Six a.m. and the morning light is gray through the windows of this bedroom. The knotty pine walls and ceiling will soon be exposed for what they truly are – aged yellow in hue. Cabin colors, time-honored and welcome to the eye. Whoever made these pillows made them for me and, in this particular moment, me alone. The comforter seems to appreciate my bare skin. The bedroom itself, perhaps a rock throw across the porch from Mitchell Creek, is but a microcosm of this exquisite and idyllic mountain property where the family has gathered for its collective annual breather. There is an unspoken consciousness in these moments of all being somehow right with the world. Life needs – no, yearns – for this.
The verdant mountain is releasing this year’s substantial snowpack along Mitchell and other nearby drainages, all rushing with relentless urgency toward the mighty (at this writing) Colorado – pregnant with mud, kayaks, and rafters. Canyon Creek like Mitchell will be no different, clear and optimistic until it reaches the big girl who will overwhelm their crystal spring offerings with her red clay rampage from the upper canyon. Recent rains upon fire-ravaged mountainsides will propel red dirt into the main channel in the near future. We will fish the Eagle, above it all.
I’m going to rise, coffee, and walk while I plot the demise of rainbow and brown trout later in the day. Some of them will defeat me, I’m sure, but I will get my licks in. I always do. The rush of Mitchell beckons.