I can't name one single thing as the most beautiful, so I'll describe something that's at least up there.
A couple summers ago, I went on several day hikes with my family over the course of a few days in Rocky Mountain National Park. The best trail we hiked was one that wound across the alpine tundra at around eleven to twelve thousand feet above sea level. The whole trail was stunningly beautiful, but the most amazing sight was at the end of the day.
Late in the afternoon, having already finished the main trail, we hiked up a short path through a bunch of heavily weathered boulders, ending at a rock formation perhaps twenty feet high. I climbed to the top, and saw a sight that really showed the sheer scope of it all: For dozens, maybe even hundreds of miles in every direction, a clear view of the vast, snow-covered peaks, sunlit in patches through the clouds.
The other things I've seen that are comparable are all from the Rocky Mountains, too: the peaceful silence of an aspen forest in summer; a stream running down the side of a mountain, the banks covered with wildflowers in full bloom; a still, clear lake in the middle of pine-covered mountains (Mills Lake, for the curious — though pictures really don't do it justice).
Hmm, I can't cite a specific example, but acts of simple human kindness are truly beautiful to me.
/cheesy
If we're going more aesthetic, I'm a firmly coastal-girl. Nothing will ever outstrip the ocean for me. I'm particularly biased toward the North Atlantic. Particularly early mornings, when there's still mist hanging in the air.
The night sky in a desert; sunset on the Serengeti; a forest from the top of a hill in its midst, a pristine, shiny red toadstool; an amazingly intricate piece of lichen growing on a wall; cumulus from in among their number on a sunny day; snow; a variety of naked women.
The world in general, really.
edited 31st Oct '11 10:35:51 PM by InverurieJones
'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'Since I was a child, I've been told that the region I live in is beautiful because of the way our nature is preserved and the unique characteristics of it, mostly caused by the ice age. In my late teens, I began noticing that the people telling me so were right. here's a nice little picture from near where I grew up.
It's not the most beautiful thing I've seen, but it's the third thing that sprang to mind. The second was my girlfriend, but that doesn't mean anything to you, whereas the landscape I linked might please you. (It might not be among the most amazing landscapes of Finland, but then again, most of the art that came to define pre-independence Finnish culture was inspired by that very region.)
(Here's the same place in the winter.
)
Now, the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw the title of the thread was this
.
(See also this.
)
edited 1st Nov '11 2:13:58 AM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.My city's beach at sunset.
◊ No lie, that really is how it looks unless it's winter. All those reds and oranges punching through dark gray clouds.
Being in California, the bar is set pretty high for me, but I find most other sunsets to be rather boring and flat.
Glaciers are also gorgeous.
Simply riveting.
- golfclap
![]()
Now, that's a sunset.
(Sunsets here
aren't generally anywhere near as awesome as that.)
edited 1st Nov '11 3:13:39 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Tessa [name removed].
Runners up include a shot of broken glass and cigarette butts on a dance floor from the Twin Peaks movie, my own hand after I spilled ink on it, and a girl's face slowed down under a strobe light.
"In the land of the insecure, the one-balled man is king." - HavenI don't know if it's the most, but I think the Afghan girl's eyes
◊ rank up there for me.
Victoria Falls. Its got a permanent rainbow, and trees grow all the way down the sides, while gorgeous colored bee-eater birds flit about the mist. Also, the mist-forest contains dozens of species that grow nowhere else on Earth but that one particular cliff. This video doesn't nearly do it justice:

Because I'm curious.
edited 31st Oct '11 7:39:10 PM by Ekuran