19 Days Until Trek - "Beyond Description for Wildness and Beauty"


There is beauty all around us if we have eyes to see it. Here is hoping that you have moments of transcendence where you are overwhelmed by the sublime. Perhaps it will be a sunset or sunrise, wide open spaces, or the feeling of being far away from everything. Open your eyes and soak it all in. Fill all of your senses, the smells, the touch, the sounds and tastes, in addition to sights, of Trek.

“In 1851 Jean Rio Baker, passing west of Fort Bridger, wrote ‘The country for the last three days has been beyond description for wildness and beauty. We are, indeed, among the everlasting hills.’ Like many foreign immigrants, she was enchanted with her first experience with fireflies, ‘the most beautiful natural phenomenon I have ever beheld.’ Near the dramatic Scotts Bluffs, teenager Angelina Farley noted in 1850: ‘The scenery around us is singularly wild and grotesque, the bluffs representing ranges of ruined castles, places, and temples.’”

Selection from Stanley B. and Violet T. Kimball's 2011 book, Villages on Wheels: A Social History of the Gathering to Zion.

The first AI-generated image was darker with fireflies. Fireflies in the arid west didn't quite work, so I asked ChatGPT to get rid of the fireflies and lighten it up a bit.

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