A Whole Symphony of Smaller Sounds

I gave my heart to the mountains the minute
I stood beside this river with its spray in my face and watched it thunder into foam, smooth to green glass over sunken rocks, shattering to foam again...
It was a prayer and comforting to wake late and hear the undiminished shouting of the water in the night. And at sunup it was still there, powerful and incessant, with the slant sun tangled in its rainbow spray, the grass blue with the wetness, and the air heady as ether and scented with campfire smolder.
By such a river it is impossible to believe that one will ever be tired or old. Every sense applauds it. Taste it, feel its chill on the teeth: it is purity absolute. Watch its racing current, its steady renewal of force: it is transient and eternal. And listen again to its sounds: get far enough away so that the noise of falling tons of water does not stun the ears, and hear how much is going on underneath -- a whole symphony of smaller sounds, hiss and splash and gurgle, the small talk of side channels, the whisper of blown and scattered spray gathering itself and beginning to flow again, secret and irresistible, among the wet rocks.
--Wallace Stegner

Crystal Rapid (top)
Hopi Point from above Boucher Rapids (middle)
inner gorge outside Sapphire Canyon (below)