freshly flocked fir forest (which may be my favorite alliteration ever)
There are natural pathways through the chaos of the forest, and we learn to see them with time, to read the trends, and intuit where they might lead.
The eye seeks the openings, the spaces between with depth, glimpses of distant points that can give us information about our surroundings, slopes and steeps, thickets and exposures, the lay of the drainage, its course; these inform the mental map we are constantly building, and editing, adding detail, clarifying trends. Then we scale this up to speed on the descent, darting through the trees like a Sharp Shinned Hawk, moving with purpose and accuracy across the landscape, present in the moment.
This is what our brains evolved doing. It is deeply satisfying knowing in your body, where you are in relation to your world, it feels like home.
Sooty Grouse (Dendragapus fuliginosus) feather on surface hoar.
Friendly snow ghost
characteristic flattened old Sugar Pine crown bearing bunches of big cones at the tips of their long lean outstretched limbs
Sugar Pine caught mid-gesture, in rapt conversation with its neighbor. These quiet giants live long and slow, but with such animated self-possession in their poised posture.
ridgetop Jeffery Pine has its own battered grace, bearing witness to the severity of its home place.