Late Fall High in the Sawtooths
by Robert Glenn Ketchum
My partner, Vicki Golden, and I, have come to love backpacking in late fall. Although we risk getting snowed upon, most of the bugs, and virtually all of the people are gone. This is our last camping trip together, and the last time I ever camped in the Sawtooths. This is a short blog to say goodbye to both.
~Robert Glenn Ketchum
My partner, Vicki Golden, and I, have come to love backpacking in late fall. Although we risk getting snowed upon, most of the bugs, and virtually all of the people are gone. This is our last camping trip together, and the last time I ever camped in the Sawtooths. This is a short blog to say goodbye to both.
~Robert Glenn Ketchum
Friday, March 13, 2020
Sawtooths #27: In the last post, I said the Twin Lakes, late fall camp was our final trip, which originally was meant as a reference to the season, but as fate would have it, it was a final trip in MANY other ways. After returning to my home/studio in Los Angeles, the project I had proposed to the National Park Foundation to define the historical relationship between photographers and the National Park System, has been fully funded by Transamerica, and it is a “go,” in a big way. I have many contemporary photographers to visit and interview in person, and from whom I will also select work for the proposed exhibit and book, among them Brett Weston, William Garnett, Eliot Porter, Paul Caponigro, Roger Minick, and William Clift. Other acquisitions will be accomplished working with galleries, and searching through established collections, such as the Oakland Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, and the Library of Congress. To manage all of this, I will not only spend a good deal of time on the road, but ultimately, I will move to Washington, DC, and for two years, I will work out of the offices of the National Park Foundation. Belle Star, my black lab, will join me for some of the road trips, but once I move to DC, she will stay with my parents, at our family home in LA. Vicki (above) wants none of it, however. She fully recognizes how remarkable an opportunity the “American Photographers and the National Parks” project is, for me, and does not begrudge me that, be she has NO intention of living in DC, and sitting around while I go to work every day. When I finally transition to the East, Vicki returns to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she continues to live for several years, although she never backpacks again. Belle lives out her life at my parent’s home, chasing balls, and swimming in the pool. I see her on my many visits, and am physically with her at the end, when after 9yrs., cancer claims her. I successfully complete the national park project, circulate a stunning nationwide exhibit, and publish a major book with Viking Press, which in turn begets me the attention of the Lila Acheson Wallace Funds, who offer me a commission to photograph the Hudson River Valley. To pursue that, I move to a home along the mid-Hudson for two years, before returning to the West. I have never hiked in the Sawtooth wilderness since. Carpe’ Diem!
photograph(s) © copyright, ROBERT GLENN KETCHUM, 2020, @RbtGlennKetchum @LittleBearProd #LittleBearProd
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