one perfect sunrise [for real].

So during a rather fantastic run one evening last week I was thinking to myself about sunrises and I remembered this one. Fortunately, I took a picture of it. J and I had taken Kathy and Annette backpacking last time they were here up to one of our favourite places. Headlight Basin underneath Mt. Stuart. In October. It is one of my favourite hikes the one to Ingalls Lake the larch at this time a bit past their prime but still glowing and nothing too terribly difficult for a couple of newcomers to the idea of hauling your stuff in a pack strapped to your back up a trail to crash on the ground in a tent in the freezing cold.

A late start to the day so we didn't get to the trailhead and start moving until something like 3 or 4 a little slower than usual up the trail patience for them me having to keep telling J to slow down, slow down it more or less dark by the time we reached Ingalls Pass so no real view to Stuart. It would have to wait for the morning. Then trying to find a place to pitch our two tents in the dark me stumbling into others' campsites asking if the place was full until we found something near the edge of where Headlight Basin drops down into the Ingalls Creek valley. We pitched our tents, giving Kathy and Annette the one on the ground and Julian and I took the one on the snow. We had done this before. We didn't mind. Hungry, I cranked up the stove and sat smiling at the sound of the whirring flame and boiling water and we huddled around a pot of piping hot ramen basking in the steaming goodness the night cold and dark but perfect around us. Afterwards, Annette crashed in the tent. Kathy, J and I sat outside awhile marveling at the Milky Way overhead picking out constellations talking about the mythology behind them a terribly crisp and cold perfect autumn night clear as could be our breaths frozen suspended in the air above us. We could see the dark shadow mass of Stuart rising just to the south of us, imposing and reassuring at the same time me excited to see it for real come morning.

And then morning came. Where we were camped was open to the east, so the sun streamed in and washed across Headlight Basin warming it more and more with each passing minute. We were up with it, J running around the granite of the basin climbing over here and over there. Bundled up I sat on a rock watching him, watching the sunrise, just gazing at Stuart. Kathy wandered over and we talked a while about this and that. We don't see each other much.

It really was one perfect sunrise.

And there have been others. I think to myself. Camped under the granite rocks of the Hidden Lake peaks above the lake the bugs just starting to stir but open to the east like Headlight the sun streaming in after another perfectly clear and crisp autumn night of putting on glasses to stare up at the Milky Way tucked away inside my down bag and bivy eating an orange and some cereal for breakfast. Perfect. Up high bivied under the summit of Sahale above the clouds clinging to the valleys and the glacier below us basking in the warmth welcoming the light of another day in the mountains. Perfect. In The Enchantments, expecting grey and clouds etching the frost off my tent's window to witness the surprise of a rising sun coming up over McLellan Peak and lighting up the larch and letting all the water come to life shimmering in its radiance and warmth. Perfect. Out in the open no tent just our sleeping bags tossed on the dusty earth another fall morning this time in the middle of the Utah desert on the edge of the Goosenecks of the San Juan River carving its way to the Pacific. Perfect. We could see the shapes of Monument Valley now far to the south jutting up into the horizon it was warm cos even though it was October it was afterall southern Utah. We had gotten there at night much like our trip to Headlight so had no sense of our surroundings except that it was flat and we could see a billion billion stars, so the sunrise welcomed us with a sense of wonder of where we were (and for whatever reason that is still one of my favourite photos I have ever taken). Another sunrise me up before it the light pale and purple and pink freezing cold winter this time to walk along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon crunching on frozen snow and watch and wait and witness as the sun came up to the east casting long shadows among all the creases and folds of the canyon incredible listening to Moby on headphones. Perfect.

There is something magical about a sunrise.

I tend to forget this, being one to more likely stay up late than wake early. But particularly magical are these memories of mine either alone or with someone else witnessing a perfect sunrise. Another day. Purpose. Intentional. Simple. Essential. What will I accomplish today?