Amidst little deaths,
songs remain unsung
Dreary is my soul, as
colors come unstrung


Nerdy detail: Strung from eleven vertical shots.

Tags:   GrandPrismaticSpring HotWaterSprings Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone MidwayGeyserBasin NationalPark Panorama Ramen Saha Wyoming

© All Rights Reserved

Sea level. 2:30PM. Kahului, Maui. “So much cloud!”, I thought as we get in the car to visit Haleakalā National Park. The Haleakalā peak is shrouded behind a thick cloud bank. I fear, our trip will be in vain to a gloomy peak.

3000 feet. 3:00PM. We travel through a rich canopy of vegetation where Hawaiʻian spring is in full tropical bloom. Flowers of all colors are on display. The peak is still shrouded in clouds.

7000 feet. 4:00PM. Park Headquarters Visitor Center. The switchbacks are dizzying. So, we get out of the car to acclimatize with the rapid gain in elevation. As is my custom, I chat up the ranger at the visitor center front desk. The ranger tells me to expect clear conditions at the peak because the cloud bank remains suspended around 8000 feet. She says, “Stay for the sunset. It will be good.”

8500 feet. 4:30PM. Roadside brief stop. The vista here gets very moody as clouds swirl past us. It feels much colder as well (usually, 3ºF drop for every 1000 feet of elevation gain). Rishabh rolls down the window to catch some cloud. As he tries, our car fills up with wet fog. Wish, I could get out of the car to shoot the Hitchcock-ian atmosphere, but the narrow road forbids.

10,023 feet. 5:30PM. Puʻuʻulaʻula summit. Brilliant sunshine all around! I see tens of people in shorts and flipflops cringing in the cold. Rishabh and I pull our jackets on. The view of the famed massive shield volcano with unreal Mars like surface is impressive. At $5 per shot, I make some cryptic dollars shooting photos for families on their phones and tablets. Park advisories remind us that the air is very thin at this elevation and we should avoid exertion. I am breathing deeper and faster. Thin air or adrenaline from the grand view? Don’t know.

9324 feet. 6:45PM. Kalahaku overlook. The sunrise at Haleakalā is one of the top draws for Maui visitors. Because of the high demand, NPS offers limited tickets for vehicles to enter the park between 3-7 AM. I tried obtaining one online on three consecutive days, but those 80 odd tickets per day disappear in about 20 seconds of the sales opening at the .gov site. No sunrise for us! But, the ranger's assurance rings in my ears: “Stay for the sunset. It will be good.” So we stay back with about a dozen more people scattered thinly over the parking lot. Slowly, the tired sun-god – La – dips into the same bank of wet fog at 8500 feet, which Rishabh had caught a bit earlier. May be it’s just the elevation or it is lack of oxygen in my brain… everything around us feels insanely peaceful! Right in front of us, as legends promise, Maui – the mischievous demigod of Polynesian folklore – lassoes La for the day and takes him behind curtains.

Tags:   Maui Sunset Sunset colors Sunburst Haleakalā HaleakalāNationalPark NationalPark Hawaiʻi Clouds Ramen Saha KalahakuOverlook Haleakala HaleakalaNationalPark Hawaii

© All Rights Reserved

According to Kootenei Indian fables from Montana, gods have designated a special place for all people to dance. This place is secluded – much alike their genealogically isolated Ktunaxa language – and remains hidden to many, including those who stumble right upon it. Kootenei people say, it takes a special state of mind to see this place. Unless you are ready to quit the comfort of your cavern, you won’t see it. Unless you are ready to dance, you won’t see it. Kootenei Indians call it Ya.kiⱡ Haqwiⱡnamki – the place where they dance.

I did not know or care about a dancing place that other day when rain had soaked me silly and I was ready to reel into my cavern. The drive from Great Falls to that place was littered in clouds. The torrent came and went but the dampness stayed. On such cloudy days, as the inside gets gloomy, it is an inherent nature of thoughts to convene quietly – like stars at dusk – and tangle up into a mystified dimension. Trying to vie away from such wet and uncomfortable thoughts, I focused on the scene in front of me. Hanging low over the reflective lake were shadows of two mountains – Sinopah and Rising Wolf – that were likely lovers long ago but turned to stone waiting for the other to relent. Behind them were other mountains conversing loudly with the taciturn sky veiled in cold clouds. Suddenly, breaking the gloom, a shaft of stormy light sneaked into the scene and faintly illuminated Sinopah's peak and my mood. Those tangled thoughts metamorphosed into truth of a newer order where one is acutely aware of – but, is in peace with – disorders within. Now, all felt well and I wanted to… dance!

You see, I had found my Ya.kiⱡ Haqwiⱡnamki and I really wanted to dance!

Tags:   TwoMedicineLake GlacierNationalPark NationalPark Lake Water Reflection Reflections Montana SinopahMountain RisingWolfMountain Sunset Stormy day Ramen Saha Ya.kiⱡHaqwiⱡnamki

© All Rights Reserved

-----Prologue-----
“Seems like you have taken up the best spot already!”, I said in half jest to the photographer right next to me while setting up my gear for the above shot of Zion’s Virgin and the Watchman.

“You got that damn right!”, She said with that unmistakable British accent with no audible trace of jest in her response.

-----Act 1-----
To tuck in the Virgin river’s bend into the frame without backing off on millimeters and the Watchman’s proportion in the shot, I had to move my tripod by about four inches to the right. Problem was, firmly planted on the concrete one inch away was the stern British lady’s equally stern tripod leg.

“Would it be OK if I put my tripod right next to yours?” I asked as gently as I could.

“Yeah fine. Don’t trip mine over”, the flinty voice yielded.

-----Act 2------
While waiting for the sun to obey my wish and light up the Watchman precisely as above, I killed time by serving as an iphone-photographer for a group of three giggling Alaskan college girls (who never paid me my paltry fees of $5, do you believe it?), stretching my muscles in all sorts of shapeless contortions, waving at aghast drivers driving past the hoard of us photographers at 5mph, and talking again to my austere British neighbor.

“Are you from around here? Are you a techie in the Silicon Valley?” She asked me. When I told her what I do for a living, she broke out into a laughter and apologized profusely for stereotyping. From there on, our conversation took on a more manageable course. I learned her name was Mickey. Mickey is not on Flickr but she and her incredibly handsome and devoted husband were traveling the US with one sole purpose: landscape photography.

-----Act 3-----
“Why do we do this?” Mickey asked hinting at all the pain undertaken by landscape photographers (or, faux landscapers, like, yours truly).

“I don’t know why Mickey. I guess, we like chasing the light and stopping time.” The nerd in me was having a field day.

“Tell you what, I do it because it keeps me going. I have lost my son to cancer but all this running around with the camera keeps my sixty-year-old mind and body going. You know?” I noticed a hint of moisture in her eyes reflecting the orange glow of the west earnestly.

“Tell you what Mickey,” I said, looking straight at the unexpectedly revealed segment of her core, “you are damn right! To keep going... That is exactly why I do it too!”

-----Epilogue-----
Mickey, if you are reading this, then here is one more reason why I do it: To meet people like yourself on the trail who somehow have that magical ability to touch others in the span of a moment. Thanks for loaning me a pint of your life-blood to keep my soul flickering.

Tags:   Zion Watchman VirginRiver ZionNationalPark Sunset Sunset colors SunsetReflections Sunset thoughts Landscape River Clouds Ramen Saha Utah NationalPark

© All Rights Reserved

You learn to take your coffee black
You learn to drink your whiskey neat
You learn to scourge the throbbing pain
Silently choking the heartbeat.

You learn to fall asleep alone
You learn to silence ticking clocks
You learn to sleep in a fetal pose
avoiding the dream and all it mocks.

You learn to speak so calmly when
Your heart would like to scream and shout
You learn to stop, and breathe, and smile
You learn to live without.

You learn, there is no shining knight
Your hero is you and your tears
And not to count the deadly days
As they fade into years.

You still die a bit when
the mind strums and plays her song
You still can’t understand
how giving it your all was so wrong.

But, You learn to stand alone at last
So brave, and bold, and strong, and stout
And then learn to live… again…
You learn to live without.

PS: Certain songs mess with the mind more than others. “You learn to live without” by Idina Menzel – quoted above in fragments and filled in with my nonsense – messed with mine more than those usual messy songs and kept playing in my head during our recent trip to the beautiful PNW. So, here we go…

Tags:   OlympicNationalPark LaPush SecondBeach PNW Washington NationalPark SeaStacks Long exposure Sea Rock Water Air Ramen Saha Solitude Forks

© All Rights Reserved