The View from the Top

Will I ever tire of climbing mountains?  Specifically, Big Bearpen?  This is the fourth day in a row I have climbed this 4250-foot peak.  I am looking forward immensely to running up this mountain on Sunday, the first day that Dr. Secosan will permit me to run.  Today, a runner passed me, on the way to the top, and I was sorely tempted to give chase!

Every day I see new things I had not noticed before.  But perhaps that comes from living here in this beautiful part of the country, where the trees and the sky and the weather change every moment.  Today there was a peculiar light on everything, there was a kind of amber haze, and the high clouds looked like they were announcing a change in weather. 

And today I noticed particularly all the gates along the way - beginning with one of my favorites:

Now that's an old-school gate, from 20 or 30 years ago, the same age as the simple, unadorned one-story house that stands behind it.  With a million-dollar view, you don't need a three-story monstrosity with Doric columns (oh yes, there is one of those on the very top) - all you needed back in the day was a simply structure, lots of windows, perhaps a screened-in porch - and this gate announcing simplicity.  A mountain cabin.

Here is a more utilitarian fellow on the very top, the house it protects barely visible behind thick rhododendron, but no doubt a simple masterpiece as well:

I do not admire the house attached to this gate - it would look more at home in Buckhead than here in Highlands - but this whimsical gate almost makes up for that:

No bears today, either - except for this little fellow:

When I see a live bear, I won't have my camera.