Fenton Lake: Finished Work

Finished 1 of the 2 writing projects I've been working on this year: a set of 3 short stories  titled SILENT H:  IN HONOR OF HENRY WHILSON.

Here is a Playlist of videos in which I read it:

 

Best camping stoves : in my humble opinion: a cat food can & a Vienna sausage can with hole punched around the top in two staggered rows, fueled with denatured alcohol. Best value for money, smallest possible equipment and they are cool to the touch quickly after use. 

 

We heard elk bugles in the mornings.

                       My little grey tent👆🏻

About a week later we return to the Jemez national area to go on a hike along the Las Conchas trail spur, on the other side of the mountain from Fenton Lake. 

2 mile each way out & back to a beautiful swimming hole in a slot canyon. 8400 foot elevation. The trail follows the east fork of the Jemez River, clear and cold. Perfect trout habitat, so very popular with fly fishers and the rocks escarpments are popular with climbers. Stopped at the Jemez sulphuric hotsprings on the way back.

The Birth of the Hunt

 Back on the border between June and July, en route to New Mexico from Canada, I stopped, for the second time at 9 Mile Canyon in Price, Utah. Deep in the canyon, About fifty miles in, Is one of the more stunning petroglyphs in the region. At the time , I was communicating with a man whose , a part of a family ranch. They had just killed a bull the day before, and worked together to process it.   Spending the day there, and thinking about the collective spirit and this person's family ( Particularly the bonding of the male family members ) gave me a palpable feeling of the group effort of the people a 1009 years ago. It's too easy these days and I think it leads to a lot of emotional immaturity... But I can imagine how it crystallizes human intelligence To be out in the wilderness together, camping in the canyon while on the move, all the preparations and the energy of a hunt. How wild and unforgiving the environment is;

temperatures that fluctuate drastically,

 the way the light falls out of the sky and the darkness over the land and the appearance of a blinding galaxy above, 

flash floods, 

carefully navigating the terrain because injury cannot be an option, 

and then the exhilaration among everyone after the operation was successful.. 

of having food,

how intoxicated we can become together when we work together and take care of each other,

And then this intoxication that leads to exhilaration.. Celebrating through art.