Nothing but the distant rush of the Elk river filled the air as I took Toby out one more time before bed. It wasn’t yet completely dark; the sky was a deep, navy blue except for some pink and gold clouds near the western horizon. But it was dark enough to keep me a little on edge while I followed Toby around the yard. It was very damp and cold, and I could taste the crisp, mountain mist in the air. If the sky wasn’t blanketed in clouds, I would’ve been able to see the entire Milky Way. Perhaps, I would’ve even seen the Northern Lights. 

However, instead of staying up and waiting for the skies to clear, as soon as Toby was finished doing his thing, we went to bed in the warm, safe cabin. I fell asleep when the sky was still a tinge of blue, and woke up again to the same-colored sky. Except for it was much colder in the cabin. I rolled over to check the time, and my phone read 5:35 AM. 

“Welp, might as well get up, Toby.” I yawned as I stretched. 

Toby poked his fluffy head out from underneath my bright red comforter and wagged his tail. It was so cold that neither of us wanted to leave the bed, until I finally decided to just rip the covers off and get dressed in my warmest clothes as fast as I could. 

I decided to layer up for the day, meaning I wore leggings underneath my jeans and a long sweatshirt over a T-shirt, and a hoodie over that sweatshirt. I then pulled on a pair of my warmest socks, brushed out the knots in my hair, and headed out into the main room of the cabin to turn up the heat. 

Once again, I found myself tasting the air outside as I waited for Toby to finish sniffing around. That time, it was much colder and crisper than the night before. Overnight, glistening frost formed on every surface exposed to it, and none of it had been warmed by the sun just yet. Above, fluffy, wispy clouds moved eastward in the mountain-blue sky. To the east, the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, waking up the robins who noisily chirped in the trees around me. Soon enough, the sun would be high enough in the sky to burn away the frost. 

But before the frost could completely disappear, I put Toby in the cabin and rushed back outside with my camera, already equipped with the macro-lens to get up close pictures of the frosty foliage. Before I even made it past the line of cabins, I came across a cluster of bright yellow flowers poking out of the grassy soil. At first it was the color that caught my attention, but what kept it was the fact that the oddly-shaped flowers opened downwards instead of upwards, and seemed totally unbothered by the frost that had encased them. 

I later found out that these peculiar little flowers were called Glacier Lilies, and they grew all over the place by the cabin. Those Glacier Lilies thrived on the dark, saturated soil found in the floodplain on which the cabins were built. Because Glacier Lilies are high-altitude flowers, they evolved to survive springtime frost. So long as their roots didn’t freeze solid, they wouldn’t die. 

Among the numerous Glacier Lilies, I found an equally bright-yellow flower, though it opened up to the sky like most other flowers. I knew that the four-pedaled flower was called a Sagebrush Buttercup. That meant that sagebrush had to have been growing nearby. 

I found the iconic Big Sagebrush growing in the far pasture, towering over the Glacier Lilies, Sagebrush Buttercups, and Spring Beauties that grew beneath each bush. The ground squelched beneath my feet as I carefully stepped around flowers and found a place to kneel down and grab a big handful of sagebrush leaves. I could already smell the sagebrush before, but as I stripped the velvety leaves off a small branch, the scent of sage was almost overpowering.

Oh, did I love the smell of fresh sagebrush in the morning!

As I relished in the scent of sage and muddy soil in the morning light, something white caught my eye to my left. When I turned, I noticed a huge collection of sun-bleached bones scattered along the ground. At first, I thought maybe I came across the remains of a cow or a deer. But then I found the skull resting under a huge mop of rounded, silver plants. Clearly, I just stumbled upon the remains of a horse. 

I didn’t dare disturb that horse’s final resting place. Instead, I simply knelt down by the skull and started snapping pictures. Even in death, that horse was a work of art. 

The noise of rushing water caught my ears as I stood to my full height after taking artsy photos of the sun-bleached skull. I followed the noise into a grove of tall Douglas Firs, which sheltered a log picnic table adjacent to a waterfall of spring-melt rushing down the leeside of the mountain. Dotting the muddy, mossy ground where even more Glacier Lilies and Sagebrush Buttercups. As much as I tried not to step on them, it was impossible not to as I found a seat on the log picnic table. 

I wasn’t there for long, as I could feel myself getting hungrier by the minute. I figured my grandparents would be up and making breakfast by then, so I gathered my things and carefully stepped my way towards a splintered log bridge, crossing over the stream of spring-melt and following a barely-visible tractor path back towards the cabin. 

That tractor path banked towards the mountain base and into the aspens. The robins and the scrub jays kept me company as I carefully stepped over rotting logs and mossy granite boulders that stuck out of the darkened soil, all while the Aspens stared me down with their eerie, eye-like knots. There, I saw only a handful of Glacier Lilies, as well as the occasional patch of Short-styled Bluebells, which I stopped to get up-close pictures of. 

Right as I approached the gate heading out of the pasture, something grey to my right caught my eye. I glanced over my shoulder and spotted the feathery remains of a bobcat’s dinner. At least, that’s what I assumed it was, because all that remained were two Dusky Grouse tail feathers stuck into the soil, surrounded by tiny bone fragments and fresh bobcat scat. The tail feathers were in perfect condition, so I snagged them and brought them back to the cabin to be thoroughly cleaned with rubbing alcohol.