Selection is Natural, So They Say

Selected as a sacrificial child for the gods
Never to know freedom, only to accept fate,
Trapped as a dolphin caught in a tuna net
Floundering for air, only to drown,
Pinned as a zebra calf taken by the lion
Calling out for help, only to be left behind,
Ensnared as a moose cornered by the wolf pack
Fighting back for life, only to be devoured,
Caged as a songbird that only wants to sing
Singing for hours, only to have wings clipped,
Gated as a branded heifer put to pasture
Grazing for survival, only to be slaughtered,
Tangled as a butterfly wing in a spider web
Fluttering for escape, only to be prey,
Natural selection takes it toll, one has to go.


Selecting to destroy the datalogger
Apr 2009

Office Window

What do you see out your office window?
Here's 2 hr time lapse of what I see.

Geometric Memories

The three-sided summit rises sharp and wily,
Corniced creatures stretch to touch the void,
A stable slope holds from slipping into freedom,
Fresh powder on slab compresses the past,
Footprints kicked w/ silent suffering drift in,
Retraced steps tramp freely on crust,
Traipsing along place, time, moment,
Captured on film and over-exposed,
Always pausing to measure the angle.

Assessing the angles on Triangle Peak (Apr 2009)

TrevO cuts a line up first slope.

My turn to break trail.

Fun w/ the sun.

Corniced creatures thwart the attempt
to reach the three-sided summit.

Denali Fly-By

This just in:
There was a fly-by while we were on Denali - back in May '08.
Click for higher resolution shots.
These show OUR trail and camp!!
What perspective, hard to believe that was me.
WOW!

Driveway Blues

I once submitted a poem to a poetry contest when I was in the first grade. It was about snow. I remember working really hard on it and feeling proud of what I wrote. Of course, it never got published. My mom just called and told me what I wrote:

Snow is white
Snow is bright
Snow flies like a kite
Snow is very light

After spending the past week trying to dig out after the many inches of snowfall we received while I was traveling, all in an attempt to make my driveway drivable, and still not succeeding - after multiple attempts at shoveling, getting my car stuck, digging out my car, re-shoveling, getting my car stuck, digging out my car...I'm thinking perhaps I'd like to retract my original poem to something more like:

Snow is heavy, icy and cold
Poor shovel is too weak and old
To cut through the compacted crust
I give up! The driveway's a bust.


My poor cold car just wants one night in a heated garage.
Yes, is IS another license plate shot.
I DO love license plates :-)
But today, I do NOT love snow :-\

Time Zone Haikus

Now boarding all rows
Fake smiles from attendants
Carry-ons too big

Cram into a seat
A not so tasty napkin
Heads bob, necks stiffen

If only I could
Close my eyes and drift to sleep
What time zone is it?

Linking Falls on an Open Mic

Opportunity chooses the high road,
Perception glances down the low.
A heart of gold plays an open mic
Whetting dreams with spinning delight.
Tune the noisemaker, play the chord,
Quickly now before they find the door.
No ties to bind, no hearts to break,
Keep it simple, only music to make.
Melt the vocals, harmonize into one,
Future’s unknown, but for now its fun.

(pics c/o Dreamerskier)

The approach to Tin Can, seen in foreground (Feb, 2009)

TrevO soaking up the sun

Skins off - time to run, fresh pow made it fun... for some.
I'm the world's worst downhill skier and this was a
pretty tough day for me.

Backcountry tracks show off how to carve a turn.
I chose to link some falls.

Babies!

Oh the silly things we do to our kids...


Little Harry the headless horseman


Eliza the Bee


Spencer the Bunny...is he dead!?!


Morgan the Cavewoman

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Celebrate the Year of the Ox

Release your wish to the universe

The Heart of the Sourdough

Ed heading down the lone trail.

check out Ed's blog for the real story of what we did:
http://edplumb.blogspot.com/2009/01/caribou-bluff.html


- by Robert Service

There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.

There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber and rose.

There where the rapids churn and roar, and ice-floes bellowing run;
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun --
I've packed my kit and I'm going boys ere another day is done.

I knew it would call, or soon or late, as it calls the whirring wings;
It's olden lure, it's the golden lure, it's the lure of the timeless things,
And to-night, oh, God of the trails untrod, how it whines in my heart-strings!

I'm sick to death of your well-groomed gods, your make believe and your show;
I long for a whiff of bacon and beans, a snug shakedown in the snow;
A trail to break, and a life at stake, and another bout with the foe.

With the raw-ribbed Wild that abhors all life, the Wild that would crush and rend,
I have clinched and closed with the naked North, I have learned to defy and defend;
Shoulder to shoulder we have fought it out -- yet the Wild must win in the end.

I have flouted the Wild. I have followed its lure, fearless, familiar, alone;
By all that the battle means and makes I claim that land for mine own;
Yet the Wild must win, and a day will come when I shall be overthrown.

The when as wolf-dogs fight we've fought, the lean wolf-land and I;
Fought and held till the snow are red under the reeling sky;
Even as lean wolf-dog goes down will I go down and die.

Ed and Skye

Caribou Bluff Cabin - White Mtns