La Cal Basin is the highland drainage between Walter and Frazer peaks in the Wheeler Wilderness north of Taos. The source of the Middle Fork of the Red River, it must be crossed to scale Mt. Wheeler from the north. The circuit is 15 miles with 4,000 feet of elevation gain. It was here, in mid-July after hiking for several hours, I heard bells on the trail above me. Fatigue and the rarified beauty of the landscape put me into a reverie like that evoked by the Serenade from Borodin’s Petite Suite.

Ding… Ding… Ding…. A lost lamb? Here? Have endorphins addled my brain? Ding... Ca-ching… Jingle-ling… Jogging down a switchback just ahead came a slim lass in Nikes with tiny brass bells pinned to her waist.

“Have you been to the summit?” I asked, stunned. “Did you run both ways?” I gasped, making way to let her pass. “Yes. Yes, of course. Aren’t you?” was her impish reply. There was a fragrance of lavender and crushed pine as she swept by with a smile that would have charmed a mountain goat to its knees. She leapt across the creek and vanished behind a bank of columbine and harebell left trembling in the pristine air. Ding… Ding… Ding… and soon she was out of range of sound. What a delight it would be to join her on these breathtaking trails, I thought.

Then get moving! If you sprint you might catch her on Frazer’s flank where we’d link a string of jewel-like lakes and pass through meadows where pixies dance like flowers beneath a turquoise sky. Then, at twilight, pleasantly tired and no better place to be, we’d rest on a carpet of forget-me-nots and watch the moon drift over Middle Fork Lake.

Damn. Damn! Too late. I was anchored to rock in stiff hiking boots while my alpine fantasy sublimed into thin air. My youth had long since passed and this reminder of adolescent promise spent left the weight of melancholy I would carry to the summit and back alone.

Those bells still ring. They take me to a dreamscape of lupine and buttercups where trails stretch out to the Milky Way. There, life’s unappeasable yearnings resolve into a silhouette of ridgeline with a spirited companion at my side.

A profusion of harebell (Campanula rotundifolia) and chiming bells (Mertensia ciliata) thrive at La Cal Basin.