Wednesday, September 15, 2010

berry picking

Last Friday afternoon, Jon and I hiked for about 45 minutes to one of our favorite blueberry picking spots in the Chugach Mountains. Don't ask me where it is. Frequent hikers may figure it out from these photos, but my juice-stained lips are sealed.

Filling my first container with sweet blueberries,
ripened on the mountainside, warmed by the sun.

Aha! The prize. I found the "wow" patch for the day.

We had a few sprinkles, then the rainbow that led to...

...Jon, the berry stalker, with his pot o' berries.

Jon's pack filled with full berry containers, we watched the sunset as we begin to descend.

As we were hiking away from the berries, I kept turning back to look up the valley. We've picked here many times over the years. We've even camped here, and woke to frost on our tent. The evening light played on the mountains whose colors had already begun to change to spots of red and yellow. I was thankful for the sunny day. I was thankful that Jon was off work and that we could have some time to hike together. These mountains, these days. This is why I live here.

3 comments:

David said...

How long do those berries last until the bears come and eat them all?

OFF ROAD BIKERS said...

great blog. We are from Brazil and like to ride a bike. congratulations on your blog.
Hugs from Brazil
Team off-road bikers

bikegirl said...

David - it's not so much that the bears will eat them; the frost will get them first and turn them to mush. We have seen bears in this area during picking season, but I think there are plenty of berries to go around for humans & bears.