“I love this place; I love mountains and big skies and forests. And the weather is still supremely beautiful even though the lower peaks are powdered with fresh snow. But Heavens! What sun. It never has an ending. I am basking at this minute - half past four - too hot without a hat, & the sky is that transparent blue only to be seen in autumn - the forest trees steeped in light.”

“The snow crystals . . . come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Nature, but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade way. But though the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of the autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again.”

“blue-gold sky, fresh cloud, emerald-black mountain, trees on rocky ledges, on the summit, the tiny pin of a telephone tower-all brilliantly clear, in shadow and out. and on and through everything everywhere the sun shines without reservation (p. 97)”

“Good Timber by Douglas MallochThe tree that never had to fightFor sun and sky and air and light,But stood out in the open plainAnd always got its share of rain,Never became a forest kingBut lived and died a scrubby thing.The man who never had to toilTo gain and farm his patch of soil,Who never had to win his shareOf sun and sky and light and air,Never became a manly manBut lived and died as he began.Good timber does not grow with ease:The stronger wind, the stronger trees;The further sky, the greater length;The more the storm, the more the strength.By sun and cold, by rain and snow,In trees and men good timbers grow.Where thickest lies the forest growth,We find the patriarchs of both.And they hold counsel with the starsWhose broken branches show the scarsOf many winds and much of strife.This is the common law of life.”

“In the mountains it's cold.Always been cold, not just this year.Jagged scarps forever snowed inWoods in the dark ravines spitting mist.Grass is still sprouting at the end of June,Leaves begin to fall in early August.And here I am, high on mountains,Peering and peering, but I can't even see the sky.”

“I believe in love. And beauty. I believe that every single person has something they find beautiful and that they truly love. The smell of their child's hair, the silence of a forest, their lover's crooked grin. Their country, their religion, their family. And I believe that if you follow this love all the way to its end, if you start with the thing you find most beautiful and trace it's perfume back to its essence, you will perceive an intangible presence, a swath of stillness that allows the thing you love to be visible like the openness of the sky reveals the presence of the moon.”