Open Ambition

The photo at the top of my blog is one I took in August, 2009, of Lower Kearsarge Lake in the John Muir Wilderness of the Southern Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

It was taken just at about 8am, the morning after a long day of rain, so the air is clean and you have that clear, crisp light you seem to only find at or above treeline in the mountains.  The lake is at about 10,900 feet above sea level.

The photo is intentionally distorted on the masthead, here’s the original:

This lake is just a few miles from the John Muir Trail, and was taken on the last morning of a 170 mile solo backpacking trip I took this past August – a trip I have wanted to make all my adult life, and spent the better part of a year planning.

And here’s a google map showing the lake:

I’ve spent many, many weeks backpacking in the Sierras, beginning when I was in junior high school, and continuing to the present.  In these mountains I get a calm sense of possibility and potential, and where I spend time on my own to reflect on the past year, the successes and failures I’ve encountered, the challenges I anticipate.