SHOULDER SEASON IS THE NEW BLACK

Shoulder season: the initiation

Pulling into a popular trailhead lot near Buena Vista, Colorado, I eye its ambitious layout, paved for hundreds but occupied by two. Joni Mitchell’s prophesy warbles in my head: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Standing in silence for a few beats, snowflakes landing on my hat, I’m reminded that May is shoulder season in these parts, and it’ll be at least another month before peak-season hordes squeeze into these parking spaces.

I lace up my boots and tread into the untouched snow, just a couple of inches deep, when above my head a northern flicker—a bird of the woodpecker family—berates me for