Moved by the Mountains

 

        It had been 8 years since we visited one of our favorite places on the planet, the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada.

    Spectacular peaks crown the western rim of the vast Owen Valley on one of the great drives in the United States.

        We had booked access to Yosemite National Park, entering it from the east so we could drive the famed Tioga Pass. That thin line at mid mountain is the Pass, heading east.

        Rain fell overnight on the Lodge at June Lake. As we drove north in the morning we saw the surprise on the peaks to the north, the seasons first snow fall. 

    It was our first time to see fresh snow in Yosemite. In good years it becomes a winter wonderland, though we are not inclined to put chains on the tires and drive into the mountains.

    When the heavier snows fall, the Tioga Pass is closed until summer.

     We gave ourselves a couple of days to acclimate to the altitude before venturing out for a hike in the John Muir Wilderness.

        One of our favorite trails wanders along a creek as it winds upward to 4 alpine lakes. The trail head is at about 10,400 feet.

        With aging knees and hips we have begun using trekking poles and found them to be especially helpful.

        Lana and I are exhilarated by the beauty, peace and grandeur of the Sierras. My admiration for John Muir is always deepened as I think about how the Scotsman wandered and mapped the Mountains by himself.

            East of the Sierra is another story that tells us much about the state of the world. That's ahead in a future post.

        See you down the trail.

IMMORTALITY and THE GREAT CRUSADE

FROM JUNE TO HISTORY

    Time records extraordinary courage and human insight on two June 6ths.  

     Most recently, 70 years ago General Dwight Eisenhower called it "the Great Crusade," the D-Day invasion immortalized by the bravery of warriors, so many of whom ended their own mortal journey on the beaches of Northern France. A personal D-Day beach reflection follows below.

    75 years before that a single man, venturing into the unknown pondered human existence and the infinite.

EVERY NERVE QUIVERS

    John Muir made his first visit to Yosemite in the summer of 1869. On June 6th he wrote-

                     "We are now in the mountains and they are

                       in us...making every nerve quiver."    

       It seems that it has always been such for Yosemite.
     In 1851 an ongoing battle between gold miners and the native inhabitants, American Indians, reached a point where the famous Mariposa Battalion was sent in. Probably from the moment the Battalion saw the place, word about its beauty began to spread.

          On June 30,1864 President Abraham Lincoln set aside a grove of sequoias in the valley.  That marked the creation of the first state park in the US. 
        Naturalist John Muir, who spent years exploring the wilderness, campaigned for federal park status. It took 26 years and in 1890 Yosemite became a national park.

   Later on June 6, 1869 Muir wrote-

         "Our flesh and bone tabernacle seems transparent

         as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an 

         inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees

         streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun-a part of 

         all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but

         immortal."

       Two rivers, the Merced and the Tuolumne flow through the park. There are 196 miles of road and 800 miles of trails. 

        The waterfalls are a signature, always spectacular, and even more so after a winter with lots of snow.

 Do you see the sprite or spirit dancing out of this falls in this frame?

      The land is described as "colossal."  Indeed it is.  It ranges from 2,000 feet to 13,000 and most of it is true wilderness.

    As Muir said on his first summer in Yosemite "How wonderful the power of its beauty."

    WHERE FICTION CARRIES TRUTH

    A scene from my novel The Sanibel Arcanum has the protagonist, Tim Calvin visit Utah Beach, a D-Day invasion sight with Stroutsel a Jewish survivor who had been part of the French underground resistance.

  The beach was windswept, large and angry.  The gray sky hung low over the rough choppy water, and the surf pounded the beach with an intensity that bordered on animosity. Old enforcements and battle walls, pill boxes and even strands of barbed wire were visible, while cattle grazed over the dunes in fields where one of the decisive engagements of mankind's warfare had been played out in blood.

    "You can sense the terrible loss just standing here," Tim said more to the wind than Stroutsel, whose face was turned toward the beach.  "Doesn't this bring back the anger, the hatred?"

     Stroutsel cut the misty wind of the beach with his gravel-like voice.  "Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, for anger resides in the bosom of fools. That's from Solomon in Ecclesiastes, Calvin, it would do well for all of us to remember it."

     They stood, wrapped in silence and reflection as in a place of prayer as sand, wind and salt spray assaulted them.  Stroutsel faced squarely into the wind."Baruch, atah- Adonai-Blessed are though, O Lord, my rock who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.  My loving kindness and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and He in whom I take refuge.

      Tim stood transfixed by the moment and the sweeping emotions which girded them against the ghosts of this killing beach.

      "We are a mere breath, our days are like passing shadows," Stroutsel's voice faded as he walked north his eyes cast on the sand and looking out to the sea.  Tim let him go.  He walked to the memorials and read the names of those young men who had fallen on this strip of sand and sea."

    On Utah Beach alone some 2,500 US troops and 1,900 allied troops were killed. Thousands of others were killed on the other landing beaches as well as glider pilots and Naval support troops.  The Germans lost between 4 and 9 thousand  on D-Day.

    There is an almost palpable presence that remains on those Norman beaches.

    See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER

WONDERMENT

     INTELLIGENT IDEAS

              John Muir appreciated wonders of nature. 

        His sensitivity points us to behold the power and even mystery of life beyond or beside human parameters. 

             Out there, up there, even in there are forces and natural occurrences that form the basis of science and dumbfounds rational tools.  We theorize.

              Watching star populated night skies over the Pacific and lightless mountains propounds the dazzling concept of interstellar space.  Seeing depth in a star field lends credibility to the vast distances of space and time. Out there are perhaps dark holes, worm holes and theories  we can't fully explain.  And now the little Voyagers are about to pass the limits we biped's have postulated to in up there. 

              Learning about in there is accelerating in a post DNA gene sequencing world. Medicine is getting more precise. The closer we look, the more we see forces beyond our making and which influence destiny.

           And there are spirit, heart, soul, religion and philosophy which bind an alternative in there. Wisdoms, truths, transcendence and riddles are pondered yet they too  stand in the face of mystery.

           

           Let something give you a sense of wonder.

           See you down the trail.

MAGNIFICENT YOSEMITE

AS GOOD AS IT GETS

        My friend Maura is planning a California jaunt for her Irish cousins and I've been helping with logistics.  Yosemite is a center piece of their visit.

       In 1851 an ongoing battle between gold miners and the native inhabitants, American Indians, reached a point where the famous Mariposa Battalion was sent in.  Probably from the moment the Battalion saw the place, word about it's beauty began to spread.

          On June 30, 1864 President Abraham Lincoln set aside a grove of sequoias in the valley.  That marked the creation of the first state park in the US.  Naturalist John Muir, who explored this wilderness, campaigned for federal park status.  It took 26 years and in 1890 Yosemite became a national park.

       Two rivers, the Merced and the Tuolumne flow through the park.  There are 196 miles of road and 800 miles of trails. 

        The waterfalls are a signature, always spectacular, and even more so after a winter with lots of snow.

 Do you see the sprite or spirit dancing out of this falls in this frame?

      The land is described as "colossal."  Indeed it is.  It ranges from 2,000 feet to 13,000 and most of it is true wilderness.

I wish every American could see Yosemite.  It is more than sheer beauty,

it is an attitude and sense of being.  We have made repeated visits and will 

continue to do so.


THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE DRAMA PLAYING OUT AT YOSEMITE AS THEY TRY TO BLAST AWAY 17 FEET OF SNOW BLOCKING THE FAMED TIOGA PASS. LINK HERE FOR A GREAT PIECE BY MIKE ANTON IN THE LA TIMES.

See you down the trail.