It has been just over a year since I set out to live on my own. These places I’m able to visit… these places I’m able to live… have truly begun to feel like dreams.
Sometimes it doesn’t even feel real that I’m able to design my life solely around accessing the very best of nature. I, simultaneously, feel incredibly grateful, incredibly proud, and incredibly bemused that this is even possible.
In one hand, it was certainly not by accident. It has been years of intentional and pointed refinement — all toward this.
And in the other hand, it was not without a veritable touch of chaos, and a hand of blessing.
Through this time, I have settled into an enduring experience. I find that moving through nature is like the most vivid dream. I feel so intensely alive, walking alone with my camera through places much bigger, and much older than me.
And so, over this past year, I’ve gradually come to understand my photography as my dream journal.
I’ve always been enchanted by dreams. In my experience, they are intense, mysterious, and awe-inspiring. And I find they often… leave something behind. I believe there is something foundational about them.
And what I now see, is that little separates my solo adventures… from a dream.
No one can verify or dispute my experience. It is mine, and mine alone. The moments of the adventure are all-encompassing and otherworldly. And then, it moves and passes like wind in the night. The only things that remain, are the few frames I capture, and perhaps, something intangible left in me.
So with that, here is my dream journal, from an autumn filled with larch, lakes and light.
Morning light pours into my favorite little riverbed — just a short walk from my home.Backlight trees lean and sway above the riverThere are a few enduring scenes that stick in my mind from my stay in Leavenworth, and this is one: Looking up at very, very big walls.The last rays of sunlight make their way up my home valley — a scene which would become a familiar friend.My first solo adventure into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, and how divine it was. This was my special scene for the evening, complimenting, quite nicely, a well-earned dinner.Cozy time.Paint strokes on more big walls.Another one of my epic trips — I traverse almost 30 miles on Icicle Ridge. Lucky for me, the trailhead was just a 5 minute walk from my house.This trip was particularly special because it’s so close to Leavenworth, an area I have been going on and off for all my life. And yet the trail opens up this world you could never see from town.Once you get up high, you’re on the ridge line for the rest of the walk and then every 30 minutes or so, you round a corner and drop into a whole new zone… almost like turning the pages of a book.You can see it well here. The ridge line flows seamlessly, and endlessly. Layers upon layers upon layers.I make my way back from where I came and the setting sun highlights a lovely section of ridge line.GlassyFleeting breaks of light give rise to little gems of autumn beautyPainterly reflectionsWavy textures accompany the setting sun and rising moon.Another enduring image from my time in Leavenworth, and a detail I’ve always been attracted to: Sunlight engulfing peak autumn leaves to produce the most vibrant and glowing yellows. I can even recall leaning back and staring up at this sort of scene as a kid. Everlasting Light // 1Everlasting Light // 2Everlasting Light // 3Everlasting Light // 4Everlasting Light // 5Perhaps my most epic of epics. The most aptly named, Larch Lake.This was, by far, the most difficult hike I did. Not in terms of distance or elevation gain, but because the entire trail to get here was overrun by downed trees and thorn bushes. But you know, there’s a certain point of no-return where you decide… what’s really the difference between being covered in fifty scratches.. or eighty…?And upon my arrival at the lake, I’m welcomed not only by a normal, non-bushwhacky trail, but a perfect little campsite to boot.Glowing larch… here, there…… and everywhere.I wake to a morning pano, just beyond my doorstep.Quiet scenes line the first mile of my walk back.I leave you not with glowing yellows, but the shimmering emeralds, which follow along another special trail to another very, very special place.Yes, the Enchantments, of course. Certainly a story, and a dream, for another time…
