"the road gets tougher, resembling a cobblestone alley, but here every cobble is loose and no two the same size or shape. when i come to a very steep pitch the rear wheels spin, the motor stalls. i get out and load rocks into the back of the bed, adding weight and traction enough to climb the grade.
in compound low, engine overheating, radiator at the boiling point, i keep going, looking for a certain dim trail off to the right into the aspens;
it comes, i turn off the road and drive through an opening in a derelict rail fence, brush beneath leafy boughs and emerge in a small grassy glade surrounded on all sides but one by solid ranks of aspens. here i stop, turn off the lights, let the motor idle for a minute and then shut it off.
after the droning mechanical grind of the long pull up the mountain
the silence of the forest seems startling, deafening, most welcome..............
the quiet forest. there are few birds in the high woods, less wildlife it seems than down below in the sunbaked desert. probably because at this altitude the summer is so brief---'much too beautiful to last'---and the winter long "
~edward abbey, desert solitaire |
