In this video, visit Alaska via cruise ship, plane and train including Hoonah, Ice Strait Point, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, College Fjord, Denali National Park, Mount McKinley/Denali, major glacial calving, wild grizzly bears up close (a few feet away), humpback whales bubble net feeding up close and much more.
Shabbat shalom everyone!
I’ve said this many times, and I’ll say it again. In this crazy, mixed up world full of hate and manmade ugliness, there is still beauty to be found if we get away and look for it. I find shalom, sanity and Yehovah Elohim in nature—especially in the mountains. I’m not the only one to discover this. The Gospels record that from time to time Yeshua got away from the crowds and city and went to the mountains to be alone with his Father.
My kids and I just returned from six days camping and hiking in the High Cascade Mountains of the Northern Washington State in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in the area between Mount Baker and Mount Shuksin.
We hiked seven to eleven miles every day with elevation gains of about 1400 to 2000 feet on each trail. Our highest point was more than 6,500 feet above sea level.
Mount Shuksin from near Picture Lake
Mount Baker
Another shot of Mount Baker
Table Top Mountain from the Chain Lakes Trail
The stream coming out of Bagely Lake
Glacier Lake and Mount Baker
Mount Shuksin from near Artists’ Point
A mountain stream along the trail to Ann Lake
Snow and ice covered Ann Lake
Mount Shuksin from Ann Lake
View from the top of 6,531 foot tall Winchester Mountain
Looking down on one of the Twin Lakes atop Winchester Mountain
A 1,250 year old western red cedar tree (center) at Silver Fir Campground in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
I’m 6 foot 2 inches tall. This cedar tree is nine foot, one inches wide at breast height!
Kaeli inside the tree. Four of us crawled into the tree and fit comfortably inside with room to spare!
Here I am inside of an old growth cedar stump that was probably cut in the early 1900s.
“The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Song of Solomon 2:8–10
Shabbat shalom everyone wherever you are around the world!
Yesterday (Friday) I went for a ten mile day hike up onto the NW side of Oregon’s Mount Hood with some of my kids. Please enjoy some of the snapshots I took from that alpine adventure.
I invite you in joining me in praise and worship of Yehovah Elohim for giving us eyes to feast on such visual delicacies to be discovered in his glorious creation!
Mount Hood, Oregon’s tallest peak, from Lolo Pass Rd.
The Vista Ridge Trail. A few years ago, a forest fire devastated this side of the mountain. Now look at the beauty that has sprung out of the fire’s destruction as the earth is healing itself. This is our wonderful Elohim at work in his creation who gives us beauty out of the ashes (Isa 61:3)!
A blooming carpet of avalanche lilies in the midst of the burnt out trees standing like silent sentinels keeping watch over the forest. Yeshua said, “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (Luke 12:27).
There is even a stark beauty to be found in the pattern of the skeletal remains of the forest fire and the trees that the wind storms have subsequently laid down. There is a beautiful blessing to be found in every adversity of life. All we need is the right mindset of a thankful heart to search for and to find that blessing in the midsts of life’s difficulties and then, once found, to rejoice in it.
Even the holes in these ghoulish burned out tree snags are a blessing not only for their beauty, but for the wildlife habitat they create. We saw mountain blue birds nesting in some of these tree cavities.
We finally got above the forest fire area and were blessed with this specular view of Mount Hood!
Enjoying a high alpine lunch with my kids. In the front is Lucy, our oldest child and her husband Spencer. In the back are Kaleb and Jared. Hiking ten miles and gaining about 1,600 foot in elevation leaves one with a healthy appetite.
Kaleb beware! One should never drink untreated water in the mountains unless you know where it comes from…
In this case, Kaleb made a wise choice. This water is as pure as you can get on planet earth!
Tiny Dollar Lake was our final destination at just under 6,000 foot elevation. It is the highest alpine lake on Mount Hood. Kaleb stripped down to his shorts and ran down the snow bank and dove in for a quick plunge into the icy waters. It was a very quick dip! He jumped out almost as fast as he got in. It happened so fast that none of us had a chance to snap a photo of him. I’m proud of Kaleb for his adventuresome spirit.
Dollar Lake against the backdrop of majestic Mount Hood. Would have been a great spot to spend Shabbat had we been camping there.
Even though Sandi and I are now home, we spent the previous two Shabbats in Alaska. Our first Shabbat we spent in Juneau visiting our Sabbath-keeping friends there, Tim and Margaret, who kindly showed us the awesome sights of YHVH’s creation in that area. We thank them for their love and generosity.
One more thing. This is a shout-out to teens. If there are any young people reading this blog, please say hello in the comments sections of this post. Give us your first name, where you live and a short sentence (or two) on how you love Yeshua and his Word, the Bible. You’re a blessing to us, and hearing from you is a great energizing encouragement to us older folks! Please…we want to hear from you!!
Now, for more photos of our trip north to Denali, Alaska…
I found this rose outside our Vancouver, B.C. hotel. My nose is addicted to smelling flowers and my camera is addicted to taking pictures of them!
The Forget-Me-Not is the Alaska state flower. It was in full bloom. I took this picture in Hoonah (west of Juneau).
View of Juneau from Douglas Island. Our cruise ship, the Island Princess, is in the background.
Lynn Canal (a fjord) NW of Juneau
Skagway, the starting point of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897.
NW of Juneau heading out into the Gulf of Alaska through Icy Strait.
Portage Lake and Glacier between Whittier and Anchorage.
The black spruce tundra forests as viewed from the train en route from Anchorage to Denali.
The view from the front deck of our cabin in Denali.
A section of the 93 mile long road into Denali National Park.
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
Denali National Park
A grizzly bear mother and her cub meandering along the road.
My bride and I just returned from our fourth annual pilgrimage to Alaska. Sandi and I seem to be addicted to the endless, expansive, inimitable and inexpressible natural beauty of Alaska. We can’t get enough, so we keep going back for more. Not a bad addiction!
We did the Inside Passage again, but this time hit some spectacular areas we hadn’t seen before. But the prize was getting into the interior of Alaska and journeying up by rail to Denali National Park and taking a tour bus almost 93 miles into the park itself to the end of the road. Not only did we see Denali (formerly known as Mt. McKinley), the highest mountain in North America and third tallest peak on the planet at 20,320 feet or 6,190 m), but we experienced, what I’m dubbing, the Noah Anointing—the animals came to our tour bus ark of safety including many grizzly bears! More on that later including photos and videos of bears, moose, bighorn sheep and caribous up close—only feet away! Suffice it to say, Yah blessed us immensely. Did I mention the epic glacial calving we experienced in Glacier Bay? Again, stay tuned for pics and vids.
Here are several teasers that I snapped with my iPhone. We had five cameras going! There’s much more to come…
This is the inside door of the pit toilets in Denali National Park—GRIZZLY BEAR COUNTRY!
Please stay tuned for more. You have seen anything yet. These are just a few photos snapped from an iPhone! We had five cameras (still and video) rolling…
Generally speaking, social conservatives tend to act on the basis of principles—what is morally right or wrong. On the other hand, leftists, “progressives,” socialists, Marxists or fascists tend to act on the basis of whatever is politically expedient at the moment and justify their actions on the basis of their particular feelings, or what is politically correct at the moment. They act on the basis of “group think” and tend to favor mob rule—as long as their mob is ruling. What is morally right or wrong has little if any bearing on what they think or do. It’s whatever feels right to them at that moment.
Another way to characterize the actions of those who lean toward the left or “progressive” side politically is that for them “the (political) ends justify the means,” which is one step away from the satanic motto of “Do what thou wilt,” which is another way of saying, “If it feels good, do it.” This is nothing more than situational ethics or moral relativism. This is the religion of secular humanism where the rule of YHVH Elohim is rejected in favor of self-rule. In reality, this is nothing more than embracing the lie of the devil serpent at the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, when he questioned the Creator’s rule of law. When the first humans fell for Satan’s lie, this resulted in the introduction of sin and rebellion and destruction and death and man being separated from Elohim.
Broadly speaking, the political conservative tends to act more on the basis of universal and unchanging principles of right and wrong that are ultimately based on the divinely revealed truth of the laws found in the Bible. On the other hand, the political socialist acts on the basis of feelings and what man (not Elohim) thinks is right and wrong. We know what the Bible says about this:
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Prov 14:12)
The conservative, by contrast, believes in self-rule and limited government because they don’t need big government to regulate every aspect of their lives by telling them what is right and wrong: They have God/Elohim and his word, the Bible, to do that and they realize that they are ultimately answerable to the Creator for their actions, and not to government. They walk in the fear of Elohim, not man. This makes them wise and knowledgeable, for the Bible says the fear of Elohim is the beginning of both knowledge and wisdom. This understanding keeps them on the moral straight and narrow path. Because they base their thoughts and actions on the firm foundation of divinely revealed biblical truth, they find that the constantly shifting moral standards of leftist “progressives” to be illogical, foolish and impossible to understand. To the conservative right is always right and wrong is always wrong, and these definitions don’t change over time. Not so with the leftist “progressive.”
The social progressive leftist wants government (the bigger the better) to legislate their view of morality, which changes from generation to generation, hence the term “situational ethics” or “moral relativism.” They then turn their view of “morality” into an ideology and then into a political agenda, which they then they demand that the government enforce by the rule of law and cram down the throats of those who disagree with them. This is a form of fascism or government mandated authoritarianism. Extreme socialism is fascism. (The Nazis were fascists. Remember that the word Nazis was merely an acronym for Nationalsozialist or National Socialist.)
The ideology of government determining what is right and wrong becomes the socialist’s religion and is based on what the socialist feels (based on politically correct group-think) is best for society (i.e. their politically driven agendas). The state becomes the de facto god of the nation to enact and to enforce the socialist ideology. In the leftist socialists’ mind, this will lead to their version of a utopia or heaven on earth, which is a godless replacement for the paradise regained of the Garden of Eden heaven on earth, which the Bible refers to as the New Jerusalem, which Elohim promises to all those who embrace the biblical gospel message by trusting in and obeying Yeshua the Messiah.
The conservative loves Elohim as their God and is happy to follow his divinely revealed principles of the Bible, while the leftist socialist “progressives” are either ambivalent, apathetic or downright hateful toward Elohim and the Bible, and instead follow their feelings, which is usually based on politically correct group-think, which is the political system called democracy—or social democracy (i.e. socialism plus democracy). This is in opposition to the republican form of government which rules on the basis of principles that define what is right and wrong. These principle are often codified in a document like a constitution upon which all of society’s laws are based and which all members of society must follow. Most socialists disdain if not hate the U.S. Constitution, since it constrains them from fulfilling their unconstitutional agendas. By contrasts, a republican form of government, ideally, is based on a unchanging principles, while a democracy is based on the vicissitudinous feelings of the masses (beliefs that change over time).
In the United States, those who believe in a republican form of government believe in limited government and tend to be more biblically based, while those who believe in a more democratic form of government tend to reject the Bible and Christianity and want the state, without overtly admitting it, to be their god (to tell people what to do). This is ultimately rebellion against and a rejection of God and the Bible.
The Bible has a several terse statements for the secular humanist who prefers government over God/Elohim, and wants man to decide what is morally right and wrong instead of the Creator.
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. (Prov 12:15)
He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. (Prov 28:26)
Wisdom is too high for a fool: he openeth not his mouth in the gate. (Prov 24:7)
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. (Prov 14:1)
For those who have ears to hear and a heart and mind to understand, I leave you with this:
If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Ps 11:3)