6.23.99

We lie flat on a mountain top, projecting thoughts through the lenses of our glacier glasses onto the blue screen above. They rolled over us in thin white apparitions or heavy as wood smoke. At moments such crisp realism in the valley far far below, or in the treacherous ridge leading to the north peak. Otherwise, there was just this island mountain, its sun-warmed rock, and us on it. Could stare directly into the sun, burning pale yellow through the grey thoughts vaulting overhead. I made it you know. Up The Brothers. Two days and six miles to base camp on seven or eight feet of snow through windfalls and the shredded remains of forests caught in avalanche. The Brothers is the one (the two) you all look at from here - from Seattle. The one that makes you say ooo on those crisp winter mornings after a heavy snowfall. Its full white belly catches your eye. I know I've had my eye on it for a year. It's the one in my memory, the one I thought of when I was not here but wanted to be. The one I contemplated for months from rooftops or water's edge. You admire a thing, covet it, want to conquer it -- is that how it goes? So I have.

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