mountain storm
Posted on March 11, 2004
Filed Under images, out of town, stories

Storm in the mountains. It announces itself from miles away, rolling, incoming. Floats just over the mountain next to my camp, crashing into its bald rock face. I see the rain from here, see its thick screen turn everything behind it gray. It sounds like it’s coming this way, dark clouds are overhead, and cool air is blowing, dropping the temperature rapidly. It begins to sprinkle. I quickly finish dinner, clean my bowl, hang the food bags, rinse the dinner pots, sprint for the tent, and am settled inside just as it begins to… sprinkle a little more. Then it stops. I wait a few minutes, open the tent, and return to my post on the crag. I see that the storm is already a mile or so away. It blew around my mountain. I see that the storm leaves behind pieces of itself ? smaller wisps of white clouds are left in the valleys. They’re too young to climb the slopes, so they’re left to fend for themselves in between the mountains. They too gradually blow away, but not over the mountain… into it I guess.

