I'm Ken Smith, I'm the "Dad" in this image, and I remember Russ so vividly from our time in Palo Alto, that I recently googled him, and was saddened to find a 'remembering Russ' blog, but thrilled by the life he lived. I have to tell you, he was Russell Towle even at age 9-10. A lot of credit should go to Russ's Dad. I remember one trip Russ, his Dad and I went on down to Needles National Monument to go spelunking. Pretty big adventure for a 10 year old. Another thing Russ and I did, along with Jack Burns (pictured), is we hiked up Palo Alto's paved creek beds until they became concrete conduits, and kept going, for a whole day, and we came up through a conduit miles from home and didn't recognize where we were. We had to call one of our Moms. I don't remember who, but I bet it was Russ's because his family would have understood. Reply to ken@ideasmith.com .

I would like to dedicate a song I wrote years ago to Russell. I have read Russell's Blog many times as I am an avid hiker/environmentalist/prospector and I have always found his writing to describe these beautiful places as very inspirational. Because of his writing I have hiked some of these places he has described. I hope the rest of us can pick up the torch he carried and continue to preserve these wild and historic areas.

This song is called "First Light". This song came to me as a vision of the sun rising over the mountain tops somewhere in the Sierra Nevada. It could be anywhere as you hear this song play.

http://soundcloud.com/doug-reagin/first-light