Reflections by Haley Hutchinson '23

My tender feet, raw from miles of elevation gain, inch closer and closer to the lapping water of an alpine tarn. Trickling between cracks of granite, the lake’s motion breaks the silence that echoes between gray peaks, teasing an evening sky. I cautiously dip my feet into the water. The initial shock is breathtaking, but soon the frigidity begins to relieve the aches and pains my feet have grown accustomed to after long days of hiking rugged terrain on the east side of the Sierra Mountains. The last ribbons of heat from the day fade into the approaching dusk. With my toes submerged in the cooling water, I sit in stillness. Like polished glass, the tarn mirrors its surroundings–the texture of the rubbled rock lining its edge, the crusted moss wedged between granite slabs and mud at its bank, the lonely white pine scarred from a lightning storm a few summers back, the gleam of a setting orange sun. A slight breeze ripples the image, calling attention to the distinction between the physical and the reflected. As the moment drifts away, the air leaves a loud quietness, save for the breath in my chest, reminding me that out here,

I stare into the velvet water, my feet numbing with the cold. My reflection stares back at me in contemplation. Water bugs skirt in aimless circles and lime-green pieces of uprooted lake-bottom slime drift aimlessly across my nose, painting a portrait on this aquatic canvas. I close my eyes and listen to the calls of a distant chickadee settling in for the night. I hear the soft drum of my heartbeat, loud in this whimsical silence. As the tangerine sun begins to disappear behind the peaks in front of me, another day draws to a close in the wilderness. The same sun still glows on taller peaks behind me, hiding an alpine meadow where Indian paintbrushes and elephant heads crane their necks to the sky, maximizing the final moments of radiation. A marmot discreetly skitters across broken pieces of talace back to its den. A bald eagle soars overhead, its kingly presence dominating the sky for a moment before disappearing behind the peak. And here I sit. Comforted by this mountain tarn, I watch the sun finally dip below the ridgeline and I pull my arms around myself as night quickly approaches. I hold onto the smell of pine drifting in the black-night air, and the sound of the rippling water laced between my toes. Here I am a tiny speck of life in a complex world of wonder.