Too Cold for Barley

Usually I’d be writing this blog from town, but today I am writing from camp. Then usually I would be fishing this time of day. Both intended creeks, Beaver (South Dakota) and Cold Creek, I found to be no bigger than two hands put together. I don’t doubt there are fish in those creeks, but I can’t imagine there being much size to them, and neither had any deep holes in the areas where I explored. So this morning I am camped in a lush grassy meadow in a little valley just past the divide of the two creeks.
Although accustomed to fishing while camping, I took advantage of the fish-free opportunity to hike the abandoned roads leading from camp. The first I took lead south for a couple miles then stopped at a spectacular cliff overlooking the road I came in on, I bet the cliff is about 800 feet up from the road. The second road I took went north from camp through an aspen grove and pine/ spruce forest. I could see it had been logged many years ago, but they’d not cut the aspen, which were bigger and older than any I’d seen before. This time of year the lupine, larkspur, campion, wild rose and lilies are out and I gave my camera a workout with the many attempts at capturing the colors. The road, really more of a two track trail, curved around and eventually headed south. Being one who has a good sense of direction, I figured I could make a loop and get back to camp. After a few miles, I decided to cut cross-country as a shortcut. I don’t doubt my sense of distance and direction, but I should doubt my sense of elevation. Every time I went west towards camp, I came to the tops of cliffs ranging from sixty or seventy feet, to a hundred or so. I instinctively checked my pockets for survival gear and found I did have a swiss army knife, a lighter, a watch (showing I’d been hiking for two hours), and no food, not even gum or candy. Since I was dressed in shorts and a light shirt and not wanting to write a survivalman blog, I followed the trail back the way I came, and got back in as the sun was fading behing the hills.
This is not a place I’d want to spend a night out unprepared, for when I got up this morning there was a thick frost on everything and it was cold enough to make both me and my recently short-shorn dog shiver. Barley prefered to stay in the car, so I ran the heater for a while. Although June 25th, this is high elevation, I’m guessing around 7200 feet, but then again, I don’t have a good sense of elevation.
PS: I checked the elevation on the map, it is 6,400 feet