The road goes ever on and on...

I posted this for several reasons, first because it is from a recent hike, a hike I did with my brother along the Baker River Trail in the North Cascades; second, because it shows perhaps better than any picture I've posted, what our northwestern forests are like; third, because like many of the trails we hike, it reminds of the songs from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings from which the title is taken; and fourth, though there is nothing spectacular about it, it touches something hidden in me, something that the woods and the mountains, the wildflowers and the forest creatures always touch in me, something that the songs from Tolkien's books seem to catch.

The song from The Lord of Rings has many different versions in the books, but it is the final version, sung near the end of the story, that I like best:
"Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun."

ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/04/baker-river...