To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.
We turned and sailed away, joining the outgoing bergs, while “gloria in excels is” still seemed to be sounding over all the white landscape, and our burning hearts were ready for any fate, feeling that whatever the future might have in store, the treasures we had gain would enrich our lives forever.
Wherever there were glaciers, the world was in a constant state of creation.
Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question, “Why was it made?” goes on and on with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself.
Night is coming on and I am filled with indescribable loneliness. Felt feverish; bathed in a black, silent stream;.
Here I could stay tethered forever with just bread and water, nor would I be lonely; loved friends and neighbors, as love for everything increased, would seem all the nearer however many the miles and mountains between us.
I tied a crust of bread to my belt, and with Carlo set out for the upper slopes of the Pilot Peak Ridge, and had a good day, notwithstanding the care of seeking the silly runaways.
Nothing dollarable is safe.
The care-laden commercial lives we lead close our eyes to the operations of God as a workman, though openly carried on that all who will look may see.
Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.
Then, after a long fireside rest and a glance at my note-book, I cut a few leafy branches for a bed, and fell into the clear, death-like sleep of the tired mountaineer. Early.
When we try to pick out anything by itself we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe.
Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.
But the darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. I.
There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than a mountain stream.
So abundant and novel are the objects of interest in a pure wilderness that unless you are pursuing special studies it matters little where you go, or how often to the same place. Wherever you chance to be always seems at the moment of all places the best; and you feel that there can be no happiness in this world or in any other for those who may not be happy here.
You may be a little cold some nights on mountain tops above the timber-line, but you will see the stars, and by and by you can sleep enough in your town bed. or at least in your grave. Keep awake while you may in mountain mansions so rare.
Fortunately wrong cannot last. Soon or late it must fall back home to Hades, while some compensating good must surely follow.
You are yourself a Sequoia. Stop and get acquainted with your brethren... It will do you good.
Lake McDonald, full of brisk trout, is in the heart of this forest, and Avalanche Lake is ten miles above McDonald, at the feet of a group of glacier-laden mountains. Give a month at least to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life.
You’ll never make up what you lost today, I’ve been wandering through a thousand rooms of God’s crystal temple. I’ve been a thousand feet down in the crevasses, with matchless domes and sculpted figures and carved ice-work all about me. Solomon’s marble and ivory palaces were nothing to it. Such purity, such color, such delicate beauty! I was tempted to stay there and feed my soul, and softly freeze, until I would become part of the glacier. What a great death that would be.