| western watershed romance |
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Yesterday. Woke in darkness, cool darkness,
downed some fruit and coffee, and then, while so many lay swaddled in
their cocoons, blasted up into the Sierra, deep in the Sierra, then
down a dirt road, a road carved 170 years ago by those blasting gold
miners. Present at the trailhead at dawn, with the sun's whispering
light just beginning its rise above the eastern horizon. A howling wind
raged the sugar and yellow pines on the ridge, but it mellowed to
merely a murmur as I descended into the canyon and bottomed out at the
pure river. Felt like autumn - the chill air, the low angle of the
sun's rays, the oaks bony from shedding their leaves several months ago
- but the blooming wildflowers - shimmering buttercup and royal hound's
tongue and sunshine violets - told a different tale, a springtime tale.
I thought of Her, all flowing yellow hair, sparkling jeweled eyes,
wordless, hand in hand, a contentment, a completion found in intimacy,
in a simple, shared life in a vibrant land. Along the pure river, the
eternal restlessness of aching water desperate for the ocean, I thought
I saw her perfect form, naked, but it was just an aberration, a
bark-stripped tree slanting the sun's rays that confused me. I lingered
at the river, enthralled by myriad wildflowers, searching, scanning
hard for a sign of my most intimate lover in the snowmelt water, but
saw nothing. Birds, however, served as solace, as substitutes, as
friends - the elegant robins especially. Two young people then
appeared: one an ugly guy, another a young woman, glowing red hair,
bright shiny copper, long, flowing, sinuous, body clothed all in black.
I only saw her from behind - I wish I could've seen her face. She may
have been beautiful.
I realized the most mystical time there, in
that canyon, along that pure river, was dusk - if transcendence would
ever envelope me there, it'd be dusk. Such possibility tempted me to
stay, but with solitude shattered, with the stifling compression of
other people, with the allure of climbing that gnarly trail at sun's
apex, the challenge for this recovering post-surgery body, they
overwhelmed the seduction, so I rose, I rose back. As I rose, so did
the wind, but the wind's personality had shifted since dawn: it was now
a bright wind, not a howling wind or a wailing wind that hammers you in
the summer Delta afternoon or during a dour storm, but an effervescent
wind, a laughing wind. I made the ridge and dallied for a spell in the
bright wind, trying to decipher what the wind was chattering about, but
of course I could discern no words - laughter needs no words to
communicate.
After a glorious four-mile
sway awash in violet shadow and sunflower sunlight, dropping 3,000 feet
from the little wigwam camp I snuggled into last night, I bask by the
shimmering river under a soft spring sky. Alone the whole time - not
the faintest whimper of humanity. But the birds - fuck, tons: robins;
their compatriots, Black-headed Grosbeaks; a giant, gallant Pileated
Woodpecker; warbling, wandering Cassin's Vireos; so many others,
dippers, mergansers, several warbler species. Tons of plants, too,
given the elevation change. And mammals - a doe muley with soft, loving
eyes and a shaggy, cinnamon black bear. Been sitting next to a
foot-plus 'bow feeding in a soft, foamy eddy. He's mostly been sipping
midge pupae from the water column, flashes from his pearly mouth with
each bite, but he ain't been that picky - he's slurped a few ants off
the surface, burping bubbles each time. And yes, "he" - his mouth too
big, his rose-red stripe much too gaudy to adorn a lady. He's been
chewin' a lot, no doubt having bulk back up after lovin' season. So
much non-human life, no human around other than me, although a
historical vestige of many remains, piles of slag and rusted, red metal
from bygone mining days. But non-human life's embraced that human
detritus, crawling, creeping grapevines and poison oak all over the
rusted metal, deerbrush and cedars and blossoming dogwood aspiring from
the slag heaps.
I lingered by an old miner's cabin, a stout,
hardy edifice, even with the roof caved in by a massive hardwood. It's
in a gorgeous place - adjacent to a laughing little trib with sweet
water but high enough above the river to avoid most floods, surrounded
by majestic, protecting firs and pines. The loveliness of the place -
wonder if it ever got into him, if he ever absorbed and then
appreciated the native life, or if he and his ilk had already stripped
the riverbanks and hills of the conifers that give life and form to the
place before he built his cabin. Drunk on the new high of the
Industrial Revolution, the majority probably considered Nature tinder
for domesticity and the rapacious revolution and nothing else. Still,
I'd have to think that among that vagrant miner horde, just like for
any group of people, a few dissidents existed, and they resonated at
the same frequency as the grosbeak's song and were joyed by it.
The fragrance, the silence, of this mystical
mixed-coniferous forest, it just gets so deep into me, it penetrates so
deeply, so remarkable given how stony I so frequently am. Here in this
beautiful forest, along this beautiful river, I feel the wind and the
stream's song and the robin's song move not around me - but through me.
I stink like a railroad tie because I
didn't shower after the gnarliest hike I've undertaken since - holy
shit - perhaps when I bagged Pyramid several years back. Only my rope's
tattered end remained when I reached my car in the still evening
yesterday, but, fuck - I made it. And this morning, sore I feel, but
sore is always a blessing - signals the birth pangs of growth. And camp
- I camped, too, among my heaven the mixed-coniferous forest, the
cedars and sugar pines and white firs all fawning over me like
godfathers, godmothers - gods. Dug a little nook in the ground, sunk my
ass down there as night fell, then had my mind washed by myriad dreams.
Both while dozing in my sleeping bag and for much of the hike, the air,
it was so still, the quiet, it was overwhelming, massive, and I felt an
intruder if I likewise didn't soften my steps, quiet my breaths. And I
did both, so well that a blond black bear and I - we nearly kissed, and
I spied her before she did me. And that gentleness, that softness, it
lingers today back here in this sharp-edged domesticated suburban
fuckin' valley town - I don't wanna make a sound. The exertion of
yesterday and the impression of that Wild place - they caused it.
On the canyon floor, with the river, so lush, fecund, and all Mamma's
critters in attendance - numerous birds (MacGillivray's Warbler the
star of the show), perfumed deerbrush and towering cedars and firs and
a cold, crystal river stuffed with rainbows, and ticks, and mosquitoes,
and a lone little coppery rattlesnake with sable spots, who I
regretfully scared out of her hollow when I tried snapping a photo. The
river's water was so fucking cold that I had to get naked and jump into
it - it was such a shock, such a smack in the face, such a novel
experience, I had to do it again. And again. And again. I left my shirt
off the rest of the day so the wind could lick the water and sweat off
my body directly, so I could feel the wind. I'd never felt so
comfortable being so exposed.
After
busting ass at work on Monday, I busted ass up the mountain that
evening, quaffed a nice little salad with some sunfish nuggets for
dinner, then drifted to sleep in the stone-still, the seemingly
eternally still, coniferous forest, the summer dog-day coniferous
forest. Woke at dawn, then down the slope I wound, reaching the river
fairly early in the morning. Found a smooth perch to perch my ass, and
just sat and absorbed the scene for a while. The air remained so still,
breathless - the continuing summer dog day. The birds, correspondingly,
were notable by their absence - only the burrs of the Spotted Towhees,
the squeak of the Hairy Woodpecker, and the squawk of the Steller's
Jays permeated the air. Swoops and dives by a Black Phoebe and Water
Ouzel graced the docile, tinkling river. Base flow in a dry year.
Still, the trout appeared joyous, sinuous in the sapphire, pristine
water, pirouetting for emerging mayflies. A tranquil setting as I lazed
in the mid-morning pleasantness. Then, facing my fear to feel, my fear
of change, I stripped and jumped in the river, finding it warmer than
my other plunges earlier in the year, and I glided for several minutes
in the refreshing water. To further beat down the fear, I scaled a
cliff and jumped off the fucker - first one in over four years, when I
met and conquered the same fear at a more northerly river.
Thought about Thoreau while there, his criteria for happiness:
magnanimity, independence, simplicity, and trust. I doubt he identified
those requisites haphazardly and with little thought. To express all,
one needs two things: strength and resourcefulness. If you're weak, you
have little to give. Too, with little to give, you're more likely to be
mistrustful since you've such little of value that you fear losing it.
Strength comes in two forms: strength of body, strength of mind, and
strengthening one strengthens the other. For body: diet and exercise.
For mind: analysis (intellectual, left-brained) and creation (artistic,
right-brained). Strengthening mind and body informs resourcefulness by
enhancing the ability to see the commonality among things and lives,
where patterns exist, the core of things, and from there, you can
recognize and eliminate redundancies, leading to simplicity. Then? Less
dependence and therefore ascent towards independence.
Fourteen miles through lovely wilderness to the very tip of a renowned,
remote peak, the wind blowing and swirling, pushing, rattling the
shingle-like rocks topping the spire, while the sun, in contrast - in
an eternal bluebird sky, a steadiness of warmth, light, spellbound and
spellbinding. Many birds and mammals as I wove my way up there - they
seemed nearly lazy, unhurried, confident, a behavior reflecting the
static bounty of high-country summer. Careless, seemingly - the
Green-tailed Towhees, the MacGillivray's Warblers, the Sooty Grouse -
all seemed remarkably tolerant of me, as if knowing I'd do them no
harm. They were right.
This body, while sore near day's end, big toes aching, did it, and as I
sit here now - and after being disciplined and stretching well after
the 14 miles - my body, it feels intact. And as far as state of mind,
mood, integration - rare has it been that I've felt as together as I do
now.
True to form of the typical Thursday, I
tossed work concerns aside and scooted off into Nature, again, up in
the Sierra, again. In black-hole pre-dawn darkness I was up, in the
kitchen, coffee brewing and breakfast stewing, then in the car, on the
freeway, on my way up out of this overpopulated fucking valley. And the
overpopulation exhibited itself elegantly by the shocking number of
cars and box trucks and big rigs and RVs and little commuter cars like
my own already on the road at 6:15 AM. Hard to see how any human can
have any impact, any meaning, in such a density. But I shed most
commuters as I rose in elevation, and, true to typical human form, when
I reached the trailhead at dawn, no sunlight yet peppering any of the
towering mountains surrounding, I was the only one there.
Then onto the trail quickly, in part because I wanted some separation
between me and the fellow trail commuters I knew would arrive - it was
a popular trail, though I wagered the type of day - deep into autumn, a
weekday - would draw fewer people. Too, I wanted to escape the roar of
the freeway, which rumbled and grumbled for a good hour as I ascended
the slope - I pretended it was the ocean's roar, which helped, and the
roar of both, pretty close. Both a flow, one a flow born of time and
gravity, the other of time and travesty. One of those glittering
instances that sparks feeling, that fuels my desire to continue this
one-time test of life, washed over me as I jammed up the trail - I
exhilarated at the exertion of my body in fuckin' hardcore action,
fighting gravity, defying gravity, stepping deftly over root and limb
and rock, feeling my body flash out heat, a heat given discernment by
the crisp, cool, surrounding mountain air. And I wasn't alone - those
welcome residents, the heralds of the mixed-coniferous mountains, the
Steller's Jays and Townsend's Solitaires, greeted me in warm, sardonic,
cackling glee.
I attained the ridge and escaped the freeway
roar still very early in the morning - the sun's light had barely begun
to bathe the montane scene. I lingered at the first lake on the trail
briefly, but scurried away quickly, deeper, in part because - the lake,
too close. Approached another where presence of some fishermen startled
me since only my car occupied the trailhead parking lot. Their pressure
spurred me to keep gunning, so I reached my destination quickly, the
furthest lake, and here, alone, I paused, enveloped in that empyreal
autumn silence, not the merest whisper of a wind, ruby glow from
senescing, flaring willow leaves reflecting off the mysterious, placid
lake surface. Ice crystals radiated out from the brown, fecund
shoreline, recalling the ice, the same-shaped ice, that likewise
radiated out from the muddy banks of Arrowhead and Gregory and Big Bear
of my youth. The silence slowly eased into, expanded into, a sweet,
serene symphony - the robins and juncos awoke, then fluttered down to
the lake's shore, both gleaning clean the muddy bank of its
invertebrate larder, the robins drinking the lake's water like royals
savoring a fine wine. The robins - no more graceful bird, with their
perfectly ascending flights from ground to trees, the perfect rhythm of
their beating wings, and the lovely, warm laughter that they fill the
air with.
The sun now up in its gilded autumn
glory, mid-morning, and I softly threaded my way into the epicenter of
the robin symphony, a gilded meadow of sallow sedges and bleached,
ancient logs. Was a perfect bed, so I had to lie down and take
advantage of it, dozing in the warm autumn sun, a freshly born soft
breeze riffling over my body, robin laughter and junco twitters
serenading me to sleep. Just seemed totally the right thing to do.
I woke about an hour later, the sun approaching
its zenith, the breeze billowing into a bona fide wind, an Indian
summer wind. The little repose had refueled my tank because I espied a
local peak, a promontory composed of ancient, naked granite, and I just
ached to clamber to the top of the fucker and have a look around. So I
did, where the wind suffered no obstacles but flowed free, as did my
vision - no peak nor tree interrupted my view in any direction. My
ascension was rewarded: I saw my only Clark's Nutcracker of the day,
those well-dressed, genteel denizens of the high mountains, who reigned
in a little dell, regally perched on a dead pine tree, and totally
hidden from the trail. As I looked down at the sweet little lake I'd
left behind, the shock of jumping into its ice-cold waters, it allured
me, but my fear, it won this battle - I just felt the shock might be a
little too much. Also, my fellow travelers, with the rising sun, had
risen too - I saw my first day-hikers, two groups, one nearing my lake
and the other mingling at the second lake I'd skipped by. They
certainly would've made me feel exposing my body it in all its naked
glory rather uncomfortable, and probably unwelcome.
Their approach rang the cue - if they're coming
in, I'm to go out. So I scrambled cross-country back to the trail,
avoiding the first group of people, which wasn't difficult - Jesus,
they were clothed so garishly, fuckin' bright yellow and orange and red
- fit into the scene of brown and green and grey they did not. Once
back on the trail - the density of people, it'd ballooned. Four groups
I passed in less than a mile, and I felt my space recoiling, but I had
more fuckin' living to do up there, had to experience more, so I struck
off on a less traveled trail, a less defined trail, with the promise of
another glacier-created lake to sit by and ogle. And damn was it worth
it - not only for additional exercise, to keep these limbs operating to
their potential, but damn - the lack of people translated to so much
more bird life that I didn't get on the mainstream trail - Red-breasted
Nuthatches, a surprising burst of migrating Western Bluebirds, and a
bevy of several ground-bird species at the solemn little lake that,
indeed, I had all to myself.
There, too, I sat for a while, yearning for
that transcendence that frequently fills me when in those
mixed-coniferous forests, but I thought about it too much and so only
felt a sliver of it wash over me for a millisecond before vanishing.
And while the urge to hop into that lake surged into me again, just
like the last lake, and while I stifled that urge again, I did doff my
shirt and expose my upper body to Nature - I wanted to feel that sun,
that wind, against my bare skin.
Then back down
the trail, back down to civilization, in the falling afternoon light.
Take my limbs to the limit I did - though most of the way back was
descending, I had a few ascents that demanded all my energy to attain.
Back on the main drag, many, many people - the lake closest to
civilization was inundated with 'em, and while I wished they weren't
there, fuck - they're better for it, better that they climbed that
slope, exercised those muscles, breathed some clean mountain air. And
while the little climbs near day's end winded me a bit, the last few
miles of navigating craggy rock and bumpy limbs and fallen trees -
fuck, I flowed over 'em weasel-like, with grace.
I feel so fuckin' fine
now, regenerated, vigorous, and I've only the relationship between
Nature and I yesterday to thank. Thank you.
Final year's descent into the canyon yesterday. Sailed down with ease,
and sailed up with ease, reinforcing that all the work I've done to
this body to make it strong, keep it strong - the dividends keep
paying. It's balancing, calming - I feel clearer in the head, gentler
in my actions, than days when I haven't been there, which I can only
attribute to the exertion, the physical exertion, but also the release,
the freeing, of the stifling clump of humanity on my soul, its big
rubber boot, and the energy from the trees and winds and bird calls and
trills that saturate me when in the woods and water.
Yet layers of humanity abound in the canyon - remains of Indian
grinding rocks, remains of the miners, of long-dead farmers - their
slag piles, their leftover metal from their raping days, their little
groves of fruit trees, now all swept up and solidly a part of Wild -
and me, my footsteps, treading trails that miners and the Indians that
came before trod.
This river and her cradling
canyon have grown me - climbing arduously out of ever-steeper ravines,
enduring plunges into freezing waters, weathering the oven-hot summer
heat with sweat and tan and anguish. I'm more physically resilient as a
result - but for this river canyon, my vertigo adventure along the
Pacific no doubt would've been so much worse. I'd like to think
emotionally and intellectually, too. Absolutely the latter with bird
knowledge - so many species that previously had just been pretty
cartoons in books were breathed into life for my first time here:
solitaires, Nashville Warblers, vireos. Emotionally - certainly I've
been gifted with rare slivers of joy, such as the euphoria that
billowed within me after I braved her snowmelt waters and lay
lizard-like, naked, on a riverwater-burnished rock in the warm
afternoon summer sun.
Such a mild winter day.
Clear, just a soft breath of wind, diamond sun. Nearly T-shirt weather
at the canyon rim. And the mixed-coniferous forest I adore - Doug firs,
ponder pines, incense-cedars glistening in the dewy dawn. On the river,
slag heaps of boulders and rubble, monuments to the gouging of the
miners - riverbed would've no doubt been higher had this monumental
volume of rock been left in it. But the river still runs well, trilling
with remarkable vivacity in this drought year. And atop the slag pile,
the coffeeberry shivers in the cool breeze; the yellowed cottonwood
leaves wave, falling to infinity.
We're entangled, tangled in each
other's arms, Her hair the color of bear buckwheat bloom sprayed across
my naked chest, my naked belly. Dawn breaks, arcing curves of soft
violet light, alighting the curves of Her back, Her ass, Her calves.
The pine-duff perfume, the sweet smoke emanating off the so-misnamed
mountain misery, lusty perfume billowing off the thick, embracing
deerbrush. And a grand, ancient silence that permeates the forest,
through the ponderosa pines and white firs and incense-cedars and their
black oak hardwood complement, a transcendent stillness of
mixed-coniferous mountains. It renders the intellect less important
than the intuition, the feeling, and we get absorbed into it. We become
one with it. Words dissipate, linear conduct becomes so stifling when
so much life moves simultaneously - the trees, the bugs, the birds, the
fishes, the bears, us. Those linear thoughts - useful when
concentrating on a very small aspect, such as trying to key out a
plant, tending a wound, but not enough to take in the sweep of
experience, and therefore they need to be subordinate to intuition. The
feeling needs to guide the intellect, to focus it.
And on Her I focus, and with Her I become.