Constant, lighting fast changes swirl around us in our artifical bubble of civilization, the walls of concrete and technology that cradle us but insulate us from the wild, from nature beyond our cities. We, concerned with our newest fads, gadgets, the fall lineup, the news, a lifestyle that is a cacophony of trivia, a thousand images flashing by in a breath, day in and day out, forget the slow, enduring, deliberate, calming pulse of the natural world.



Out there, in the Wild, mountains of rock reach up to the heavens in a pose for the eons, trees sprout up in the flash of centuries, while the rhythmic cycle of life hums a constant note below. The days come and go, the seasons progress year after year. How many tiny stream-bound bugs hatch, breed, die every year? Every day? The deer have their routines dictated by sun and moon, seasons, weather. Brilliantly colored trout flash to the surface, patrol their pools. Freed from the chains of past and future, these animals just exist, their entire beings focused on the moment, their superior senses attuned to Life around them in ways we can never begin to comprehend.

An escape to the backcountry, then, is my attempt to break from the trivial clamor of modern life and remind myself there is a longer lived pattern outside the city, a slower running river of time in which I can tarry for a short time. An outsider, yes, but I still seek to participate in some small way, to pull the plug on the digital life, and plug into the ancient analog if even for a weekend.

After our trail run, we set up camp among the stately pines on perfectly flat, rock free ground on the fringes of the ancient cycle and pattern and it was time to gather the fishing rods and participate, in our odd human way, in Nature. Fred led me to a series of still beaver ponds along the stream flowing from Grizzly Lake. This was my first experience fly fishing any kind of still water and only the second time I'd had this pole in my hand in the field.

It's important to watch your step in this area. Dozens of small streams cut through the fauna and soil leaving giant holes that can swallow you up past your knees. The ground is soaked with water, mud threaning to devour you as you thrash your way through the bushy growth covering the whole area. Nature and danger are friends.

In the first pond I saw a rise. Fred threw out his fly and immediately got a hit, a small brook trout. I was determined to repeat the performance, so I stepped up. Thus began my education. Either this was the only trout and had left the area or all the others were spooked. I moved on to the next pool in which several fish hovered waiting for hapless bugs to seek the water's surface, to reproduce, to drink, to rest, I don't know. I quickly learned how easily trout can be spooked. I could see the fish underwater, I could see their reaction to my movements, and how they darted away as I came to the edge of the pool... to untangle my fly from shoreline twigs.

Moving more cautiously I progressed to the next pond, a larger, deeper one, with at least a dozen scaly animals sharing its shelter. I could see them rising, saw them swiming, patroling, cavorting. In a few casts, I saw a rise where my fly rested on the water. I was stunned for an instant, just long enough for the fish to turn and head back down, and I raised my pole on instinct and there was a resistance, a fish, my first fly-caught fish on the end.

I played the determined creature to the bank and got my first look at this marvel of creation, a brilliantly colored animal in deep, rich green, a bright orange belly, with brilliant spots along the side. This was no hatchery raised trout, but had grown up here, in these mountains. I had touched The Wild... and it was a little slimy and squirmy as it always is when The Wild is in the form of a fish. (Remember, always wet your hands before handling the fish to avoid removing it's protective slime coating, assuming you intend to release it). I managed to get the hook out of The Wild so I could let it go back to its home.

I continued to work the pond and gain my education. The fly would land, the trout would rise, then reject the fly, sometimes. Other times I'd touch The Wild by snagging a branch. I managed to whip off two flies but found that the trout would go for a variety of vaguely similar flies, but only when the line and the fly landed just so, with just the right cast. And yeah, I caught the fly on my back while casting. Ah, learning. Another brookie went for it and I played him in as well, another gorgeous fish living its life out in the alpine wonderland. These fish weren't huge, but ever so fun to bring in, the miracle of catching them on a bunch of hair and yarn tied to a hook making them seem a little bigger.

Moving on to another pond the next catch was... small. Actually, it was tiny. Probably the smallest fish I could imagine catching, only maybe three inches long, good for a bit of a chuckle.

The next, and the largest pool, we finally reached near sunset, the late day rays playing across the subtle waves and swaying grasses, clouds rolling in overhead. Finally a last fish took a fly during a slight break in the breezes, after lots of practice casting farther than I ever had before, and this time with an ideal presentation of the fly that drew him up to strike. Finally the sun was low, the clouds thick, and the raindrops growing bigger and more frequent and so began the slow, careful trek back to camp.



That night we sat around the fire, the most deeply ancient isolating, comforting human technology, talking and swapping tales as the rains swept in and we huddled under weatherproof garments into the night, and finally turned in, with a long, restful sleep of the sort that can only be found after a full day of communing with alpine denizens, cradled in the pines under the mountains.