Batch No. 3

High Altitude

1983 · Mapleton Avenue Records · 8 tracks

The peak. Recorded at Caribou Ranch outside Boulder over three weeks in August 1983. The title refers to baking adjustments required above 5,000 feet — less sugar, more flour, a hotter oven, less time. Sessions ran fourteen hours daily. The cover is a photograph of a bundt cake sitting on a cabin kitchen table with mountains visible through the window.

1. 01High Altitude
2. 02The Baker's Dozen
3. 03Chocolate and Vodka
4. 04Two Drums, One Kitchen6:19
5. 05Proof
6. 06The Recipe (Reprise)
7. 07Caribou6:30
   Wren's words

   The old man by the firelight, his voice was low and clear
   "I'll tell you of a mountain that I climbed for many years
   A place above the timber where the air is thin and bright
   And the ones who have arrived there do not speak about it twice"
   
   He took a long slow breath then, the embers caught and turned
   And the cabin filled with quiet as the wood began to burn
   He said the road is older than the people on its stones
   And the mountain knows your reasons even when you don't
   
   The trail begins at dawn light at the bottom of the bowl
   You leave behind the river and you watch the morning roll
   Each step is slow and steady, each switchback knows your name
   And the ones who turn around are not the ones who'll come again
   
   The sun across the canyon, the wind across the snow
   You count the stones beneath your boots and feel the slow heat grow
   The forest starts to thin out as the mountain has its way
   And the air begins to lift you in a strange and quiet way
   
   Caribou, Caribou
   Where the summit meets the sky
   Caribou, Caribou
   Where the long rise finds the high
   Long the road that brought us here
   Long the climb the heart can hold
   Caribou, sweet Caribou
   Where the warm light meets the cold
   
   At the summit there's a building, made of timbered wood and stone
   And the door is always open and you'll never sit alone
   There's a fire in the corner, there's a kettle on the heat
   And the ones who made the climbing know each other when they meet
   
   Some have come for shelter, some have come for sound
   Some have come because the mountain pulled them off the ground
   There's a song that's always playing, half remembered, half believed
   And it tells you what you came for whether or not you can leave
   
   Caribou, Caribou
   Where the summit meets the sky
   Caribou, Caribou
   Where the long rise finds the high
   Long the road that brought us here
   Long the climb the heart can hold
   Caribou, sweet Caribou
   Where the warm light meets the cold

8. 08Rise and Roll5:10
   Wren's words

   Sun came up on Flagstaff Mountain, soft and warm and slow
   Honey on the canyon wall, the river starts to flow
   You can hear the kitchen waking, you can smell the morning come
   Up from down in Boulder where the day is just begun
   
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, rise and roll
   Watch the warm light spilling cross the bowl
   Bells across the canyon, water down the stone
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, all the way back home
   
   Knead the dawn into the day, fold it like the wind
   Fire up the oven 'cross the ridge and watch the steam begin
   Take a breath of mountain air, hold it, let it go
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, rise and roll
   
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, rise and roll
   Watch the warm light spilling cross the bowl
   Bells across the canyon, water down the stone
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, all the way back home
   
   Down by Pearl Street pouring, dark and sweet and slow
   Dark across the surface like the canyon after snow
   Ice across the canyon and the mountain wears a crown
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, all the way back down
   
   From the slow rise of the evening
   To the long roll of the day
   Every hour finds its hour
   Every traveler finds the way
   
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, rise and roll
   Watch the warm light spilling cross the bowl
   Bells across the canyon, water down the stone
   Rise and roll, sweet morning, all the way back home