Hells Half and Honaker, Spring 2018

Dave

Broadcaster, formerly "ashergrey"
.
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
1,725
Find yourself a soft patch of sand along this riverbank. Let's muse for a moment or two.

_MG_0244.jpg

We can discuss the elements, the sand and wind and sun.

_MG_4371.jpg

We're granules of sand in water. We bump and swirl in an eddy, sometimes settling into place among our peers, sometimes swept along in the maelstrom.

_MG_6105.jpg

It's a beautiful journey. So let's marvel at the illusions of light that manifest along that thin interface between a crumbling cliff edge and a sky pregnant with rain.

_MG_4970.jpg

Engage in a bit of synesthesia with me. We'll sense the warmth of sunlight on skin and reminisce over how desert air steals moisture from our pores. Does it make you thirsty?

_MG_4273.jpg

We desiccate as the icy water carries our boats downstream.

_MG_4804.jpg

Perhaps you share these impressions. Perhaps not. I fear they're too experiential. Sensation has little heft here, on the screen of your phone.

Or maybe you're sitting, sedentary, before a computer at a desk. Skeptical. Unmoved.

How can I help you feel the grit that gathers in the corner of your eye amid an upstream wind?

_MG_4489.jpg

Or hear the timpani thump of your straining heart as you run up dusty switchbacks to bid farewell to the last of the day's fading light?

_MG_5663.jpg

Or struggle for breath as the uncertainty of rolling water's chaos strips away the security of your daily life?

_MG_4288.jpg

We're so rooted by civilization. Cooled by air conditioning. Fed refined sugar. Perpetually connected.

Notifications, alerts, emails. How I long to replace them with the clacking call of crows and the question-and-answer honks of geese.

_MG_0570.jpg

Disconnect me. Reconnect me to the water, to the wind, to the sand and to the sun.

_MG_4562.jpg

I miss the friends of my youth. Why don't I ever tell them that?

_MG_0072.jpg

Now we're all grown, or so we tell ourselves.

_MG_0532.jpg

For shame, you've allowed me to ramble. Back to the point.

Let's you and I commit to make more of these short lives we live.

Let's wake from sleep, stretch our atrophied limbs and scorch under the summer sun.

_MG_0455.jpg

Let's shed our reptilian skin, quit lurking and preying upon one another.

_MG_0760.jpg

Let's allow the river's current to carry and deposit us where it will.

_MG_4685.jpg

And when the sun finally sets, we can reflect like the silver slither of moonlight on a river's riffle.

_MG_0396.jpg
 
Really nice, Dave, beautifully done. You reminded me of these lines from the famous poem, A Summer Day, by Pulitzer Prize winner, Mary Oliver:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
 
Last edited:
Very nice! Thanks for sharing! Love your words and pics - especially the comment about friends from youth and the shot of the bighorn lambs to go with it.
 
Wonderful. Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos and words.
Great wildlife. Cute babies!!
 
Similar threads
Thread starter Title Forum Replies Date
chandlerwest Hells Canyon - Jet Boat On The Water 0
NorthwestWanderer 3 days in Idaho/Oregon's Hells Canyon: Pittsburgh Landing to Willow Creek Backpacking 2
norwegianxplorer Death Hollow from Hells Backbone road 7 day loop with My Own Frontier Canyoneering 0
John Goering Tobacco Root Mountains, Rock Creek Lake-Hells Hole Hiking & Camping 2
Bob Death Hollow - From Hells Backbone Road to the BMT Backpacking 14
Tyler Escalante: Peekaboo/Spooky gulch, Calf Creek Falls, and Hells Backbone Hiking & Camping 6
balzaccom Lightning on Half Dome--what??? Hiking & Camping 4
TractorDoc Yellowstone's Wrangler Lake, Bog Creek, Joseph's Coat Springs, Broad Creek, Wapiti Lake, Hot Springs Basin, and Pelican Valley. The Second Half. Backpacking 15
P Shoshone Geyser Basin, Yellowstonne 2022, 2nd half Backpacking 4
Bob Death Hollow - Top Half a revist..... Backpacking 0
G Zion (half) traverse in April '21? Trip Planning 31
Miya Half Dome: Bobbie's Love and Miya's Dread Backpacking 20
Pianomover Trump administration Tuesday proposed allowing logging on more than half of Alaska’s 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest, the largest intact tem General Discussion 0
Brian Skibbe Yosemite half-dome hike, October 2016 Hiking & Camping 3
blueeyes Lava Trail on Hell's Half Acre, Idaho Hiking & Camping 6
Ross 11 days of canyons in Springdale to Page area (second half) Hiking & Camping 1
klank Documentary: Mile.. Mile & Half Photography 2
uintahiker Thurston Peak in half an afternoon Hiking & Camping 3
steve Mile Mile and a Half General Discussion 31
Bill Half Dome Cables General Discussion 16
IntrepidXJ Half the White Rim Trail Off Road 7

Similar threads

Back
Top