The Hanging Valley Seen from the Pass

In this middling area, along the borders between Indian Valley and the other valley to the east, I sit astride the ridgeline that is the Pass. And what originally brought me here to the Hanging Valley was a wedge of rock on which sunlight shone through soft mist and fog. But human desires are never satisfied. Now, gazing down from my perch, this place of mountain air, of talus slopes where sheep trails run, I see the valley in all its glory. The oval shape of the valley is less than a half mile in length by an eigth mile in width. The south side is steep with rock fall and snow that the sun seldom warms. Small melts of water gather in pools, flow down the valley, and empty into a narrow niche of black stone, where the waterfalls of gushing voices are heard in the ravine below. The lower part of the valley is greener, filled with small juniper fields that hug the ground. Nearby, a small hill, elongated in form, bottles up the entrance but cannot stop the eroding influence of water which circles it like a castle moat. Up the valley are the flat fields of alpine flowers and primitive plants that make a mat of greens, tans, and yellow-whites. Then beyond, a half dried out lake of stepping stones occupies a small bowl of ground. The head of the valley is a moderate dash of twenty minutes of uphill climb. Finally, on the north side of the valley are green steep slopes warmed by sun, open to the revolutions of light and night. The top of the slope is capped by broken stones and jutting, dark cutting shapes; a jagged back of rock crumbling in thaw and freezing cycles of the seasona. Even here, on the backside, the chill of wind and light rain, fog and changing light, brings to thought the ephemeral nature of my being here. Human life is short, while the geological changes in the valley, slow and imperceptable, humble my sense of importance.