I've been meaning to do a post in tribute to the Choza, my home most of the time during the last 2 years. Sitting on a steep mountainside perched above Sawpit, Colorado, a 5 min. switchback foot-trail from the Hastings Mesa Road takes one there.
I remember moving in early spring 2004 and the kitchen stove was not yet in Choza. 3 feet of snow covered the trail which was a mix of hardpack and ice. Jeff helped me strap the stove to his external frame pack and off I went ski poles in hand. My heart was racing and legs shakey when I neared the Choza, and just 2m shy of the porch the trail gave way, my foot punched through the snow and I began rotating backwards. I didn't want to be there any longer: an 80lb stove was strapped to my back and I was falling backwards off the trail; below me snow intermingled with large gnarly rocks on the 60 degree slope.
Ursula had fallen off this trail once in summer and broken some ribs, and besides the added danger of being strapped to an 80lb stove there was the additional possibility of setting off an avalanche. I closed my eyes. I was leaning and clawing with all my might, unable to stop my fall. Suddenly the stove went weightless, no longer pulling me down and backwards. The corner of the stove impacted on a rock protruding next to the trail, and as long as I fought to keep my weight forward I would stay like that. I tried to push myself up but my hands just penetrating deep into the snow, ice particles scratched my bare skin. After completely loosing my breath I was finally on my feet again and I quickly steped onto the safety of the porch.
Downstairs was the kitchen and office, upstairs my bedroom. A gas line for the oven and heater and an electrical line ran from Jeff's house, which was solar and off the grid. A tin pitcher hung above the sink, leftover from years ago when Jeff lived here. A string ran from the handle through a caribiner and I attached it to my ice axe on the floor so that when I stood on the ice axe the pitcher would rotate and out would pour water. The sink drained through a long plastic pipe that hung from the side of the cabin.
Not long after moving in a young bear broke the window on the door and climbed through, feasting on flour, sugar, cereal and girl scout thin mints. Eggs mixed with flour dried like plaster on the floor. My tote of dry good was devoured while the peanut butter, honey and other food on the shelf had little interest to the bear. I was out of town camping and returned home a few days after the intrusion. I replaced the broken window with plexiglass and screwed an additional board over the window eliminating a repeat visit. The claw marks remain on the door from the bear climbing out.
