I was getting tired of the view anyway. I mean, how much mountain porn can a person take? Although today was absent the high visual drama of the last three, the lowered ceiling of clouds we walked through for much of the day created a unique atmosphere of curiosity—if the clouds lifted at any moment, what new jaw-dropping view might they reveal?
Persistence of Memory
Up the stairs to the fifth floor, a collection of Impressionism, surrealism, and cubism masterpieces adorns the starkly white walls of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Nestled among Monet’s famous Water Lilies triptych and Pollock’s massive drip painting canvases hangs a work of a very different kind, scarcely larger than a piece of paper.
Reflection
The scattered rain drops landing on my face as I slept came as somewhat of a surprise. The thought of rain was a fairly distant one in the forecast, but nonetheless there they were, falling through not only the netting of my hammock but the nearly 100 feet of cedar fronds directly above me courtesy of the two 3-foot diameter trees I was hanging between.
Just Another Volcano
Sometimes out of the darkness, sometimes out of the clouds, it appears. Dominating a skyline of steel and glass from nearly 60 miles away, the icy icon that is Mount Rainier is a fixture of Seattle summers before vanishing behind a cloud veil of mystery for the remaining 9 months of the year.
46
Sleep has never come easily to me. Years after the Appalachian Trail I’d still occasionally turn over in the middle of the night and reach bleary-eyed for the headphones on my nightstand to plug them in and listen to one of the few sounds that would bring an end to my rising anxiety if not to my sleeplessness: rain on a tent.
Roots
Nearly one year ago, I arrived at an unassuming stripe of cleared forest that would never have been identifiable as an international border had it not been for the small silver obelisk marking precisely that. A few feet away, a collection of square wooden posts also declared this the end of a Pacific Crest Trail adventure that had begun 2,650 miles and…
O Canada
It began like any other day: morning coffee from the warmth of my sleeping bag followed by deflating and rolling up my sleeping pad, and stuffing my few belongings one by one into my pack before emerging from my tent to take it down once more. The only difference was the air of finality that surrounded each of the mundane daily tasks.