‘A lone crow circling a quarter mile away offers a simple, single caw, seemingly unprompted. The tapping of a woodpecker or their close cousin, the sapsucker, are always stark and obvious’
South Park, Colorado is an open basin located between 8,000 and 9,000 feet above sea level, framed by the slopes, ridges and peaks of the Rocky Mountains. The winter conditions are predictably harsh. Sometimes weeks will pass without the high temperature crossing above freezing. Typical overnight lows are minus twenty-five degrees Celsius. For good reasons, the Ute Indians – the only regular human visitors before the middle of the nineteenth century – used the area strictly as a seasonal hunting ground in the summer and autumn. I am a regular winter visitor, but no heroics are involved as I enjoy the comforts of a solid log cabin. Cold temperatures here are usually associated with clear skies, so most days offer at least a brief window of sun and its relative warmth.
But it is not the cold that personifies winter for me. Instead, it is the quiet, at times a silence, that rarest of pleasures in our modern world. Absent is the tourist traffic on the road. Walk a quarter mile from the cabin into the hills and the only human intrusion will be the occasional heavy truck, a dull rumble of tyres on the cattle grid or the guttural complaint of the diesel engine when a lower gear is summoned. Vapour trails are the silent evidence of planes passing above. The nearest public trail may attract a handful of hikers on the nicer days, but avoid that – walk the ridgelines and south-facing slopes instead – and months will pass without my encountering human company in the forest.
Nor is it just people that are missing; for Rocky Mountain wildlife, migration or hibernation are the norms. Elk have gathered into large herds and left. Many will brave winter on the open flats where the bitter wind will scour the ground of snow, exposing the sparse but critical vegetation for sustenance. Deer remain, but only in twos and threes, sheltering in the treed bottoms and on alert when they venture out to graze the snow-free southerly slopes. Coyotes hunt actively all winter, working hard for meagre pickings of rabbits and rodents, and the howls that announce their success are usually heard from the warmth of the cabin around dawn or dusk.
When I venture out, tracks in the snow will betray these neighbours but sightings are rare. Occasionally a deer may be moving in the valley bottom but snow cover will mask their disturbance of fallen branches and dried leaves. Most high-altitude bird species are migratory and long since departed. What remains are groups of small, seed-eating birds; chickadees and juncos passing quickly in the higher branches of the evergreens. Their individual calls are short, simple affairs but collectively they make their presence known as our paths briefly intersect. A lone crow circling a quarter mile away offers a simple, single caw, seemingly unprompted. The tapping of a woodpecker or their close cousin, the sapsucker, are always stark and obvious. Usually I will detour for a closer inspection, and if my presence is unwelcome, the bird will depart with a short, harsh call, the familiar undulating flight re-establishing distance between us. Squirrels are inactive during winter but don’t hibernate. They feed sparingly, revealing themselves with the gentle fall of pine cone scales, dissected and discarded in search of remaining seeds. A sound so slight that would go unnoticed but for the otherwise enveloping silence. Squirrels are a particular nemesis of my terrier, Willow, and her attention is met with the taunt of their furious, rapid-fire chatter.
Chickadees, crows and squirrels; hardly rare or exotic company but in this harshest ofseason these hardly friends are most welcome. The prevailing silence and these rare interruptions are both simple, sensory pleasures. Six months from now, these and many more sounds will all be consumed into a busy and enveloping background noise, the challenge then being to disaggregate and decipher the individuals.
Writing & Images – Paul Adams, Winter 2025
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