Have you seen the Grand Tetons?  I've been fortunate to see them many, many times, and very privileged to have hiked and backpacked through them on multiple occasions over the years.  If ever you're in the West, take a moment to drive to Grand Teton National Park and see them.

    If and when you have that opportunity, put yourself in the mind of those intrepid explorers coming upon the Range for the first time.  Consider how formidable these mountains must have looked to those accustomed to the relative lowlands of the East and Midwest.  Think about the mental gyrations, and possibly fatigue, through which they were going as they pondered how they would cross over them.

    Today, of course, mountaineers scale the Teton's peaks hundreds of times a year.  Despite their jagged appearance, the Tetons are eminently climbable.  They're almost tame.

    Not really.  When I was backpacking through the range one July about fifteen years ago, I encountered a heavy, heavy snowpack.  Rarely had so much snow lingered into July.  But there I was, faced with the receding, albeit slowly, winter might of this awe-inspiring mountain range.  It was humbling.

    And good.  One wonderful dimension of raw nature is that it reminds us of our human fragility, our helplessness before the power of the natural world.  It cautions us against being supremely confident, being overly certain and sure.

    We confront mystery and the unknown.  And we come to know the utter and intractable finitude and, in some ways, futility, of the human being.