A lovely chill in the air

I am writing from the living room of our hostel, which is a graceful wooden structure set up on a cliff right on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park. There are heavy wooden rocking chairs and sofas, wagon-wheel chandeliers, and antlers on the wall. It's chilly enough for a sweatshirt. Outside the sound of the rushing stream, tumbling down the mountain side, is as loud as air-conditioning, even with the windows closed.

Today we took a wonderful 4 mile hike. We drove way up into the park, to the aptly named Alpine visitor center, at an elevation of 11,000 feet, or about 3500 meters. We could feel the altitude on our way up, as we emerged above the tree line, through the sub-alpine habitat and into the alpine tundra, which is an open meadow dotted with thousands of tiny flowers at this time of year. The first part of the hike took us through this scenery, and afterwards we started descending towards the trees (and the mosquitoes). There were still some patches of snow on the ground although it was fairly warm outside. And the sound of the snow melting and the water trickling or rushing down followed us the whole time. The trail actually crosses the continental divide, so some of that water was headed east and some was headed west. All around us were the peaks of the "never summer" range, covered in snow that does not melt year round.

I was carrying Maayan in the backpack today, to give Giora's back a well-deserved day of rest. We started out singing, with her insisting on me holding her feet and me insisting that she doesn't pinch my arms, which she understood pretty quickly. Then she fell asleep and I could feel her weight shifting on my back as I walked. When we entered the forest I had to keep a good pace going, because the moment I stopped walking we were surrounded by bugs that didn't seem too impressed by the insect repellent we had on us. So I was ahead of Giora and the older girls, and then Maayan woke up and started exclaiming "Mayi, Mayi" which is ostensibly her word for water (mayim in Hebrew) but can have a pretty wide extension. Today it referred to the streams we passed, but also to snow, trees, mountains, sky, clouds and who knows what else. The best part was at the very end of the trail, when we reached a small lake, and she was so excited she hollered "wow, wow" and was pointing all around. It's amazing how much she has grown over the last four weeks, and I feel that I can really see changes in her from day to day.

This is the first really lush scenery we've encountered on this trip, and it is a very dramatic change from the desert. Both have their own beauty and can hardly be compared, and I'm glad that our travels are taking us through such different places, with more still ahead of us. I know that we've covered quite a lot of distance, but I'm still a little surprised at how variable nature and weather can be.

Anat