Friday, March 24, 2017

The End is Beauty


 Why do I go backpacking?  Why spend all of that money on the latest and lightest gear?  Why drive six or seven hours or more to get to a place where I can punish my poor body.  Why walk for miles carrying forty or fifty pounds on our aching back.  Why do I wear my feet into a bloody, blistered mess? 

It’s the beauty. 

One must walk thirty miles and ascend twelve thousand foot Muir Pass to get to McClure Meadow.  One might even be too exhausted to take it all in when they make it.  But that beauty is just stunning.  The beauty takes one’s breath away.  After seeing these places like Thousand Island Lake or pitching my tent on a peninsula in Rae Lakes I come away a different person.  The beauty somehow fills my soul in a way like the way my stomach is filled by a gourmet meal.  No, that does not even come close!