Every time I begin, I wonder why the hell I like doing this.
I can’t breath. The sun is hot. My pack is heavy.
There’s dust everywhere and horse shit too.
And most of this misery comes from traveling on a trail. It sucks on a trail.
Better to travel across granite. To get there, you must leave everything behind. No trail. Just you.
Commit to your wits and begin your own path. Up, and step, and up, and rest. Heavy steps. Each one bringing you closer to the top. 10,000 feet high.
Through eons of time the glaciers warped and polished the rock. They formed smooth mountain sides dotted with megalithic boulders. The mountains are layered like thick cake batter and dolloped with granite peaks.
Continue climbing.
The dust clears and there’s no more horse caca. You can see the sky again. You’ve reached the boundaries of the Tree Line.
Enchanted colors painted with the most deep hues thrive in this land. Tiny magenta-violet and orange-pink wildflowers bow with every gust of wind. Turquoise dragonflies and white butterflies with orange faces flutter like magic fairies.
Look around you.
Laser-straight veins of pink quarts, giant rocks teetering on their edges, and crystal clear tarns nestled between cliffs host mountain trout.
All of it unspoiled. All of it right.
