#desolation peak

Grief brings strange memories - Jack Kerouac is on Desolation Peak again and I am wondering if it matters any more

"And suddenly I saw the Northwest was a great deal more than the little vision I had of it in my mind. It was miles and miles of unbelievable mountains on all horizons in the wild broken clouds, Mount Olympus and Mount Baker, a giant orange sash in the gloom over the Pacific-ward skies that led I knew toward the Hokkaido Siberian desolations of the world. I huddled against the bridgehouse hearing the Mark Twain talk of the skipper and the wheelman inside. In the deepened dusk fog ahead the big red neons saying: PORT OF SEATTLE. And suddenly everything Japhy had ever told me about Seattle began to seep into me like cold rain, I could feel it and see it now, and not just think it. It was exactly like he'd said: wet, immense, timbered, mountainous, cold, exhilarating, challenging. The ferry nosed in at the pier on Alaskan Way and immediately I saw the totem poles in old stores and the ancient 1880-style switch goat with sleepy firemen chug chugging up and down the waterfront spur like a scene from my old dreams, the old Casey Jones locomotive of American, the only one I ever saw that old outside of Western movies, but actually working and hauling boxcars in the smoky gloom of the magic city. "

Stay above the clouds. Everything looks different up here.

The contrast here is unbelievable. I’m thrilled that I got to experience this beauty yesterday.

Desolation Peak, North Cascades, Washington. The one Kerouac worked.

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