Green. Deep, strong and stretching into every horizon.
The grandeur of the pine-covered hills is interrupted intermittently by a secluded community of log cabins, or an icy-black body of water usually fenced by rugged crags.
We follow the ribbon-like road slowly upward and ever onward.
The passage thins, the bends tighten and the markings fade.
The mountainous caps become sporadically speckled with summer snow, yet to melt in the sparse sunlight.
The further we venture the more the tress submit to the unforgiving of the granite and flowing ice-water.
Round yet another bend; and suddenly the road begins to zigzag steeply downward.
Truly, the road is forced. What confronts is nature at its most spectacular.
The scene is not defaced or hindered in any way by the weather. In fact, it seems to have developed an untainted beauty almost to spite it.
The Fjord lays calm, dark and foreboding. It seems to warn admirers that behind its beauty there is a cold, dangerous and unpredictable character.
It is flanked on either side by tumultuous cliffs of granite, rising hundreds of metres straight from The Fjord.
Vertical does not do justice to the sheerness of these ancient walls; leaving one wondering when gravity and the elements will take their toll and bring them tumbling down.
Fresh springs of water, born of the icecaps hidden somewhere far above cascade through eroded cracks in the cliff face – many nothing short of water falls – until they reach their liquid destination below.
To stand upon the cliffs or within The Fjord is to be insignificant.
This is the way it should be when lost in the reality of the wilderness.
The human body goes into overdrive when perched on the edge looking far below.
A heightened sense of awareness; fear, excitement, sadness, nervousness, pride. No single emotion encapsulates the moment.
It is just that; a moment. To live in there, in that moment, in those surroundings is not only a necessity, but a gift. Embrace.
R Oates
