Howl and Rumble
We had begun this hike in the dark but just as the sun was giving the peaks an orange glowup, we heard a scream.
It took a few beats to realize it wasn’t human. The coyote howls echoed from the irregular bricks of granite surrounding the basin. Then they harmonized, then they quieted, only to pick back up again soon after.
At first, my hiking partner and I thought the animals were surrounding us from all sides and we glanced at each other in worry. But after stopping, standing still, and listening, our wise ears told us that there was one pack on our side and one pack across the valley.
The exchange continued for longer than how’s-the-weather-over-there, long enough to wonder what coyotes talk about. Maybe about snow last weekend, the first in five months. Maybe some interpack gossip. Maybe they were recounting the events of the last full moon.
Just as we were about to move on, a throaty rumble added a bassline to the mountain meadow’s melody. We turned toward the peak but found nothing visually amiss. The cracking roar continued and the skin on my neck responded as it does when danger is in close reach.
Rockfall, I remarked, and my hiking partner agreed.
The coyotes crescendoed. Perhaps they were reacting to the slide, or maybe it was a warning signal to the ones across the valley: our cliff is falling, maybe check yours? Or maybe the rocks were responding to the coyotes: check out this echo. It was almost like the rocks and the coyotes were engaging in parallel play, alpine style.
The animate and inanimate were in conversation, two natural phenomena overlapping. I got lucky to exist in the slice of time to see it. The same day that I got to see the feast of wildflowers change as the altitude increased. All of them lovely, shining, tall, and healthy, and completely different species in the meadows below treeline and those above. All of them bending in the same wind that carried those coyote voices.
The howling and the rumbling were both chilling, but honestly, that’s one of the things that drew us there in the first place. To step closer to the teeth, whether made of bone or granite.
Inspired by events at Mt. Timpanogos, Utah
which resides on unceded land of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.
Share to