On the morning of April 26, I drafted a proposed summer itinerary of excursions celebrating the glorious wilderness delights adjacent to Mesa Alta Base Camp. I intended to email it that evening to our camping, hiking, biking and foraging pals. It looked something like this:
April – Frog Pond
May- Amphitheater
June- Irises and Lupine
July- Sego Lilies
August- Mushrooms and Foraging
September- Work Week
October- Aspen
November- Elk Migration
I never sent the invitation, for a few hours later, leg catastrophically shattered, Kevin lay on a gurney bound for the emergency room, altering our plans not only for that weekend, but for our lives up to this very moment. Read all about that here : https://kevinsbrain615990994.wordpress.com/…
Fortunately, our compassionate, supportive friends and family helped us “limp” through the summer and fall, rescuing our sanity while Kevin healed. Our excursions turned out to be mostly to UNMH, and we focused on what could be done from the couch rather than from camp. We spent time supporting Kevin’s parents’ transition into elder care, and helped Jacob relocate to the Pacific Northwest, though it meant losing one of our most experienced fence-menders!
We did manage several visits, focused and with great intent, and also accomplishment. Rather than our usual carefree, relaxed three and four day camp-outs, we compressed our excursions into day trips. As ever, we want to share our joy of restoration- ecological and emotional- and early in April, before Kevin’s accident, we introduced Kevin’s brother Ken to fence-mending. May, June and most of July passed before the next visit, so 2024 lacked the frog pond, irises, lupine, and sego lilies. Turns out the Indios fire had kept much of those destinations closed, but it also kept the cows off Mesa Alta until mid- summer, and the wildflowers flourished! We wonder if, with November rains, are burn morels in our future?
My birthday present was a July weekend camp-out (without Kevin) made possible by our magnificent friends Alison, Kali, Shawn and Kalden. In the space of just two days a temporary locking gate to replace the decrepit stretch gate was at last installed – thanks, Kalden! Also by some miracle someone had cleaned up all the heroine needles- thanks, Rangers! In a lesson about the absurdity of jurisdiction, the 2.75 miles of forest (federal) road up to the top of the mesa had been nicely graded, but the connecting .25 of county road- including the wash out-had not.
In early August, we spent a day up top mushroom foraging with neighbor Zoe, and later in August included a day trip to share our vision with Aunt Susan and Uncle Mike. Another day trip in September gave us an opportunity to “mountain” bike- Kevin on his trainer and me taking on the first 2 miles up the cutoff on my own.
By November, Kevin had healed enough to hobble in and out of a tent, and we met up with Kevin’s friend Eddie for a long weekend. Deana joined us to make the excursion complete! We spread grass seed, picked up trash, and Eddie cleared the north-south fence all the way down to Highway 96. We also met many of the very friendly neighbors, who are always curious about what we are up to. On the final day we headed up to the top to see if there were any last golden aspen leaves- and there were. That was to be our last trip of the year. We arrived on a bight, warm Friday, and when we left two days later, the grey sky spat snow- as though we had arrived in summer and were leaving in winter, the seasons compressed like our intent.
