Tag Archives: hiking

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Over the Hill

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“The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down. ” – George Eliot

Donna of Wind Kisses is our host for this week’s challenge. She mentions that she will be turning 60 years old this week and invites us to explore the idea of “over the hill”. Coincidentally, I turned 60 last month, so the topic turns my thoughts to the long view of life’s journey.

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” – Nelson Mandela

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There ain’t nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill
But since we’re on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride.” – James Taylor

The journey of my life has definitely been a range of summits and valleys, each with their difficulties and exquisite beauties. I’m not looking to quit any time soon, although my pace has slowed a bit. I strive for the wisdom and grace that will teach me to walk observantly, respectfully, and kindly toward unknown horizons.

Happy Birthday, Donna, and many happy returns of the day!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Wonder-filled World

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I love that Amy chose Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” for this week’s challenge theme! That was the key quote I chose as my response to the “Happiness Is…” challenge that Lens-Artists posted back in December of 2018. Here’s the link to that post: https://scillagrace.com/2018/12/01/lens-artists-photo-challenge-happiness-is/

Of course, there are always new opportunities to wonder at this wide, beautiful world!

Yesterday, I hiked for the first time in the Cascades of central Oregon. Snow-capped mountain peaks and colorful wildflowers graced every scenic view. It was truly spectacular!

Iron Mountain has a volcanic plug or lava neck at its top – that’s the rocky protrusion just to the left of the peak. It was formed when lava in a vent hardened. As we climbed up to the top of that formation, we could see the porous features of the lava itself and the rust-colored iron in it. It made me wonder at how this was once an active volcano, as were the other peaks in the Cascade chain on this Pacific ring of fire.

Fire, snow, sunshine, trees…this is a world filled with wonders that shape the future and tell the past. We have so much to enjoy and so much to learn!

Photo credit: Wendy Fekkers

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Narrow

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Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. – Matthew 7:13-14

The road that leads to destruction is paved with excess, with greed and growth. Its breadth permits the accumulation of possessions. The narrow road admits only the unburdened. 

Travelling the narrow road with steadfast feet and open eyes, you open yourself to the natural world around you, imposing few of your own devices on it. To learn from the path, from the trees, from the sky, is the beginning of wisdom. 

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. – Henry David Thoreau

Life is a narrow path. At last, only you can get through it. – Poolu

Thank you, Amy, for this week’s challenge. 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Taking a Break

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I just came home from a walk along the Ice Age National Scenic Trail to check on the photo challenge theme for this week. Our host, Tina, encourages us to slow down and focus on rest and relaxation. “Taking a Break” for me is also “Restoring My Sanity” by being out in nature.

Nothing restores me to a grounded pace as well as hiking in a natural area where the presence of people is the exception to the rule.

Look around. Breathe. Listen. Feel. Birdsong and running water do wonders for the soul. 

An outdoor walk helps me take a break from sitting down at a computer screen…something I spend far too many hours at every day.  And if my feet start to swell and feel hot, dipping them in a cool stream is the perfect antidote. 

And if walking tires you out, you know what to do…

Taking a break is quite natural, of course. (If you can’t tell, that’s a bat sleeping in a tree).

Thanks, Tina, for reminding us to take it easy. It’s a long road, and it’s not a race. 

 

The Grandparent Project: Part Twelve

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Welcome to the 12th installment of The Grandparent Project! This is an endeavor to revisit family memories with my relatives in California and my children in the Midwest by posting digital copies of my old snapshots and piecing together our shared history. It’s been a great adventure in itself as well as a reminder of the incredible journey we’ve already had. 

Today’s episode takes place in the year 2002 at Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. Grandpa George was 69 years old and an avid hiker. My siblings and I can probably all agree that his model inspired us. I am glad to say that he may also have inspired my children. At the time of this visit, they were 17, 15, 13, and 11 and their cousin Cristina was 9. My mom and my husband were physically not up to hiking the trail we chose this time, so they stayed back at the condo (with Susan and Emily?) while the rest of us went to find Lake George. My father was always the leader, a very strong presence and authority and a keen map-reader. This was the first time I saw him falter in his sense of direction. What is now apparent is that he was beginning to come under the grip of Alzheimer’s disease. I am very glad to have pictures of him on this day. It was a gorgeous trek and fitting that it centered on a destination that shares his name. 

Some of us also went horseback riding on that trip…

We went through Yosemite National Park as well on the way back to the Bay Area. My husband and I had gone there on a date way back when I was still in High School. He picked me up at four in the morning and returned me to my parents’ house by midnight. I was thrilled to go, but it was a lot of driving. Returning to the park with my children two decades later, I couldn’t help feeling sad and disappointed at how much smog and congestion were visible. It makes sense that my California family avoids that particular area and chooses less well-known sites in the Sierras to hike.

I would love to arrange future family hikes in the Sierras. Let’s see how many of us can get out on the trail when we’re 69!

*Footnote photo – taken when we got back to the homestead in Los Gatos.  

Weekly Photo Challenge: Transient

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The Wilderness Act of 1964 protects designated wilderness and defines it as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”. 

Hikers passing through in Canyonlands National Park, Utah, leave no trace…

Ancient desert communities left the pueblos centuries ago…

And my tent is pitched on this Earth for just a short while.

Transient

Weekly Photo Challenge: Path

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I can totally relate to Cheri’s picture of taking a boardwalk path through a fragile eco-system. 

I can also relate to my personal path changing dramatically in 2016. I, too, moved to a new place – to be closer to my job – and then experienced an abrupt twist in the path when my boss resigned.  Paths can always lead to the unexpected, even a path you’ve traveled many times before. 

Humans have a strong tendency to try to control and predict, to make crooked paths straight, to eliminate as much random chaos as possible. And that means we can often be frustrated, disappointed, or anxious on the path we’re traveling.  But we don’t have to be. We can be delighted, wonder-filled and accepting. The path is what it is. How you travel and with what baggage is up to you. 

PG hiking
Path

Weekly Photo Challenge: Oops! Fun Fails

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Walking along the Ice Age Trail in June can take you along the tops of glacial formations like kames and eskers and drumlins.  It can also take you through kettles and boggy meadows.  Wisconsin in June is often wet.  We are blessed with abundant fresh water in the Great Lakes region. It’s a glorious thing to watch the greening of the landscape each year because of all that water. Things certainly bust out all over here. The tendency to misjudge the depth of water on the path is probably a pretty common “oops” for many hikers. But what a delight to pull off your soggy boots and socks and run barefoot in the new grass!

oops
Oops!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wilderness Inspiration

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This photo challenge is familiar.  In 2012, there was a similar challenge which I responded to in this fashion.  I still blog about all those things, but lately, I’ve come to realize that I have been going through an evolution inspired by a specific concept: WILDERNESS.  In fact, I have an entire page set up to link to my wilderness posts.  (Feel free to browse around there!)  This last weekend, Steve and I went to find some wilderness in the U.P. (the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).  Sure enough, there were 3 federally designated wilderness areas in the western portion of that state.  We went to the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness in the Ottawa National Forest.  In 1987, logging operations there ceased and the logging roads were left to return to wilderness.  We were told by a forest ranger that the old road is a 7.5 mile “trail” that traverses the wilderness and given a map.  She warned us, though, that it’s not maintained.  We attempted to hike from both trail heads, but only got about 50 feet along before we realized that we would be foolish to go any further.  As I headed back toward the car, I realized that I was crying.  Not because I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to hike there, but for a very different, special reason.  It was as if I had been invited into the sanctuary of a foreign religion or to spend half an hour on a different planet.  I was humbled.  I was in awe.  I felt a reverence for the place that put my presence in profound perspective.  It wasn’t quite like I didn’t belong; it was that I belonged no more especially than anything else there, even the tiniest fungus spore.  It was a supreme experience of equality.  I did not dominate in any way.  I jokingly told Steve that this was a place “where men are food and flies are king”, but I was feeling anything but glib in my soul. 

To find yourself in the sanctuary of wilderness is to feel the breath of the Divine all around.  Breathe it in.  Be inspired. 

Inspiration