A Lonely Lily at Eleven Thousand Feet: A Journey with Nutmeg on Nebo!
A huge thunderstorm had blanketed the area in sheets of rain for the past few hours, with the last remnants pelting my car on the 24-mile drive on the loop to the trailhead. I began to worry that this would be the wettest meteor shower I'd ever experienced, but luckily the clouds mostly disbursed as I arrived at the trailhead.
I arrived early but not so bright at 415 AM to the Nebo North Peak trailhead, hoping to see some of the glorious Perseid Meteor Shower. I've been sojourning to the mountains in the early hours of every Aug 11, 12, or 13 for the past several years, and I've caught some impressive shows. This one would surpass them all, but not for the reasons I expected.
As I started my climb, the wind rolled through the pines like crashing waves on a distant shore. The sound was so out-of-place and disorienting to me that I felt as if I had transported to another place and time completely. I was starting to wish I had Mika with me on this hike, but the technical climbing on the last part of the summit worried me a bit, so I was all alone in the chaos.
And it was chaos. There's something oddly thrilling but vaguely tumultuous about the morning hours between 3 and 6 in the mountains. I've had so many surreal experiences that I'm convinced that the film Everything Everywhere All At Once was secretly based on this wild window of time. Everything feels like a possibility and nothing is predictable.
The meteors never materialized to my eyes, because the dying embers of the terrible thunderstorm hid them from me, but they gave me quite a bargain in return - flashing lights that illuminated the sky every 10 seconds. I was too busy relishing the majesty of the scene to be afraid for my life (later, on the way down, I encountered several hikers headed to the summit, and nearly every one of them asked if it was safe to pass and if there was still lightning. It was until then that I realized I maybe could have been more careful :)) One of these days, I'm going to need to invest in a camera that takes better pictures at night.
After two hours of feeling like a ship lost in a vast trans-Atlantic storm, the rosy-fingered dawn appeared and provided yet another breathtaking view.
The wind stilled almost immediately as I reached the saddle and took this picture. It's as if everyone wanted to be quiet to honor this moment when the Sun makes his first appearance.
A little further up, just over 11,000 feet, amidst the wet shale and mud and harsh returning wind, I saw this amazing creature:
Incredibly, this lone Sego Lily had managed to bloom against all odds in this unforgiving climate before autumn settles in. Its presence moved me, here is something that should not live, that should not exist, that should have found a home amidst the long grasses just 1,000 feet lower, but here it is, thriving, if even for a brief moment. I hope that I can be as bold, confident, and beautiful as I leave the safety of my full-time job to journey out into the unknown that is small business ownership.
And then I hit the ceiling, the roof of the world that morning, right before everything disappears in the cotton clouds, and right before I hit the near-12,000-foot Nebo summit.
Not everything was completely covered, though, so I captured this panorama at the summit.
My 7th Nebo summit was my most memorable yet!
So why nutmeg, you ask? I've been developing new Autumn products, and they all have one thing in common - nutmeg. As I study its energetic properties, I see why it imprinted on my mind on this hike: it can be used to enter deep trances for visions, it invigorates and stimulates the mind, and it can produce intense and colorful dreams. I've been working with nutmeg a lot over the past week, did I dream this entire hiking experience? If it weren't for the pictures, I might be tempted to think I've been subject to a nutmeg vision!
Check out the video I shot from the Nebo saddle: I captured some great lightning shots!