Sun Rise Above

Lake Crescent and Mt. Storm King, a photo by SylvanDream on Flickr.

It was priceless and cliche all at once. The most beautiful sunrise of my life awaited me around the corner one morning as I came into a clearing on Hwy 101 passing through Olympic National Park along Lake Crescent with Mt. Storm King in the distance. Now, I have been witness to a myriad of breathtaking sunrises, but this one was just beyond majestic.

While working at Olympic Park Institute, I had began to loosely time my commute to work with the sunrise in the early summer. Some days I rode my mountain bike down a gravel road to the bus stop, while other mornings I rode it the other direction four miles along the lakeshore to a canoe that would take me, or some days several of us along with our bikes, across the lake to work. Some days we would canoe the whole distance from our house to work, never quite sure whether a placid fog or three-foot rollers would meet us along the way. And of course, we would drive some days as well. This morning I drove.

Above the shadow of a coniferous canopy, twilight was breaking into a peachy indigo as dust swirled behind my car. It looked to be a little early, so I drove on a little unexpectantly.

As I pulled over along the lakeshore and pulled out my camera I couldn’t help but smile, stand, stare, and scream a little. I might have cried, or at least now in the fiction of my memory there were tears involved. What else can you ask for in life when the day entrusts to you such an intimate and virtually transcendent view of reality?

When I wonder about the existence of heaven, I like to imagine myself high in the mountains amidst a field of wildflowers, beneath an endless sunrise whispering the promise of a new beginning. But then again, here it is, right before me.