It Is All Storied

As I go along the edge the woods on the ice, it is very warm in the sun and calm there. There are certain spots I could name, by hill and woodsides, which are always thus sunny and warm in fair weather, and have been, for aught I know, since the world was made.
What a distinction they enjoy!
How many memorable localities in a river walk! Here is the warm woodside; next, the good fishing bay; and next, where the old settler was drowned when crossing on the ice a hundred years ago. It is all storied.
I occasionally hear a musquash plunge under the ice next to the shore.
These winter days I occasionally hear the note of a goldfinch, or maybe a redpoll, unseen, passing high overhead.
When you think that your walk is profitless and a failure, and you can hardly persuade yourself not to return, it is on the point of being a success, for then you are in that subdued and knocking mood
to which Nature never fails to open.
--Henry David Thoreau (journal entry for January 27, 1860)

upper Grandview Trail (top)
Royal Arch Canyon from Darwin Plateau (middle)
Hopi Point and Whites Butte from Boucher Rapid (below)
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redpoll
goldfinch