July 21

Crystal arrives shortly, easily returning into this thread of my life, with laughter and understanding. I am eager to share the details of this experience, for our eyes to share the same angles and views.

This has been an experience of shifting gears. A constant transition into varying ecosystems, from the desert to ice and from granite towers to lava flows. From the close knit friendship of a tribal group to the self reliance of hermetic travels, from the bizarre otherworldliness of these mountains to the familiar comfort of Crystals presence. Continual adaptation, shapeshifting, new selves emerging and called out from each new landscape, from each new situation.
Collect water from the stream, a ribbon braided against rock. Make stair steps in the slabs of ice, a softening crust under the bleaching sun. Shift your weight, pouncing across boulder fields deposited by long ago avalanches. The suck of mud swallowing sinking shoes in meltwater floodplain meadows, collecting the winters history of cornices and shelves. Go from ice glazed rock and prehistoric fanged peaks into the sweep of flower drowned pastures in a matter of hours. Haul your food, haul your shelter, haul your bed, haul your water. Your maps, old letters, pocket knife. Haul everything from peak to peak. Watch the cumulus pile up above Banner Peak, observe how the moisture collects into shapes and columns. Go looking upstream for just the right log to balance across above the angry white froth of a flooded creek. Walk right through the water. Reconstruct old Dylan songs in your head while going across a scree slope, recollect old girlfriends while under the pine canopy. Dip your cup into a pool of fresh meltwater. Help your friends get over the passes. Find the route, look for the best lines, trudge forward, lean into the mountain, kick good steps. Get lost, get found. Dig a hole in the ground and squat above it. Observe the chaos of the forest floor. Comb your beard. Never stop moving forward. Wake up and do it again.