Breuil-Cervinia Italy

 I wandered around after I arrived, in the little village, up the trails, no one spoke English, trying to figure out the way up the mountain. I had picked up a hitchhiker, he looked like a robust fellow, maybe a climber who could help me out, but he spoke no English, and only informed me through his phone that it had snowed the night before on the mountain.  The woman in the guide center, in the same building as the tourist office, told me that guides were not taking people up the mountain yet because conditions were still too icy and snowy, and I had heard the Italian guides were so much more daring than their Swiss counterparts. But it didn’t matter, I was not going to hire a guide anyway. On my hike, in the beautiful alpine valley, I made it up to where the Duca egli Abruuzzi hut is, which is not a hut at all, but a large building that serves food to tourists and where you can sleep if you have a sleeping bag. I met a few climbers on my walk, either going up or down, getting ready to climb the mountain, none of them seemed terribly concerned, although none of them were climbing solo.

Salt Lake to JFK to Malpensa, Milan to Breuil Cervinia to Il Cervino, the Matterhorn

 To climb Il Cervino, the Matterhorn.  I landed in Malpensa at 6:40 AM an airport I have visited before several times on my way to Bologna, with Josh and with Jakob.  The pink paint job on the engines glowed beautifully in the sunrise in front of the green plains of Italy. As an airport, it was  a disappointment. I found the car easily, found the roads easily to Breuil Cervinia, the last little town in the Alps, in the Aosta Valley. 

The little village Breuill Cervinia, and the mountain

matterhorn

 Matterhorn, Swiss side

Matterhorn, Italian side...perhaps corner, Little Cottonwood

Santa Fe and Taos Rio Grande

 Canyon road Santa Fe studio and window,
Jeffrey Schweitzer is the artist, also Georgia O'Keefe, 1920's Amish quilt, charcoal drawing. and installation, Enrique Martinez Celaya, including a tar and feathered boat, carrying a lighthouse.  Finally a balloon rises over the Rio Grande.

sagebrush forest petroglyph cliff dweller climber

 Sego Canyon Fremont Petroglyphs and a sagebrush forest

 Mesa Verde cliff dwellers, no one knows why
or how many, or why they left


climbing in Durango at the Watchcrystal wall
and a view from the drive to Santa Fe, where there was a Hokkusai print of flying a kite
over Mount Fuji

lone peak

 small himalaya paintings and the top of the question mark wall, lone peak, lone peak wilderness area, wasatch mountains