Whitney

Entering your portal to find another world

Ascending by wooden frames

Weights on our backs

Crucial essentials in our packs

Tents built into villages

Inside each capsule

Feelings surfaced

An adventure, of cascading delights

John Muir once

Called "Range of lights"

Your jagged edges conflicts with your

Soft flowing streams, salmon's mixed colors reflecting off the mirror, lone pine, consultation

Bodies of water which we grazed around

We tried to stay under the radar to pass

Thresholds along each camp.

We tried to remain patient to adapt to your home, your domain, your kingdom

Where black bears, busy dragon flies, blood sucking mosquitoes, cocky blue birds, and mischievous marmots fought over sundried apricots

From tips to peaks; thin air

and where the altitude bully perched

Around every corner. Like a childhood game. "Tag, you are it."

Clanking poles against cubic, square, trapezoid, pyramid and shapes of stones which may be unknown

rock formation and puzzle pieces along your path

Trekking through "the back side"

Scrambling to breathe through

headaches, a mirage, physical fatigue,

Thirst, and to sort out a dream like state

Your pointy fingers

reached towards the sky

at 14k five O' five