ariosto
Celestial Navigator
- Joined
- May 19, 2001
- Posts
- 5,961
In the high mountains a few miles from Ketchum Idaho and the ski resort of Sun Valley a cabin perches in magnificent isolation almost two miles above the floor of the world. It stands empty through much of the year but in the spring, summer and the brief fall, when the snows have melted to fill the fast running streams, a transient population of hikers and climbers use it's basic ameneties to break the discomfort of the trail.
The structure is old but solidly built, massive logs keep out the cold mountain winds. There's a large room with a huge stone fireplace, and two smaller rooms each with four bunk beds to provide sleeping space. A kitchen with a wood stove to one side containing cabinets stocked with canned goods, dried beans and other provisions left by campers provide some basic staples. On the other side an outhouse with a chemical toilet provides a view that will take your breath away!
In fact at 9786 feet, the vista of snow clad mountain peaks is unparalleled. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth. Paths lead up to it through alpine meadows of wild flowers, and deep forests of ponderosa pine, up and up past the tree line and the abandoned camps of the Basque sheep herders, up to places where even in June, ice lingers in the shaded hollows of the land and dark clouds over Mount Bora can mean a late fall of snow...
Someone is climbing slowly up the trail...a tall and slender man with a close cropped beard and a rangy gate but it seems that much of the spring has left his step, he leans on a gnarled stick for support...
Nick Mahan was breathing heavy...very heavy. He'd arrived in Ketchum just yesterday from the sweltering heat of South Florida and should have given himself a few days to acclimatize to the town's 7000 feet before he climbed to ten. He was tired, hungry and getting a headache...
Idiot! You've lived well over four decades and never climbed a mountain...why start now! I could have been in the Gulf, chaising sail fish, but...
He smelled smoke and tore his eyes from the monotony of the trail to look up. A cabin! Haleluliah!
A gray wisp curled invitingly from it's chimney and for the first time he realised how damned cold he was!
He practicaly ran the rest of the way. He couldn't get there fast enough!
This is a closed thread for Maya's Fury and I. Your welcome to read along with us.
The structure is old but solidly built, massive logs keep out the cold mountain winds. There's a large room with a huge stone fireplace, and two smaller rooms each with four bunk beds to provide sleeping space. A kitchen with a wood stove to one side containing cabinets stocked with canned goods, dried beans and other provisions left by campers provide some basic staples. On the other side an outhouse with a chemical toilet provides a view that will take your breath away!
In fact at 9786 feet, the vista of snow clad mountain peaks is unparalleled. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth. Paths lead up to it through alpine meadows of wild flowers, and deep forests of ponderosa pine, up and up past the tree line and the abandoned camps of the Basque sheep herders, up to places where even in June, ice lingers in the shaded hollows of the land and dark clouds over Mount Bora can mean a late fall of snow...
Someone is climbing slowly up the trail...a tall and slender man with a close cropped beard and a rangy gate but it seems that much of the spring has left his step, he leans on a gnarled stick for support...
Nick Mahan was breathing heavy...very heavy. He'd arrived in Ketchum just yesterday from the sweltering heat of South Florida and should have given himself a few days to acclimatize to the town's 7000 feet before he climbed to ten. He was tired, hungry and getting a headache...
Idiot! You've lived well over four decades and never climbed a mountain...why start now! I could have been in the Gulf, chaising sail fish, but...
He smelled smoke and tore his eyes from the monotony of the trail to look up. A cabin! Haleluliah!
A gray wisp curled invitingly from it's chimney and for the first time he realised how damned cold he was!
He practicaly ran the rest of the way. He couldn't get there fast enough!
This is a closed thread for Maya's Fury and I. Your welcome to read along with us.
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