Take a minute from your creative life, and enjoy these pictures from California’s Sierra Nevada, or do this backpacking trip yourself (18-miles round trip, and 4,000 ft elevation gain).

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” — John Muir

This mountain is Temple Crag (picture at right) which tops out at 12,982 ft — it truly is a temple.

I passed Temple Crag on my way to the Palisade Glacier (below) which is one of the last remaining glaciers in the Sierra Nevada.

If you go back 10,000 years, these scenes would have been covered in ice 3,000 feet thick with the tips of these peaks barely sticking out — that’s a lot of ice cubes.

Here is some 1,000 year old glacier ice for your drink, and sorry about that delay, the waiters aren’t very fast up here.

The picture below is looking down from the Palisade Glacier toward the trailhead at which you park your car.

Each of these lakes (Third, Second and First…not very creative names) was carved by the descending glacier, and the turquoise color is caused by the melt water laden with powdered rock ground by the Palisade Glacier.