The complexities of the modern world are extremely foolish in the face of the eternal openness and beauty of these mountains.

"I hope you had a most delightful trip in the High Country, and that you were benefited in mind and soul and body by the divine influence of the mountains.  I think nothing can be compared to the Hills for the elevation of spirit, and peace of mind, which they produce in man when he lives intelligently among them . . . I look on the lines and forms of the mountains and all other aspects of Nature as if they were but the vast expression of ideas within the Cosmic Mind, if such it can be called . . . The complexities of the modern world . . . are extremely foolish in the face of the eternal openness and beauty of these mountains."

Ansel Adams, in a letter to  Virginia Best, 1925

Photo: Wild Plum bushes blossoming with the foothills in the background, Lory State Park, CO April 12, 2012