Trying to Imagine Carolan's Life in the Colorado Mountains

I think a lot of failures in life are failures of imagination. That goes for my own life too!

Each day I try to imagine what my daughter Carolan's life is like--partially because it is so different from the mainstream and partly because she is so far away. Some time every day I try to look up the weather in a location near her. It's impossible to find a weather station at 11 or 12,000 feet off a trail in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains or the San Juan Mountains--so I look for the nearest town. Today, minutes ago, I checked the weather in Creede, Colorado, maybe 10 to 20 miles from her crew's tents (which I believe are near Trout Creek and the Continental Divide Trail in the Weminuche Wilderness and Rio Grande National Forest of Colorado). In Creede, at a measly 8820 feet above sea level, it was 40 degrees and clear, heading to 74 degrees Fahrenheit. Where Carolan lives, it might be much colder. I'm guessing it fell well below freezing last night at 10, 11 or 12,000 feet.

I also spend parts of my day looking at contour maps of Colorado, trying to imagine what the trails look like that she is working on. It doesn't look dramatically steep from the maps as I read them (though the elevation is impressive). I think she is currently below tree line, probably cutting, with her crosscut hand saw, downed aspen and ponderosa pine from long-neglected trails. She's also probably dealing with (moving or pulverizing with her "double jack") huge rocks on the trails as well as fixing trail drainage problems.

I know that Carolan and her crew wake up early, do stretching exercises, eat breakfast, and are soon at work. They probably spend some of their time every day locating and then filtering drinking water. Whatever they are doing, it's a long, hard day of work--maybe 10 hours of heavy physical labor, about 2 miles above sea level. With this intense level of work, do they have time to admire the beautiful mountain lakes and creeks? The stunning serrated peaks? Do they ever stop to marvel at the herds of elk and the other exotic wild animals at the top of the Rocky Mountains?

Every day these thoughts challenge my imagination.