Some of my immediate family gathered last week to spend some time together in the mountains. On Thursday evening we hiked up Rock Canyon past the old beaver farm, up past the abandoned mine with its cascading waterfall, and in the darkening twilight we ascended the switchbacks to Rock Lake in what became the darkest part of the night—just before the full moon rose.
I took this shot the next afternoon. That little form in the lower right is Emma, who had gone out onto a rock in the afternoon and sat down contemplating. Of course I whipped out the camera. You don’t see the humps and broken crags of Rock Peak 3000 feet up to the left, nor the vertical granite slab of Ojibway Peak to the right, but a camera can’t get it all anyway. This trip was a fitting end to an eventful summer.
(I had planned to climb Sawtooth Peak in a couple of weeks, but unless I can get a few more folks along I don’t want just two of us to attempt a steep climb up a remote mountain without a trail. I may have to bag it till next year.)
That morning we had hiked to the opposite end of the lake, climbed up the cascade feeding the lake, and progressed toward St. Paul Pass just beneath the far saddle you see here. It was a rough trail, and after lunch we were ready to head back. Then we spent a few hours in the afternoon picking huckleberries, which were surprisingly thick near the lake. We picked over two gallons in a few hours, which is saying something when you’re picking these little berries scattered amongst the leaves. When we got home on Saturday, Jess made three huckleberry cream cheese pies—one of the foods they’ll serve in heaven.
Autumn is coming. This morning I went out to hang up a batch of laundry and the thermometer read 41 degrees. The shrubs and mountain maples around our house are turning yellow. Yahoo! Fall is my favorite season, except when it’s springtime.