Okay, so I'll admit this one is in pretty bad shape. Mostly because I've looked at it... a lot!

In my heart I'll always be a backpacker. In times of need... and they have been many, this image has given me comfort. This is one of the VERY few images I have of either of my Philmont trips. This image was taken with my Minolta SRT-101, my very first 35mm camera. Unfortunately the negatives of both trips were lost somewhere in the debris thrown out when my mom moved from Houston to Bryan after my father died. Even now they are probably rotting in the Harris County landfill.

All I ask is that you try to look past the obvious surface flaws gathered from a lifetime of being moved around, tucked into books, hung on garage walls and the kitchens of every apartment I've ever lived in. Look instead THROUGH the wear and tear and see instead the image itself.

Look at this place!! It's spectacular!

Look at the perfectly conical shapes of the blue spruce on the far side of this meadow, especially that tall one about 2/3's of the way over from the left... just along the tree line. And that smoke hanging in the air is the fires built by those of my crew who have arrived ahead of me... this means something hot is already underway. Look at those stands of aspen, lighter in colour, even further up the slope. The very next day we hiked through those and onward and upward into the talus slopes you see along the ridgeline to the left.

That day was my highest mileage day of all time. 22 miles from this spot to our next campsite, walked in a single day, carrying a 55 lb. backpack while simultaneously bagging a nearly 13,000 foot peak along the way. Off the hook, frothing at the mouth crazy, awesome! This tattered memento is almost my only testament of that day.

Pause and share this with me... the way the trail starts in the lower image and leads you onward to my buddy hiking there ahead of me... leading me toward the homefires of my tribe. The individual branches of the blue spruce in the foreground left... the thumb tack holes with the rust circles around them... the scotch tape holding the two prints together... the history... the stories.

This isn't really a picture... it's window!