Posts
After dusk, when the sky is still lighted but the earth an indistinguishable mass, these mountains show their scale. They tower impossibly over the creekbed where I sit by a dying fire. Dark and inscrutable, they black out the starts. Rows and rows of them. Some named, some not. How could a mountain care about something so ephemeral as a name bestowed on it by a species whose existence passes fleetingly below? How long these mountains have stood, and how they came to be, are questions that humans may discuss in technical terms – sixty million years; orogeny; collision of tectonic plates – but that we cannot intuit. The mountains are too different. They stand impassive and implacable, and they black out the stars.
Duke came up limping today. We started well – after Duke and I walked off our initial soreness, Duke trotted ahead of me for much of the morning and early afternoon. He sniffed the shrubs we passed and peed on the best ones. We climbed up the Cottonwood Creek drainage until it ended, then took a shortcut through the evergreens where the road bent double on the far side of McDougal Gap. The wooded downslope was as steep as I could handle, but Duke moved down it with enviable adroitness. We rejoined the road below McDougal Gap and followed it down Sheep Creek. We’d passed over McDougal Gap through the Wyoming Range; next we would tackle McDougal Pass in the Salt River Range.
But during the afternoon, I kept thinking I saw Duke limp on his left-front foot. Then I’d watch him, and he’d walk fine. I’d check his feet, see nothing; press on his pads, he wouldn’t react. At 4:30, I saw it clearly – three steps with a noticeable limp on the left front foot. A hiker has to take care of the feet on which he depends, so I picked a nearby campsite and we stopped.
I checked his paws again. At first I saw nothing aside from some superficial cracking that had been there all day. Then I saw a tiny spot of blood on his right front paw. I must have misjudged which foot was hurting. There was a tiny cut, about half a centimeter long in one of his toe pads. I rinsed it with water, treated it with iodine, then covered it with antibiotic salve. I didn’t have any moisturizer, but since Duke had some cracking in all of his feet, I smeared all of his pads with chap-stick. We’d rest the afternoon, I thought, and then get going in the morning.
But Duke grew more tentative on the paw. He stopped following me around camp as I set up the tent and cooked dinner. He moved when called, but hesitantly. When he sat, he held his right-front foot off the ground. I doubted he could go in the morning. We could rest for a day, maybe. Not move at all tomorrow. But would a day be enough for his paw to heal? I had hoped to get going tomorrow, to reach McDougal Pass and the Salt River Range by tomorrow night. But that might not be possible. It might not be possible to hike further at all. We might have to hitchhike back to the truck.
Duke came up limping today. We started well – after Duke and I walked off our initial soreness, Duke trotted ahead of me for much of the morning and early afternoon. He sniffed the shrubs we passed and peed on the best ones. We climbed up the Cottonwood Creek drainage until it ended, then took a shortcut through the evergreens where the road bent double on the far side of McDougal Gap. The wooded downslope was as steep as I could handle, but Duke moved down it with enviable adroitness. We rejoined the road below McDougal Gap and followed it down Sheep Creek. We’d passed over McDougal Gap through the Wyoming Range; next we would tackle McDougal Pass in the Salt River Range.
But during the afternoon, I kept thinking I saw Duke limp on his left-front foot. Then I’d watch him, and he’d walk fine. I’d check his feet, see nothing; press on his pads, he wouldn’t react. At 4:30, I saw it clearly – three steps with a noticeable limp on the left front foot. A hiker has to take care of the feet on which he depends, so I picked a nearby campsite and we stopped.
I checked his paws again. At first I saw nothing aside from some superficial cracking that had been there all day. Then I saw a tiny spot of blood on his right front paw. I must have misjudged which foot was hurting. There was a tiny cut, about half a centimeter long in one of his toe pads. I rinsed it with water, treated it with iodine, then covered it with antibiotic salve. I didn’t have any moisturizer, but since Duke had some cracking in all of his feet, I smeared all of his pads with chap-stick. We’d rest the afternoon, I thought, and then get going in the morning.
But Duke grew more tentative on the paw. He stopped following me around camp as I set up the tent and cooked dinner. He moved when called, but hesitantly. When he sat, he held his right-front foot off the ground. I doubted he could go in the morning. We could rest for a day, maybe. Not move at all tomorrow. But would a day be enough for his paw to heal? I had hoped to get going tomorrow, to reach McDougal Pass and the Salt River Range by tomorrow night. But that might not be possible. It might not be possible to hike further at all. We might have to hitchhike back to the truck.
The fire was out. I picked Duke up and carried him to the tent. I wondered if we could make it. The mountains stood dark and silent, and they blacked out the stars.
Route for Day Two.
I picked a pretty steep shortcut.
Duke wonders why I stopped and pulled that silver thing out of my pocket again.
No comments:
Post a Comment