Can't I Stay Here, Forever?

Esmerelda Basin, 7/6/08, 7 miles,

The valley stretched out before me, green tones for miles, ending with the still snowy mountain rising up from the forest green to balance together the earth and sky. Somewhere behind me, Michael was curled up in the shade of a few alpine-sparse trees taking a nap on this perfect day. Zillah trotted around the pass searching out new and different smells looking up every now and then to make sure I haven't left her.

Here would be our turn-around point - Fortune Cookie Pass - but I had no desire to return. The valley and mountains beyond called to me. The barely-visible trail leading up to the peak through the snow banks whispered my name and promises of an even more enticing view from above. Yet even those calls to my inner thoughts couldn't move me. At the pass I was happy, standing in the sun and wind. This view was the view I had been hoping for all summer and the snows had kept me from for so long. It was a view of open air where a person could see for miles without obstruction from a vantage point that is tundra-like in its sparseness of vegetation. And my soul had ached for it throughout the wintry June on the wet-side.

As Michael rumbled awake, stretching out the kinks and knots, I hoped he would want to sit for the afternoon on the fallen tree overlooking the valley. Zillah bounded up to him as he sat next to me and commented on the chill wind. I paid the wind no mind; I called Michael a wimp. But I knew it was time to leave. To head back down the talus field to the flower-filled meadows below, past the waterfalls and pine trees, to the car waiting below to take us home again.

But couldn't I just stay here?