As ski season ends in the Rockies, a jagged range of geologically complex mountains partially covered by glaciers and high peaks that I have called home for over forty-one years, snow still abounds in any direction the eyes pivot. Unfailingly, year in and year out, as April dissolves into May, frequent storms unleash walls of rain rather than the wondrous white offerings dumped with great abandon during winter. Colored rooftops quickly emerge from beneath what is always, for that time of year, still a thick blanket of winter snow.
In contrast, the lower elevations cling only to those last few white patches that are both north-facing and protected by tree shadows. The sun, which ascends ever upward into the sky, consistently raises the temperatures above freezing during most daylight hours. With each passing day, the snow retreats higher and higher up the ski runs toward the mountaintops while the water released by such rapid melting turns the ground beneath into vast archipelagoes of dark, thick, heavy mud.
Unlike summer when the mountains are clothed in green grass and matching foliage, or fall when they burst into an audacious display of yellow aspen and red Rocky Mountain maple leaves, or winter, of course, with the entire landscape carpeted in pristine white snow, spring “mud season” is the solitary time of year that I have learned over the years to describe with a singular and simple declaration—Ugh!
Annually, the mud on the ground blends unobtrusively with the browns and grays of the leafless trees and the still-slumbering ground cover. The faint fresh scent of winter pine needles is replaced by the strong, musty smell of old shoes. During this desolate and lonely time of year, the mountains are uninviting; they seem filled with decay. Some of the older trees have been toppled, some of the bushes appear damaged beyond recovery, and the many trails are nearly impossible to navigate. Mud cakes to anything that dares step on it and at the very worst imitates quicksand that will swallow a shoe failing to tread lightly.
With the prized jewel of mountain living tarnished by this once-a-year transition, I annually experience misery and gloom as reoccurring daily emotions rather than the hope and optimism that are my normal daily companions. Mud season, for some unplumbed and unknown reason, always elicits threatening, foreboding, and ominous feelings in the core of my being.
Unlike the rest of the year, when bright sunshine or sparkling snow cover lifts my spirits, many days are overcast with nondescript gray clouds that intermittently spew a dull drizzle. Inexplicably, I am often left with the disconsolate heartache of melancholy. No wonder that the local schools celebrate a nine-day spring break, many restaurants and businesses lock their doors for a week or so, and anybody with the time and the wherewithal ventures south to escape the mud and its resulting dark mindset.
Mud season reminds me that even in a mountain paradise there can be days and weeks when nature’s turmoil can cast off her customary beauty, when fresh smells can turn sour, when brilliance can fade to dreariness. I can close the shades in my office and ignore its existence; I can flee my home to an alternate place and pretend mud season doesn’t exist; I can bravely trudge through the dense, black, glutinous earth until it makes my shoes so heavy they can’t endure another step. What I can’t do is change a fundamental truth.
Mud season is part of the never-ending cycle of nature.
Every spring, the change in seasons forces me to think about mortality and rebirth because near the end of May, the mountains vividly reclaim their magnificence. Overnight, buds appear on the Saskatoon serviceberry, the narrowleaf cottonwood, and the many other trees that, like me, call the mountains home. The new growth provides a pleasing contrast with the abundant Gamble oak trees, whose twisted branches and trunks always remain naked at least until June.
Wild grasses will soon reclaim wooded areas and open fields and, like the needles on the Rocky Mountain junipers, Douglas fir, and Engelmann spruce trees that dot the mountains in mini-forests, sport a glittering sheen, having been thoroughly rinsed of any winter debris by the recent spring downpours. Shoots of bluebells, larkspurs, and sticky geraniums explode through the drying earth to impart a dazzling array of colors that rival the frequent rainbows that always accompany the last of the big rains. A camphor-like odor from the plentiful sagebrush is the most pungent smell among a luminous mix of fragrances.
Birds are suddenly ubiquitous, with northern mockingbirds chirping, blue grosbeaks singing, and male American robins chasing each other from tree to tree. Sightings of Shiras moose and mule and white-tailed deer proliferate, not because the animals are returning to the mountains, but rather because the weather stabilizes and, more likely than not, it will be sunny. With the mud quickly drying, the town residents and I reemerge late each spring to utilize the many trails without risk of ruining a new pair of sneakers or hiking boots.
The passing of mud season is like the reoccurring dawn following the darkness, the all too quiet after the storm, or the miraculous birth of a newborn. When mud season ends, the uncharacteristic and ever-present feelings that have haunted me during the frozen winter months quickly disappear. I recover and my mood always swiftly brightens, bordering on euphoria like a resilient fighter battling and overcoming insurmountable odds.
Hope, with the life-changing knowledge that spring will turn to summer, is everything.