the call of the bells.

 The Maroon Bells have been two rather ever-present mountains

that I would always see from the Elkcamp Lift.

Today my parents and I challenged the Bells & even ourselves.  We 

reached Crater Lake (our intended

finish, but I FORCED us to continue up & hopefully

over to Buckskin Pass.

The trail proved to be more difficult than expected & we 

were probably a bit in over our heads,

BUT it was Beautiful! 

 The neat thing about the Maroon Bells are how the look so close

at all times, but they are always so far!

It reminded me of our family vacation to Alaska, where we hired

a pilot to fly around Mt. McKinley.

Pj would fly that plane (while looking back at us he flew!!), & the cliffs

looked so close that you thought you

could reach out & touch them (hence why we would freak out

when he would look back at us.

No need to look while driving... it's not

important or anything!)  The Bells seemed the same.

No matter how many miles you walked toward them, the distance just didn't seem

  to change... I always felt like I could reach out & grab hold of

them & ring them, but they were miles & miles away.
Well played Bells, well played.

One of my favorite things is looking at all the contrasts of color.
The blues, the greens, the greys, & the browns.
Could a sky get much bluer?
I mean seriously... look at that sky!!  

I have to throw a shout out to my mama bear, who struggled every

twenty steps or so... but after some

gentle coaxing (aka personal attacking), she trudged (almost) all

the way to the top.  So we thought...

apparently we were far from close.  We hiked for hours,

across a river, over a waterfall (yes, this is real life), through woods, past

lakes, up scree fields, & through wild flowers.

Hours later we could just barely see

the pass & decided to call it a quits. Hey, it counts!  We saw the pass!!!

Right now she is talking bad about me because we are all tired & 

our feet our sore & it seems like a good idea, but she will

thank me later...  YOU KNOW I'M TALKING TO YOU

MAMA BEAR! It was worth it & we were just

living in the moment!

Ciao-Ciao