KEY SUMMIT

At the top of the climb there are trees, sinister and twisted and sensual, casting bizarre crooked shadows.

They remind me of Hell—standing there like torturers beneath a ruthless sun, brutal-looking and murderous, with sharp pointed branches.

I call them Dante Trees, after the Poet.

The sky is so near, such a pale blue that it has become blank—a stark empty void above the mountains and paths, slitting its throat on the rocks.

There are six of us here at the summit, overlooking nature, starring mountaintops in the face with sun-hardened eyes. The climb was lovely—trees overhanging, outstretched, streams and waterfalls babbling over moss and smooth stone, springing from exposed veins beneath the fallen crust.

You almost get tired of all the beauty—as Robert says.

What can I say?

Crystal clear creeks, cascading waterfalls—drinking from trickles that pool in soft overgrown craters—the water is so pure and sweet and clean.

Drinking from the Earth is magical.

Like Mother’s milk—a natural, incomparable taste.

In quite places—special, hidden places—where the water whispers between car-size boulders, flashing in the sunlight, this purity is shockingly evident. It’s as if a filtered sea of swimming pools where dumped into a riverbed—that clear—mostly colorless, with a slight aqua tint, murmuring.

Who would have thought: water blew my mind.

Robert and I and the others rattle off pictures, laughing hard enough to meet in town, later that night, for drinks.

It was a good day.