My son's affinity for fishing is somehow always surprising to me.  I grew up fishing, but never really liking it all that much.  I like catching fish, and I love being on the river....but it's not a passion the way it is for some.  For my son, it is a passion.  And he seems to be really skilled.  He goes slow and pays attention.  He watches for spots where he thinks the fish will be and he pays attention to the bugs and other critters around that he thinks the fish might be eating.  

Within minutes he's landed yet another modest sized rainbow trout.  As it would happen, despite the fact that I would also fish all weekend, he would be the only one to catch fish.  

The lake is a bowl of crystal clear water held in the palm of a rising rock face rising up on the far bank.  The shore where we're standing is not easy to access...there's a slim muddy berm on the lake shore, backed by marsh and mud and reeds and logs.  There are signs that beavers have been busy here.  My son stands on the berm and fishes while I explore a bit and try to figure out where we might camp for the night.

The lake is about a half a mile across, and is roughly circular.  To move clockwise around the lake is almost impossible.  The huckleberry bushes and undergrowth are impassable.  To move counter clockwise would bring us to a high rock outcropping that I know (since I've been there before) has a fire-ring and would make a perfect place to camp for the evening.  While my son fishes, I push around to the right to try and access this rock outcropping.  Moving without my heavy pack I can move pretty quickly, but the undergrowth is thick and makes going rough.  I push through a large swampy bog and see definitive signs that beavers are present...there are stumps of trees gnawed off to a cartoonish point with wood chips lying all around.  There are trails through the reeds and water that, when viewed from above look like an urban subway map; the routes that the beavers make to get from one place to another.

With persistence and some serious damage to my shins from the bushes (I wore shorts??) I finally make it to the rock outcropping which sits at about 3 o'clock on the clock face of the lake.  As I climb out onto it the lake opens up before me and fish rise all across the calm surface.  The air is hot and dry- the lake cool and inviting.  I know I'll swim later.

I hear my son; "Dad?"

He's not raising his voice, just speaking at his natural volume.  Despite the fact that I'm about 1/4 mile away across the water I can hear him as though he's sitting right next to me.

"Dad?"

"Yeah buddy."

"I caught a frog."

"Sweet!  Is it big?"

"No.  Perfect for bass fishing."

"No bass here I think.  Just trout."

"Yeah.  Rainbow?"

"Probably."

The conversation continues.  It's surreal to have a voice level conversation with him across the lake.  The cliffs that rise to my right cradle the lake so carefully that even sound cant escape...it's all funneled back down to the surface so all can hear.

Eventually I push my way back through the brush to get to my son.  He's put his two fish on a stringer and placed them back in the water so we can clean them later.  He needs to learn how to do it.

We gear back up so that we can push through the brush together to get back to the rock outcropping where we'll sleep for the night.  He holds the fish on the stringer...a prize that he's rightfully proud of.  He's fed us today.  My little boy is a young man now.

 The world that I try to build for myself is full of river colors.  Deep rich greens and maroons and all the colors of the stones at the bottom of the river and the leaves that dress the cottonwoods along the bank.  The blood crimson and browns that dress the brook trout.  Wood and stone and growing things.  Calm and peaceful and best when the sun is just about to rise, or just after it's fallen below the horizon on a day late in summer.

There are smells too.  Sweet grass and wood smoke.  The fecund smell of a river that lives and pulses with life.  Mud and fish and stone flies and huckleberries.  The ever present bed of pine needles and the sweet butterscotch smell of sap and bark.

Ravens and squirrels complain in the trees.  Who knows what they're angry at, but they always sound angry.

Still- these are the sounds and smells of my favorite places.

And I live in the city.  So I try to re-create this.  I don't even think it's a conscious decision to try to create this- but as I look around my living space I see these colors and scents reflected in the things that I bring to my home...and it's only now that I've just returned from an extended period of time in a natural place like this that I realize I am clumsily trying to build it here for myself in my urban home.

John Muir suggested that we

“Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

Wash your spirit clean.  Hm.  Is it that easy?  Just how dirty am I?

My son is 13.  He likes video games and his smart phone.  He likes playing D&D.  He likes puppies and babies and snuggles and playing with his cat.  He also loves me deeply and will follow me just about anywhere.

Last week we drove to the mountains.  To a friends rustic cabin where we made our basecamp.  We slept in cots on the deck under the multitudinous stars and stayed up late counting satellites and shooting stars and wondering how far away things were and just what it was that made some of them red and blue and some of them flash.  We slept deeply in the warm evening air and woke early with dew on our sleeping bags.  The sleep of the dead....the waking of the re-born.

Our basecamp cabin is a rustic place.  Owned by a friend, it's full of family memories and souvenirs of people and events that have grown dusty and faded with the years.  Pictures of loved ones that have passed and mounted antlers from someone's first hunt.  Hand drawn maps of the region mounted in frames made of branches found about the place.  

Despite all this history, the place is a work in progress.  With all the generations passing through, it's got a quant sense of being not....yet....finished.   There's no running water, but a big barrel on the deck that you fill when you arrive serves.  A generator will give you lights and even refrigeration if you really want or need it.  Propane stove, and an outhouse.  It's buttoned up- and dry...but it's not fancy.  In the winter the giant wrought iron woodstove keeps the place warm but on these warm summer days it just sits there in the middle of the room serving better as a place to prop your feet.  You can smell all the meals cooked...the heavy breakfasts of eggs and pancakes and meat...lots of meat.  It's perfect.

There are guns and ammunition there.  Because guns are fun to shoot and because hunting has been a part of this cabins history for a long time.  But also because wolves and grizzlies in the area are a very real possibility that you need to at least be prepared for.  50 miles down a dirt road from the nearest 'civilization' you need to be able to fend for yourself.

I prepare our backpacks the night before we leave.  Our trip into the back country is not going to be long, and the hike in (from our vehicle to our camping destination) is not long at all, so I pack light on clothing and heavy on fishing gear and luxury items like campfire treats.  Sleeping bags, freeze dried meals, and of course little packs of instant coffee that somehow taste like ambrosia when you're packing and like total shit any other time.  I pack extras so that my young son can experience his first morning campfire coffee...it's a rite of passage and I know that the sensual experience must be complete.  We have water bottles and a filter.

The weather has been very hot and dry during the day, and cooling down at night...but still dry.  So I forego the tent and pack our hammocks instead.  We've had success sleeping in them already this summer and placing them by the shore of the lake that we're hiking to - falling asleep there, then waking with the sun coming across the water sounds just about perfect.  The tent stays.  We have rain gear and warm hats and gloves.  And long underwear.

I also pack bear spray and a .45, which I'll wear on my belt.  Overkill?  Maybe.  But the bears that you see in this area might be grizzlies and I don't really want to take any chances.  We pack some fishing gear and representative flies and lures that we have had luck with and figure might look interesting to lake trout that are busy eating as much as they can in the abundance of late summer.

I try my pack on and it's light.  Which is a nice surprise.  My son puts his on and complains a bit that it's heavier than he's ever packed, which is true...but the real problem is that he's 13 and is carrying a pack that doesn't fit him perfectly.  He's growing, so is in between carrying an adult pack and a kid's pack.  It's his first time with an adult pack and I've adjusted it as much as I can to fit his still growing frame.

We throw the packs into the back of my truck and go to sleep, planning to leave after breakfast in the morning.

The drive to the trailhead is 11 miles up a switchback dirt road.  Dusty and dry.  Even in a truck it's slow going...the road is washboarded from summer storms and there are deep holes that keep out anyone without a truck or a car that they're willing to destroy in an attempt to get to the back country.  There's no question that you could find a more remote place, but this place is certainly a gateway to very real wilderness.

I have a cb radio mounted in my truck and in my little boy fantasy of '10-4's' and 'good-buddy's' I have set it to scan the channels in hopes of listening in to conversations and talking to people to discuss weather and road conditions.  Nothing.  The radio remains silent.  We still get an FM signal up there though...all Christian music and bible verses.  Amen.

We park our truck at the trailhead and hop out to gear up and begin the climb to the lake.  We gear up quickly, fill our water bottles for the last time, and climb up the steep dusty bank that takes us to the trail.  We are immediately surrounded by huckleberries.  They are everywhere.  Small purple bits of exotic blueberry-forest floor tasting goodness.  I have been asked many times to describe the taste of huckleberries and, even though I consider myself to have a pretty good palate, I find myself at a loss when talking about huckleberries.  They are also something that, when purchased at a market, will taste completely different from when they are picked directly off the bush.  We are carrying trekking poles to keep our footing on the rocky trail, but we stow them so that our hands are free to swipe at the berries that line either side of the trail as we go.  And swipe we do.  Within minutes our fingers are purple with berry juice.  My son turns to smile at me with purple teeth and lips.  It melts my heart.  He's wearing long pants and a hoodie (with the hood up) to keep the flies and mosquitoes away.

The trail is not long, only a couple miles, and soon we're seeing an opening through the forest canopy ahead of us that clearly indicates the presence of the lake.  We've been following the drainage creek from the lake so the approach to the lake ends in a boggy delta of sorts.  There are logs and reeds and mushy ground.  My son is eager to fish so we drop our gear, he grabs his fishing pole and within minutes has landed his first rainbow trout.  He hunts for frogs and catches moths and grasshoppers to use to entice the fish.  He moves about the woods as though he's born to this.