The mountains are out
It’s a clear day again today, clear and cold. The wind isn’t packing the power that it had yesterday, but it’s just as icy. It was blowing more yesterday morning, and the juxtaposition of the freezing temps on one side and the azure skies and eye-numbing sunlight on the other was unsettling. It looks like summer but if you close your eyes, you’d swear it was Christmas.
But the mountains are out. I do like that expression: “The mountains are out.” They seem close enough to touch and too beautiful to be real. Rainier, to the southeast, has swirls of clouds around it, but not nearly enough to hide her bulk. The Black Hills huddle to the southwest, flecks of snow still marking the clearcuts. To the west lie the Olympics, and I can almost trace every gully, every chute and valley, on every peak. From Ellinor to the Brothers, like a diorama, those scale-model layouts they love so much in natural history museums and 4th grade Social Studies projects.
I really wish I were there. Even though I am not, however, I am grateful just to see them, and to see them in such detail. Most places, they don’t have this.
About Ken Campbell
New Release
A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
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