some good folks up on the mountain

The sky was grey. The mountain was Brown. And friendly hikers that walk right up and say “how ya doin, my name is Frank, great to be out here, god bless you, have a nice day in the mountains!” Quiet and deep most of the way toward the top until… runners at the top! – a group of three had been running all morning, like me, to be rewarded by long views from the top. Clouds were high enough to peek under at a wide stretch of Pacific – Long Beach, Palos Verdes, Catalina, Malibu… I took a picture for the runners in front of the view – a good one for their album – and we talked about trails. They followed me down but quickly disappeared into folds of ridges and cloud.