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...

the silence of the north cascades [plate i].

P L A T E   I

Skagit River Valley, Washington

[ Canon 7D / 18-55mm IS / circular polarizer ]

This image was made in late afternoon from the summit of Sourdough Mountain in North Cascades National Park, looking west down the winding Skagit River Valley towards Puget Sound, and beyond, while shafts of sunbeams filtered through the multitude of creek valleys all feeding the mighty Skagit.


It is the first of ten plates to be collected for this portfolio and journal project I am putting together – ultimately to be printed and made available as either a handbound book or individual, fine art fiber prints – and titling The Silence of the North Cascades. It is a multi-year, ongoing project from which I hope to capture – in my own words and photographs – the silence found in the high places of the North Cascades, and I will periodically write about my progress.


Please check back for the next plate to be posted in the coming month or so… 

freezing temperatures guaranteed.

 F R E E Z I N G   T E M P E R A T U R E S   G U A R A N T E E D .

Today, as I sat quietly while my computer chirred at some image processes, I leaned in a bit and read for the first time the bit of type on the little kitschy postcard reproduction of a Rocky Mountain National Park postcard that's been sitting on my desk for years.

It boldly touts the now-long-defunct, what-was a fourteen-by-eighteen foot cabin nestled among a field of boulders at thirteen-thousand feet on the approach to climb Longs Peak. 'No modern conviences,' says the first bullet. 'No trees to spoil the view.' Well, okay. 'Guests arrive on foot or horseback (no autos).' 'Freezing temperatures guaranteed every night.' And lastly, 'Water carried from snowbanks a few feet from the door.'

These, what must have been enticing claims back in the nineteen thirties, strike me as fascinating today for precisely two reasons.

First, the Boulderfield Cabin was itself completely unusual in the United States. Huts like this abound by the hundreds in the Alps, where they're staffed with a chef and crew to provide five-star accommodations in otherwise seemingly inhospitable mountain places. But here, in the country of John Muir's wilderness, devoid of the imprint of human beings… they do not. So this one, unique in its very existence, was even more so because of its lack of any modern conviences, or the ability to step off a tram and walk in the front door. You actually had to walk (well, or ride a horse). And the fact that this poster was advertising what amounted to a near-Muir wilderness experience in a cabin at thirteen-thousand feet, is fascinating.

It seems nowadays, this poster would read very differently. Quite the opposite, in fact. It would tout free wi-fi, air-conditioning (since someone may still require that to be comfortable even at thirteen thousand feet), cable television, RV hookups, and the like. Etc. etc. etc., for nowadays we cannot possibly be made to be uncomfortable. It could claim the view, but not without the wi-fi. The pure, snowmelt water, but not without the steak and lobster entrees.

So that was one reason.

The second then, this year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Wilderness Act. I will probably write a bit about that over the course of the year–about its significance. About how, maybe in the most pure and selfless way, we lazy, fat, greedy Americans got it right. Got it right in such a grand way as to provide a ray of hope for the very future of our periled civilization. About how, even with its claims of uncomfort, how strange it is still, our idea of wilderness, and the reasons for why we must continue to lay claim to the last vestiges of wild places.

This poster got it right. The stuff it advertises, that's the stuff stories are made of. From which adventure is born. John Muir, that grandfather of the idea of limitless wilderness, may have best written about his experiences in wilderness as such -

These beautiful days must enrich all my life. They do not exist as mere pictures–maps hung upon the walls of memory to brighten at times when touched by association or will, only to sink again like a landscape in the dark; but they saturate themselves into every part of the body and live always.

tom killion.

Range after range of mountains
Year after year after year
I am still in love.

On Climbing the Sierra Matterhown Again After Thirty-one Years

Gary Snyder

October 4, 1986

-----

The random postcard I get occassionally a few times a year from the artist Tom Killion came the other day.

"Mt. Whitney from Little Claire Lake" (12" x 9")

Over the years I've amassed a little collection of these cards, which I absolutely treasure.

This one in particular is my favourite.

"Isosceles Peak & Palisades from Dusy Basin" (18.5" x 13.5")

I don't remember now how I first came across his work. Maybe just random, poking through the little cool, eclectic bookstore-slash-coffee shop in downtown Bishop, California, finding there in the heaps a copy of a book of poetry by Gary Snyder and Killion's woodcut prints called The High Sierra Of California.

Of all art (music aside of course), photography I love the most (umm, duh… ). Second though, are woodcuts.

I wish I could afford handmade art that - well - wasn't my own photography. Maybe I should offer a trade to a woodcut artist… Last fall my friend Matt and I wandered through town during one of the Santa Cruz open studios tour weekends. One woman's studio we toured was a woodcut artist. I was impressed; I wanted to buy something. Combining a little bit of lithography, screenprinting, and woodworking, it is a dream of an artform.

Anyway, the work of Tom Killion is incredible, and he details the process beautifully in that book I found in the little shop in Bishop. First, he sketches in the wilderness what will become the final print. Only one color can be printed at a time, and each color requires its own plate of sorts (in this case, they are etched wooden blocks as opposed to the aluminum plates used in traditional lithographic printing). Some of the prints can take close to three hundred hours to complete, he writes.

His work isn't excessively-priced relative to other art, and likely is quite reasonable… about four hundred dollars for a modest, twelve-by-eighteen inch print. The catch is he prints in limited runs (obviously, since all prints are done by hand), and the ones I really like are already out of print.



This one, looking up to Evolution Basin from the valley below with Evolution Creek meandering through the foreground, is my favourite.

"Evolution Valley From McClure Meadow" (12.5" x 19")

climbing.

C L I M B I N G .

Eldorado Peak, North Cascades National Park, Washington

© 2013 All Rights Reserved

At this elevation snow fields

lie like afghans for the slopes,

make shawls for the avalanche lilies.

To breathe becomes the rule,

to move,

each leg a body,

to squeeze oxygen

out of the air.

Think of conjugations

to gain five minutes.

Stopping beneath this last stand of trees

the rain slips down rocks and faces,

luminous from hours of rain,

legs prickling

inside soggy wool.

Hunched into the wind,

it whips and wraps cold fingers

around the ridges, ripping the

clouds,

and bringing an indictment; there is

no hiding on this face.

~ Phyllis Munzlinger

Excerpted from The Mountaineer, January 1977

intro.

So we went to the Banff Radical Reels film fest the other night. The first film: Supervention. A Swedish ski flick shot on 4K. Music by a Brit kid J Sigsworth.

Uhh. Yeah.