The sheltering sky.

So I hit things hard every weekend, but I try and always go someplace different. Even so, there's only six or so roads out of Missoula, so I'm surprised when I realize how long it's been since I've been to a particular place. Last week, pulling into the parking lot at Discovery, I realized it had been almost two years since I'd been there. Looking at a map later, I realized it's been more than two years since I even drove through Fernie.

'...but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life ... But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.'

Ironically, I first heard that Paul Bowles quote when Larry Levis read it. Not three years later Levis had a heart attack and died while sitting at his desk.

February 9, 2013: outside Mt. Fernie Provincial Park, west of the ski area and east of Island Lake Lodge.

From the Lizard Range, looking down at the town of Fernie and northeast toward the Continental Divide.

February 10, 2013: Tunnel Creek, south of Fernie toward Elko.