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In this vast and beautiful wilderness there is stillness in wild places.
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Cool wind in the warmth of the sun.
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Small sounds and simple things in a gentle confusion of nature.
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Cool wind in the warmth of the sun.
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Cool wind in the warmth of the sun.
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Cool wind in the warmth of the sun.
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The beauty of the Olympic Mountains rests in the shadows of torn and scoured peaks,
and in the glimmer of dawn.
The desert trees and endless sweeps of fog soften rocky lake shores.
The slopes are green and fresh and cool, and the breeze is misty, like a dream.
Deep within Olympic is an intimate, silent world of forests.
Everything is lush, damp, and still.
Sun and rain sift through the thick canopy of the old road forest,
nourishing an abundant plant and animal life.
The air is misted and gentle, the trees massive and ancient.
Many rivers are named for Indian tribes.
Skokomish, Elwha, Pol.
Trails climb from the forest to the graceful meadows of the upper ranges.
Olympic whispers of a nobility that is everywhere, a dignity that is timeless.
Bounding against bluffs, toppling trees, the sea works its way inland.
Lone stalwart sea stacks and islands topped with scraps of forest were once headlands before the Pacific severed them from the mainland.
Pummeled by winter seas and high tides, huge eerie monuments lie scattered along the shoreline.
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A rich and intricate Indian culture began here thousands of years ago.
The Makka, Quiliut, Po, and Quinault were the coast people. With the fortitude of their ancestors, they continue to thrive on Olympic shores.
There is delicate beauty in the wildness at the edge of the sea.
The pale warmth of the sun glows behind darkening silhouettes, and the day's light quietly drifts beyond the horizon.
The Olympic wilderness remains untouched. It is pure and primitive. Its infinite beauty lingers in every breeze and in every river song.
Perhaps it's the magic of the blue mist.
Perhaps it's the gentle quiet of this mountain garden, or the moist fragrance of the air laden with the scent of growing things.
Perhaps you've rounded this bend before, or crossed that creek, or stopped and marveled at the vast lushness of it all.
Whatever it is, the great smoky mountains have a way of making you feel at home.
These are soft mountains, rumpled hills that reach and rise, watergraphing the earth from north to south.
Distinct and strong, their signature has been sanded by wind and water for more than 200 million years.
Each season brushes the land with a gentle grace, a mantle of white and brown in winter, a golden summer glove, a palette of colors in spring and fall.
The smokies are always dressed for company.
All outcroppings lure the hiker off the trail to look out over virgin land. Ridge upon ridge the mountains unfold, wearing a grace that comes with age.
Dignified and lush, the great smoky mountains are alive with the spirit of the Indians who first lived here.
Listen. Forest sounds, magnified by silence, by stillness.
Even before the sky lightens, birds begin to sing.
Other inhabitants of this rich forest greet the day more quietly, their passage camouflaged by padded feet.
In the coves, a rich mix of plants and wildlife find refuge, protected from winter's icy winds, nourished by some of the most fertile soil on the North American continent
and sustained by over 700 miles of restless rivers and trickling streams.
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These families are gone now. The ghosts of their homesteads whisper how difficult, yet how rich, life must have been.
Walking the Smokies is a timeless experience, one that lets the mind wander.
Endless themes are played out here. Each trail leaves a different story.
A quiet path where mysteries are hidden in the blue shadows.
A boulder-strewn track carved in an ancient age.
A secret winding walkway into a child's deep forest hideaway.
Trails following rivers and streams meandering through these hills, linking forgotten settlements to each other.
And the greatest of them all, the Appalachian Trail, the spine of the Great Smoky Mountains.
These winding pathways disappear here, reappear there, inviting the hiker to places where he is wonderfully and simply alone.
It's hard to visit the Great Smoky Mountains and go away untouched.
The spirit of this mountain wilderness lies in the subtleties of the swirling mists, in the overwhelming abundance of plant and animal life, in the poignant dignity of empty homesteads.
Change comes gently here, harmoniously, in increments as fine as the dew on a spider's web.
Richer for having come, we leave knowing that these mountains will call us back.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Breathe deeply. The air is full of the sea.
The wind carries its music for miles.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Acadia is a land of contrasts, where quiet forests and gentle inland ponds lie hidden behind chiseled headlands and high jagged ledges.
Where tiny streams that lace spring meadows seem out of place with cobble beaches and thundering surf.
The rock underfoot is ancient and sturdy, worn by wind and water.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Acadia
The Great Smoky Mountains
A slow steady beaten lights the night sky with a warm and misty charm of Acadia.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Miles of rustic carriage paths meander through painted worlds of cinnamon ferns, bright autumn leaves and moss covered rocks.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Fragrant and alive with color verdant inland forests are rich with red spruce, birch and white pine.
In the fall red maples and aspen blaze with scarlet and gold.
Cool clear lakes reflect the colors of lupine, redora and delicate wild roses in spring and summer.
Meadows of wild flowers and patches of blueberries push in the hills.
The Great Smoky Mountains
The coastline of the small corner of Maine is challenged and changed every day. Giant breakers batter away at ancient grabbit, chipping fragments from 100 foot cliffs.
Gentle waves sand and smooth cobbles, sending them clattering onto beaches of crushed shells and quartz.
The softness of a beach swept with summer fog lingers, damp and hushed.
The tides ebb and flow, sustaining life at the edge of the sea.
Nourished and protected in tidal pools, tiny plants resist the endless push and pull of ocean waves.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Solitude and serenity are found walking along these shores.
Plots of long forgotten Indian feasts drift by in the whisper of a breeze.
Dark rivers of frozen rocks spill into the sea.
Ghosts of warships that once hid in Frenchman's Bay disappear in the fog, and seagulls float above footprints that lead nowhere.
Since 1850, artists and naturalists have come here, moored by glistening seascapes, quaint harbors, and an abundance of wildlife.
In the early 1900s, protective and determined private citizens gave thousands of acres of Acadian land to America.
An unselfish effort to preserve its rich history in natural splendor.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Carriage paths, reminiscent of an earlier time, wind across rolling hills and over rocky woodland streams.
These trails are linked by hand-hewn stone bridges, magnificent and strong.
Acadia is a land surrounded by a pervasive and powerful sea.
It is rich with forests and mountains, lakes and wildlife.
This is a quiet place, where nature is at ease with a spirit of resourceful and independent people.
It is natural, unpredictable, and unforgettable.
The Great Smoky Mountains
Even to those who have seen you only in pictures, you are on mind-boggling sight.
A colossal spectacle.
An enormous tear in the earth.
A vast and bewildering sea of textures and colors.
We have seen you move and breathe, and we have felt your changing moods.
We watched you welcome a mantle of snow with a quiet that silenced the wind, and a dignity that stilled the sky.
We have seen you move and breathe, and we have felt your changing moods.
We have seen you move and breathe, and a dignity that stilled the sky.
The tranquility born from the sea.
You enveloped us in a cocoon of silence, hiding us from time, shielding us from the world.
We were at ease and at peace.
We sat at your feet at daybreak, when a shadowy low light was melancholy and as luminous as pearl glow, and watched you weep in a morning rain,
with tears running like rivers down your weathered cheeks, streaming through rocky crevices, washing across water-smooth boulders, pouring down in shower faults, flooding into widening pools.
We stood in the cold rain, shivering while the wind whistled through the teeth of the juniper trees, and watched the cloud shadows run across your body, giving you a menacing look that chilled us more than a thousand years.
We stood in the cold rain, shivering while the wind whistled through the teeth of the juniper trees, giving you a menacing look that chilled us more than a thousand years.
On a cloudless day that shone like silver, we walked the Kaibab and the Bright Angel and watched you spread out among the relics of the ages, resting in the sunshine, laughing silently to yourself as we walked on, taking some pleasure in the fact that our destination was still so far away.
We walked the Kaibab and the Bright Angel and watched you spread out among the relics of the ages, resting in the sunshine, laughing silently to yourself as we walked on, taking some pleasure in the fact that our destination was still so far away.
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We have seen how you change, but never change.
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All day we watched while you revealed your beauty to us.
And as you slipped gracefully back into night, we stayed, waiting, hoping for one more flash, one more glimpse, hungering still for another day, when we could again wander amidst your angelic altars of time.
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