Alpenglow
Unnamed peak in the Great Western Divide
from South Guard Lake
Alpenglow unfolds slowly between 8 and 9 pm during the Summertime in the Sierras, typically occurring as you carry bear canisters away from camp or as you spit your toothpaste behind that shrub. It's not an event like the "green flash" at the moment of sunset in the South Pacific, and it's not something you can observe for an hour like the Aurora Borealis.
Just as you sit quietly and wait for the alpenglow to peak, it already seems to be dissipating, giving in gently and willingly to dusk and its encroaching shadows, yet it never, ever disappoints. Its color pours over the shard-covered mountains, such that they are aglow. It is a color which I can only describe as "purple scarlet," or "scarlet purple" (but not Scarlett Johansson!). It is the color of warmth becoming coolness and that time between yesterday and tomorrow. And the color cannot be found anywhere else in nature, (though I've seen a salmon in its final moments displaying a similar hue on its dorsal side).
The alpenglow devastates my every sense, and I can only stand deliciously empty and unaware of all the confounds me. Yet I am full during those moments, like after Eucharist, and in want or need of nothing, except for a comfortable rock on which to sit.
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