View on a Hindu Funeral, Three

Pashupatinath and the Bagmati river.  The crowd has dispersed, but the pyres will continue to burn for hours.

View on a Hindu Funeral, Two

There were two funerals that day.  The first was a military funeral, replete with honor guard, brass band, and attendance by a a politician/entourage with enough celebrity to draw quite a crowd of locals.  I do not know who he was, I only know he was not this man, Prachanda, former Maoist guerrilla leader and former Prime Minister, the only Nepali political figure I could hope to recognize on sight.  The crowd, mourners, politicians and soldiers, and together with the idle watchers, dispersed shortly after the pyre was lit.  I admit I was surprised that the time of observance would be so short, but then remembered that in western funerals, too, most memorializing and remembrance of the deceased comes before the burial.

In this image, the second man is prepared for his funeral rites as smoke from the first pyre fills the sky.  In the foreground, in the river, can be seen the remains of a previous cremation.

View on a Hindu Funeral, One

While visiting Pashupatinath, a holy area on the Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Nepal, we passed a series of stone pylons covered by corrugated metal.  Could not figure out their purpose until a group of soldiers filed in, bearing a body wrapped in white and orange, wreathed in chains of marigolds....

High Gravity Day

Taking a weekend off from fighting gravity and making it work for me instead.  Been a long while since I've been on whitewater.

On the Prowl

EN and his freakish ape index silhouetted on Helium Woman, the Dihedrals, Smith Rock (Oregon!).

Studious let me sit

...and hold high converse with the mighty dead. (Thomson, The Seasons)

Buddhist pilgrims study texts before the wall of the Bodhinath stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal.

99 (Switchback) Problems

One of the "99 Switchbacks" on the Mt. Whitney trail, en route to trail crest ridge and looking across to the summit.  Would love to go back and get on one of the technical routes up the east face.

Sacrifice

Looking from the winding stairs to the facade of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.

Bonsai

Trees in the sea of clouds.  Mt. Huangshan, China.