was told there was a fire up there this last July.