Above the Valley

Polly came in low through the Merced canyon, her red-orange head turned into a wind that smelled of pine and granite. Below her the valley opened. Tall cliffs on both sides. A river the colour of grey metal. A long green floor.

She climbed and turned. From the air, Yosemite Valley looked like a giant U cut out of stone. That was almost right. Twenty thousand years ago, a sheet of ice a kilometre thick had pushed through here. It pulled blocks of granite off the walls and ground the floor flat.

She flew toward El Capitan. The wall was nine hundred metres of pale grey rock, almost straight up. Two tiny dots of colour were stuck to the face. Climbers. They had been there two days. They would be there two more.

Polly perched on a pine at the rim. The needles smelled of butterscotch in the sun. She could see the climbers better now. They moved one careful motion at a time. Neither of them looked down.

A ranger's truck climbed the road below. Polly thought: the best way to learn a park is from the seat of a working ranger.

She flew down the south rim, slow. A turkey vulture rose past her on a warm air current without flapping once. Polly straightened her glasses against the wind and watched the vulture climb.

At the valley floor, the air was warm and dim under the trees. She landed on a fallen pine. It was two metres across at its base. It had fallen long ago. Moss was already growing on it.

The Merced River ran past, brown with spring melt. Polly hopped down and put her yellow feet in the cold sand at its edge. The water made her toes ache.

A park sign read SHUTTLE TO VISITOR CENTER. Polly stretched her blue-teal wings and flew to the shuttle stop.

The shuttle was a long green bus. A woman in a brown uniform was the driver. "You riding?" she asked. Polly tilted her head. The woman opened the door.

Polly hopped to a railing inside. The bus rolled. Outside, El Capitan turned slowly past the windows. The driver said, "Last stop." Polly tucked her head under her wing and slept.