Choices.....

"Choices....."

"Do we choose mountains, or rivers, or oceans - or do they choose us." Anon

The Adventures Of Hiking......

"You will discover as the years pass that hiking becomes a beautiful, warm, round pumpkin that sits up on a shelf, always ready to be taken down... It wouldn't be the same round and personal pumpkin, of course, if you hadn't grown it yourself... And its always sitting up there on the shelf, that big beautiful pumpkin - just waiting for you to wave the wand and turn it into something more magical." C. Fletcher

Hiking is an adventure medium that is second to none... In so many ways hiking is the 'destination' rather than just a means of travel. I was foraging through a Long Distance Hiking Trail forum recently and stumbled upon some trail elders musing about 'why' they hike... Their comments reflected a depth of musing that I enjoy so much... And now here I sit, enjoying my own memories and musings about why I went and why I've stayed so long in that special environment...

I remember balancing along the continental divide, trails of the Colorado, my pulse in the high Sierras...and so many other trails beneath my appreciative feet. There is another side to our self that we may just sense on a sunrise hike, a shared day hike, a solo long distance trek, during the low tide of a beach hike, across lengthy portages, moving so quietly through a desert or canyon, and even ridge walking above most of the world...

And I have so much enjoyed placing a few Summit Stones while wandering these many trails...

DSD

Adventure Musing.....

"The adventure... of a mystery. The 'adventure muse' has her ways, she hides from you, comes to you in the middle of the night, at midday, at dawn... an elusive gift that can appear anytime."

M. Hart

The top picture above is 'The Valley of The Muses' on the eastern slopes of Mt. Helikon.

Shrines to the Muses were called 'mouseion'; the original source for the current 'museum'.

The word 'Muses' itself comes from the Greek 'mousai'; the root of which means 'mountain'.

Interesting connections... If we contemplate what we find within our adventure experiences, we often discover before unseen hidden meaning...

DSD

Solitude & Surf.......

"The air is pungent with the sharp odour of salt sea and it shimmers with sound: the rush of the wind, the crying of the seabirds and, above all, the throbbing, pounding, everlasting roar of the surf.....". D. Pitt-Brooke

Just musing about our last adventure...the contrasts between our land and sea worlds...the calmness of those tiny islands and the roar of the never ending surf farther away.....the sweep of the kayak paddle.....the taste of the salt air.....the feel of the sand and shells beneath our hiking feet..... DSD