I guess I don’t need to remind you what we went through this year, from a global pandemic, protests against systemic racism and police brutality, wild fires, earthquakes, elections and allegations of voter fraud,… and so on.
No, I won’t get into that. I want to tell you about the unexpected.
Sometimes the unexpected hits you so suddenly that you are so stunned that you can’t talk about it for quite some time. It can even make you think you dreamed it altogether.
This is the story about the unexpected discovery we made this summer.
With pandemic regulations like lock downs, mask wearing and social distancing all our vacation plans vanished quickly into a corona induced black hole in March. So we changed our plans accordingly to “Staying Home – Balcony Vacation” which gave us the chance to explore our new home state Colorado even more than anticipated.
We walked lots of trails, hiked canyons, climbed mountains, explored state parks, and otherworldly stone formations.
My daughter studies conservation biology and knows some hot shots in that field. So we were lucky to get a private outing with Professor Dr. Muhaa. She is one of the best conservationists in the western world. Sarah is one of her favorite students and so Dr. Muhaa agreed to guide us on a wildlife safari into the Colorado Mountains. She wanted to show us some bears, moose, cougars, and other native wildlife. After some discussion we ended up to pick Kenosha Pass for our little safari. As I am an avid photographer and explorer, I was thrilled.
It was no surprise that Dr. Muhaa suggested we should leave the house at 3am and start our journey to Kenosha Pass early. We wanted to be up there at sunrise. Unfortunately, we were not up for the task, untrained as I and my daughter are. We were lucky to make it to the top of the pass around 8am. Huffing and puffing we rounded the last bend and looked at the sprawling beauty that stretched in front of our tired eyes. The high plains of Colorado.
Abandoned railroad tracks led towards the serene lake, snow capped mountains in the background and green pastures. Nobody else was around.
Dr. Muhaa was walking in front of us, pointing at this and that, explaining the unique geology and ecology of the Colorado mountains.
I almost walked into her, when she stopped in her tracks. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth, she gasped and then started stuttering: “That’s … impossible,… they are… extinct… since 1935!
“What?” I was dumbfounded. Dr. Muhaa shook her head, pointing in the distance. I squeezed my eyes but only saw two brown specks.
“You see that?” she shrieked.
I put my camera to my eyes and zoomed in on the brown specks she kept pointing at. “What? I don’t understand,” I said.
“See! Told you.” Dr. Muhaa did some kind of dance. “That’s a sensation. They haven’t been seen here since the last century.”
Sarah said, “what is it?”
I blinked and looked through the view finder again, not believing what I saw.
“Mom?”
There in front of the mountains and the evergreens on a little plateau and close to the lake were two beautiful creatures. A huge rhino stood there, with a baby rhino next to her, laying in some kind of nest.
I watched as Mama Rhino bend down and nuzzled her baby. Like every photographer I went autopilot and pushed the trigger of my camera.
“Mom, what is this?” Sarah said with an edge.
I showed her the picture. This is what we looked at: The very shy, thought to be extinct Colorado Mountain Rhino.
Dr. Muhaa went full academic on us and recited as if she was a living Wikipedia,
“The Colorado Montibus Rhinoceros, member of the species of odd-toed ungulates is the only rhinoceros that ever lived in the United States. Everybody thought they were extinct since 1935. They reach or exceed two tons in weight, double the weight of the usual rhinoceros that is native to Africa. They have a herbivorous diet and are very smart despite their small brains. They have one horn and the usual protective skin. They love the unique combination of Colorado’s high elevation and the cool, dry and invigorating climate. During the warmer summer they live on the mountain passes and the high plains at an elevation of more than 13,000 ft, while in winter they migrate to the lower elevations and in the 20th century were sometimes spotted near the lower lakes that are now populated by snow sports lovers like Breckenridge, Silverthorne and Dillon. Nobody has seen any of these beautiful creatures since 1935. Not since Dr. Dolittle had a chat with the rhino thought to be the last one, but I have already said that before that they were extinct… Even back then they were critically, critically endangered.”
She looked ecstatic and a little sheepish, too.
“Oh.” Sarah and I said with one voice.
What more was there to say? If you saw this kind of sensation in front of your own eyes after a 5 hour hike, you ask a ton of questions, but just in your head. This was too sacred to be discussed right away.
We all realized, we were part of an exceptional and unique discovery.
We couldn’t take our eyes from the rhinos or wipe the happy smiles off our faces.
I kept shooting pictures and Sarah joined me with her phone.
A few weeks later, when Dr. Muhaa went public with this sensational discovery nobody believed her unfortunately, not even when she showed our pictures as proof. The Academic Biological Committee of Extinct Species accused us of fake news and said the pictures were forged. Dr. Muhaa was devastated and checked herself into a loony bin in Wisconsin. We haven’t seen her since.
Over time, each one of us thought we had dreamed the whole thing, in some kind of community dream caused by the strange cookies Dr. Muhaa had brought to our trip.
I almost forgot about the whole story and was about to throw out the pictures. Although I wondered where they had come from, if we only dreamed the whole thing.
I continued wondering until I attended a photo shoot in Dillon, CO in December. A photography Meet-up was scheduled at Dillon Dam to shoot models in the snow. As always I arrived early and was totally alone at the snow covered beach. Or so I thought.
I took pictures of the picturesque snow covered lake with the mountains in the background, when I heard them first. Snorts sounded behind me and when I looked back over my shoulder, I almost fell into the snow. Two little rhinos chased each other towards the icy lake. Mama Rhino stood 300 yards away under the evergreens at the edge of the snowy beach keeping watch over her offspring. As she whipped her head back and forth from me to the little ones, I wasn’t sure if and when she would charge on me. I very slowly walked backwards until I reached the trail that led to the parking lot. I shot some pictures, but most of them where so blurry that I had to delete them. This one is the only one I have left.
I sent it to Dr. Muhaa but she didn’t get back to me until now and I decided to keep my new sighting private until she would.
Thinking about this craziest of all my years I had a change of heart.
I thought that maybe it would indeed cheer someone up to see these beautiful creatures, the Colorado Montibus Rhinoceroses, chase each other through the snow. And as this is the year of fake news, I don’t even care, if you believe it or not.
Disclaimer 1: No animal was harmed or froze to death to take these pictures.
Disclaimer 2: This is a work of fiction, all characters stem from an unexpected discovery in my brain.
Disclaimer 3: Of course all the characters only exist in the depth of my brain, even if they live in a loony bin right now. The various creatures in my dreams and in my brain are sometimes creatures that really exist – like rhinos – but then they find themselves in very real surroundings they probably have never dreamed of – like the mountain passes in Colorado. Sometimes they are even on other planets…
Stay tuned for more adventures. Never stop dreaming.
Happy New Year.