Springtime visit to the North Cascades Institute
She'll be there until September and we intend to take advantage of the convenient home base in the National Park for the upcoming summer.
Cynthia invited me and her parents up to attend one of the Sourdough Speaker events.
This event included a salmon dinner and a slideshow by John Scurlock, an aerial photographer with a great eye for winter mountain scenes.
I also hob-nobbed a little with John Riedel, the park geologist. I'm going to volunteer some time to assist him with his work monitoring glaciers. Photos coming...
Cynthia and I walked down to the dam from NCI and spent a half hour or so hanging out up here taking in the sights.
The dam is built over the Diablo Gorge (center). The gorge continues north, under the dam and into Diablo Lake.
This momma goose with four goslings is a sure sign of spring.
This little crossbill was stunned from flying into a window on campus.
Myself, Cynthia, and her father, Lowell.
The waterfall above NCI is a popular destination. There is a 1.7 mile trail that starts from Cynthia's front door and leads to this beautiful waterfall and great views of Pyramid Peak and Colonial Peak.
Hanging out on some rocks.
Here is Pyramid peak under a clear blue sky.
Notice the avalanche tracks on the broad sunny snow area beneath the peak?
Cynthia and I intend to climb the peak sometime soon.
The weather started to turn.
Suddenly the peak looks a little more hostile.
Maybe we'll shoot for June...
It beats Edmund Hillary's infamous and inadequate "because it was there" statement.
Here it is:
"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."
-Rene Daumal, 'Mount Analogue', 1952