Beaded Buffalo

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape— the loneliness of it…. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.” ~ Andrew Wyeth

When it’s 2 A.M. on a January night in the Rockies, and nature’s call has the most tender flesh on your body exposed to temperatures cold enough to freeze a memory, questions rattle around in your frosty skull. For instance, how do Eskimos live in such brutal cold? Will I ever feel my toes again?

Actually, I wanted to be there, or so I’d thought. Being a child of the Deep South, I grew up camping in smothering heat, all the while dreaming about snowy winter wonderlands nestled in high mountains. As years passed, I’d wipe sweat from my brow and stare longingly at photos of tents perched on snow-covered overlooks, wondering if I could handle the big chill that accompanies such magnificent scenery.

So when I was invited to spend a few January days in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, I jumped at the chance faster than you can say “mukluk.” The fact that I’d be in the Never Summer Range made it even better, since where I hail from, summer means mosquitoes as big as beagles and humidity thick enough to drown a frog.

I immediately found that desire doesn’t stoke the fires when it’s –5°F. Even though I thought I’d equipped myself with the appropriate gear—down parka, 0°F sleeping bag, a potato sack’s worth of hot-drink mixes, and enough stove fuel to float a barge—I wasn’t prepared for the mental side of snow camping. Unlike the bears, owls and other critters that evolved cold-weather survival skills, we two-leggeds are indoor-habitat creatures that occasionally venture into the unheated outdoors. Regardless of how many layers you swaddle yourself in, no matter how much hot tea you tank down, it’s a mental and physical shock to be in single-digit cold all day and night.

But as every seer, prophet and mountaineer knows, through discomfort comes enlightenment. And so it was that at roughly 2:02 A.M. on that fateful night in the Never Summers, winter revealed itself in a way I’d never before seen, and showed me that if you look past the icy temps and fat flakes, you’ll find that the fourth season is a time of learning—about the land and about yourself.

The lesson began while standing there, repeating my mantra (“Stop shivering, you’ll pee on your feet”), and praying for signs of yellow snow. Looking up and across the valley, I suddenly saw a jagged line tear across the side of a mountain, then watched in slack-jawed awe as a massive sheet of snow started slowly sliding downward.

As avalanches go it was a minor one, but mighty enough to give rise to a ghostly white, snow-dust fog that crept across the valley, billowing and swelling as if it were breathing. It was a fantasy bathed in full-moon light, a wide-awake dreamscape that had me wondering if I’d stumbled across the place where clouds are born.

In the absolute silence I watched, and then it came: a soft, muffled “whoof” that finally reached me, along with fine crystals that gently brushed against my face.

The scene left me so mesmerized that I stood there far longer than I should have. But how could I run away? I’d just been blessed with a rare offering, a display of nature’s winter majesty and power. And it was just for me. No other soul on Earth witnessed the spectacle that held me spellbound, and to this day it plays in my memories as vividly as it did that moonlit January night.

In the days that followed, I began to understand more and more about winter’s bright and shining whiteness, and how it’s nature’s most emotional time of year.

I realized that in the warm months, the terrain is visually cluttered and distracts the eye with its many colors, shapes and patterns. But in winter the land is pure, fresh, unspoiled, virgin. Without the floral camouflage you can see the shape of the land, its curves and its lines, and you realize there’s a sensuality to it all.

Because the mountains, trees and shrubs are cloaked in a perfect coating of white, the unblemished world around you is easy to read. It accepts tracks of passersby both winged and clawed, then allows the sun to erase their sign with its warming rays, only to offer new stories the following day. Subtle details reveal themselves, like the winter-phase ptarmigan tucked under the snow-covered skeleton of a mountain ash. To the knowing eye, winter is neither heartless nor devoid of life.

I learned that winter means freedom, since there’s no need to stick to trails. You follow your own sense of direction, your internal compass that points not to north or south, but to points of curiosity. Woodlands that in summer are choked with underbrush are clean, smooth and alluring when snow covers the forest floor. The land is waiting for you to break trail to new territory that will belong to no one but you.

I learned that winter brings out the child in all of us. One day, I watched in wonderment and joy as snow began to fall while the sun tried to lance through the slug-belly-gray sky. In one of nature’s most delicate dances, the air filled with swirling flakes that reflected the hint of sunlight, like sparkling jewels floating down from the heavens. When the sun finally burned through, the ground was crystalline under an indigo blue sky.

After my Never Summer trip, I finally understood why the Old Ones count their age by the number of winters lived through: Because it is a monumental season.

Surrender to winter’s joys and teachings and the rewards are magnificent. Do so and you’ll also succumb to a seasonal cycle. You’ll anticipate and yearn for snow, prepare for it, savor the actual experience, then fondly reflect on the memories. You’ll give birth to a snow consciousness that becomes engrained in your psyche, like the otter, elk, and moose. It becomes a part of you, measures and shapes you, and hones your senses sharper than the edge of a fine, cold-steel knife.

What happens to you in winter is visceral. Your mind registers sights, sensations and experiences on one level, but your soul and spirit register something altogether different. You become lean, like a hibernating bear, and alert, like a snowshoe hare that’s just seen a hawk’s shadow on the snow. Some say cold cuts you to the bone, but actually, it’s winter working its mysterious ways on you, toying with you, searching to see if you’ve got what it takes.

When you decide that you do, go into the snow-covered wilderness with the proper respect, because you’re in a place of power. Snow can cause an avalanche that takes life, or become a glacier strong enough to mold a continent. It can shape you, too, in a positive, life-affirming way, if you’re receptive to the teachings waiting in snow country. Open yourself to the ways of winter and you’ll understand why Thoreau called it “the great revealer.”

A version of this story appeared in the December 2001 issue of Backpacker Magazine.