Sunday, September 08, 2013

Sunset



When the breath goes, there will just be light ...
 
There is one thing I have not gotten tired of since I moved to Utah. Well, there are several, but one thing is a constant – and that is the largeness of the sky, its varied colors and ability to change in seconds, it seems, and create new ethereal celestial landscapes right above our head … For a weather that is pretty even and boring for long days on end, the sky definitely has tons of personality, here!

Just like the Eskimo language has tens of words for “white” or  “snow” the Rockies dialect of American English should have that many for “orange”, “red” and “blue” just to define what we see every day.

I always love the views from my back yard, in any weather, but the sunset is by far my favorite. It’s always new, and always leaves me speechless… And since we don’t have those many words yet, I am letting the pictures speak:


This is the Mount Timpanogos (first) and its little "baby brother" to its left, exactly across from my dining room patio. They are exactly at the North position in The Valley, so they don't get drenched in the sunset light . They are the more muted fixtures of this land.

The sun was completely set in this shot. I have no clue what that big, round spotlight is in the sky, but the sun it is not it! 




This is the view onto The West, right where the sun sets, over Utah Lake which you can see in some of the pictures.  Again, you see that spot of light in one of the shots (before last) which I have no clue how to define ...






Sunday, September 01, 2013

A Quiet Labor Day Hike



We never plan to camp on holiday weekends, as we always believe the campsites will be overflowing, loud, messy, kid and young adult playgrounds – a venue that is not typically our cup-a-joe.

But we would chance a ride through a campsite just for the day on a holiday weekend,  just to look at the scenery. Today was the time for such a ride, through the Diamond Fork Canyon, South of Spanish Fork.

There was something eerily quiet about today – maybe the fact that everyone was indeed out of town. But where? Because the campsites were not indeed full, like you would expect.

I am not sure whether it was the rainy forecast for this weekend, or the roaming, low, gray clouds of today, but there were not many people around the canyon.

After a slow ride through the mountains, we picked a trail accompanying the Diamond Fork river, and we took in the silence, the chirping of the stream, the swishing of the aspen leaves, and the beautiful flora outlining our path.

It did sprinkle almost throughout our entire walk, but it was still nice to get out and recharge through the beauty of these parts and the smells and the sounds of the land.

Here’s a small window into our wanderings of today, through the lens of our Canons:

No one but us, our truck and the mountains! 

There was this bizarre, taken apart door in one of the spots along the river. Very out of place, as there were no buildings around. Just wilderness. A weird trace of humans gone by ...


The Diamond Fork river was the fullest I have seen it at the end of the summer, in three years of living in Utah! And we did not, in fact, have a very rainy summer!


There was something viscerally painful-looking about this scarred tree ... Just so beautiful and raw!   

When you see standing water in Utah's high desert, you know it's been raining - for a while! 
 
Trail and river, mirroring each other ... 

Hanging on to summer - wild flowers. 

River vegetation: this very green stalk looked like corn, in the middle of nothing but wilderness.   
Some sort of mountain berries, shriveled up in the sun. 

Fallen tree with fungus. 

Oak leaves and rain drops. 


 
The whisper of another season coming up, despite our best efforts to delay it. Click on the last picture, to see our entire album.