Stones, snow, sky

The ten of us stayed together, tramping happily through spare alpine meadows -- about two miles in distance and 1000 ft. up, up, up – until the second patch of snow. At that point Sasha determined that she could not ride in the backpack for another minute, and in truth I’d breached my tolerance, too. From the trailhead to the summit, the volcanic soil on Broken Top decreases in granularity; by the time we reached the second patch of snow we were traversing boulders as large as my daughter. Enough, I thought. It’s too dangerous for the children to hike any higher.

So my mother and I and the two children stayed to play in the snow while the other adults hiked further up the cirque. They wanted to see the stream which emerges from beneath the glacier. That stream eventually joins Tumalo Creek; water from Tumalo Creek comes out of the taps in my house.

Our patch of snow was not (according to the internet) a glacier; certainly "glacier" seems an overwrought term for the stuff my kids played on. It was just snow, wet and grainy, like the snow that stays in patches in the forest until late spring. We were hiking in the heat of Labor Day – but it was the same kind of snow. The kids slipped and slid on it like otters. Sasha threw some of it at her brother. Blake walked the edges, which are undercut by a runnel of water. I told him he’d get doused if he kept it up, but you know Blake: he stomped along the edge until he did in fact collapse it, soaking his socks and shoes.

The water from our melting snowpile ran around and under and through the rocks, so walking up there was more like criss-crossing a marsh than a stream – or maybe quicksand is a better analogy, because nothing grows in it. There are only rocks. The kids threw rocks into the water; they moved rocks aside to release a stream, then dammed it again; they stacked rocks into towers. My mom and I followed them anxiously, trying to corral the children in that wild place. Watch your aim – don’t hit your sister! Sasha, don’t hit your brother! Don’t climb that rock! Don’t walk so far up the snow! Blake, if you wet your shoes one more time…

Eventually we settled down. We sat with the hulk of the mountain at our backs, uncomfortable but comforting, and had a snack, some water. Stones and sky everywhere. The breeze hot on our skin. Crickets made a strange wapping sound; water whispered around and beneath us. A brief rockfall. Listen, kids! Just listen!

The other adults returned after awhile, appearing one by one over the ridge. My children shouted Daddy! Grandpa! Uncle! and scrambled to them – joyful as if it had been days since we’d seen them.

Then we started back down the mountain.



My parents: Dad in orange and Mom in blue.

Cross-posted at The Green House.

Tags: Nature+Parenting, Broken Top, Hiking