Creamsicle Skies and Hidden Rainbows

Creamsicle Skies and Hidden Rainbows

It was an early Fall morning when I began scaling the eastern face of the Rocky Mountains with nothing but my bow, my wits, and a stubborn will. The mountain range stretched endlessly with trees, rocks, ridgelines, canyons, and lacey snowcaps that stretched forever into the deep wilderness. Days later I found myself in the remote reaches of Colorado. I stayed camouflaged patterns as I crept upward toward the mountain tops. This was wild country—home to elk, whitetail deer, black bear, and the occasion mountain lion—and every step deeper into the mountains tested me harder than I’d imagined.

Thick tree cover. Jagged rocks. Relentless inclines. The sudden rise in elevation hit me like a sucker punch. Damn, this is way harder than I was ready for, I muttered, struggling for steady footing while gasping for air. Back home, the land is flat and forgiving— barely one hundred feet above sea level—tops. But out here? The Rockies climb past ten thousand feet, and every breath felt like a plastic bag tied over my head. Every step dragged like lead bricks tied to my ankles. Next time, I need to train harder, I promised myself. This is no joke.

Two years later, I stood again at the foothills looking up.

“This Time I’m ready, I’ve trained harder—cardio, weights, high-altitude breathing. I’m not going get my ass kicked again—at least not without a fight.”

Like before, the same mission was simple. Live off the land, and survive. This time, I started my climb along the western face of the Colorado Rockies, not far from the Uinta Basin and Ouray Reservation, Utah. Like before, I had my bow in my left hand, and my backpack over my shoulders, loaded with survival gear. Temperatures were pushing seventy when I began at thirty-five hundred feet, but the higher I went—ten thousand feet and beyond—the quad burn increased quickly, and before I knew it, I was trudging through two feet of snow.

I checked my gear: compass, GPS, fire starters, water purification straws, freeze-dried food, flare gun, emergency kit, flashlights, and knives. All there. I was ready— or so I thought.

You never know out here. Mountain lions, bears—hell, even lightning or flash floods can catch you by surprise. One busted ankle and you’re stranded fifty miles deep in the wild. I told myself; You’ve got this. You’ve trained. You’re ready. Stay sharp.

The days became a blur. I hiked across ridge after ridge, with sightings of mule deer, mountain sheep, even pronghorns. But no elk. No Calls. No bugles in response. After days of this brutal trek, I was starting to feel it.

Once again, I began bouncing up and down between 3,000 and 9,000 feet, then down again to five thousand feet. I was wrecked. My legs screamed. My lungs clawed for oxygen, and now, ten days later, I was getting near Utah.

By day the Mountains rose in layers of baked crust and broken cinnamon, their faces split and weathered. The slopes were crowded with tall narrow clusters of pine silhouettes with deep needled spears dark as steeped tea leaves, each rising into the sky like organ pipes, each one humming with the wind. Between them, groves of Aspen trees shimmered, their trunks like scrolls of peeled parchment, and sun-bleached bone, almost luminous, trembling with coin sized leaves, each whispering quiet stories.

Higher still, the mountain peaks are capped in whipped cream, a layer of sweetness that never quite melts. The ridges dusted in powdered sugar, untouched, soft in appearance, harsh in truth, despite the cold they carried. Far Below, meltwater gathered in glass-clear streams and still basins, carrying a cool hint of crushed mint with polished gemstones left in the cold.

As late afternoon approached, another high-altitude sunset was about to appear. It’s time to stop and set up camp. I’ve got to build a campfire, eat dinner, and get some much-needed heat.

Late afternoon horizon, slowly faded into creamsicle skies, blending cotton ball clouds with the setting sun. As dusk approached, the light thinned into something sweet—honey dripped through the branches, catching on the needles and bark, while the horizon deepened into bruised peach and warm syrup, fading gently into the shadows.

As the hours grew deep into the night, I spread my sleeping bag across a bed of pine needles, readying myself to drift off into Neverland, with my head perched on my backpack, I could hear each ache and sore muscle scream at me— the kind of ache you earn, “Ouch, ooohh,— dammit—take that, old man!” I grinned through the pain, the ache almost something to be proud of.

My eyelids began to get heavy as I stared into the night sky. My eyes fixed upwards, getting ready, and waiting for the evening show to begin. And then, it began. It was show time.

High in the heavens, above the mountain ranges—above any light pollution and far from any city glow—the skies become the darkest of all skies imaginable. Slowly, the darkness comes alive like a movie screen suspended in mid-air. Each night featured a new film. Above the high ridges, the heavens became unsealed and carelessly spilled gold and silver glitter across a vast stretch of blueberry-dark velvet.

The stars shimmered like an overturned chest of tiny treasures, each point catching light that had traveled forever to arrive.

The stars were crowded and thick, like spilled sequence stitched loosely into the sky. Now and then a bright spark tore loose, dragging a molten tangerine tail. While others flickered and vanished like tossed grains of crushed citrus zest that couldn’t decide where to land. A few came in blazing—fireballs swelling with a peach-syrup glow, streaking with a richness of spilled jelly, before fading as if the sky itself had exhaled embers. Each one felt close enough to hear, like something just beyond my reach. With so much brilliance overhead, it felt impossible that I was alone under it. The colors and sheer abundance almost too much to hold all at once, so mesmerizing you could miss something impossible slipping quietly into view—something vast, waiting, just beyond where your eyes thought to look.

Up there, the night wasn’t empty—it was crowded, alive, scattered with brilliant colors like ground glass on fire, hidden rainbows lost in the deep wilderness.

In every direction, there it was a different cluster of stars—millions more than you could ever see. It was clear brilliance, always here, but hidden from our eyes by light pollution, far below at lower elevations.

I continue to lay still, watching the light show of shooting stars or an occasional fireball as it burst past the Milky Way like a UFO. Even though the stars were light-years away, they appeared to be within arm’s length—The colors delivered every sparkle closer than ever imagined. Each night came with a different scene from a different location. I’d try to count the constellations as if I were back in middle-school science class. While staring into the deep blueberry darkness, I became surrounded by a symphony of noises—alive in the dark background, the crickets were singing their song about the night, along with other wildlife noises. The trick was to fall asleep before the birds started their morning songs. With all the sights and sounds, I half-expected an alien spaceship to land and carry me off.

Before drifting off into the twilight zone, I reached deep into my backpack, grabbing my ultimate nighttime emergency kit: a Bowie Knife with a sharpened eight inch long blade strapped to my right hand, and a flashlight in my left, just in case I needed quick protection. Positioned near my side a Hoyte compound bow lay fitted with twenty-one inch long crimson arrows with razor sharp blades. Night time is when the bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and whatever else lurked in the cold darkness did their best hunting. During the day, I was the hunter, at night, I became the hunted.

Before settling in, my nightly routine was to stretch a fishing line from tree to tree—about fourteen inches above the ground adorned with chrome jingle bells, surrounding the perimeter of my campsite. It was a wildlife tripwire and alarm system, alerting me to incoming danger.

Ten days. No voices but my own. No elk bellowing. Just silence—and the creeping weight of loneliness. My mind started to splinter under the weight of isolation. I started talking to myself just to stay sane. Now I get it, I thought. This is what Tom Hanks felt in the movie Cast Away when his volleyball became his best friend. He named him Wilson. I chuckled to myself.

After pausing for a moment, I looked down at my side, focusing on my Knife.

“O.K., Mr. Bowie,” I whispered, taking my cue from Tom Hanks, “Just you and me out here. Keep me safe.”

“Hey, what about me?” came the imaginary voice of my Hoyt compound bow.

“Relax, Mr. Hoyt. You’re still my favorite.”

By morning, even the sun had a voice. “Time to pack up and move on, Martin,” it said.

Great, I thought. Now the sun’s talking to me. I need coffee. Strong. And maybe a therapist who works weekends.

The following morning I unzipped my sleeping bag, and the cold bit into my skin like tiny needles. The morning frost and a fresh dusting of snow clung to the outer shell of my pack, catching the first light in icy crystals. Tree branches were coated in fresh vanilla icing with the sun dripping through each branch like warm honey. The morning sky shimmered like watered milk with a squeeze of lemon. My breath came out in short, visible bursts—steam rising like smoke from a chimney.

The forest around me was just waking. A distant raven called once, then again, its croak bouncing between the ridgelines. Somewhere downhill, a bubbling creek murmured through the rocks, the sound soft but steady—like the world whispering. The air smelled sharp and clean, a mix of pine sap and damp soil. I rubbed my hands together, stiff from the cold, the scent of worn leather from my gloves filled my nose.

I crouched to warm myself by the dwindling embers of last night’s fire and poured water into the remaining glow, the hiss of ignition breaking the silence like a warning shot to the wilderness: He’s up.

Twenty minutes into the morning hike, I sat on a ledge, looking out over the canyon. Snowcapped peaks rose like frozen titans, their tops coated with fresh whipped cream. Cliffs the color of rusted iron and spice. Stone walls like baked pie crust, cracked and stubborn. Faces of mountains layered like overcooked lasagna, edges curling with time.

I remained sitting on the ridge, looking down at clusters of juniper spears stretched upwards into the sky, each dotted with deep crimson berries. Wildflowers scattered over open fields liked tossed confetti after a summer festival, splashing across the opened land like drops of spilled paint on a rough canvas.

As I sat on and stared down into the open wilderness, I reflected on the late night sky, the shows — the endless brilliance, the hidden spectrum you only see when everything else falls away.

And that’s when it hit me. It wasn’t only the sky high above that had flashes of wonder. The foothills along the mountain bottoms had their own hidden rainbows, too—subtle, but only visible from above and waiting to be noticed.