I always feel better about earthly problems when I go to a wilderness, someplace that’s nearly like it was before we all arrived, where granite rises from long ago and hardy species rise above the crowd. North Cascades National Park, joining the Canada Border in north Washington is such a place, and yesterday I rose among its peaks.
The trail climbed, as many
do, from habitable forests to delight
and invigoration above where people normally go.
These bent trees give their youths away. Their home on a hillside fraught with deep winter snows is what made them strong. As children, spring snows slid down their hill and bent their tender stems. But come summer, undeterred by nature’s perversity, they straightened up and stood a little stronger, a little more prepared for next winter. Their early years are bent and cannot be straightened, but the struggle made them strong. Their adult tops, strong and vertical testify to perseverance.
Ann Lake looks like a famous crater with an island in it, but its history is much different. This little hard-rock island is no volcano in a volcanic collapse, as the other is, but a strong granite outcrop that glaciers could not grind away. It’s in a cirque where a mass of hard water melted. Here it is from high above and by its shore.
And here’s the island Ann Lake contains, seen from different foregrounds. There’s always foreground in what we see, even if the distant view is what we want.
Misty breezes cover the peaks on this drizzly, overcast day. My footing becomes slick and dangerous in places, but I take the mountain at its own pace, in whatever garb it wishes to present itself. It helps me in taking people that way.
Michael Angerman has prepared a map showing all of my nightly
sleeping places, as he has done for my trips many times before. From this you can trace my route. He updates it almost daily Thank you,
Michael. Please click here: Michael's Map
You can click on any picture to make it bigger, then press escape to return.
You can click on any picture to make it bigger, then press escape to return.
This is blog, not Facebook, but how many times I wanted to click your photos! I love beautiful mountain and forest scenes, and red berries. Thank you and please send my appreciation to Michael Angerman for the map. It's easy to see the route you are taking.
ReplyDeleteI meant, click the like button under your photos.
ReplyDeleteKeiko, Please click on any picture to enlarge it, then press escape to return. I will give your appreciation to Michael.
ReplyDeleteJust WOW Sharon. This is my favorite kind of country. Thank you for capturing it so aesthetically. The lake shot is phenomenal!
ReplyDeleteLois, I also like the high, recently glaciered cirques where you can almost hear the ice sculptor at work, removing the excess. Ann Lake is where an artist breathed his last, died you might say, leaving us his art to ponder.
ReplyDelete