After Storms

There was a quiet as I drove to town. Something in the noise of the last three days of storms had confused my thinking. I had to stop and get a picture of what the snow storms had done to the mountains. More important to me, I think, is that the blues I had been feeling from slate skies was leaving as the blueness of the heavens appeared. I could hear the quietness of the scene even from the city.

I have hiked most of the canyons along this range. I've never been to the top. In the back of my head I have that as a goal this next spring or summer. Up one of these canyons is a nice waterfall. It's a popular hike in the spring as snowmelt flies off the mountain testing its wings against gravity. Right now its a frozen trickle sleeping under a covering of ice. If summer comes quick echoes of shattering glass will fill the daytime air. If summer sneaks into the canyon the soft sound of distant rivers will grow with the heat. Those concerts are a couple months away but it's fun to dream of having tickets and getting a good seat.

After taking the picture, I pulled my truck into a parking lot and maneuvered it so that the sun was coming through the side window, warm on my face. I wanted to feel heat. I started to read a book and enjoy the light. I'm not sure how long I had dozed off, but was awakened with a pain in my neck. My chin burried in my chest. Strangely, the book was still in my hands and opened to the page I had been reading. I start the truck and decide to drive over to Ogden River.

I like to check the winter water flows in the Ogden River. The canyon section below Pineview Dam can run quite low. The gradient of the canyon, the plunge pools, and the introduction of warm water from hot springs in some sections keep the river from icing up too much. As is normal, the flows are low. I see a couple of brown trout nosing around picking midge pupae from just under the surface. Their slow and deliberate movement ever so gently disturbes the water and takes the mirrored meniscus from realism to impressionism.

I have a hard time seeing color during the winter. I see brown, black, shades of gray and tan, olive hues and some blue in refected sky and transparent snow. I dream of trout. They can add the colors: butter yellow, orange, and red.

Plunge pools mix air, movement, and sound. Water with little motion in long, slow runs suddenly drops and migrates through boulders and rocks, churning with life before mellowing into the next section of quiet flow.

When the trout are still, the reflecting lines of tree trunks reconnect and angle out over the water reaching for the bank and disappearing into the snow and landscape.

There is a feeling of peace that comes to me. Year after year of inspection, I find that nothing really changes here only with the seasons. Come spring and summer shades of green will appear. I have learned to appreciate that color. It's beauty and significance has been added to my life, hopefully to never leave.