Mountain Life

The tranquility of the mountains cannot be matched. After my first week of living in the White Mountains of New Hampshire at Gray Knob Cabin, I’ve totally fallen in love with the simple life away from the hustle and bustle of more populated areas of the world. To get off the power grid and only have to worry about how not to burn the bottoms of my blueberry muffins puts things all into perspective. On clear days I make my way up to the rocky peaks above me and on stormy days I bundle up in my rain gear and go for walks in the driving rain and under the flashes of lightning and the cracks of thunder that echo off the surrounding slopes.

Rafting the Grand

How ironic that the pinnacle of whitewater rafting experiences is found over a mile deep into the earth.

As the Colorado River flows through the Grand Canyon, numerous side canyons and rock falls have deposited piles and piles of rocks and boulders to create some of the most notorious whitewater in the northern hemisphere. Because the constraining canyon walls rise thousands of feet above the river, it has no way to go around these impedances. It has no option but to go over these obstacles in a churning, violent, frothy flow. And once we’re in the canyon, we have no option but to navigate our way through these unyielding currents in our little rafts. As one of the earliest river runners of the Colorado in 1869 described it, the water snagged a boat and “whirled it around quick enough to take the kinks out of a ram’s horn.”