Elevation (2nd take)
Posted: October 19th, 2007, 3:17 am
I puzzle over elevation tricks. This gentle grade extends for miles, a drop that adds up to thousands of feet, yet it seems virtually flat, stretched over a great distance. Stratified hills project from the slope, but it's difficult to judge their size and range, or if I sit higher. I try to project a flat line of sight, but how do I discern horizontal? Spring snow and crisp air lend clarity to high mountains, and clarity deceives. I see formations in crisp detail, yet have no idea of scale. They seem close, maybe five miles off, though I know that to be an illusion, increased when far peaks are framed over much closer foothills, a common optical trick, demonstrated by backing away from any window with gaze fixed on an outside object, which draws closer, fills up the frame.
Raw sculpture isn't grasped as a whole, but ridge to ridge at best. When I pass through Death Valley, I'm convinced I could live on one of its elegant sweeps in a cabin next to an unknown spring, where I'd rarely make it down, on account of elegant sweeps. I climb higher toward a mesa. Which is better? A view of the mesa or a view atop? A little elevation goes a long way, free of alpine entanglement. The mesa might be worth a shot, but why would anyone climb a mountain? It's out there. I carry that drive too, though my version is more horizontal. I sense a lack of return for elevation gain once I've topped say, four, five thousand feet over a basin, similar to a bell curve of drinking. Or politics. Or religion. How high is enough? Atop what point is the enterprise rendered a dubious sporting event?
Summit photos tend to be of clouds and ice; proof of athletic achievement. Above ten thousand feet or so it takes a rocket ride to get my attention. I remember that Apollo-8 earthrise photo. I saw Earth as a thumb-sized blue marble in heaven's wasteland. It was all over the news. Now there was a summit photo to inspire awe, even if clicked by a hardnosed warrior trying to beat the Russians. I have a mesa top; I've climbed high enough for now.
Raw sculpture isn't grasped as a whole, but ridge to ridge at best. When I pass through Death Valley, I'm convinced I could live on one of its elegant sweeps in a cabin next to an unknown spring, where I'd rarely make it down, on account of elegant sweeps. I climb higher toward a mesa. Which is better? A view of the mesa or a view atop? A little elevation goes a long way, free of alpine entanglement. The mesa might be worth a shot, but why would anyone climb a mountain? It's out there. I carry that drive too, though my version is more horizontal. I sense a lack of return for elevation gain once I've topped say, four, five thousand feet over a basin, similar to a bell curve of drinking. Or politics. Or religion. How high is enough? Atop what point is the enterprise rendered a dubious sporting event?
Summit photos tend to be of clouds and ice; proof of athletic achievement. Above ten thousand feet or so it takes a rocket ride to get my attention. I remember that Apollo-8 earthrise photo. I saw Earth as a thumb-sized blue marble in heaven's wasteland. It was all over the news. Now there was a summit photo to inspire awe, even if clicked by a hardnosed warrior trying to beat the Russians. I have a mesa top; I've climbed high enough for now.
