useless.

Et comme il est beau, il est vraiment utile.

('And since it is beautiful, it is truly useful.')

Another member of North Cascades Conservation Council board sent out a link to a New York Times Op-Ed piece written by Richard Conniff the other day about the uselessness of earth's creatures.

I found it brilliant.

And it reminded me of that line above from Antoine de Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince, how - perhaps - if we could just see beauty - we might understand all things are useful.

summer.

S U M M E R .

Looking back at a summer well-spent and well-adventured this year through a bunch of random photographs...






... We started our adventure on a rickety old boat named The Lady of the Lake II from Chelan to Lucerne forty-some miles uplake...

And then hopped on board an even-more-rickety old school bus to the little mining town named Holden now run as a summer camp by a Lutheran group eleven miles up Rainbow Creek, a sort of gateway into the heart of the North Cascades...

And slept in a tent...

And wandered...

And explored under Bonanza Peak's immense, mile-plus-high walls of rock and cascades of snowmelt...

And took selfies...

And waited for buses on porches...

And made another camp, this one complete with the luxuries of a picnic table and fire pit...

And made campfires...

And tea...

And broiled bread topped with cheese (the BEST backcountry bread EVER)...

And stood beside quiet lakes...

And coffee in the morning...

And were surrounding by quiet, broken only by the ripples of the lake lapping against the shore next to our camp, calm...

And took photos on the hike out above Lake Chelan, our first real view further uplake to the hamlet town of Stehekin, fifty-five miles from civilization...

(where McGregor Mountain towers six-thousand feet above the head of the Stehekin River valley)...

Realizing uplake and downlake ferries and buses up to and back from Holden to the landing at Lucerne can be complicated, we chilled on the dock, waiting...

(it was spectacularly quiet)...

Then headed uplake for a quick layover in Stehekin, to be explored more another time...

We visited many, many ranger stations...

And art galleries inside of ranger stations...

And our chickens got bigger (we still miss you Whisper)...

And there were cool clouds seen from the front porch...

And cool sunsets seen from the sidewalk...

And a fence to start building...

And a ballet recital to record...

And photograph...

And mountains to climb...

... so many mountains to climb...

And so many more mountains to photograph...

And views from high camps underneath summits...

And watching for hours as clouds slipped across glaciers silent as stone...

And more selfies...

Whilst in the space in between I happened to win a pretty big award at work...

Then we went to Colorado to slow down and visit family...

And during the whole summer, coffee (thank God for coffee)...

And more mountains...

And high alpine lakes still snow-covered and ice-bound...

And summits...

... and selfies...

(of course Spivey and Barnie hopped in our packs for every trip)...

And J (always happy to be in the mountains)...

And us (always happy to be in the mountains)...

And driving the old truck (Stuart Q. Wenatchee) down twisty, windy, bumpy, crazy gravel roads...

And cool little coffee shops in small mountain towns...

And two-hundred mile relay races to be run...

And trips to California to our Sierras, small towns and restaurants and film cameras along the way...

And swimming and smiling...

And photographing...

And even more selfies...

And twelve-thousand-foot mountain passes to be crossed...

And tents in which to sleep amongst incredible places...

And books to be read (and coffee in beatup tin mugs to be drunk)...

And more mountain passes to be climbed...

And layers upon layers of mountains to be watched...

And lying on granite rocks in the middle of a barren mountain basin in the middle of the night, completely still, just gazing up into the endless infinity above, silent...

And sunrises from behind fourteen-thousand-foot mountains to greet the day and warm us up...

And fun (endless fun) always to be had...

And Mount Rainier to be climbed...

 And then, a few days later, viewed from amongst the trees much lower with Mom and Dad...

... to sometimes just sit still and gaze up, wondering, at thousand-year-old trees in the middle of an ancient forest...

And a fence to finish...

And eggs to eat...

And one last trip, back to Stehekin and up the river, onto the Pacific Crest Trail, and deeper still into the North Cascades...

And another night in a tent...

And boots to be dried next to a fire...

And the most amazing swiss and bacon pocket from the Stehekin Pastry Company to be grilled over an open campfire flame for breakfast...

And bushwacking (and a bear)...

And trail signs...

And filtered sunlight heading west to our last campsite, and home...

And the river...

And the road...

And miles to go before I sleep... and miles to go before I sleep...