Notches to the North
Notches to the North Pastel 12x18
(View is from “The Moats.”)
Notches to the North
At first they’re only names
Pinkham Notch, Crawford Notch
Carter Notch, Franconian Notch,
places of waterfalls, cliffs, and mountain tops.
Tourist bait!
We come to get away from whatever,
our “vacate-tion,”
but we are drawn in.
We came for the leaf peeping
the skiing
the hiking.
Slow process, the dawning.
* * * * *
I’m invited
by the winding roads through the notches,
by the trails to those cliffs.
Slow process, the dawning.
I walk the paths to admire the waterfalls,
I follow the trails to the ledges
growing stronger,
and hike to the mountain tops and back.
What wonders to feel from above...
Slow process, the dawning.
Mountains look different from the top.
Their sides swell and bulge
and somewhere on the way up
the trees shrink and find solace
in rock coves and cracks and little soil,
flattening themselves against the rock slabs,
and each other
(krummholz it’s called, crooked wood)
until they disappear.
Summiting,
I stand on rock,
the bones and heft of these great bulges,
the better to grasp the strength and size.
Slow process, the dawning.
For these are the old worn down mountains
of fifth grade geography.
I climb other ridges, further south
and see the expanse at a distance.
A Pattern,
A line
East to West, West to East
with notches...
the mountains have faded in the mists of distance
to ocean blue,
as if they are great waves
frozen into swoops and swells and peaks.
And there stand the land locked notches
in the stretch of wide blue horizon
Slow process, the dawning.
A storm coming in from the north
dark clouds, dark mountains
and now fifth grade geography
rumbles in my head
like the great cataclysm
that carved these notches,
inexorably
coming like the clouds
but not clouds...
The Great Ice Sheet
moving over the land,
glaciers preceding,
putting out their searching feet
pushing and scouring the land beneath
nudging against that ridge,
finding the weak spots, and moving through,
ultimately covering the peaks
and continuing the southward journey,
creeping, grinding, but not leveling.
Think the size, a mile high
water, but frozen, moving as water
creating shapes as water.
Think the silence,
except for the cracking thundering of ice,
not silence, but who’s to hear?
Who’s to really know?
Finally, eventually, over eons
the retreat, so slow
leaving the notches as evidence.
And I wonder,
do the mountains in their quiet beauty
do the notches with their distinctive shapes
think of their pasts,
their greater parts worn down,
or do they glory in how they have survived
and how they are serving all creatures that have moved north
repopulating those once barren slopes and summits,
to come to their present state of aging splendor.
Slow process, the dawning...
so much to ponder
as I drive the notch roads,
South to North and back
as I walk the notch trails,
from road to ridge,
and the ridges from summit to summit.
Endless wonder, evolving...
Tourist bait? Perhaps for some,
Perhaps for many...
but for those who take the time?
For those who are drawn in
to the slow dawning?
The notches...
Visual troubadours,
inviting entry into a new universe.
Notches
Franconian Ridge Trail, Lincoln to Lafayette
Frankenstein Cliff Pastel 9X12
(seen from 302 near Crawford Notch)
Franconia Ridge: Lincoln to Little Haystack
Pastel 12x18
Mount Washington
from Liberty Peak
Pastel 12X18
Liberty Peak
on the Franconia Ridge Trail
Pastel 18 x 12
Thanks to Tin Mountain Conservation Center for their excellent workshop series on the White Mountain Alpine Zone, particularly
Brian Fowler and Dyk Eusden for the Geologic Components and Mount Washington Observatory for the Weather Component.