On The Cusp of the Pasayten Wilderness
The mountain goat spends most of its time licking salt off of rocks and eating organisms of varying complexity and beauty. There is not much to fear in the company of one, though its horns like spires and boulderous muscles are a reckoning of presence. The commonality of this animal in the presence of our recreation in such an, as civilization goes, inhospitable landscape is disturbing enough to cause fear in me. It is that presence, of mine and it's, that makes an encounter with one both benal and mortal. The mountain goat serves, unwillingly and oblivious, apparently, as a gateway to the dreamworld of cougars and bears, of lynx and of wolves (a place I imagine they would not like to imagine). And so I have undue fear, yet I also relate the experience to that of seeing a deer, a fairly common encounter, in lower lands.as well. This keeps me in place. I slip and fall as I admire the goat, trying to give to him a significant elevation advantage on me. This was embarrassing. To lower one's self in the presence of a mountain goat is a sign of non-hostility; it signifies elevation. His coat was hung up like lychen all over the branches as indifferent as he was toward me. I collected some.
I was told a story of a rock climber's, as he would claim, ordeal with a couple of goats (though they are not properly goats); this climber and a buddy were climbing right next to them (fucking goats were in the way of much anticipated exercise and calculated adventure) and, apparently, they would as the one climber pissed his beer piss onto the rocks lap it up with the persistence (what a nuisance!!! you can't even urinate right next to one without being bothered) of begging dogs. This persistence, it seems, could have something to do with late snow coverage and a lack of necessary life to survive the next winter. As for rock climbing, that is much cooler in the winter anyway.
At the end of the road up to Harts Pass is the top of a mountain, and there it becomes the highest road in all of the United States, overlooking an immense 90 miles of uncivilized wilderness- I become stretched by the immediate hyper reality of this immaculately miniaturized world in the sky. The open blue canopy laid vivid definition over distant contours while splatter painted lichen glowed in psychedelic greens, yellows, and oranges. Dwarfed pines bent over in chivalrous after-you gestures and larches glowed iridescent. The red ants of the valley gave way to small black ants that live under rocks near slate splayed out over ridges near crumbling shale cradling the most delicate fossils of shells. My mind as clear as the view and tripping over a rock I realized it must be pretty easy to pick up on a tired meal. Here, the only distraction is memory, myth that will make you want to suspend your disbelief, to make play time with fear and to know that here life still exists without any sympathies on part of the leagues of people. The shadows of eagles block the reflection of snow, that with illusion turns red, on my sunburned face- my whole body in shadow. They fold in their wings and dive, pull up and dive again, pull up and disappear somewhere in the horizon. On this mountain top, under what was essentially a bonsai, lay a small jaw bone, three teeth intact, and a two-and-a-half inch talon.
Believing our campsite usurped we, hood steaming, pull into another one higher up off of the valley river under battered trees. This terrace swept out like a bent index finger over a fist and we followed it to its fingernail to try and find a view of the river. None such, and, turning, we could see at the cusp of the thumb a dead doe, legs folded under itself, only a foot down a slope, tornadoes of flies buzzing about, entering and exited cavities- a raven laceration at the neck and gravity cause its head to stick out in a desperately attentive manner. The wind changes and a pungent sweet and sour smell wafts over the campsite; the smell of carrion. In civilization this smell is relegated to murder, overdoses and meat farts.
Fortunately, our original site wasn't usurped. In the morning, waking up in the back of a station wagon I looked down a broad archway of trees under which small creeks ran, the confusion of water and conversation in the night, diverted from the river perpendicular from this illusion of a tunnel that led to their source, the river, and I could feel my heart fissure. As soon as I found myself in the mountains I was, as if in a dream, yes, yes, yes, in the heat of toasters and two working bodies in a four square foot space, my hands bound in latex, scraping mayonnaise lightly on to multi-grained breads and avoiding mustard spills, privately scorning my coworkers for recklessness.
