Dear Mountain, Old Friend

On returning

As I step onto the forest path, the valley is washed in autumn light. Amber spills across the slopes. Reds and golds pressed into the dark earth below every larch and maple. The air holds the sharpness of the turning season, the warmth is thin, winter’s edge has not yet settled. In the ice-cut gullies water flows softly. It will be a month or so before it is silenced by frost, and many more before the crash of the spring melt can be heard amongst the trees.

The meadows are empty, their grass has been chewed low by the cows that have left their summer pastures to overwinter in the valley farms. They left last month in a procession of gratitude for safe passage and fertility. Their flower-adorned ribbons in which they paraded have been untied, but their bells still ripple through the valley.

The hikers have gone home, and the hunters’ cabins are locked. Wooden shutters are closed, and wood stacks are depleted. All that remains are the wilting geraniums of a summer well-tended. It is the long month of rolling towards the snow. Today, the mountain belongs only to itself.

We climb the path I have known since childhood, the one that Rob and I have hiked together every year since we met. It zigzags through the forest to a ridge of exposed beauty. Passing through the forest, I run my fingertips along the bark of the trees that line the path; the underside of the lichen is as intricate as a fern and as rough as sandpaper. The forest is thick with petrichor and pine. A single red maple burns in the midst of the green, a flame caught in still air.

The rhythm of the climb returns to me like a melody from a long-forgotten song: breath, step, heart, step. I know it by instinct. The track is familiar in the way a body remembers another, each curve, each incline, each root. The scent of a dear old friend. Each turn, the ones we counted as children hold a memory of past ascents. Beside the path, the last of this year’s blueberries cling to the browning stalks; their skin is sun-loosened and frost-tender. In the clearings, lingonberries glint like small rubies, just the way I remember.

We climb out of the forest to find that the mist that framed the valley has lifted its thin veil. Sunlight finds the ridge and paints it in light.

In the meadow below the summit, six chamois stand only meters from us. Stock still we watch. Their striped faces are framed by their curved horns and the whites of their eyes are large with fear. We duck down yielding to their grace, giving them their space to be home. Before they turn, they stamp their feet and let out a long warning whistle, then they are gone.

The ridge rises before me, narrow and clean, a thread of rock drawn through the sky. At the summit, the valley drops away on all sides. There is nothing above me but a blue haze, the sinking sun, and a black kite circling. The world unfolds in quiet astonishment.

The descent from this mountain, my mountain, always feels like falling. Toes are forced to wrap around rock, heels cup the ground, and the pace quickens to a run. Here, we move in every plane. There is freedom in letting yourself fall, in allowing your legs to move at the pace of gravity. Moving this way is to play; to play with the mountain, with the illusion of control and to be in the landscape.

Rob looks back to check I am ok. We are both grinning. Being in the mountains, being on this mountain is such a joy. Before we hit the lower path, just before the sun sinks behind the peaks, we dance in the marmot meadow. We twirl and spin for the mountain, for freedom, for life.

As we cross the boundary to the village, at the edge of the shadowed forest, women forage for fungi and fruit. The mountain always provides. I stand and press a rock against my palm, it is warm and streaked with blue. I wrap my fingers around its sharp edges and carry it home, a token of this extraordinary day.

When the sun dips behind the western Rofan range and the shadows grow long across my valley, I turn once more toward my mountain. I burn the image of perfect light and a perfect day into memory. Thank you, old friend, dear mountain. Thank you for your beauty, for your patience and for always teaching me how to return.