On Rainbow Falls

My friend Lee told me about her favorite place, Rainbow Falls in Gorges State Park in Western NC, and so I had to make it one of my last mountain adventures. Scooter and I found it a few weeks ago in an area farther west than I'd been before in the Blue Ridge, and we took the 1.5 mile hike down to the gushing waterfall. Full with recent rains and, likely, snowmelt, the force of the water was mesmerizing, spray dampening everything in the valley.

You come at it from the valley and then can go down. Had it not been so cool and wet, I would have ventured lower.

 

And then you climb above, to see the water break around a bend, Turtleback Falls, and head for the drop.

We were right there on the edge, feet from the fall. But not scared. My time with these mountains has taught me that you have to test your willingness to reach a cliff, to have the full experience of living and trying to comprehend the force of nature. This is real life. This, the movement of water on rocks, the rush of air in your face, the heavy scent of green and nothing manmade, this is home.

On the edge

Back in March, Phillip came for his last visit before the move, and so we made the most of it. He saw, heard, smelled the ocean for the first time, as we walked along Folly Beach, SC, near sunset. The sand was cold, the water colder, but we walked together and listened to the waves.

Next weekend we walk together into a new chapter of our lives, as I move back to my hometown to live with Phillip and start teaching English at Hutchinson Community College.

There's so much more to say but, for now, let's just think of the beauty of the world, and the promise for tomorrow. Life is wonderful.

Lessons from INTO THE WILD

Christopher Johnson McCandless

The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
-Chris McCandless, in a letter

The physical domain of the country had its counterpart in me. The trails I made led outward into the hills and swamps, but they led inward also. And from the study of things underfoot, and from reading and thinking, came a kind of exploration, myself and the land. In time the two became one in my mind. With the gathering force of an essential thing realizing itself out of early ground, I faced in myself a passionate and tenacious longing--to put away thought forever, and all the trouble it brings, all but the nearest desire, direct and searching. To take the trail and not look back. Whether on foot, on snowshoes or by sled, into the summer hills and their late freezing shadows--a high blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind find me if it could.
-John Haines, from The Starts, The Snow, The Fire: Twenty-five Years in the Northern Wilderness

He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others. ... I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor--such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps--what more can the heart of a man desire?
-from Tolstoy's "Family Happiness"

HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.
-Chris McCandless's note over a passage of Doctor Zhivago