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When we were young my sisters and I raced across the Colorado meadows chasing dreams and blowing dandelions. The sun shone brightly as we followed muddy streams up the hills until they trailed off underneath a forest web of leaves. We played house amidst rusted tin cans and grey boulders wedged under trees while my mother kneeled in the mud and planted columbines in the shadow of our cabin. We disappeared for hours, running up the dusty unpaved road with the corgies at our heels until we could not breath.
Sheep mountain carved a sharp, sloping silouhette against the sky. Patches of snow danced across its peaks like freckles. A dense forest stretched across the lower half of the mountain, connecting the earth to the grey purple mountaintop. Evergreens breached timberline in thinning triangles. An august thunderstorm opened up and my sneakers squished with every step. Rocks glistened in the rain. Sparse grass decorated the steep terrain. My purple poncho flapped like wings in the wind as I breathed deeply and slowly ascended the last switchback. I don’t remember exactly when a sparkling lake revealed itself silently as I climbed. Opposite the lake sat a view of the entire valley. From a perch of 12,000 feet I drank in sweeping granite hills stained with rust colored iron deposits, hidden forests so dark and black and the soft green meadows that lay below. Trout Lake lapped against the highway, reduced to a giant puddle from afar. Cabins dotted its banks like tiny fleas. The dusty dirt access road wound a satin ribbon along the foot of aspen covered hills.