The Great North has been turning, well, rather northerly lately.
As a result, I've been engaging in a bit (okay, a lot!) of selfish lamentation due to my inability to swim at the lake in light of near-freezing temperatures in the Rockies. Of course, for the first time in a long while, this wintry development should allow me to pursue some serious waterfront photography.
When I stop sneezing from working out in chlorinated pool water, that is! ;)
Image shot in October 2012.
The expression gone fishin' should look like this (literally and figuratively):
It's late September.
Yet there is only a hint of autumn-yellow in these mountains of the Northwest, where it's always cooler than in the valleys, and which remain virtually inaccessible once the snow comes. Not even the Native North American tribes stayed here long term in the harsher seasons.
A hint of yellow and a touch of orange.
It is in this area that I saw my first mountain lion--much more powerful and muscular than I imagined--stalking a deer.
Sunday's hike in the mountains two hours south of "Twin Peaks"--which remained unexplored by me until now--seemed unusual for two reasons. First, we chose an area which allows only two forms of transportation: horses and your own feet! Second, a 6-mile (10-kilometer) hike in this terrain is not particularly strenuous, until you add fishing gear, especially waders, into the equation.
And neither are the pants.
Oh, and let's not forget food, some photographic equipment, and, of course, bear spray, too. Nonetheless, having spent the previous day on a boat, I was rather eager to get the exercise.
It might come as a surprise coming for someone who constantly professes her love for the mountains, but I'm really not a fan of heights. The "really-really" kind of not.
Thus, whenever I come upon scenes like this:
I have to engage in a bit of a Nietzschean staring contest with the Abyss.
By the end of the day, however, I was climbing onto various rocks in a different--safer--part of this gorge just so I could get the right angle.
Anything for photography, right?
The owls are not what the seem.
This is true: over the past two years, I've lived in the general area where the cult TV series Twin Peaks had been filmed. I've heard owls talking to the Moon at night, but they'd never reveal themselves to me.
Until now.
I observed a large one over turbulent water heading into the deep of the evergreen forest.
It was magnificent.
I also encountered more wildlife in a couple of hours out on the river than ever before. Three low-flying bald eagles, an osprey or two, an excellent raven specimen, not to mention assorted deer, frogs, chipmunks, ganders, and, of course, trout.
So much trout.
And if I weren't on the water fishing (and releasing), I'd have photographic proof.
I actually heard the raven first, so I mentally asked it to show itself.
It did.
I love when that happens!
And the osprey? This bird engaged in a thirty-minute (!) conversation with one of us sufficiently capable of imitating through whistling. I suspect it was trying to inform us that we grossly failed at its language and, oh, we were also encroaching on its territory, while we were at it!
Get out! Get out!
Eventually, we did, as the osprey sat triumphantly on top of its giant nest on the side of a cliff watching its intruders row toward the peaks in the distance.
Whenever I miss some of the worthwhile, redeeming aspects of living in a metropolis--theater, art exhibitions, concerts, and, of course, film festivals--I simply go on a brief dog walk.
After all, within minutes, I come across urban elements dominated by a natural landscape. This is what my basset, Roediger, and I witnessed tonight:
Then we were hit by the Golden Hour, the sky got bluer, the evergreens turned yellow, and the Moon oversaw it all.
From Alberta in the north of the continent to Texas in the south, there exists a prominent Western (like the film genre) culture that surpasses national borders. Its rodeos, fly fishing, hunting, and even tongue-in-cheek cowboy style itself are tied closer to the Land than the often-prominent rootless cosmopolitanism of urban environments.
Being "city folk" myself, and, at the same time, coming from a different--Eastern European--background, to boot (pun, sorry!), this culture strikes me as exotic and fascinating as visiting Kyoto for the first time.
This weekend, I've documented its trailer-riding, fly-fishing, cowgirl-dressing ladies:
Oh, and I'm totally into the boots.
As I was about to leave The City a couple of years ago, my former boss said that an intense, as she phrased it, person like me would feel more relaxed out in the mountains rather than a metropolis. I thought so, too.
We were both wrong.
In part.
Whereas my life change drastically, stress--too much of it, at times--remained.
I suppose that is normal. For an "intense" person!
So, after spending one too many hours in front of the computer screen, I think of being somewhere like this (device-free!):
After all, sometimes, real places supersede imaginary ones!