vagabond for beauty.

In between shooting on location and working back at the hotel editing along with plane trips, I started and finished a book that will take me some time to fully grasp. It was perhaps the singularly most powerful prose I have ever read, and the fact it was actually just a collection of letters never intended to be read by anyone other than their recipient I believe perhaps led to their honesty. The author felt no inhibitions. No need to impress. But impress he did, no doubt not only me in such a way but surely countless others. He – like Abbey – writes of the desert in all its beauty and immenseness. I try feebly without intention to write of the mountains in theirs.

Everett Ruess was merely sixteen years old when he first left his home in Los Angeles in the summer of 1930, bound for the northern California coast. After a life lived all too shortly but incredibly deeply, he disappeared in 1934 – last seen in the Escalante River region of southern Utah. No trace was ever found, and the question remains wherever he may be?

It has been said his reactions to the wonders of Nature went beyond what we would assume to be normal experience, to the point where he could almost resonate to the light waves that struck him from all points in the landscape. We do not fully understand him. Probably the most intriguing paradox in Ruess' personality was the balance between the inwardly-directed, intensely-sensitive visionary and the outgoing, courageous adventurer. His self-confidence was massive, but his doubts all the same ever-present. What he was after was beauty – so much that it seemed to consume his very being.

I've ended up underlining the majority of the book, scrawling notes in the margins next to those lines that I found particularly incredible or fitting. I will be revisiting this book as I decompress what I read, but wanted to post this one letter that struck me in its entirety perhaps stronger than any other ~

Dear Bill,

Once more I am roaring drunk with the lust of life and adventure and unbearable beauty. Adventure seems to beset me on all quarters without my even searching for it; I lead the wild, free life wherever I am. And yet, there is always an undercurrent of restlessness and wild longing; "the wind is in my hair, there's a fire in my heels," and I shall always be a rover, I know. Always I'll be able to scorn the worlds I've known like half-burnt candles when the sun is rising, and sally forth to others now unknown. I'm game; I've passed my own rigorous tests, and I know I can take it. And I'm lucky too, or have been. Time and again, my life or all my possessions have swung on the far side of the balance, and always thus far I've come out on top and unharmed, even toughened by the chances I've taken.

"Live blindly upon the hour; the Lord, who was the future, died long ago." Among others, I've tried that way, and found it good, too. Finality does not appall me, and I seem always to enjoy things the more intensely because of the certainty that they will not last. Oh, it's a wild, gay time! Life can be rich to overflowing. I've been so happy that I can't think of containing myself. I've no complaints to make, and time and the world are my own, to do with as I please. And I've had it up and down; no tedious, humdrum middle course has been mine, but a riotously  plunging and soaring existence.

Again I say, it's a wild gay time. I've slept under hundreds of roofs, and shall know others yet. I've carved a way for myself, turned hostile strangers into staunch friends, swaggered and sung through surplus of delight where nothing and no one cared whether I lived or died.

The things I've loved and given up without complaint have returned to me doubled. There's no one in the world I envy.

Around me stretches the illimitable desert, and far off and nearby are the outposts of suffering, struggling, greedy, grumbling humanity. But I don't choose to join on that footing. I'm sorry for it and I help it when I can, but I'll not shoulder its woes. To live is to be happy; to be carefree, to be overwhelmed by the glory of it all. Not to be happy is a living death.

Alone I shoulder the sky and hurl my defiance and shout the song of the conqueror to the four winds, earth, sea, sun, moon and stars. I live!

May

Northeast Arizona

He was twenty years old.  Seven months later he disappeared forever. His message he left behind was simple: life on this earth is very precious and very beautiful.

We must learn to heed the pure and delicate voices of those who cherish it. Without intention, Everett Ruess was one of those voices.

waikoloa.

My last night tonight.

After finishing up work around 10 o'clock tonight, finally I was able to change and head down to the infinity pool now completely deserted and still. Before jumping in, I quick walked around and took some snapshots to help remember this place. Then tossed my goggles in the water and dove in after them.

I'll miss swimming at night under clear skies warm and humid. Palm trees overhead swaying in the winds, the frawns making a calm sound that would help me fall asleep. Lying on my back floating like a scene near the end of Immortal Beloved some music or other in my head. I'll miss the wind. I think now I'll miss the warmth but I'm not totally convinced. I'll miss the sound of the palm trees outside my door, open all night despite the humidity. I'll miss jumping off cliffs into a crystal clear, deep blue Pacific Ocean warm and inviting. There are songs tied forever to these moments.

But I also miss fall and crisp mornings stepping and crunching on leaves and a lot of other things, so I know it will be good to fly back across the Pacific tomorrow. But maybe surprisingly I'll miss something about this place. Maybe because I don't plan on ever coming back. Trying to soak up every last minute before fading to sleep. It's quiet now outside, no wind. Very, very quiet.

orion.

At long last, floating in the pool tonight way too late I looked east and saw – having just risen above the hotel – my favourite constellation. It made me smile, under palm trees shaking in the trade winds whipping across the pavilions so comfortable taking turns swimming laps and dipping in hot tubs no one else around.

déjà vu.

I've taken to falling asleep to this song now, far away from home (I think it's called what it is because he uses samples from previous songs on previous albums). What's neat is when I turn it off right before I'm about to fall asleep, I leave my door open all night so I can hear the trade winds blowing through the palm trees outside my room that actually is a really cool ambience if only I could fall asleep without music ....

ps – the link to the video is really, really cheesy – so if you're actually inclined to click it, maybe just hide the browser and listen to the music.

seven lives many faces.

I just got home with Enigma's new studio release in hand and – per the norm – blazed through x songs before coming to what is the seventh track and called La Puerta Del Cielo (I believe loosely translated in Spanish means 'at the gate of heaven') which is now on repeat quite loudly and will be for the remainder of the night, and will most likely accompany me on most of my journey across the Pacific.

And in an instant ... peace. When I listen to it, I imagine myself a lens focused at infinity on Polaris (Ursae Minoris) 430 light years away while everything else in the universe spins around me.

goodbye milky way.

Probably my favourite song of his, listening to this reminds me of this post about how young and foolish we as a human species really are. Here, it sounds like Michael Cretu (whose studio project is called Enigma) is saying – albeit in a much more somber way – what Sagan often writes about ~

Shall I go shall I stay?
A hundred-seven light years away
Many times so many doubts but no reason to talk about
Mission is over mission is done
I will miss you children of the sun
But it's time to go away ... goodbye Milky Way
For a better world without hate
Follow your heart believe in Fate
Only visions and the mind will guide you to the light
Mission is over mission is done
I will miss you children of the sun
But it's time to go away ... goodbye Milky Way
Mission is over mission is done
I will miss you children of the sun
I go home until someday I say goodbye ...

Goodbye Milky Way
[In five billion years the Andromeda galaxy will collide with our Milky Way and a new, gigantic Cosmic world will be born]

It seems like when he says 'only visions of the mind will guide you to the light' – he is saying exactly what Sagan says. And Sagan's peaceful, optimistic approach to our perhaps doomed civilization is brought out with Cretu's 'for a better world without hate, follow your heart believe in Fate.' We need to look beyond our petty wants and selfishness to view how amazing everything around us really is and – in an even more holistic view – how insignificant but at the same time how absolutely incredible carbon-based life, this planet, the cosmos – really are.

And in saying 'doomed,' I suppose I mean only in the sense of what the song mentions at the end – how eventually and inevitably the sun will explode and the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies will collide. But maybe, just maybe – as Sagan thinks and I like to believe – by that time we'll have long since learned how to overcome our shortsightedness and gained unfound wisdom which would then allow us to move on to other galaxies and to other suns and to other planets even more spectacular and incredible than the one upon which we find ourselves here at this moment.

the wild cascades.

I love the smell of old books. And the feel of them, wrinkled and torn and soft around the edges. I can't remember now how I came across this book – The Wild Cascades Forgotten Parkland – but did somehow so in an instant ordered it from a bookseller in town and just found it stuffed in my mailbox today. It was published by the Sierra Club back in 1965, written by an eccentric character named Harvey Manning (who wrote countless guidebooks for the Cascades) who is a Cascades explorer, writer and editor and has – as the Sierra Club's David Brower writes in the acknowledgments – "the Cascade River flowing through the arteries on his right side and the Stehekin on his left." The purpose was to convince a public that the North Cascades needed saving. Saving from the bulldozers and the logging trucks. As justice William O. Douglas writes from Goose Prairie, Washington in the Foreword ~

If we do not preserve the remaining samples of primitive America, we will sacrifice traditional American values, the values of frontier America. Not every citizen goes to the wilderness – and they did not even 300 years ago. But so long as there is the presence of wilderness and the option of going to see it, a certain number of citizens do go there and bring back a message for their fellows. As long as that continues we will retain a historic connection with the past of our nation – and our race.

Upon first inspection, it is a beautiful book. I've now been introduced to the simple photography of the late Philip Hyde, who apparently studied alongside Ansel Adams. His black and white photographs from the Cascade Pass region (coincidentally, where I'm headed back again on Saturday) are simply spectacular, and in an instant convinced me to lug a Hasselblad and a couple of lenses up to the pass because that area is as rugged and as beautiful as one can hardly imagine.

I have, upon first setting foot on rock and ice here, felt a certain connection with the North Cascades. They are like no other mountain range on earth, and certainly unlike any range I have visited. They have been called a masterpiece. They have a quality – a ruggedness, pristineness, softness and stillness – about them that I just cannot do justice. Photographs cannot do justice. But a walk through the damp cedar and fir forests clinging to the western slopes, a climb high above the valleys and the clouds crampons crunching on solid glacial ice, a moment standing still in the crisp air of views unimaginable – those can. It is a new adventure – a new experience – every time I find myself there. They are a home to me, a place I can go to find an almost unbearable amount of reflection.

I've hiked through the ranges of the Sierras and the Rockies and the Winds, but none of them call me back the same way as these jagged, impressive peaks with their inspiring glaciers and massive struts of elevation from valley floors lined with fir and fog. Each time I return, I'm only more inspired to go back.

Throughout the book, the poetry of Theodore Roethke weaves in and out of the the pages of Manning's eloquent prose. Interspersed and molding with the spectacular photography of Philip Hyde (as mentioned), David Simons, Bob and Ira Spring, Ansel Adams and others. The images of the Chilliwack Range; of Glacier and Dome and Forbidden Peaks; of the South Cascade Glacier; of Image Lake, floating ice in Doubtful Lake, a lake in the White Chuck Basin; of Bridge Creek and the head of Flat Creek – all of these stir memories of my own images, my own travels up the spines of mountain ridges, glaciers clinging far below. Of finding my way through fogs and whiteouts and blizzards and raging storms. Of standing on summits surrounded by seas of peaks.

Under a photograph by Bob and Ira Spring of Forbidden Peak at sunset (a view I've soaked up on my climbs up Eldorado Peak, looking across the Inspiration Glacier to the north face and the Forbidden Glacier that tumbles in a beautiful mess to the deep turquoise waters of Moraine Lake far, far below) Roethke writes without assumption most fittingly (and most excerpts are labeled as just that – untitled extractions of a larger work) ~

And I acknowledge my foolishness with God,

My desire for the peaks, the black ravines, the rolling mists

Changing with every twist of wind,

The unsinging fields where no lungs breathe,

Where light is stone.

Clearly, the book's efforts paid off and the North Cascades National Park (created by Congress in 1968, three years after publication) was established and protects these wild lands and incredible wilderness for me and all others beckoned and inspired to explore. I'm grateful for the foresight of those that put this together, this incredible collection of poetry, prose and photography – all of a place that is and will always be to me home.

theory.

"What's most personal is universal."

~ Carl Rogers

wishlist.

My new wish list ~

1. M-Audio Keystation 88es – 88-key, semi-weighted, velocity-sensitive USB MIDI controller (powered over USB, even); for controlling the effects through Apple Logic Express (see below) – I'd also have to get a sustain pedal, which runs about twenty bucks

2. M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 desktop reference monitors; for iTunes and monitoring recording, along with my Sennheiser HD280 (64-ohm) monitor headphones I already own (via the 1/4" headphone input on the back – not the 1/8" input on the front)

3. M-Audio Nova large-capsule cardiod condenser microphone, or – if I get lucky – maybe the matched pair of the Pulsar II condensers; for recording the Bechstein – I'll need two to record in stereo

4. M-Audio Fast Track Pro 4x4 USB interface w/ balanced/unbalanced analog I/O, S/PDIF/coax MIDI I/O, 1/4" monitor headphone out and phantom power for the condenser mics; for recording from the mic- and line-level (i.e. guitar) sources, this has two inputs for stereo

5. Apple Logic Express (7.2 – cos 8.0 won't work with my dual 1.0-GHz PowerPC G4 processors, but 7.x will); for recording, effects and mixing from the MIDI controller and mic inputs (the Bechstein, possibly a guitar, even more remotely possibly vocals) – this will supply all the effects for the 88es controller like synth, guitar effects, reverb, etc.

Surprisingly, none of this stuff is very expensive – which is what turned me on to M-audio. It looks like their stuff is pretty high quality without a ton of bells and whistles. And Logic Express is the stripped-down version of Logic Studio, but seems like it has everything I would need to record and mix from all these different sources.

I'll keep researching a little bit more, but so far this stuff is pretty cool. It's bringing me back to my days working in recording studios in LA and Seattle – something I absolutely loved, I just couldn't afford to keep doing and was, with a bit of remorse, forced to get a 'real' job. Sigh.

final exploration of space.

I was overwhelmed with this song that was in my head that I started writing a few months ago. I knew all of the chords (the key of D-flat major) and the idea of it but never all of the lyrics.

I imagine leaving the lyrics speak for themselves metaphors and all but will quickly say I think there is a quality and sereneness to being alone, and not to be so cynical as to say or think indefinitely but at least for a moment where I think humbly that is an important component to defining if at least to ourselves who we are and just why we are here all the while a pair of spacecraft are hurtling through interstellar space soon too distant for even the lightspeed of radio waves programmed to find a hint of life without promises or guarantees and in all likelihood destined to wander forever alone through a vast empty space but always, always with the intent of finding something ... someone.

I have traveled four billion miles to find I'm alone
I sit silent and stare through time
and darkness only I can know
through all these miles I've tried to find a way to say
I have seen a glimpse through time
drawn to know the strains
as light reflects and bends the line
I'm crushed against the grain
through all these miles I've tried to radio back home
from where I am I find the strength to finally say I'm alone

It is just piano and a synth (actually, an orchestra but performed live would be multiple samplers and a tone generator accompanying the piano) that I cannot really describe, but with a deep low-end that subsists the piano in all its elegance simple someone or something on a path of discovery the final sampled chords immense and crushing sustained for many, many bars the piano long having faded out until a final mute of them all.

under the weight of ice.

8 october 2008. Up at four AM with the alarm. Still dark. Should be asleep, but I have to try for a lottery permit and need to be in Leavenworth by quarter 'til eight this morning. Dozed a little then up. Out the door exactly on time at five. Still dark. Should be asleep. The neighborhood is still dark and quiet as I crept out with Oliver on our way. Past the twenty-four-hour coffee joint by my house. I'd stop in Cle Elum when I knew I'd make it in time. It was just under two-and-a-half hours to Leavenworth. Been there many times, this wonderful (although a bit kitsch) alpine town nestled in the eastern Cascades – my favourite place on earth. I was surprised at how much traffic there is gathered on the highways at five o'clock in the morning when by all rights I should still be curled up in bed under my down comforter asleep, my furnace about ready to kick on after a good night's rest. An hour to Snoqualmie. Half an hour to Cle Elum (and espresso). Another hour – about fifty minutes, actually – to Leavenworth. It was pouring rain in the dark at the Summit, but started to get light as I headed up Blewitt Pass and I could tell it was going to be a glorious day (as forecasted by NOAA). I marveled at the fruit farms (mostly apple, I think) on the way into Leavenworth. Was in time to stop at McDonald's across from the ranger station for some OJ and carbs before parking outside waiting for the appointed time. At a quarter before eight, a ranger (I actually recognized her as the same ranger from three years ago) opened the door and greeted me. 'You here for an Enchantments permit?' she asked under clear blue skies surrounded by mountains fresh with new snow the night before. 'Why yes,' I replied. Surprisingly – maybe not – I was the only one there. After an internal debate between going up via Colchuck Lake and Aasgard Pass or Snow Lakes, I opted for the latter because I never had gone that way but mostly because I had never really explored the lower basin towards Excaliber Rock or Lake Viviane and I surmised it would almost be as long going over Aasgard. So permit in hand for just a single night, which is all I could swing this time with my crazy schedule, I was at the Snow Lakes trailhead in no time. I changed out of cotton and grabbed for my pack half-full of Hasselblad gear, the other half a solo tent I was borrowing and only the bare essentials. It was at that point I realized something was missing. My tripod. Oh crap. I had a trekking pole but I wasn't immediately certain how that was going to work with a Hasselblad. I used to keep an old, beat-up spare tripod in my trunk for this very such occasion, but after a quick search I remembered I had sold it earlier in the summer at my attempt of a garage sale. Meaning that spare tripod was one of maybe twenty things I sold. I could have left the eleven pounds of assorted equipment behind but thought to bring it anyways. I'd improvise. Or so I told myself. So, shouldering my pack which didn't seem at all bad (probably just shy of thirty pounds with the camera gear), I was off up the canyon where Snow Creek tumbled from the outlet of Lake Viviane over a vertical mile above and ten miles to the south. It was chilly in the canyon, the sun hitting the west side leaving the trail on the east and me deep in shadow. I stopped after an hour to stretch and check my progress. I was moving quickly, having gained two thousand vertical feet and by my estimate about three of the six-and-a-half miles to Upper Snow Lake. Another hour and a half later found me stopping again, just past Upper Snow Lake after having passed Nada Lake now a mile behind me and a thousand feet below. At this point, in two-and-a-half hours I had gained forty-five hundred feet and by my guess about seven miles. From that point on, it was up over granite bedrock slick with ice from frozen water that had been trickling down before freezing the night before. Sitting on a rock in the sun just under Lake Viviane, I thought to myself how I should not take for granted the fact I could hike up six thousand feet over ten miles in under four hours. That someday, sadly, this won't be the case. It was this thought that changed my mind from not wanting to spoil this place by visiting it too often to making a solo pilgrimage here every year from now on until my legs can no longer carry me the distance. But that thought passing to the crash of water as Snow Creek cascaded down to Snow Lake and I moved on. Up the last bit to find myself face-to-face with Lake Viviane's deep blue waters, surrounded by golden alpine larch and rising starkly above – the jagged mass of granite that was The Temple and Prusik Peak, and across the lake from where I stood the swordlike bit of rock jutting into the lake's tranquil waters known as Excaliber Rock. I stopped to take it in, catching my breath at the same time the sunlight just coming over clouds to the east to light up the scene awash with mid-day sun brilliant and effervescent. I moved on, up the polished granite towards the next lake and a place to drop my pack and set up a small camp. This next lake was Leprechaun Lake. Walking a little ways around the lake I spotted a perfect site tucked amongst golden larches and subalpine fir off the trail a bit. It was half an hour past noon, four hours after bidding Oliver farewell and heading over Icicle Creek into Snow Creek canyon. After quickly setting up the solo tent I was borrowing, I crawled in for a quick nap, then a quicker lunch before not being able to contain my excitement any further. I stuffed my camera gear and a Clif Bar into my pack, shouldered it and off I went into the basins of this most incredible of places known simply as The Enchantments. The history and folklore of this place are as intriguing as the peaks and tarns and lakes and larches that make up this little corner of the Cascades considered part of the Lost World Plateau. It is credited to having been discovered by a topographer named A. H. Sylvester who in 1904 was exploring the area for the Forest Service and wrote after one such occassion ~

"I found five or six most beautiful small lakes grouped in a wonderful glacial valley all ringed with alpine larch. From the highest lake over an entrancing fall tumbled the water it received from a small glacier. It was an entrancing scene. I named the group 'Enchantment Lakes.'"

The glacier he was talking about was the Snow Creek Glacier, and at the time covered much of the basin. In the 1940s, climbers discovered the area and following that a couple from Leavenworth – Bill and Peg Stark – took it upon themselves, drawing from various mythologies, to naming most of the lakes and features. When they made their first visit in the fall of 1959, they were captivated by the golden splendor of the larch, the numerous lakes and tarns and jagged granite peaks towering above. It is by no coincidence not only they – but likely all that have followed to partake in this place (including me) – have been taken so aback and have had thoughts of fairy tales and of fantasies and folklore and mythologies and splendor impossible to describe and that are too good to be true. The couple used fairy names – Gnome Tarn, Troll Sink, Naiad Lake, Pixie Pond, Magic Meadow – and King Arthur legends in the lower basin because "the lower basin was not as austere as the upper basin." They used Norse names and mythology for features of the upper basin – Brynhild Lake, Lake Freya, Valhalla Cirque, Aasgard Pass, Dragontail Peak – because it felt "as if the Ice Age had just gone off." One description I read years ago that described the upper basin more perfectly than any other was simple – still forming. The sun was brilliant. The trail constantly disappeared over solid, polished bedrock and granite boulders dotted with cairns leading the way. There seemed to be a photo at every turn. Certainly a gasp. The Enchantments is a glacial-carved basin that rests between seven and eight thousand feet which can be further divided into three distinct basins tied together with one distinct, overpowering theme. Water. It was this observation that struck me the most profound of all and not sure how I missed it so the last time I was here three years ago? I think because I did not spend much time in the lower basin having come up and over Aasgard Pass – a powerful statement to the idea that the upper basin is still forming. Stout, golden larch dot the ascent up the pass while the impressive, sheer and jagged granite northeast face of Dragontail on one side and the Black Dwarves on the other protect its stony entrance into the upper basin like the dark towers of a medieval fortress. I always think of the climb as passing through "the stony gates of Aasgard" into another world entirely. But it is a desolate and barren landscape above treeline where the ice does not thaw. Ever. And in stark contrast to the lower basin, where streams crash and the sound of rushing water is everywhere. There is the constant sound of it. Under ice. Over ice. Over granite. Between granite. In all its forms. Ice. Snow. Seemingly innumerable lakes and tarns. I found that here the granite does not break the ice. The ice breaks the granite, splintering it into millions of shards that lay tumbled and tossed in every corner of every meadow. The power of water is so obvious it is impossible to ignore. I could not fathom, only appreciate. I could not pretend to understand the force it held captivating me as nothing ever has. I was at a loss for words. So the lower basin with all its lakes and its golden larches upon larches water wearing and crashing in between all of them finally over the edge in a crashing thunder down to Upper Snow Lake. I wandered up the trail, past small tarns, then Rune Lake and Talisman Lake (those were the Stark's names – the Forest Service has since renamed them Perfection and Inspiration, respectively) up towards the middle basin. Distinctly different than the lower and upper basins, this middle one flattens out and opens up, guarded on the south by the picturesque statue of Little Annapurna and on the north by the more rugged Enchantment Peak. Larch still abound but not nearly in the same density as lower down among the cascades of water. The lakes and meandering streams here are more gentle and looking west to a jumbled mess of granite boulders rising high above this basin beckons the weary explorer onward into the realm of the uppermost basin still forming under the weight of ice. The jagged skyline that is Witches Tower and Dragontail Peak rise sharply above the near-still waters of Lake Brynhild (renamed Isolation Lake by the Forest Service). While photographing there buttoned-up so-to-speak against a cold wind that whipped over Aasgard Pass not more than a quarter mile away, I watched four intrepid hikers come from the pass and work their way into the middle basin no doubt tired and ready to find a place to camp and rest. Here in the upper basin – above treeline – there are no larch. It is too inhospitable – only ice and granite survive here in an epic battle. As one makes their way upward they notice the larch becoming fewer and fewer until after being stunted and crippled they finally disappear completely. I spent a good while in the upper basin at nearly eight thousand feet before realizing I was out of time and needed to head back. The light faded gripping me with a slight panic as I knew my headlamp was tucked safely away in my tent back at camp and I would be hard-pressed to find my way back in the dark despite a nearly half-full moon. But soon after the sun fell beneath the clouds to the west, just above the granite horizons of Dragontail to light up Prusik Peak. I was obliged to photograph and in time knew I'd safely make it back to camp. I am now hunkered down inside my down bag listening to Brett Anderson writing this by headlamp because – although seemingly field-serviceable – without a small wrench it seems my Primus lantern is incapable of lighting. Bother. I would give anything now for its warm glow and warmth as the temperatures plummet outside. I wanted to photograph this tent beneath larches and Prusik Peak but it seems it wasn't meant to be. For some reason I'm tired despite it only being eight o'clock. Maybe it's P Marius. Maybe it's the fact I was up at four o'clock this morning after forcing myself to try to sleep at midnight the night before. Maybe it was the sixteen miles and 7,053' (according to my altimeter) of elevation gain I did today. I think I'll go to sleep or try listening to all the water around me cutting through time and granite seemingly impervious to all other forces but that of water. I will be hoping for a beautiful morning but won't be surprised to find a dusting of snow. Though warm wrapped in down I can tell it's bitingly cold. The moonlight is shining in my tent so no stars tonight. It is something else being surrounded by all this beauty alone but not lonely in it all. Something not entirely of this world. I am fortunate to have been allowed to sneak in and back out. I leave humbled and austere. After having spent the summer and fall wandering amongst the granite of the Sierras and the Winds, I tell myself now quietly – whispering – this is the most incredible place of all. I am overwhelmed by the power of the water. Too much to explain, so instead I'll try to sleep. I am at a loss.



9 october 2008. I woke up at seven with the first light. The tiny window of my tent was etched with frost and ice but after closer inspection the sky was clear and a pale blue. I stayed huddled in my bag to have some breakfast and wait for light and shadows to make their way to Leprechaun, fresh from the night with a thin layer of ice rimming the shore. In time, they did. And what a beautiful morning that was created! Invigorated despite the frigid cold, I quickly again gathered my cameras and headed back out into the lower basin to photograph some of the angles I couldn't the day before given the position of the sun yesterday afternoon. Again I was overwhelmed with all of the water. I stood on the precipice as the granite fell away beneath me to the Magic Meadow, water crashing all around and Prusik Peak rising above bathed in the pale early morning light and Moby's My Weakness in my head and emotions I cannot describe how I wanted to stay in the moment forever standing there awash in sunlight and freezing floating over granite and peaks and ice and waters from a million years ago crushed beneath it all. This place – this land of The Enchantments – is made of fantasies and I am lucky to be able to glimpse into it and witness all its beauty. I am forever at a loss.

Trip stats: 26 miles / 7,000+ feet elevation gain / 28 hours (a record – nearly twice as much mileage than when I climbed Rainier overnight, slightly less elevation)

twenty years.

The new song I've taken to listening to over + over + over ~

There are twenty years to go
A golden age I know, but all will pass, will end too fast you know

There are twenty years to go, the best of all I hope

There is also a very cool live version here.

solitude.

Two weekends ago, Julian and I started a major fall cleaning and I tasked myself with scouring the living room for anything to get rid of. Since I don't own much, all there was to scour was through my boxes of books that still don't have a proper bookshelf in which to be stored. Someday. But I pulled out a National Geographic from April of 1989 that featured an article by photographer Galen Rowell about the John Muir trail, which I just got around to reading last night sitting on couch with Julian next to me looking at a picture puzzle book his aunt Kathy had given him last year while she was out visiting.

The article about the JMT was good, and Rowell quoted Muir in saying ~

".... only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness."

Ernie DeGraff, an assistant recreation officer for Inyo National Forest, was quoted ~

"Solitude," letting the word hang for a moment, "is a legal requirement for designated wilderness. Congress directs us to provide 'outstanding opportunities for solitude.'"

This was surely the direction of the Wenatchee National Forest, governed by the Department of Agriculture (as opposed to national parks, which fall under the Department of the Interior), in its instigation of a quota system for a small corner of the North Cascades known as The Enchantments. So few groups are let in at the same time during the peak months that rarely does one run into another soul while up there exploring amongst the glacial lakes and granite peaks.

I write this now because I am going to make the gamble and head up there tomorrow under half inclement weather and what appears to be a hole in it right around Leavenworth (the town just outside The Enchantments). I'm betting it'll be at least a little sunny, and I'll be able to sneak in under it and maybe capture some photographs of the larches before winter closes down on the mountains here in the next couple of weeks and the larch lose their needles.

I am going alone for the very essence of what Muir talks about, remembering my last trip there alone under perfect skies that unleashed a fury during the night. Dramatic as always, the mountains. I'm hoping for nothing less.

infancy.

I obliged myself to not turn this blog into a political rant, but I must confess I have been up in arms about the bailout of the financial markets of late – keeping a close eye on the minute-by-minute updates, relieved when the House morally voted it down on Monday, enraged when the Senate passed it on Wednesday (one of my senators voted no, but I presume only because the Democrats already had the numbers, allowing her to vote her conscious) and then resigned when the House of course passed it this morning, followed quickly with W. signing it into law. I must confess I have never directly contacted my senators and representative in Congress until now, but over the past week I've placed multiple calls and have sent numerous emails, taking note of the roll call for each vote.

I am convinced from all that I have read that this will do little to stop the credit crisis, and that only time (in all of its infinite wisdom) will revive the markets once the housing market has finally settled. That this legislation will only reward those very same companies guilty of vindictive and predatory lending practices, while doing nothing to help the millions and millions of foreclosures and failing housing market that are at the root of the crisis.

I realize it is a complex topic, and in keeping with my oath to avoid political posts, I instead am brought back to thinking of Carl Sagan's eloquence and his idea that permeates much of his writings, where he says of those of us that have succeeded and colonized other worlds and are left gazing back to Earth ~ 

They will marvel at how vulnerable the repository of all our potential once was, how perilous our infancy, how humble our beginnings, how many rivers we had to cross before we found our way.

This notion that we – the human race – are young, foolish, naîve. That we have much to learn, and his hopes we would do so before wiping ourselves out. I am not wholly convinced we will, but hopeful.

Hopeful that somehow, someway, someday .... we will indeed find our way.