Thank you Ann! Yeah, these are from the good camera...RAW files...can't process 'em until I get home. I was pretty eager to see the sunset pictures, and they turned out well. Plus the flowers...they were really impressive in real life.
Here is a picture from Thursday when we were dropped off. It was 10 in the morning, and the heat was climbing... We were eager to leave! I'm wearing the green shirt. On my right side are Ruiboos, Brock, Bass and Bad Noodle in the lower row. Bass is a chef in Portland. Ruiboos and Brock are from England, and this is their honeymoon! On the other side, Caveman is on the monument too. He's hilarious... Unfortunately, also very fast, and after today I might not see him again... He headed out tonight for Silver City. Next to him are Slim, Michael on the far left, and Brainstorm on the bottom. Slim, Brainstorm and I will head out in the morning, along with GG and Blueberry. It's amazing to see high mountains in the far distance, shimmering in the haze... And know that not only will you reach them... You'll pass even those mountains by and keep moving north. We are all dreaming about pine trees on the slopes of Burro Mountain, which we'll probably reach Tuesday...
I came down or of the Northern San Juans to Silverton. Just before dropping steeply into a deep, carved valley, I sat for a last look around on a high tundra ridge. I opened my umbrella to block the wind around my feet, which were getting cold despite the sun. Thinking I was pretty clever, I attached my camera to the umbrella to hold it down against gusts of wind. Ha! As I put my shoes on and closed up my backpack, a string gust lifted umbrella and camera high up into the air, and with a cry of alarm I watched them floating away off to the east! First pinning everything down, I started running up and over a rise to hopefully retrieve my precious gear when it came down. It was a fifteen minute journey with heart in throat, lungs pounding, but finally I reached a snowfield where the camera had wrapped around one side of a penitente (a little tower of snow sculpted by the wind) and the umbrella around the other side. Thank God! Otherwise... No more pictures! After this, I scur...
After a full rest day, we tried hitting out of Dubois. I made a poor call, thinking that if we go eat breakfast in the place where the locals hang out, we'll garner some sympathy for our qioxotic mission and one of the ranchers will give us a ride back to the trail. Didn't work. Reading the thoughts of the men and women dunking toast into coffee, I felt the big question to be "how do these adult men end up out here playing on a work day?" The answer, unfortunately seemed to be that we'd executed some financial chicanery on hard working folks. Few smiles, curt nods, silence to my thank yours and beg your pardons. These folks have work to do. Finally, we called a church group who let hikers sleep in the church, and a husband within earshot of the phone was happy to drive us out. Yes! We started on a road past the little town of Dunair to avoid the section of trail where the man was attacked. Last year a CDT hiker was charged and she used up her bear spra...
WAUW! Super nice pictures!
ReplyDeleteThank you Ann! Yeah, these are from the good camera...RAW files...can't process 'em until I get home. I was pretty eager to see the sunset pictures, and they turned out well. Plus the flowers...they were really impressive in real life.
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