March 2020: Slate River, Crested Butte, Colorado. For two months I have been following the news of a novel coronavirus wreaking havoc in Wuhan, China, as well as Europe and New York. I know that it will come to Colorado soon, if not already, but I have not given thought to how it would change our lives. Here I skate 10 km, bringing my season total to 191 km. Dust on crust, and I come out early enough that I make first tracks. What I do not yet know is that this will be the last picture that I would take before we go into lockdown.
April 2020: White Ranch Open Space, Golden, Colorado. I am one of the lucky ones, able to work from home at a job where there is still plenty of work to do. The world is falling apart. A month into lockdown, I am in the throes of cabin fever. Most of the pictures on my phone are of my cats. No one knows much about how the novel coronavirus spreads or can be stopped; out of an abundance of caution, the state mandate discourages travel of more than ten miles from home. White Ranch is about ten miles from my home. On these trails, I can see further than the four walls of my home.
May 2020: South Table Mountain, Golden, Colorado. I like to hike in the foothills at this time of the year, pandemic or not. The land is at its greenest and the wildflowers are in bloom. Also, the trails in the high country are inundated with snowmelt. This year, with nowhere else to go–I had to cancel a trip to Madrid and Barcelona–I return to this land. The human world is full of suffering and horror, but out here, the land is in the process of rebirth and renewal. The land continues to sustain life even as we are destroying ourselves.
June 2020: North Table Mountain, Golden, Colorado. The death of George Floyd at the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer sparks protests all over the country, including Denver. Despite, or perhaps because of, the pandemic, people take to the streets–with masks–to stand up for civil rights. Breathing is suspect. The novel coronavirus spreads through respiratory droplets and aerosols, making the very air we breathe a vector of contagion. Floyd died of asphyxiation when the officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in response to the alleged crime of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.
July 2020: Fern Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. In the spring, I stayed close to home. Now I am ready to venture a little farther: a two-hour drive to the trails in the high country. It feels like a joyride, an adventure, just to get to the trailhead. The world is open again, somewhat. This trail is relatively uncrowded and thus socially distant. We walk along the headwaters of the Big Thompson River and climb a steep series of switchbacks to this alpine lake. Clouds blow in and out all day, unable to decide whether to rain. I only see the rainbow in this picture when I get home.
August 2020: Ute Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Three days before a friend and I hike in the alpine tundra, a fire broke out near Cameron Peak, about twenty miles from this trail. At this time, it is the smallest of four wildfires in the state. Planes fly low over us and my friend, who is an aerospace engineer, quickly figures out that they are firefighting aircraft. Some are reconnaissance planes. Some are airtankers carrying flame retardants. In the afternoon, the winds turn and blow the smoke toward us. We put on the face masks that we now always carry to protect us from the smoke.
September 2020: Kitten Falls, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. On a ridge above the Big Thompson River, I see this little spring drip from the rock, playful and cute, and say, “It’s probably unnamed. I’m calling it Kitten Falls.” Later, we watch herds of elk gather in the meadows. A cow strays too far from the herd and the bull corrals her back; we joke that she needed her own space, but the male needed control. Two young bulls lock horns with each other. The leaves are blazing red and gold, a final burst of color before the land lies dormant in winter.
October 2020: Devil’s Thumb Ranch, Tabernash, Colorado. The day after I take this picture, the East Troublesome Fire breaks out thirty miles north of here. A week later, the fire makes a run into Rocky Mountain National Park and jumps over the Continental Divide into the Big Thompson watershed. Kitten Falls is likely ruined. Coronavirus cases have spiked again. The daily counts of new cases and deaths have soared to record highs. The Trump administration, embattled in the fight for re-election, has effectively said that they have given up on controlling the pandemic. Winter is not yet here.
Teow Lim Goh is the author of two poetry collections, Islanders (Conundrum Press, 2016) and Faraway Places (Diode Editions, 2021). Her essays, poetry, and criticism have been featured in Tin House, Catapult, Los Angeles Review of Books, PBS NewsHour, and The New Yorker.