these granite walls that are my dreams.

17 september 2008. Finished up at work exactly on time time today at one o'clock. Must be a good sign for things to come. Think I tied up all loose ends. Feeling good. A friend drove me to the airport. Checking a bag on Frontier apparently is still free! Security was a breeze after no line at the baggage counter. Had to check a bag full of backpacking gear, leaving my pack free to tote the Hasselblad. Got to the gate with fifteen minutes to spare before they're starting to board. Just enough time to listen to Brett Anderson's P Marius a few times. I will see you once again he sings. 'Cello and piano. And the voice. The voice. It ends with him closing the piano lid and walking out of the studio. It's sunny and warm in Seattle and I'm hoping for sun in the Winds. I want to listen to this song under cloudless, star-filled skies deep in the mountains surrounded by endless granite peaks and boulders and alpine lakes too cold at this time of year to swim in. I'm envisioning a majestic place beyond description like few others I have seen. I'm hoping for good light. For a chance to get a photograph on film that captures the essence of the trip. It has been awhile since I've hoped for that but something feels different with a Hasselblad in my hands. An old one dented and scratched and worn and used. Like wondering what notes an old model A Bechstein from 1875 now sitting in a corner of my living room has played by what hands, I too wonder now what photographs this old Hasselblad has taken? Will I measure up? As I listen to this song The Empress by Anderson I am reminded of late summer evenings at home one small light on in the corner of my living room a window cracked open to the sounds of the late summer night maybe some incense burning and a slightly sad but comfortable feeling basking in the glow. I'm tuning out the cacophony that is the airport middle of the afternoon. Aeroplanes in and out. People scuffling this way and that and I don't pay any mind absorbed instead in the voice of Brett Anderson and thoughts of a lonely, quiet living room that brings a smile and with it warm regards for a house I call my home. Will be off soon now.

19 september 2008. Awoke around 8 o'clock in the Big Sandy campground next to the river and slow to get moving. By a little after nine we were on the trail, six miles towards Big Sandy Lake and wildnernesses I still could only imagine. We were more remote than I had ever been, sixty miles by the crow's flight from the nearest outpost of civilization. Ninety in the direction we'd be going on our way back to Denver. Now I'm in tent under a warm flame and glow of my trusty Primus lantern after having spent a few minutes trying to get a photograph of my little home perched in meadows under granite walls two thousand feet high surrounding us on three sides but seemingly every direction all while the light faded. But before getting to this point, we hiked those six miles to the lake in just under two hours. From there we could see south towards Haystack Mountain and east towards the Continental Divide and Big Sandy Mountain before perching ourselves on warm granite under sun and perfect white cumulus clouds and ate a bit of lunch. The smooth granite face of Haystack beckoned as did the perfect sky. Into that cirque could also be seen Steeple Peak, the north face of Temple Peak decorated with fresh snows, Lost Temple Spire, East Temple Peak and Shiestler Peak. The lake had a small island perched out in the middle. We finished up lunch and headed up towards the Divide via a rocky approach known as Jackass Pass as we watched thunderstorms roll in like clockwork to the south over the Temple peaks. We made it maybe an hour clambering over granite boulders the size of cars before the snow and hail began to fall in earnest. Seeking shelter under an enormous boulder, we huddled along with a young couple down from the ranch they worked up in Jackson for a dayhike up to the pass. We played cards. Chatted a bit. By the time the storm mostly blew over, their attempt was thwarted and so they retreated back to their car and we made our way north towards the Divide. Up past North Lake and Arrowhead Lake far below to a crest just short of a rise that was the Divide. As I led and came over this rise, the jagged, ice-sculpted masses of the peaks crowning what is known as the Cirque of the Towers came into view and my breath was taken away. I tossed my pack on the ground beside me and for whatever reason I don't quite know fought back tears standing there in that moment thinking here was this corner of the world that had occupied my dreams now stretched out before me in all its isolation and barrenness and beauty. Surreal. It was a harsh place, snow still falling lightly in wisps around me and a brisk wind whipping over the Divide as sun spotlighted Pingora (Shoshone for 'high, rocky and inaccessible peak') in all its incredible majesty. A granite tower. There was Warrior 1 and Warbonnet Peak to the west, sheer granite fins so impressive as to make me shudder. And farther south the crooked spire of Sundance Pinnacle. Granite as far as I could see. I was surrounded. I took the opportunity to set up my tripod and mount the Hasselblad, fluid in my fingers despite this being the first time I was using it. I fired off nearly a roll of film, my first since being in Yosemite two autumns ago. It felt good and I could hardly contain my excitement, but why hide it? Here were my dreams. Sometimes I worry there is little that makes me truly happy (mostly simple things but some – like this – spectacular), but being in places like where I now find myself does in a way I cannot describe. I read on the flight to Denver that 'we go to experience wilderness and want the mountains to remain wild.' Standing on the Continental Divide looking around me I was overwhelmed. For the moment I was sustained. I was happy. I could not imagine a more wild, incredible way to cross this notion of a continental divide, inspiring in its concept. We passed under Mitchell Peak as we formally crossed the Divide and found ourselves surrounded on three sides by two thousand foot sheer granite walls. Scoured and polished by ice ten thousand years ago. We quickly found a place to set up our small camp and lost our packs to the rocks, glad to be free of them after a long day on trails and over talus. After polishing off two rolls of film (mostly directed at the impressive Pingora while clouds and shadows dashed in and out of the frame) I rediscovered the joy of looking at a composition mediocre or not laid out on the ground glass of an old camera solid and worn in my hands. Incredible. We wandered down to Lonesome Lake under the constant shadow of Pingora, Wolf's Head, Warrior 1 and Warrior 2, taking pictures here and there. I found a rock in the sun and took off my wonderful Montbell down sweater from around my waist to use as a pillow and spread out to survey all that cast its shadow, only to quickly find myself engulfed by them as the sun fell behind the enormous walls to the west. Meandering back up through the Cirque, we made our way cross-country over to just under Pylon Peak and the Warrior peaks to try to find the waters of Hidden Lake, well hidden under the sheer towers of Warrior 1 and 2 before making our way back to camp as the day quickly closed in on itself and us. And after the shot of our tent glowing amongst granite boulders and fantastic peaks (there is nothing more welcoming than the sight of a tent awash in lantern light or the sound of my trusty MSR stove as it boils water I know will be used for warm food or drink) – I am now wrapped in down writing this. I am warm and comfortable as darkness wraps itself around us and I will soon go to sleep, excited for the sunrise and how it will light up this wall of peaks along the Divide.

20 september 2008. Awoke to alarm and sound of rain smattering off the walls of our rainfly. I glanced out to survey the scene and found skirmishes of clouds and sun. The clouds ended up winning so back into my warm down bag I retreated, sleeping in until almost ten o'clock. We got up and moving back up and over to cross the Divide around 11, this time taking the low path that circled the west, terribly rocky shore of Arrowhead Lake (this lake totally looked like an arrowhead from above). We hooked back up with the main trail from Jackass Pass far lower on the west side of the Divide. Rain turned to snow and bit into us with a terrific wind as we clambered down from the Divide and I stopped under the shelter of a huge boulder to quickly don windproof hat and gloves, but fifteen minutes later storms gave way to sun and the wind fell silent. I thought how one of the many things I love about the mountains is their brutality and at times their fickleness. How much of a different world it can be from where I would stand and where I could see far below. I shed the hat and gloves. Slick granite cold to the touch greeted us as we made our way, a challenge I enjoyed. It seemed then to be a quick descent back to Big Sandy Lake where we quickly found a perfect campsite tucked among whitebark pine and a bit off the trail. After setting up the tent, I crashed on top of my down bag for a quick nap, then lunch and we were off towards Circle and Deep Lakes and the immense alpine basin to the south from where – at our campsite – we could glimpse into and sense its awe. It was as much of an ascent as it was to the pass, though much less rocky. In forty-five minutes, we gained the crest of the basin that held Circle Lake under the enormous, mile-long polished granite face of Haystack Mountain. I gazed up at the smooth face, utterly enormous, careening to find routes to the top. As we made our way around and past Circle Lake, we began the climb up to Deep Lake over bare granite bedrock slabs beckoned onwards above treeline by East Temple Peak and the north face of Temple Peak. Over our shoulder, views were afforded us back over the Divide through Jackass Pass between Warbonnet and Mitchell Peaks and into the Cirque of the Towers. Pingora almost seemed lost in the foreshortened view but I could still make it out, calling to me impressive and wild. Solemn. As we crested the plateau of bedrock and found ourselves along the north shore of Deep Lake, we were completely surrounded on every side by three hundred and sixty degrees of enormous granite as far as we could see. Tundra and granite. It was as dramatic a landscape as I have ever witnessed. Monochromatic. Desolate and barren and beautiful in all of its immenseness. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled in the distance as we took in the scene of the Temple Peaks to the south, myself wondering what view lay beyond. I wanted to climb. We noticed the clouds rolling in quickly in every direction. In minutes, the lightning was crackling all around us – exposed high above treeline – and a driving rain and hail poured as we literally sprinted down the slick bedrock slabs, desperate to find shelter among even the squatty krumholz trees below and farther down the lodgepole forests. After a heart-pounding race down that seemed of ages, I found a grove of conifers and huddled underneath for shelter as the thunder exploded and crashed all above us. But as soon as it had been upon us it was gone and I sighed a bit of relief, the thunder fading to nothingness. It was a dramatic testament to the power of the alpine world barren tundra and solid granite but beautiful all the same. Here in the Winds in early autumn, I concluded storms are quick to release their winds and rains and snows and furies, but the sun is always just behind to cast a rainbow and shed a light on distant walls otherwise dark in shadow. Here again, I was overwhelmed. The Temple peaks were incredible and forbidding, and I would have liked to have been able to wander up the rest of the Little Sandy Trail to the unnamed lake that lies directly beneath the immense north face of Temple Peak, now plastered with fresh snow that no doubt fell as rain even just five hundred feet lower. The jagged aura of the mountains among the Wind Rivers is sheer and awe-inspiring. I wasn't able to photograph on film up underneath the Temple peaks despite carrying all of the gear up there with me, but quickly realized it was being here in the moment as clouds rushed in and lightning flashed and shadows swept across the ground and up and over granite faces too big to be captured on film. The moment was what counted, and I wanted to cry and shout for all I was worth to shatter the still silence only found in the middle of wilderness and wild mountains that this was my cathedral! No sense of anything that we humans would label as 'god' or such but a revere for places like this that cannot be explained nor assumed. Just a sense. A sense of destiny maybe and dreams where I find myself alone and lost in a wilderness of granite where the silence is deafening and rejoiceful and I wander from one lake basin to the next smiling and reading the weather and the light listening to the granite so formidable and strong but at the same time so fragile as to break over ice and the crush of water using my experiences in wild places to float among the boulders and over high passes to experience all of it and safely return. I am humbled and as strong and as weak as these granite walls that are my dreams.