[Chief Joseph]

[Bedivere]

CJ - you are one weird dude, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Not trying to belittle or attack you, just expressing my amazement at how a viewpoint can be so different. To me, the mountains are amazing. The ultimate contrast to the man-made world in which I spend the vast majority of my life. Every day it's waking up in my bed inside my house in an area surrounded by similar houses and paved streets that lead to concrete ribbons that stretch for miles and miles, teeming with other people in their man-made coneyances to take us all to some other place where the hand of man has subjugated nature in the name of civilization and convenience. The mountains provide the ultimate contrast to all this. Craggy peaks, glaciers and snow fields, vast forests, endless views and vistas to row upon row of peaks receding into the haze. Man has never made anything like a mountain or a glacier, he has only destroyed them. How can you not be amazed at glaciers? (It's a rhetorical question, of course.) A literal river of ice, flowing so slowly our meager senses cannot perceive it, yet flowing nevertheless, driven by gravity and the falling of frozen water in the same place over and over again. Glaciers are sooooo f)*)#$)(#*$)#&&@gg cool! Then this ball of rock and water we ride around the sun reaches a point in its orbit where our hemisphere is tilted away from the sun and the plants (and weather) react to the change in daylight hours and the Larches turn golden, and the Maples turn orange and red and yellow-gold as well, and the Aspens too, and the huckleberries turn red and we get this amazing display of color that lasts for only a few short weeks before we're subjected to months of gray and white, followed by green again for months more. Fall is possibly my favorite season, and the mountains contain so much magic and mystery that flies in the face of everything man has manufactured that I can't help but be amazed by it every time I'm out. I guess this is why I carry a ridiculously heavy camera and spend so much time trying to capture what is filling my heart and mind in a meager 2D image. Anyway, Larches are awesome for all the reasons people have already said, and glaciers are awesome, and mountains both rounded and forested and pointy and rocky, snow covered or barren, are awesome, and the creeks and rivers that flow in the valleys below, and all the cool animals that live in these wild places, and the myriad of plants that grow there are all amazing to me. Solitude is nice, and I have been known to venture into the wilderness alone in order to find it, but what keeps me going back to the mountains again and again with my friends (or without), to areas crowded or lonely, is the sheer spectacle of nature and the escape it provides from a manufactured world. We need to go fishing some time. I tend to be a creature of habit and somewhat insulate myself so I'm asking you now - hassle me next summer. I know you know some good lakes, and so do I, so let's put a trip together and catch some fish and we can each enjoy the mountains in the way that seems best to us.

[Cyclopath]

[gb]

[Schenk]

[joker]

[Bedivere]

[joker]

We haven't had too tough a time finding more great lines than we can ski up thattaway even w/o said scouting . But I like your thinking, nonetheless .

[Chief Joseph]

[GeoTom]

[Chief Joseph]

[DIYSteve]

[Schenk]

[gb]

Alas or is that a lass, the Lyall's larches have just about had it. I would put them at from 70 to 90% gone as far as needles go. Still some smaller trees gold and wind-protected pockets mostly on west through south aspects. Only drudgery from now on....... I did find a 4-1/2' Lyall's today. I've only seen a very few that big. No pictures as it was already bare.

[gb]

Larix lyallii: http://courses.washington.edu/esrm412/protocols/LALY.pdf