As the smoke from fires far to the south, where people I once knew but still love reside, filled the air west of the Cascades I headed over the pass to climb my way into the Enchantments hoping to see cutthroats leap from alpine lakes and snow capped mountains reflected on rippling water. What met me was hordes of fellow hikers choking the access and forest service roads; I judged them all mercilessly if unfairly. Unable to turn around due to the sheer volume of vehicles clogging ever square inch of dirt my rage and already burgeoning sadness mounted and deepened. We are loving these lands to death. Humans and wilderness have coexisted for eons albeit different people than we are today where the people and the land didn't hold the implicit schism it now holds. Jack London once wrote "in those days they throttle love with caresses and killed it with kisses and buried it in the pit of satiety". So with this in mind and my desire for solitude paramount I turned around seeking land elsewhere. It was not a day of bliss; expansive vistas, sandstone teeth penetrating the soil, ponderosaes bleeding turpentine into the air but no bliss. Walking in the rain shadowed east a deep melancholy gripped my heart and has not released it. The willows turned gold, the last of the flowers vibrant in the way grand gestures of fleeting romance seem beautiful if untimely, the fire weed gone to wispy seed but the bracts turned kaleidoscope of death no less beautiful than the neon of their spring blossoms filled me to the brim with desire that has no name.
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