“Imperfect Men”
“It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!” – John Muir
intersection
My kind of traffic jam…Baker’s Pass, as viewed from the trail (bottom left) that leads to the summit of Mt Raymond. This is one of the few trail junctions that I’ve found here in the Wasatch Mountains that provides so many choices for destinations. This particular spot is approximately four miles from the nearest trail-head, so at minimum, it’s roughly midpoint for an eight-mile hike. If you head toward the upper right, the trail leads to the top of Gobblers Knob…if you follow the one toward the upper left, the trail goes down into Bowman Fork…and if you go toward the bottom right, you could either go back down into Butler Fork…a little further and down into Mill B North…or past those two selections and head west around Mt Raymond itself and then down into Porter Fork…and there are still further options from there.
Fall Perspectives of Mill A Basin
Our mountain images of Fall can have such stark contrasts sometimes…the below image is from October of this year, looking across Mill A Basin and out into Big Cottonwood Canyon….
…and this last image is looking across the basin from a slightly different angle…just by turning to the right a few degrees…but taken in September of last year when all of the Aspen were still covered in their golden robes…..
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did you ever…
…look at things is if you might never see them again…?
I imagine that we would see those things with a certain richness…
…one that would surpass the experience of when we first saw them.
I think it would be bittersweet, as well…
…for while we would be sad that we would never see them again, we would be joyous that we had ever beheld them at all….
second verse
We mark ourselves here as a tiny part of that something-greater, a piece of the mystery and puzzle and wonder that is life…be it an accident or a gift, we do well to cherish it….
come walk with me
on a sunday morning
feel the crisp air on your face and the warming sun on your back as we follow the trail off and into the waiting mountains
turn around and marvel at the white bark glowing in the sunrise
winter-bare aspen preparing for the cold
the rich greenery of summer’s forest floor has turned golden and brown and looks bleak without the morning’s sun
but we are here with the waking day
rejoicing at the trail beneath our feet and the burning in our legs and lungs as we press ever upward from valley floor to mountain top
come walk with me and sing our quiet sunday song
wildflowers, clouds, and mountains
This is the view facing east…up into Big Cottonwood Canyon, from Baker’s Pass, which is at the base of Gobbler’s Knob, above Mill A Flat, and positioned in front of Mount Raymond, on the east side…as one is preparing to turn to the left and head down into Bowman Fork…which leads to Millcreek Canyon…just east of Salt Lake City proper. Wildflowers and clouds are hard to resist when presented with a Wasatch Mountain backdrop…..
