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At
First Look They Look Like Leaf Prints but are Actually
Dendrite Crystals |
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Today for lunch we had noodle soup. I looked up
and there appeared, like phantoms, five porters,
sitting, watching us cook. They would stay awhile,
disappear and then reappear as if we were the
entertainment for the day. It was eerie how they
would melt in and out of our little scene, and saying
not a word, quiet as ghosts. It was not me that
they were curious about, but perhaps the hi-tech
mountain stove that Dawa and I were using. Thursday -
Friday 11/12
Coming into the lake today was my most exciting
moment of the trip, or least it seemed so at the time.
I had been walking for days, with my eyes searching the
ground for any indication of fossils. And then when hope
had faded, I saw it, an imprint of a leaf, actually many
imprints or what looked to be to my untrained eye.
In any case I did an excellent job of destroying
whatever edge had remained on the ice axe as I hacked away trying to
break off the imprints in small enough pieces to be
carried back home
and still keeping the imprints whole. I am now weighted down with
stone which may or may not be imprints and numerous small pieces of
rose quartz for souvenirs for friends.
Dawa thinks there is a bit of lunacy
coursing through my veins and he is probably right. |
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glaciers and mountains surround me, and the time is a
hundred million years in the past.
I am here, this geographic dot on the map, and my final goal:
my
purported reason for coming to this land. We are camped at the
highest, and last, of the Ponch Pokori’s. This nameless lake sits at
17,500 feet. It is snowing and eighteen degrees. The time is 4:30PM. We
have just finished dinner of Polynesian Chicken with Rice.
Neither Dawa or I like the meal very much, it is bland and
this is the second night that we have had it.
The lake is not large, perhaps the combined length and
breadth of three football fields, but it is the largest of
the group and sits high on it’s shelf - alone. On two sides,
the |
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Last
Pile of Rock Before the Lake |
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Page 76 |
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