One forgets or ignores the easy slide of time; like a glacier, it seems so vast and inefficient, but it moves far and fast and does a lot of damage.

A few more rocks have tumbled down the granite walls, and some trees have toppled, split apart, disintegrated both by the crash and the critter aftermath. The wilderness is a majestic place of constant decomposition. It seems timeless, but as I kicked along the trail I viewed the permanence as an illusion, a drawn-out process of constant change. The only reality is change, after all. Isn't that what they say? It is the one thing you can count on and never predict. The Earth is like a perpetual drunk, faltering, reliably inconsistent.

Click here for some photographs if you have time to wait for the flash to download. It's over 5 mb. Such an extravagant waste of unnatural resources.