The Red Bulletin Oct/Nov 2020 (US)

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The lake is calm and the skies are leaden. We were hoping for a Rocky Mountain dawn—pink welkin with the promise of warm sunshine—but it is not to be. Dark clouds roll right above our helmeted heads, enveloping the towering rock ramparts. If it starts to rain, or more likely snow, our mission is over. We are shivering when we finally dismount from our heavily loaded steeds. It is daybreak, bleak and desolate. We’ve bicycled 45 miles and gained 4,000 feet—from the benighted plains at 7,000 feet up to Lake Marie, at almost 11,000 feet, in the Snowy Range of southeastern Wyoming. Martha can’t feel her feet. Justin’s on the edge of bonking. Alice is being stoic. We all pound trail food for the calories of heat and slug back electrolyte-laced water. “Critical Error #1,” says Martha. “I didn’t bring enough warm clothes.” I’d told her that her puffy winter jacket was overkill for this undertaking, so she left it at home. But now I see that there is still deep snow in the couloirs between the stone faces. To warm up, we do jumping jacks together along the shore of the lake. We are two teams: Justin and Alice; Martha, my fiancée, and I. Justin unstraps a packraft from the handlebars of his mountain bike and I pull one from my panniers. We set to work inflating our tiny boats. Martha packs our rope and climbing gear and harnesses into two dry bags. Alice does the same with their mountain climbing equipment. Both packrafts, 4-pound inflatable baby boats, are meant for one person, not two, let alone the addition of two heavy sacks of climbing gear. Our biggest fear is capsizing. Lake Marie was frozen solid a month ago, so the water is unbearably cold. Heart attack cold. We don’t have wetsuits. I admonish Martha to be careful as she gets into the raft. “I know, I know,” she replies. She delicately kneels in the bow and I get into the stern, my knees almost against her back. We push gently away from the bouldery bank and begin to paddle in unison, our two dry bags of climbing gear bobbing along behind us on a cord. I’m immediately paddling too hard. “Don’t go all Lewis and Clark,” Martha says. I try to stay calm and match her pace. The water, thankfully, is tranquil. We paddle silently through the black water like Vikings on a raid. Trout are leaping here and there, their rings expanding. Massive-antlered moose lurk along the shore, concealed in the shadows of the forest. A bald eagle, its white head visible against the black clouds, circles above us. The world is silent. Gliding across this alpine tarn, it feels as if we are floating through another time. A time before cars and traffic, overpopulation and pollution. A time when the sky and the earth, the lakes and the woods and the stars, were still part of a human’s life. A time that kept quiet and remained humble, confident in the intrinsic value of its own stark serenity. We thought it might take us an hour to raft across Lake Marie (named after the first woman to be 70 THE RED BULLETIN
The confinement of COVID-19 had been driving us crazy. We had to do something big, hard—and close. Harper, Large and Joel ride back to Laramie as an evening storm rolls in. elected to the Wyoming State Legislature, in 1910)— especially if the wind kicked up. Instead, stroking in synchronization across the velvety water, humming “Lake Marie” by John Prine, we make the half-mile crossing in 10 minutes. Alice and Justin follow close behind us, paddling smoothly, soundlessly. When our packraft bumps against the boulders, Martha clambers out with a grin. “That was more enjoyable than I expected,” she whispers brightly. “Leg two, of six, completed!” I reply. We pull the raft out of the water and place rocks inside it to keep it from blowing away. We open our Walmart dry bags and are dismayed to find they are filled with lake water. All our gear is soaked, but there’s nothing we can do. We cinch on our climbing harnesses, bandolier the climbing gear and slings across our chests, clip our rocks shoes to our harnesses and start tramping up the talus. Alice and Justin are just behind us. We have crossed the moat and are now working our way to the castle walls. Clouds have kept the sky dark, but the fat, furry marmots, whistling to one another, sound the alarm of our approach. We reach the base of the 700-foot face of the Diamond, put on our rock shoes and begin to climb, silently storming the castle. THE RED BULLETIN 71
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BEYOND THE ORDINARY THE RED BULLETI
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The Red Bulletin Oct/Nov 2020 (US)

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