Hells Half and Honaker, Spring 2018

Dave

Broadcaster, formerly "ashergrey"
.
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
1,724
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
 

Rockskipper

No ETA
.
Joined
Jun 11, 2017
Messages
4,048
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:

wabenho

Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2017
Messages
133
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.
 

Miya

Because I am able.
Joined
Dec 31, 2017
Messages
1,404
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
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

Don't like ads? Become a BCP Supporting Member and kiss them all goodbye. Click here for more info.

Top