When I think of deer, I think of gentle, skittish creatures. This photo captures some of the nobility and watchfulness I saw in Lassen's deer, but does absolutely nothing to convey the sheer fury I saw on the park road as we drove in that first night.
I might have missed it - the coyote was a fearful blur that streaked across the road just ahead of the van, followed closely by the doe. We tend to think of the coyote as predator, the deer as prey. But never underestimate the power of a mother whose offspring are threatened or harmed. I figure that was one dead coyote; he just hadn't rolled over and begged for a mercy killing yet.
Once, when my daughter was just a few months old, I found a wasp in her room. My normal reaction would have been to grab the super-economy-sized RAID and spray the entire bottle on him, just to be sure he didn't come back up for air and sting me like "Zombie Wasp from Planet Zorkon," or something. But I couldn't spray poison in my baby's room. I calmly lifted her from her crib (ignoring the fact that I'm terrified of wasps and would ordinarily have been running around in crazed circles and jumping up and down while swatting at my hair to be sure he wasn't flying into my ear or something) and put her in my room. I shut the door. I went back to the nursery and shut myself in with the beast. I hunted it down, and when I found it resting against the wall, I backhanded it. Hard. With my bare hand. Ouch.
Oh, he didn't sting me. He instantly fell dead on the floor. I'm surprised, though, that the force of the blow didn't shatter bone or sheet rock. Damned wasp had the effrontery to threaten my child? It had to die. The throbbing in my hand was irrelevant. That wasp could've been a Bengal tiger in that moment, and it would have died, instantly, by my hand. Two seconds later, I was close to shock, as this knowledge - and the sight of the dead wasp - and the throbbing in the back of my hand, sunk in. I calmly got Katie, put her back in her crib, then went to my own room for a tiny nervous breakdown. I'd used all my adrenaline stores for the week.
So I imagined this foolish coyote, doing what hungry coyotes do... and I recognized a kindred spirit in that doe.
For weeks, Debby and I had been plotting "Operation Bumpass Hell." The trail to Bumpass Hell usually opens in July; we camped the last week of June. But Debby is a geophysicist, and I'm a former volcanologist wannabe; there's just no way we were going to go home without hiking to Bumpass Hell. Option 1: Risk a federal felony charge for trespassing on a closed trail in a national park. Option 2: Seduce a park ranger and convince him to take us out on a "look see" to determine if the trail was safe.
Turns out we had a third option: Most of the park rangers were women - thwarting us on Option 2, but the trail was open because others had been just as overeager as we were, so they went with a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" strategy and opened early despite lingering snow, ice, and slippery mud. Our husbands could just stop rolling their eyes and smiling indulgently at the plots we (probably) wouldn't have hatched, anyway.
But first, the group decided to hike up Cinder Cone. Okay, never mind "Bumpass Hell." I've found Hell on earth, and its name is "Cinder Cone."
Looks like a big mound of dirt, doesn't it?
This is my son, William. This is his, "Don't make me pose," face. And his, "Why are we doing this, again?" stance. An eighty year old man would've walked faster, with more pep in his step. It was slightly hot, and we were both carrying packs with two liters of water, some trail snacks, and sweatshirts. I had a camera, extra batteries, and probably some other crap I didn't need to be hauling up Cinder Cone. What did I know?
Nothing. I knew nothing. I might have had an inkling that I was in trouble right about...here:
But I sort of remember thinking something like, "Oh, hey, that doesn't look like a very long hike." Or, "Nice, clear-cut trail." Or, "Hey, if Bear-Bait up there can do it, piece o' cake." Karma's a bitch. I should never have teased REL about being bear-bait. REL is a damned mountain goat. She was in better shape than the kids. Her husband, Phil, was kind enough to lag back at the rear, with William and me, to ensure that we didn't just throw ourselves off the cliff and into death's welcoming arms. (I thought about it, once or twice.) If you have never climbed a cinder cone, imagine climbing up a mound of gravel, chopped up blacktop, and black sand (ground pumice). It's hot, it's sharp, and it's slippery. You take one large stride forward; you slide back half the distance you gained. On Cinder Cone, you gain 800 feet in elevation in about half a mile. And if you're a flatlander from Houston who is not used to hiking the mountains of northern California, you start sucking wind about three quarters of the way up. You can see the rim, but it might as well be on Pluto. This is the point at which I sent my son and Phil on ahead to join the others, while I sat down and contemplated Death:
Only the certain knowledge that I would either have to come back and try again next year, or kick myself in the ass until the day I died, kept me going. Sheer stubborn determination, coupled with a nostalgic love of all things igneous, got me back up on my feet. I thought I was in decent physical shape, but there is something very sobering about lifting one incredibly heavy foot, dragging it forward, sliding back almost as far, and sucking wind for a good sixty seconds before being able to lift the other foot. The fact that silver-haired retirees were passing me on their way back down the volcano, smiling and exchanging pleasantries, only added to my humiliation and distress.
Click the picture to enlarge it. Do you see the two people on the trail leading down to the bottom of the volcano? (This particular cinder cone is estimated to have been formed around 1650. It's not active. Hikers can go all the way to the bottom of the inside of the volcano and back up. Pele doesn't swallow you up, even if you're a virgin.) Those two people are my son and REL's husband, Phil. I am so glad that my son - remember the kid who had that, "Can we go now?" look, earlier? - got bored waiting for me to make it up to the rim, and decided to hike the entire trail.I would've gone, too, but that one stretch near the rim looks even steeper than the trail on the outside. I tried to picture the logistics of an emergency rescue: (a) the EMTs would have to run up and down that trail with all their equipment and a stretcher (not bloody likely); (b) they'd have to extricate me by helicopter. Now, I'm a writer. My imagination works overtime. Imagine a helicopter rescue attempt in a cinder bowl.
Not a pretty picture, is it? If you're not getting the visuals I'm getting, good - no gory nightmares for you.
The hike back down Cinder Cone was easy, giving a whole new dimension to the phrase, "It's all downhill from here."
This is me: semi-intrepid adventurer in front of stinky fumarole at Bumpass Hell. Actually, it was a whole lot less stinky, I thought, than Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The sulfur seems to dissipate faster, even though it's being belched out more powerfully.
In this next photo, notice a couple of things: In the midst of this gaseous, mineral-rich desolation, there is an abundance of life. And in contrast to the super-heated sulfurous steam and the boiling mud and the warm water welling up from underground hot springs, there is snow - yet it's rather warm, standing there in my short-sleeved t-shirt.
Notice, too, how there are no railings between tourists on the boardwalk, and certain scalding, flesh-rending death in the boiling mudpits below. Just thought I should point that out, having realized it about five minutes after letting my son go blithely running up the boardwalk to join the other kids. Yeah, fun times. Well, he's a Boy Scout. Adventure is his middle name. And if he didn't hear me say, sixteen gazillion times, that the boiling mud could strip bubbling bits of flesh off bone in about five seconds flat - well, it's his own fault for not paying attention to his mother.
Urk.
Do you think I'm being overprotective? Wait until I show you were I found him when I reached the top of Multnomah Falls, near Portland, the next week. For now...to sleep, perchance to dream. It's late - or early - and I have work tomorrow. Lots of it.
