Patchwork

Day 360: The high country is clad in motley, performing its final botanical dance of the season with wild abandon. This, not the masses of wildflowers so loved by visitors, is the display which calls to my heart. In these colours, memories of frost outside my tent door shimmer, wraiths of mist rise from meandering springs in the golden first light of morning, and the crackle of grass beneath my boots sends hundreds of grasshoppers leaping from concealment as I climb a ridge still shadowed from the sunrise. A distant summit begs a visit, and I will climb above the last heather to its crest, there to look out on a panorama of huckleberry-red and willow-gold. Spiderwebs and raptors stitch the air, riding an invisible staircase of updrafts. But even now, the spirit of the high backcountry is donning her nightgown and preparing for a long winter's sleep beneath this patchwork. Together, we shall dream of sunlight and birds and solitude, and the return of Spring.