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What Are Your Natural Cathedrals?
On Saturday night I took the picture above, showing the eastern slope of the Teton Mountains towering over the Snake River in Jackson, Wyoming. I was on one of my regular cross-country jaunts from Nashville to Los Angeles. Sure, Wyoming isn’t generally on that route but, c’mon, look at the picture — you’re going to go out of your way for that.
I can’t quite put into words what I experience every time I stand at that spot. It’s something akin, I suppose, to what Maslow described as a “peak experience.” Jackson Hole is one of a handful of spots that I regard as natural cathedrals — places that are overawing in their aesthetic majesty.
Here’s my question for Ricochet members: what sites do you regard with a similar sense of breathlessness? And — need I say it? — photos please.
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Ha! Life of Brian is great.
Can’t do Ricochet out doors…now this is a truly creative diversion.
Slot canyons! Love ’em, don’t get to spend nearly enough time in ’em!
My favorite so far is Peek-a-boo Gulch. It’s a reasonably well-lit slot without turning into something non-slottish, so it’s great for nature photographers who don’t have the equipment to manage the long, steady exposures required for the most famous slots:
Valiuth, I can only surmise you enjoy contrarian roles for the sake of fits and giggles. Spend a few weeks in a cathedral known as John Muir Trail or simply spend a few days climbing mountains at high elevation and you may reconsider your own statement “Man is above nature”.
Nature teaches us humility. It doesn’t care if we live or die, or what is our religion, philosophy or socioeconomic status. Back country wilderness is unforgiving and I have personally witnessed arrogance punished. Mother nature has a funny way of teaching hard lessons to those that need them. Harsh weather, challenging terrain, and dangerous predators will show you man is but an insignificant speck.
Nature equalizes each of us. I highly recommend it.
Ricochet needs to plan a Bryce Canyon meetup:
Here’s two shots of one of my “cathedrals”, Mt. Washington in NH.
The first is a picture I took while climbing the mountain in January. -15F with 70mph winds for a wind chill in the -50F range. We did not make it to the summit. I submitted it to the Mt. Washington Observatory web site and they featured it for a while. My only “published” photo.
The second is a picture I found online after I hiked up to ski Tuckerman’s Ravine, the east side of the Mt., with my eight-year-old daughter. I saw a post by a guy who’d mentioned he took a picture from across the ravine, and I looked for us in it. There we were! Can’t recall who took the picture now, unfortunately.
The last picture was the site of a pilgrimage. If you go, be sure to buy some of the cheese, it’s delicious!
Mt. Washington in January is ballsy. Glad you made it.
It’s neither unethical or immoral to take pleasure in the beauty of the natural world. Most of the people on this thread are expressing that there are certain places on this planet that are visually stunning, generate awe, make them feel peaceful or serene, or that impress them with God’s handiwork, if you like. I don’t think anyone has advocated going naked and living in a rainforest for the rest of their lives, throwing virgins into volcanos, or making offerings to Gaia. You may have temporarily confused this site with the Huffington Post or some other more Leftist-back-to-nature gathering place.
I have to agree with the Lake District. This is a photo of Borrowdale from Castle Crag. I vaguely remember learning in a Chinese Art History class how the ideal landscape painting (in the Chinese tradition) depicts a transition from domesticated, human-scale landscapes through increasingly untamed natural spaces, to wild sublimes. That sums up just about every vista in the Lakes.
near where I grew up. good pick.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
Psalm 8:4
And when we compare the manmade cathedrals and cityscapes, they are diminished by the likes of the natural cathedrals of the world.
Nah, mainly just chilly and breezy. If you’re not foolish about it…
most of the pics are from the US. here is one from Zermatt, Switzerland.
I visited Rome, then travelled by rail to Vienna, and moved on through Switzerland, on the cog rail into the mountains at Zermatt.
It was summer, but in the early morning it was barely 40 degrees, and I was freezing in sneaks and shorts. It was foggy, and I was bumbling on the path. As the early morning fog lifted, I was disappointed that I could not see Matterhorn. But I rounded a curve in the path, and suddenly, there it was, this hulking bauble on the earth. I continued walking to get this unobstructed shot. The color of the sky might have been the most amazing part of the picture.
It is all a matter of perspective though, because from the moon, Matterhorn, and most of the locales in our shared cathedral pictures aren’t even visible. :)
Oh, okay. I’ll drop this here and show my age.
Arches National Park in Utah.
Thanks for all the pictures! Loved looking at them!
I read once that if the Earth were the size of a billiard ball, it would be even smoother. Everest and Marianas included.
I want to hit this and some of the other parks in southern Utah like Monument Valley. I could see this in the distance from I-70, but we were racing the clock to get back to Colorado before dark.
Fisher Peak, near my hometown of Cranbrook, BC. There is also a beautiful lake tucked in behind it.
I’m partial to this spot. It is in Connecticut, not far from the Dubya beach compound. This photo was taken during a perambulation with my dingo (actually, DubyaDog is a Chihuabrador, or Labrahuahua – take your pick).
The white lighthouse in the distance is a rather recent addition. Built in 1801, it replaced the original that dated from 1761.
In 1781, Benedict Arnold and half his troops landed near the lighthouse and marched upriver (i.e., to the right) to New London, which they burned. The other half of his troops marched over the spot from which this photo was taken. Their destination was Fort Griswold and a date with infamy – the Battle of Groton Heights.
(In 2005, nine black-robed justices figuratively marched upriver and burned the concept of private property via Kelo v. City of New London.)
By 1791, the previous lighthouse was keeping its six lamps lit thanks to a contract personally signed by George Washington, providing $360 per quarter to fund the whale oil fuel.
Today, in contrast to that awful day in 1781, the river is a peaceful place, frequently plied by vintage and replica craft from the days of sail, such as the Coast Guard’s Eagle and Mystic Seaport’s Amistad.
My view from my last apartment in NYC.
What a spectacular post and idea! Nice break from the problems of the world – what a great way to share our homesteads and favorite places! Beautiful! Here’s my neck of the woods, including Eden Gardens with live oaks, the beach (10 min. from me) NW FL at its finest.
P.S. To Editor Claire Berlinski, per your recent post saying you had few friends and business contacts left back here – well, here are your friends, professional contacts and spectacular photo album of the great USA to pick a place, should you want to eventually return with your family – although I am sure there are equally beautiful “cathedrals spots” in France!!
Central coast near Big Sur is impressive also.
Dear Valiuth,
You are entirely right. Yet, please remember that the original suggestion is for natural cathedrals. One does not worship the cathedral, by any means. One worships that which embodies one’s highest values. That is the meaning of worship, adoration, veneration.
Some cathedrals are natural; some are made by man. What do these two sorts have in common? They have in common aesthetic elements: beauty.
What is beautiful? You could spend the rest of your life defining that, but I just mowed the lawn here, so I have it all figured out. Aesthetics rests upon ethics. Show me what a man considers beautiful, and I will see what are his ethics.
What makes something beautiful, just to see? Order, symmetry of form, color, range, vision, majesty of prospect. We see these things, sometimes and in some places, in nature, and as well, some men have taken those attributes – form, color, symmetry, asymmetry, range, vision, majesty – and built them anew in their own creations.
The cruelties of the hunter and the hunted are true; it is wrong to deny their truth. What do we enjoy are beauty itself, and our ability to enjoy it.
Whoops, I’ve missed a great deal in the interim, so shall just finish the thought quickly. Could you agree that we are okay ethically as long as we (1) repudiate the law of the jungle in our own lives and in our own societies, and (2) never fail to appreciate our prosperity and good fortune as we appreciate both natural and man-made beauty with full bellies and up-to-date vaccinations and dental work and so on?
And finally, to bridge the gap, here is something beautiful to go in the cathedral, because with Democrats everywhere I cannot afford to go on any trips this year anyway. It is nature tamed, and reflects the arts of the metallurgist and the horticulturist both.
Regards,
jzdro
Last try and then I’ll give up and wait for someone to instruct me on how to upload a photo here. From my lanai, Kaneohe, Hawaii.
Quite so, and a very fair point. I have no delusions about Ricochet, I have been a member for quite a long time now. This is after all the one place where I can have a civilized argument about why we should think far less of Nature than our culture and inclinations find agreeable.