the northern San Juans

I slept by the lake behind this one Monday night.

the trail goes right up to this summit.

looking back on the work of Tuesday morning. If you walk all day, it's amazing the span of a landscape you can cover.

i passed through this beautiful basin regretfully. I wish I had camped there, but I was hoping to finally hit my goal of a twenty mile day in these mountains. Didn't work! I camped in a chilly, windy forested pass at 19 miles.

lonely forests... Half of the trees are dead all over the continental West because of the predations of the pine beetle. There seems to be no good solution. 

the view from a high crag. I took an adventurous detour, up over three peaks of the crest, in order to avoid a sketchy snow traverse called "the knife edge." It was such a rewarding modification. I had to be careful, but it felt good to use my hands to climb and brain to find the right way.

my route over ridges of the morning. I really, really needed more sugar... Candy bars, things like that!

in fact, my blood sugar was too low, and I slipped off the trail right here. I fell about four feet, and took this picture while I nursed bruises and scrapes on my knee, ankle and chest.

i gave myself a couple hours off and camped early. I had the sun coming into my tent until the last moment. A few other folks came and camped by this late, too. Only a 17 mile day.

I'm always moving by six... Looking forward to reaching the sun somewhere above me.

by nine, I'm in a high country of lakes and snowfields.

these lakes really were that impossible blue colour!

the trail comes down to a valley near 10k feet...I hadn't breathed such lush, oxygen-filled air since town. My destination is the distant summit.

i walked on and off with Shotgun and Critter (in front) today. Strong, interesting hikers, we had some great conversations.

here is "the Window"...I was inspired by it and recorded an overwrought voice note..I liked the way the walls gave the idea that the ephemeral cloud contained between them could be "captured," and therefore understood. But all such frames are illusion. We have no chance of understanding what we are within the frame of the mind.

Critter finds the perfect view into the wild San Juans. Here we talked about the correspondence between the Tarot and the Kabbalah, such that the trump cards represent transitions between the states of consciousness represented by the ten sephiroth. The symbology of "the hermit" guards the path between balanced, benevolent kingship and the sphere of Jupiter, of wisdom and generosity combined, for example.

we'd reached the scenic climax of the range, with blackened sentinels guarding the southwestern borders...and a treasure chest of lakes cradled here in the heart of hearts.

ahead, Diva walks quickly, scouting an ideal campsite for his "tramily" (trail family) coming along later.

Diva descends into a basin.

Critter and Shotgun, practically creatures of the mountains by now.

gulping down scenery and becoming rich with it.

tents under Mount Nemo Friday morning...

the trail finally leads down, down and down to a rugged road to Silverton.

this trail log at the Hunchback Pass parking lot shows how we know where each one of us is. I know most of those folks.

hitching a ride with a dog named Kista.