April 30th

5C and O/c but weathergirl says that's about to change.
Today we are going to take our refresher course for tending a polling station on Election Day. Then opening day for outdoor lawn bowls.
Here is the second part of  "My Cathedral"

Part 2.

I

n my Assistant Ranger days, I was blessed with the best job in the world, I was young, I had curiosity and I could often find time to explore the lands that were mine to protect.  My first few trips into the valley of Horsey Creek (what a curious name) filled me with anger and disgust with what had been done to it.  But on each trip my eyes saw more and my mind started to absorb what I was seeing.  I saw where the snow slides had followed the same chutes down the valley walls for a thousand years or more, I saw (and caught a few) Dolly Varden in small pools, Rock Ptarmigan, Willow Grouse and Spruce Partridge were abundant. Moose were plentiful and where the logging road finally ended their trails continued.  In some of my later trips, I saw two hundred-foot icicles clinging to sheer rock cliffs, marmots, porcupine, whiskey jacks and much more.  Strangely I had sort of a forgiveness for the earlier loggers, because if they hadn’t preceded me I would have passed along the highway almost daily and would never have these memories I am trying to share.

 I became fascinated with the valley and returned at every opportunity.  I started going there on the occasional weekend, sometimes to just have a picnic with my family and fish a bit and sometimes on my own and to hike further and further mostly following those moose trails, but sometimes where rocky talus slopes allowed me access, I would climb up and out of the trees.  I would pick my way up those rocky slopes, until I found a roosting spot and there I would lose the rest of the world in the beauty of the towering cliffs and mountains above.  I had a need, each time to push further always further up towards the headwaters and so I did.

 Late in the second summer of discovery, I came to a fork in the stream, not just another side creek from the slopes above but a fork sufficiently prominent to cause me some doubt as to which was the main branch.  I could not cross either stream at that point without getting wet to above my knees in the that icy water, so I went to my right and followed up the stream bed that actually blocked my way.  In a very short distance, perhaps a quarter mile or so, the terrain became noticeably steeper, very soon I was out of the forested area and before me stretched an open valley filled with boulders from the size of my head to the size of a small house.  But where the water flowed in a wending pattern through this rockscape, there was fine glacial till that I could easily walk upon and although steep, could make good progress.  With each step, I felt a stronger and stronger need to press forward.  Usually I was content to “stroll” along and look about, rest and enjoy the site of a spiraling eagle or laugh at the antics of a furry rock marmot, not on this day.

I hiked along head down, dodging about the biggest boulders, climbing up and up until I suddenly realized I was really climbing!  I paused and looked about and found that I had climbed up into a canyon, a canyon of towering cliffs rising straight up on either side and in front of me a waterfall freefalling for many hundreds of feet, I could go no further!  Was this what had drawn me?  This rocky uninviting trench?  The urge was still there, but reason told me that I could go no further and my mind told me I should be content with the vista that stretched out and below me.  I had no choice, I could not climb those cliffs, so I rested, I looked about.  My disappointment was eased somewhat when suddenly I spotted a group of about twenty mountain goats a few hundred feet above and perhaps a half mile away, oh to have their nimbleness, their ability to traverse sheer cliffs.  I watched for a while, then rose and retraced my footsteps, down the till and down the main valley.

 I only hiked up Horsey Creek once more, I went to that fork again, thinking that perhaps the other fork would be the way to go, but when I reached the spot, I could feel no urge to go to the left, I still felt a pull to the right.  I turned back.