Last Unseen Season

The tension of mountain valleys, geese, and various other noticings

Once a week, most weeks for the past seven or so months, I drive for around forty-five minutes through two different mountain valleys to a slightly larger but sadder town. Unless it’s during tourist-filled months the roads are very empty, though not infrequently it is also possible to get stuck behind a large, slow thing: a farm vehicle, a logging truck, the occasional bus. Because the roads are mostly curved and winding, with only a few places straight enough to overtake, there is not infrequently an impatient man mere meters from the back of the car, driving something expensive, driving not very safely, braking and accelerating unnecessarily until he can screech around on the other side of the road, braking and accelerating until the ends of the earth.

The route through these valleys is dramatic, and I know I’m surrounded by lochs on all sides though I only drive closely past one of them. Now I’ve seen the exact same slices of landscape in three different seasons I feel able to comment on them, and able to ascertain any patterns or regular sightings or places where a little roadwork would be advisable. The one season I haven’t driven this route in yet is winter, and I’m not actually certain whether or not there will be weeks when I simply can’t do it safely because of snow—that, or I’ll have to perhaps leave much earlier than I need to, allowing for a much slower creeping up and down the inclines, around corners. (It occurs to me that it’s strange we refer to them as corners, because corners are right angles, and none of the roads here have anything like right angles unless you are at a junction.)