It has been a busy summer and I haven’t had nearly enough time to backpack. But I did get away for a few days to the Rawah Wilderness this week. This is one of my favorite places to visit but I hadn’t been back since the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire. The fire started perhaps 10 miles from where I camped but went in the other direction. It ended up lasting 5 months and becoming the largest wildfire in Colorado history. From this spot 60 miles from Fort Collins, the fire burned within 5 miles of the city limits.*
Spinning at Twin Crater Lakes, Rawah Wilderness, Colorado
I didn’t go back in part because I hiked the Colorado Trail in 2021 and then had other hiking projects in 2022. But this year it was time to face the miles and miles of burned trees and revisit an old haunt. It was wonderful to find my favorite camping spots were untouched by fire but hard to see all the burned trees on the way in and out.
I left the pups at home and hiked in about 7 miles to one of my favorite camps near Twin Crater Lakes. I spent three days sitting in the sunshine, exploring a bit, spinning, drawing, and weaving. It is a good reset to get outside, sleep on the ground, and listen to the quiet, the birds, and a moose chomping willows nearby.
The video below shows the scenery, the yarn I spun, and the little weaving that isn’t quite finished. If you get the blog via email, you can watch the video on YouTube HERE.
I brought along a new tool Tommye Scanlin told me about. She found these little metal pronged tools that ceramicists use and wondered if they’d be good for small tapestry weaving. I stuck it in my kit and indeed, it worked really well on this tiny loom. It isn’t something I’d use on larger works, but for traveling and especially backpacking, it is a great tool. It is metal, quite strong, light, and takes no room at all. It worked well with this light handspun singles yarn at 12 epi.
The tapestry I wove used the yarn I spun while sitting at the lake pictured below. The handspun is the gradient yarn and the blues are weaversbazaar that I carry in my kit.
I hope you have some time to enjoy the outdoors wherever you live. And just maybe you’ll do some weaving while you’re there.
Rebecca Mezoff, sketch tapestry in progress on a backpacking trip in Colorado.
What adventures have you had this year?
*If you’re interested in seeing what I have woven about the Cameron Peak fire so far, this blog post has images and there are several Change the Shed episodes from 2020 where I’m working on these tapestries. Those videos were
Aug 26, 2020
Sept 9, 2020
Sept 30, 2020
Dec 9, 2020
and Dec 16, 2020.