[lit-ideas] Re: gashlycrumb tinies

Julie wrote:

I'm glad you posted that link, Robert -- my bit of beauty for the day, a respite from chaos. The pictures are stunning. I can't imagine what the ranges look like "in person". How did I not know about the ice towers?? I am awed by them. I'm an ocean person, but when we drove through the Grand Tetons last year it gave me a new appreciation for things lofty and grand. I imagine that in ice and forget how to think.

I'm glad it helped ease your mind; you've been taken in by the Kantian Sublime, I see. If you want to view 'ice towers,' look at

http://www.summitpost.org/mountains/photo_link.pl/p/photo_id__161703__object_id__48__type__mountain__mountain_id__48__route_id____user_id____order_by____limit__

the infamous Khumbu ice field on the way up Mt. Everest. (If anyone can spot the climbers in the picture, let me know; I can't.)

For those interested in mountains, and awesome pictures of them (not to mention routes, etc.), I highly recommend

http://www.summitpost.org/

Click on MOUNTAINS at the top of the page, and search. If a mountain, no matter how humble, has been climbed, it's there.

Gary Snyder spent summers in the 1950s on Sourdough Mountain

http://www.summitpost.org/show/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/3332

and Philip Whalen spent summers on Sourdough, Desolation, and Sauk, all in Washington. Earlier, Kenneth Rexroth had worked on trail crews in the same area; in 1965, Allen Ginsberg climbed Glacier Peak (WA), with Snyder, and a woman friend, not an easy ascent for someone in his shape. (Snyder describes this in Earth House Hold.) Kerouac worked at the fire lookout on the summit of Desolation Peak, in the summer of 1956. He thought he'd recovered his soul there amount the grandeur and stillness, but he soon lost it again. His days on the lookout are the source of the final chapter in Desolation Angels.

Robert Paul
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