There was copious rain overnight. We've had a bit, off and on, but so intermittent it has not altered our plans: clearing up at remarkably convenient times when we would be making a stop for viewing waterfalls or geysers. Suddenly sunny as we would get to a destination and be ready for a new activity or adventure. But the mountains we saw yesterday in our travels topped with cold bare rock, were today covered in snow!
The lake is situated on a fault line: (this is No Joke,I am not making this up) where 'they say' the North American tectonic plate rubs up against the European tectonic plate. You don't have to be a scientist, or a person who believes in evolution vs Bible thinking to know that it all had to start someplace and the planet is thousands of years old. I won't have an opinion on fish with legs vs full grown adults here. But I do believe the guys who are operating the dive business can say that they 'will show you where the tectonic plates meet', and you won't know any better than to believe what they say, as well as pay good money to take a peek.
I was so apprehensive about the idea of putting myself in that icy water I could not get to sleep last night. I was so anxious with the thought of my perpetually cold hands and feets voluntarily going into miserably cold water, I was talking quietly to myself all morning. A running pep talk like the Little Engine That Could: "I think I can, I-think-I-can, IthinkIcan." We got up and started putting on layers, preparing for getting into that wet suit that is actually a 'dry suit'. I was nearly convinced. But not.
I got past the point of stripping down to my thermals in the parking lot (in a cold spitting drizzle) in front of dozens of complete strangers. I wriggled myself into the outfit that looked like a quilted, insulated, black union suit: one piece from ankles to neck. And started working my bottom half into the one piece outfit that is the 'dry suit', covering a person from toes to chin., except for hands that get waterproof gloves forced on separately. But then at the part where you pull the top half over your head, and it fits tightly around your neck, 'IthinkIcan' no longer worked, and I had to say:"I cannot." I did not even get to the place where they force gloves on your hands to make you look like a lobster, or the tight head-covering that leaves nothing exposed but your little round face. And tighten the neck opening to make it waterproof as well as make you feel you are being strangled.
Then if you got that far, you get flippers, a mask/snorkel and flop your way to the water. Jump in and say: Holy S#!t! Half of us did, half of us didn't. The wind was blowing ferociously when they got in and when they got out, but I know it can be amazingly calm below the surface even when there is turmoil above. I think it would be a nifty story to tell, but I'm ok with being able to say I was there even if I did not actually see it or participate in being profoundly cold. Is it really true? Who knows?
There are a number of places in this National Park preserved area, where it is obvious that geological factors have been at work: buckled up stone with deep (possibly bottomless) fissures, places that look like molten lava just cooled a week ago. And other places where the stone has been there for centuries, covered with lichens and moss that takes a hundred years to grow an inch. More of those mountains that spring up from level horizontal pastures to create immense vertical monoliths. Truly a fascinating, intiguing landscape...
No comments:
Post a Comment