“Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.”
— Herman Melville, Moby Dick
No doubt about it, ol’ Herman had something there. A case in point would be the sodden interval late last Saturday afternoon when the squall that had been storming its way through the mountain passes of the Wasatch Back decided to drop in, somewhat unannounced, upon the alluvial plain that makes up the Heber Valley.
In itself, with its manner of sweeping through in waves upon the streets and rooftops, the ongoing torrent displayed a hypnotic component that, when viewed through a few glasses of pinot noir from a friend’s covered porch, began to border on the surreal.
That’s the way it is when one is in the lee of a tempest, no matter the fury. There is a distancing, a detachment from which one may view nature’s relative fury as an entertainment of sorts. It’s a rush, I suppose, not unlike those in the more tropical zones hope to acquire from a hurricane party.
Obeying a geometry that occurs when an agitated atmosphere shreds the fabric of the sky with brilliant flashes and sonic concussions, the wind-driven downpour, seemingly more patterned than chaotic, washes over both the exterior and interior landscapes. You become drenched with awe.
Many, of course, including friends attempting to set up amplifiers and PA systems as part of an outdoor party, were not allowed time for reverie and reflection. In their case, meditation brought on by water would have to take a rain check. A need to scurry and hunker down would take precedence. Electronics, when saturated, tend to distort.
Even the watershed itself isn’t quite sure how to handle the almost biblical precipitation that has made itself quite at home hereabouts this spring. Recent wanderings along those sections of the Provo River both above and below Deer Creek show wetlands expanded to levels unseen in recent years.
A habit of annually checking in on the Provo River Restoration Project, began about a decade back by the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission, once again provided those rewards usually associated with such riverbank strolls.
Rather abundantly rich as food chains go, there is plenty to keep the red-tail hawk and the occasional bald eagle occupied along this stretch. Not to mention the always interesting songbird and marsh-bird populations among the newly created wetlands and meanders.
What the continual rains have accomplished is a filling-in and connecting of ponds and a magnification of the runoff with its centrifugal hydraulics cutting away under even more riverbank on the outside turns of the main stream-course.
That’s not as much excavation as is occurring nearby where the latest “riparian-friendly” subdivision is going in along River Road, however. It can never be said that these outfits are averse to the relocation of dirt. Habitat encroachment has a longtime history with our species and it never takes a very close inspection to witness its impact.
Deer Creek Reservoir itself is definitely full pool. An old haunt, the arm that reaches back from near the present paved state park launching facility around toward Wallsburg, is now maxed out all the way back to where the docks outside the old “Snow” tackle shop once held forth.
Further downstream, where the Provo River flows through that ancient canyon that, in geological time, has carried more than a few past streams from east to west through the Wasatch Range, the abundant cubic-feet-per-second discharge from the Deer Creek Dam is quite evident.
As are the many waterfalls decorating the sides of the canyon as they, just as the thousands of other creeks, brooks, and rivulets have in their tributary fashion, seek their own level in the mother Provo. Bridal Veil Falls remains the crown jewel of this section, of course, visual splendor and grandeur being what they are.
The five-mile round-trip that stretches upstream from Bridal Veil to Vivian Park and back along the relatively flat trail allows for meanderings even slower than that taken by the river. One postcard-worthy moment at a nearly-still backwater marshy section featured a mother duck gently prodding her large brood. Meditation and water, indeed!
The secret, of course, is to correctly recognize those windows of opportunity when the sun peeks through the cloud cover long enough for such forays into the close-by natural world. There’s nothing quite like our neighborhood once it’s had the trail dust washed off.
Or as Melville also reflected: “Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it.”
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.