With the falling of the sun, so ends my tale. As darkness filled the valley I crept on. I forded streams, snowmelt from St. Helens slopes, and climbed up to Windy Ridge Overlook in the fading twilight.

I met not a soul in these last hours. The cooling night, the crunch of pumice beneath my feet, and my racing thoughts were my only company. My mind examined this experience and incorporated others straining to form some kind of arcing synthesis or universal truth to explain the varying aspects of this day.

The beauty, the violence, the exhaustion, the thirst. There are so many ways to interconnect the things one observes, experiences, and feels with meaning and purpose so that a lesson may be learned. But, these are all changeable things with the inherent nature that they are wholly mine to interpret, and therefore meaningless outside of their context.

So, I end simply with this exhortation…

Go out and explore, learn what you will, share it as you like, but be sure to revel in how you were changed by these moments, how you adapted and overcame for these are the greatest successes one can celebrate in this life.

Peace.