In the valley that raised me and gave me my children, the old volcanic country of the Similkameen, filled with the gravel glaciers gouged out of the Okanagan to the east, the mountains are the sky, and a form of weather.
This is the crest of Puddinhead Mountain at sunbreak this morning. If you’re from the prairies, you might be forgiven for wondering what all this rock is doing in the way of the sky, but if you’re from here you know: this is the sky. And it is breathing.
To watch it, you stand on a river of stones some 350 metres deep.
To climb the mountain is to enter the sky country, the Seeahpoo, the country of sight.
I met a badger on this mountain when I was twelve years old. This is not my spirit mountain, though. That’s a little to the south, but this is close, and she is waking with the year…
…and me with her. Who on earth mis-named her Puddinhead, and why? Does anyone know?
Categories: Gaia, Nature Photography
Okanagan Okanogan 
Wonderful !
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It was a beautiful morning. I went to plant some trees.
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Planting trees- I saw snow was still on the tops of trees? Love the color of this mountain!
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Yes, it had just snowed, high up there.
That’s a beautiful collection of basalts, stained with red and green lichen that feed off the spring rains and the snow melt! The whole west is like that. Very fine!
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Just admired the mountain again, it is so different than Alps I know the most, love these colors-basalts you say? Or just a painting from ancient times about forgotten stories?
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I hope you saw the faces in them! These rocks are rich with faces: human and animal. Not only faces, but heads as well. So, yes, they tell so many stories. If you didn’t see the faces, I can point some out. 🙂
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Please, please, do point them !!!
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I’m guessing one of us who read Mark Twain just said the words and everyone else was afraid to admit they hadn’t read Mark Twain. Either that or some pudd’n’head thought of putting a strip mall on top and a fellow named Rhenisch attacked him and the locals attached that name to it so they could a “real name” instead of one of those W’Xkkk’yy names that they couldn’t pronounce. Only problem is that they couldn’t pronounce Pudd’nhead or Rhenisch either.
Planting trees makes me envious. Still two to three feet of frost in the ground, but I’m gathering red osier cuttings to plant in our swamp as soon as the soil is thawed. I like the plant, but they’re mainly for the moose.
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