Welcome! I am a contemplative thinker and photographer from Colorado. In this blog, you'll discover photographs that I've taken on my hiking and backpacking trips, mostly in the American West. I've paired these with my favorite inspirational and philosophical quotes - literary passages that emphasize the innate spirituality of the natural world. I hope you enjoy them!

If you'd like to purchase photo-quote greeting cards, please go to www.NaturePhoto-QuoteCards.com .


In the Spirit of Wildness,

Stephen Hatch
Fort Collins, Colorado

P.S. There's a label index at the bottom of the blog.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

You've got to PAY for your beauty!


I've always been convinced that "You've got to PAY for your beauty" with some kind of hardship endured while out in Nature.  Often that "payment" involves hiking or backpacking long miles, enduring clouds of mosquitoes, waiting for extended hours until the lighting is just right, getting up early for sunrise, or hiking back to the trailhead by headlamp after sunset.  Any suffering I endure while out in Nature becomes like the labor pain necessary to give birth to a new - more unitive - state of consciousness.  However, yesterday I had to pay in another way.  It was perhaps the windiest day I've ever encountered in the Great Outdoors. While focusing on the prolonged alpenglow radiating from Long's Peak, my fingers and face were getting colder and colder.  The fingers on one hand finally went numb and rewarmed only with a great deal of pain.  Then, this afternoon, I realized that my nose has a frostbit spot, acquired yesterday.  I guess I'll need to pay more attention next time!

Photo: Limber Pine and Long's Peak at sunset; Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; January 28, 2014

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