I came home from work one day not too long ago to find one of Julian's many Calvin and Hobbes books (umm, mostly handed down from me) on the kitchen counter. There was a Post-It note to turn to page 91. So I did.


And this is what I found ~

Umm, wow. I about lost it (though I am a sucker for Calvin and Hobbes).


But I need to remember this more as I work furiously at music and remodeling and this and that. Remember that there's a kid that calls me dad that sometimes just wants to play.


Remember that.


Soon enough he'll be all grown up and not want to play with his dad.


Remember that.


The sheetrock can wait.


That idea on the piano can wait.


That email can wait.


Remember that.

no. 8056 [part one of three ... imperfection].

So I've been sort of blogging since June maybe July randomly here and there the story of an old piano of mine off to be restored a bit.

It may have been interesting. Probably not. But this goes back way before that long before I found No. 8056 then and is all of it some fifteen years or so in the making of the search a journey of sorts for the perfect piano. Maybe someone coming across this can relate. Of finding that one instrument on which to bear it all. I of course think pianists are a passionate lot and that the piano is one of mankind’s greatest inventions but obviously there are all instruments and perhaps many musicians for which this kind of passion applies.

But this is the story of an age-old Bechstein.






part one. [imperfection]

There really is no better sound in this world than a just-tuned piano other than perhaps none at all as in complete silence found only high up in the mountains on glaciers far removed from everything watching clouds scrape over ice without making a sound. Without the cancellations of duplexed and triplexed strings beating out of sync the piano gains a devouring volume. Nearly too much for this little living room in which I find myself this afternoon. It has a certain power to it that it does not have at any other time and a perfection in its imperfections. Made especially clear through the routine and drudgery of tuning where only one string at a time is tweaked and where it is easy to get quite used to the rather insipid sound that creates. But then - once having finished all the keys - then the task begins of tuning the unisons - over two hundred of them in all – and the sound begins to take shape. Builds on itself the physics of it all beautiful.

After far too much time spent on keyboards in Logic samples stored as binary codes in this whirring Mac beside me the inexplicable acoustic power of a hundred-and-thirty-nine-year-old German grand piano strings copper wound by now-antiquated machines and hammers voiced by delicate hands nearly a century-and-a-half ago the soundwaves upon soundwaves multiplying on top of each other until nearly exploding is an absolutely phenomenal sensation to behold.

-----

Fifteen years ago now I think. I could not explain at the time why without a place to put it living on maple-lined quiet streets in tiny upstairs apartments up creaky flights of stairs making pennies an hour all of twenty years old completely out of nowhere I talked myself into the idea that I must have a grand piano. Absurd it was. And so after scrawling calculations on scraps of paper and more scraps of paper adding up and subtracting from and figuring out how to stretch every last dime maybe going without food so that I could sit at a grand piano and bang away annoying all within earshot I began The Search.

This entailed Friday nights raining and dark autumn in full swing driving from Tacoma to Seattle and all points in between even the Bösendorfer dealer in Portland visiting every piano dealer I could find. Some were gracious and took me seriously. Others told me to quiet down me hammering big fat chords that there were lessons going on in the back and what is this twenty-year-old doing looking at the grand pianos anyhow surely we could interest him in a more reasonable upright there that one in the far corner?

And then one afternoon I found myself wandering into the Helmer's Music in Tacoma. I had just about nailed my search down to a five-foot-seven Weber I came across at the Helmer’s in Federal Way. ‘Check out the six-footer down in Tacoma before you decide’ the guy up there told me and sent me on my way south.

And so I wandered the store from one far corner to the other of course because I had to maybe there was something else afterall at last finding the six-foot Weber stashed amongst a handful of other Asian grands and having a go on it. Hard to compare but I wasn’t sold on the few additional inches which of course would mean a few additional thousands of dollars.

Wrapping up I finished circling the store and there in the back corner a mahogany 5'9" piano impeccably beautiful and so I snuck up to it for a closer look. Hmm ... ‘C. Bechstein’ it said on the fallboard. Never heard of it. ‘Pianoforte-Fabrick von C. Bechstein Berlin’ graced the soundboard. German. I was drawn to it. And so I took a seat at the bench and held my breath. Played exactly three chords. And that was it. I was done for. I must have a Bechstein grand before I die I told myself in an instant before exhaling still sitting at the bench running my fingers across the keys.

The Search was over.

Too bad for me scraping pennies together to pony up for just the Korean-made Weber that this particular German Bechstein had a pricetag of ninety-three thousand. Dollars.

But it didn’t matter. I would own one someday.

-----

‘Weber WG57 5’7” ebony 6 mos sacrifice $8k obo’ the newspaper clipping read I found tucked in a box heaping full of music stuff from years past. Sacrifice. The word broke my heart.

I guess I only had it for six months that five-foot-seven polished ebony Weber grand for which I had spent all those months looking. The advert was dated November seventh nineteen-ninety-nine and the paperwork stuffed in a once nice but now ragged Weber sales folder from April of the same year. No doubt the worst financial decision I had ever made buying on a complete impulse sitting on kitchen counters in my sisters’ old second-floor apartment above Thomas Street on Capitol Hill over hot chocolates and potato casseroles and Nantucket Nectars I ended up keeping a mere six months before having to sell it losing several thousand dollars in the process several thousand dollars this twenty-two-year-old really did not have to lose.

But no regrets.

I look back and remember certain moments on it as if they were yesterday. An evening alone a theme raging in my head going over to it crammed into a corner of a living room barely bigger than the piano old worn hardwood floors sitting down and banging it out everything exploding in that moment the theme to what will become the fortissimo opening to a second concerto for piano and orchestra. The enormous B-flat minor chord as loud as I could hammer it on that five-seven. A switch to the D chord even more enormous. The fat copper bass strings were thunderous their sound rebounding off the plaster to fill the small space with an immense wall of sound unbearable. The sound was big but yet not big enough. I always wanted it to be bigger as big as what I heard in my head and the Weber could not suffice.

That’s not why I sold it though six months after all the work I put into searching for it months and months almost as long as I ended up owning it. But I had to in order to get to No. 8056. I just didn’t know it at the time. It was all a progression of sorts.

And the cost was worth it. The memories continued to pile on top of each other.

Putting together a film of short recordings for my older sister on eight-millimeter videotape me playing various snippets pulled from reams of comb-bound sketch books I had made and improvising the rest as I fumbled with them leafing though the pages scrawled with ink. The chord change from D-flat to E-flat minor huge an ending to a concerto yet to be written for now years and years all still in my head. An idea in F-sharp minor furious uncontained. Another in E-flat. I asked for the audio cassette recording a few months ago I had mailed to her years and years back but have yet to dust off an old cassette deck stashed somewhere in order to listen to it again and reminisce. Maybe pull some ideas from. Work them out develop them some more. A theme just an idea still to the second movement of another concerto for piano and orchestra sketched out on the keys of that Weber. In those six short months I even moved it from that first tiny apartment it called home to another tiny apartment from where it would leave me to move onto other hands other notes waiting to be played. Every now and then I think about it and wonder where it is? Who is playing it and what are they playing?

But no piano I have ever owned or played has escaped me. I seem to have memories of them all.

A grand piano in the middle of the wide-open orchestra rehearsal room at the neighborhood college back in flat muddy Missouri close enough that I would walk to crisp autumn nights crunching leaves over the campus lawn finding the piano through the window sitting there alone cracking the door open wandering over to it sitting down and playing interrupted at some point by a security guard not amused with my ramblings. Must have seen the light or heard the racket and came looking. I never returned. A Steinway D my sister Kathy the one to whom I gave the low-fi recording made on the Weber years before that had talked the janitor into letting her know where the D was stashed on the stage of her college’s auditorium. So one night we snuck in and pulled it out from its little climate-controlled vault out onto the stage her disappearing quietly to go sit somewhere up high in the mezzanine alone while I banged away on it at one point a student maybe in charge of watching out for hooligans like us maybe just passing through the halls walked up beside me on the middle of the stage and without missing a note of whatever I was fumbling to play I remember looking up and muttering ‘hey’ and he maybe assuming I had permission or maybe not wanting to bother me just playing the piano nodded and left us be. A Kawai grand in the sanctuary of a Mormon church in a proper Midwest town the secretary kind enough to let me in and play for maybe half an hour Kathy sitting quietly in a pew nearby. A crap old Wurlitzer spinet I was renting from Sherman Clay in a crap old apartment in Tukwila one night alone watching the movie Shine for the first time halfway through getting up stumbling over to it in the dark clicking on the dim piano light and throwing down the beginning motif to a first concerto for piano and orchestra influenced heavily in that very instant that single moment in the dark by the raging piano of Sergei Rachmaninov. A broken-down upright stuffed in a practice room at a small college in North Tacoma a farewell performance of sorts to a now lost love. The WG57. In time but before No. 8056 another ebony polished Weber this time an upright W121.

My mother’s tiny woodgrain Kimball spinet and Beethoven and my first piano sonata in D-flat.

At the top of the scrap of notebook paper folded and torn I found in that same box as the newspaper clipping I had written ‘penny toss!’ Scribbled in columns beneath were numbers dollar amounts of rents and bills and such. I guess after all the math all the addition and subtraction and crossing out and refiguring I was leaving it all - the decision to buy not any piano but a grand piano ten thousand some dollars - leaving it all to chance. To chance by flipping a coin. Whichever side - I can’t recall - that I decided would seal the deal and make the Weber mine even for those short six months had apparently landed right side up.

But definitely not by chance.

-----

The moving slip from A and J reads December eighth nineteen-ninety-nine. It too is folded and worn. I saved all these scraps of paper. I’m nostalgic I guess. It escapes me though at this point who it was that bought it from me. But I remember the two guys coming in. Taking off the one leg on the front left corner and lowering my piano for only such a short time already someone else’s down gently then from that awkward position heaving it up onto its long side to remove the other two legs. Lifting it with a collective grunt from there up onto the cart then out the front door. Down the stairs. Into the back of their truck. And gone.

But that was just the beginning.

Because of these scraps of paper mostly the one with the columns of rents and bills and such and the note to toss a penny I went searching without knowing or without reason or even an understanding then to find a five-foot-nine beautiful but more than just beautiful piano that stirred something in me the instant I played it a perfect combination of the airwaves around me from the copper and steel strings the spruce soundboard all handmade in Berlin by a piano maker named Carl Bechstein of which before that moment I had never heard.

It would be many more years until I would find mine.

to be continued ...

first frost.

Happy Christmas ... time to listen to some Veils ...

audio at last.

In order to celebrate the arrival of No. 8056 I had taken the liberty of ordering a couple of condenser mics before it arrived. This evening I was finally able to set them up. Record something. Weird listening to the result. The only time I've recorded a piano was maybe twelve-plus years ago on digital videotape which I transferred to an audio cassette now old and scratchy-sounding full of hiss.

So it's weird.

Weird listening to a recording of my piano that sounds exactly like my piano. I squeezed the mics in over the strings. Adjusted the gain just below clipping. Inserted a touch of reverb and EQ and played something simple.

I'm not sure what it is about microphones and recording but they and it are just cool. Up until now Logic and its piano samples were my way of capturing ideas usually late late at night. But now ... now I will be able to record the Bechstein.

Awesome.

eldorado.

So I was going through an old box heaping with music stuff to research writing the complete story of No. 8056 mostly filling in the gaps coming across invoices for piano movers and clippings from newspapers of pianos I have sold to get to the Bechstein and in the heaps found a printout a few pages dated August 2003 from a no-doubt-now-defunct website called peakspeak.net (maybe has since morphed into summitpost.org) on climbing Eldorado that apparently I wanted to climb even way back then and it included the poem of the same name by Edgar Allen Poe that I - well - quite liked.

Gaily bedight,

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old -

This knight so bold -

And o'er his heart a shadow

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow -

'Shadow,' said he,

'Where can it be -

This land of Eldorado?'

'Over the mountains

of the moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldy ride,'

The shade replied -

'If you seek for Eldorado!'

fertig.

'You've got yourself a Bechstein,' Clark exclaimed as we wrapped up the voicing.

I had made the trip to Portland to check out all the work he had put into my piano over the last what nearly six months since two burly dudes had wheeled it out my front door down the stairs and into their truck as we followed them north to their next pickup us on our way to work.

It was cold out. Not as cold as nearly a year ago when I first went through the doors of Michelle's wearing my canvas Toms and a beatup Mountain Hardware fleece. I remember the light. Purple. Pale. I liked it cold then. And I liked it cold now. Was supposed to dip into the twenties.

But this time was different. I wasn't here to find out what their deal was. I was here to find out how my piano sounded with new hammers, a couple tied-off bass strings and a completely reworked action and damper system. I had only spoken to Clark over the phone so this was the first time meeting him. He appeared from the backroom and we shook hands then he whisked back there me in tow.

And there it was.

I had seen it a couple of months ago. Looked sort of lonely sitting in the middle of a big room lined with old grands on their sides and uprights in various states of disrepair. He asked if I wanted to take notes as he recited to me all the work he had done. When he came up for air he sort of motioned for me to sit and said it would probably be best if I played.

I hadn't touched it in half a year. I rattled off some big chords up and down then a theme I have been working on for 'Singularity.' Nothing much. It was hard for me to get into it with Clark eyeing me from behind and another technician over in the far corner tinkering on an upright taking this key out putting that key back in all under the harsh buzz of the fluorescents. But I tried to ease into the moment of playing my piano for the first time in months as best I could knowing it was important. Had to get a feel of the sound of it despite knowing this was not my living room and I was far from ease.

Instantly though I knew it was too bright in the treble. Clark nodded and switched me places after pulling out his voicing tools. He carefully went to work on the D two octaves above middle C three ... four times shuffling the action in and out between each. On the fourth there it was - I heard it instantly. The softening I was looking for. I nodded instantly and we caught a gaze that told me he heard it too. Then he quickly went to work on the couple of octaves above that before sliding the action back in to have me play it again.

I could tell a difference and we agreed we shouldn't do any more until it had a chance to settle back in its home. Didn't want to get to a point that couldn't be undone.

And that was that.

As he worked on tying off the action so as to keep it from getting damaged on its ride back north we chatted a bit about his upcoming trip to Alaska to do some tuning for someone's Bechstein. How we both had it on our lists of places to visit. How the scale of the mountains would be hard to comprehend. At some point Katie had slipped out to go visit a friend who lived nearby. I asked Clark a bit about his background as he told me some about my piano.

He had never worked on a piano this old. It was caught in the middle of the years where the piano took its biggest (and more or less last) transformation ... when the modern Renner action was developed along with a full plate and overstrung scale design. Mine has hints of them all and as he pointed out was way ahead of its time. He told me how frankly he was surprised that it turned out as beautifully as it did and how he wasn't sure it would when he decided to undertake this little project I presented him. I asked him how often it was that it didn't turn out?

Before answering he seemed anxious to tell me how he had agreed to take the restoration on despite the uncertainty because I had been into 'tone and touch' from the start and nothing else. I don't care and didn't about the cosmetics of the beast ... just wanted it to sound its potential that I could always hear from the first time I sat down to play it after uncrating it on a dock in Seattle and hauling it south to heave it into my cramped living room. And for which Clark gave me credit - admitting to me even he couldn't necessarily hear it when he first started working on it. But because what was important to me was what was important to him he liked the project from the beginning.

And then he told me it's happened less and less as he's gained more and more years of experience - the not turning out in the end thing. But that this instrument was one-of-a-kind and worth the risk. And sure I knew in the back of my mind he was selling me on the work he had done and thereby his expertise and potential future service should I need him to come to Seattle (which I very well may) but I didn't get the sense that was why he was telling me all he was telling me. He had an honesty in him that I picked up immediately and was only reassured for feeling the more we went back and forth.

He seemed surprised at what I all knew about this instrument that more or less controls my life the bit about the way the upper treble hammers needing to be in the exact spot when they hit the very very short strings in that section because the strings are divided into sevenths and the hammers hit on the first node a seventh its length from the tuning pins to avoid unbearable overtones. I got a raised eyebrow and a quirky smile for that. 'How do you know so much?' he asked me wryly. Short of a good answer I quickly replied that I sort of like pianos and left it at that.

The action tied off and secured back in the belly - the fallboard closed and music desk reinserted - I could tell Clark was anxious to be off to his next appointment for which he was no doubt already late. And I felt better. I arranged over a quick phone call to Lotof no doubt enjoying his Sunday off away from the shop to include a follow-up appointment back here at home in the spring. Give my piano some time to settle. Break in. Play it a bit. Then have Clark make the trip up here to do the final voicing and adjust anything that may get out of whack over the next few months.

And that then really was that. It was getting dark out despite not yet even being five o'clock. Before I could leave though there was one last thing I wanted to do. No one was there except Kim sitting politely at his desk mulling over some paperwork. As we wrapped up the payment I said I was going to wander around quick to play one of the new polished and shiny Bechsteins to compare to mine. He pointed to the back and suggested I try out the nine-foot D on the stage.

I wandered over to it. Set down the box of the original hammers from my 1875 Bechstein Clark had handed to me on a metal folding chair off to the side and sat down on the bench. There was definitely an air about this thing. A solidness and power to it that impressed me. I played the pianissimo theme of 'Singularity' up to its explosive section where it hits the F major. Had to restrain myself. Maybe he was on the phone or something and I was too reserved to really pound on a two-hundred thousand dollar piano that wasn't mine. It did sound amazing.

But not like No. 8056.

It didn't have the same history. The same story. The same character of sound. Built from trees felled pre-industrialization by hands now long gone - it was too new. And so I found the old Blüthner nearby that was here last time when I was talking to Lotof about having my Bechstein restored. I played the same theme. Didn't catch the price but I'm sure it was expensive. It had been completely restored afterall. But mine sounded better than it, too.

Satisfied then - I got up. Zipped up the collar on my old fleece. A delivery kid had come in while I had been playing the Blüthner and was talking to Kim about another late night. As I passed them I waved and thanked him and he smiled back. With the of the box of old hammers tucked under my arm I pulled open the door and headed out down Stark as the streetlights flickered on and my breath froze in the November northwest air.

lacrimosa [day of tears].

Holy shit.


Umm, sorry.






There was a statement that flashed on the screen upon hitting play on the Mini for the film 'The Tree Of Life' that said simply how the producers urged the viewer to turn up the volume very high to truly experience the film.


And this piece by Zbigniew Preisner is an utter testament to that statement.


It may be since I heard Sergei Rachmaninov's D minor piano concerto that a piece of music has so completely and utterly shocked and amazed me. Coupled with the vision in the film of the creation of Earth it is a powerful experience.


Umm, this video though will utterly not do it justice.


But the music is out there.


Find it.


Play it.


Unbelievably loud.


Play it unbelievably loud.


Crush all the air around you lying in a dark, empty space and let it wash over you.


The soprano voice rising ever-higher.


Joined by the choir.


And the orchestra.


Ever-higher.


Ever-higher.


Ever higher.

the theory of the singularity.

It is just an idea.





A theory.





The singularity. The still-hypothetical emergence of artificial intelligence through technological means. An eventual merging of technology and human biology of sorts. A point when computers are no longer in our pockets but rather we ... become ... the computer. Of course we will not realize when this happens and so the very idea of the singularity will form more as what has been termed an 'intellectual event horizon.' We will not see it coming. It will have already happened.







As autumn is now in full swing and I am wrapped up for the next six months indoors it is time to move forward with this project of mine called Carbon. There are three songs on the immediate to-do list. And a fourth close behind. All ideas are both sketched out as well as compiled into some rough samples in Logic.


This is one.


The first. This idea of the singularity. A minute-ten. A chord progression in E minor. An enormous furious piano scales and thousands of notes as fast as I can possibly play. Up and down the keyboard. Hammering on the low end. A raging orchestra. Brass. Strings. Timpani. A huge C major. A symphonic choir. And a voice. In my head still but trying - as in all of the stuff I write it seems - trying to rise above it all.

julian and maddalo.

© 2011 silver star mountain, north cascades, washington

... and the tide makes

A narrow space of level sand thereon,

Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down.

This ride was my delight. I love all waste

And solitary places; where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:

And such was this wide ocean, and this shore

More barren than its billows; and yet more

Than all, with a remember'd friend I love

To ride as then I rode; for the winds drove

The living spray along the sunny air

Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare,

Stripp'd to their depths by the awakening north;

And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth

Harmonizing with solitude, and sent

Into our hearts aëreal merriment.

~ Percy Shelley

the loneliest mountain.

Luna Peak in the distance from the summit of Black Peak

We were sitting at Vivace on Yale sipping white velvets (at least I was ... I think ... it might have been caramel) and I was reading some article in Backpacker magazine about extremes - the tallest tree, place with the most snow, quietest spot and such - and among the list it mentioned what the writer considered to be the loneliest mountain ...


Luna Peak.


I liked the idea. The sense it conveyed. Buried higher and deeper in the Picket Range of the North Cascades than any other peak, the article stated ~

You’ll need determination and navigation savvy to reach 8,311-foot Luna Peak, the rarely visited highpoint of the remote Picket Range. From Big Beaver Landing, it’s a 16.5-mile bushwhack that ends with a class 4 scramble.

I wholly intend to climb it next year for a view like no other - one direction to the southern Pickets the other to the northern part of the range. Fury. Terror. Challenger. Whatcom. Triumph. Despair. All the incredibleness of the most rugged slice of mountains in the lower forty-eight.

1955 - 2011.

You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

~ Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005






Dude - you changed my opinion of computing. With your OS X system you had me hooked. I remember it - the moment I realized working on a Mac was awesome - beautiful - revolutionary. I've got a dozen or so now all humming away none very new most old still going. Still going.

Wish you were too.

prelude in c.

So it was a while ago. Maybe a few months. Practicing Hanon I sort of got tired of it and just started playing this arpeggiated C chord and came up with this little melody I obligingly and I guess quite simply called Prelude In C.

It really is nothing at all. Just rambling when I should have been practicing. I played it too quickly in places during this take. I messed up a note or two.

I hear it all quiet on a huge piano the spaces in between the notes. The rests at the end. The diminished chords. Then launching full-on into the song Isolation a few hundred decibels louder after an interlude with heavily-overdriven guitar.

But for now ... for now I'll leave it with its simple end.

(Prelude In C available for the time being only from that link)



_cheers





(image courtesy of nasa.gov)

clark.

Friday morning. Ten o'clock or something. My phone rings. An eight-oh-five area code I don't recognize but I pick it up anyway. No one there so I hang up. A few seconds later it rings again. Same number, but this time there's someone else on the other end.

'Hey Thom - it's Clark the piano technician.'

Oh yeah - from Michelle's. Clark ... the sole guy working on restoring my Bechstein. I haven't talked to him in over a month so I was glad to hear from him.

'Just wanted to let you know it'll be two or three weeks before I'm ready to have you come down while I start to voice the hammers' he says.

Not having much to update me with the last time I talked to him end of August this bit of news was exciting. I still miss my piano. A lot. But I had sort of done good putting it out of mind. Getting by with a Steinway sample in Logic. But not the same. Not even close.

So he's working out the kinks in the pedals now and sounds like some last tweaking of the action before I'll get another call from him to set up a day to head down to Portland and spend in the shop listening as he sculpts the sound of the Bechstein to my liking before doing a final tuning.

The only caveat being that I am well aware of the fact his shop is not my living room and the acoustics of the place factor a great deal into the sound of an instrument like a piano. But it'll have to do. Mostly I am going to make certain he keeps the quality of the piano that I have always sensed was there but not quite heard since I played the first notes on it years ago. It has always been missing ... which is why I am forking over what I am forking over to him to bring it out. A tenor I can only imagine. A treble that doesn't pierce. A pianissimo like no other. A fortissimo in my living room that will blow away the neighbors down the street.

I am still hoping the sound will blow me away, too.

annual autumn holiday in one hundred seventy-one words.

23 september.

Campground just outside the town of Banff.

Only one night in the Bugaboos.
Glacier cracking and moaning.

Weather moved in.
Rain.

Drive through Kootenay spectacular.

Light amazing.

Glimpses of impressive mountains with fresh snow.

Glaciers.

Sound of wind through the trees over din of car camping.

Smell of pines.

So much better than a hotel room.

Posh Nemo air mattress.

Pillow.

Poofy down bag. 

Going to sleep good tonight. 

Finally tired. 

Stars. 

Up before eight. 

Pulled on wool zip-T. 

Chilly. 

Campground waking up. 

Into town of Banff. 

Coffee. 

Up Bow Valley Parkway. 

Moraine Lake. 

Hike to Larch Valley. 

Throngs of people. 

Ugh. 

No wilderness here. 

Drove Icefields Parkway. 

No wilderness there. 

Cannot be impressed by glaciers viewed from the sides of highways. 

Lots of driving. 

Back through Kootenay. 

Light less impressive. 

No clouds. 

No clouds. 

No clouds. 

Hotel in Idaho. 

Shower felt good but miss the smell of outside. 

Already. 

Wind in trees. 

Cozy-warm in down bag. 

On puffy air mattress. 

Pine sweet. 

Stars. 

Stars. 

More stars.

wilderness clichéd.

So during our trip to the Bugaboos a week or so ago and a few other Canadian provincial and national parks (Banff and Jasper and Kootenay) I gained some perspective on what seems to be an entirely American notion of 'wilderness.' In addition last night a trip to Half Price Books yielded a find of a large-format book of Ansel Adams' called The American Wilderness.

In time I plan on writing up my thoughts in particular to wilderness from what I gleaned as being the Canadian approach to such and now of some thoughts on the Adams' book, but for this post went back to a journal entry I've up until now left unpublished (if you can call blogging about it 'publishing'). Coincidentally, it was from another annual autumn trip of mine and Jeff's (we do this every autumn - take a trip somewhere and do some backpacking and sightseeing and have visited places from Yosemite to the San Rafael Swell and points in between from the Rockies and Sierras to the southwest and now the Canadian Rockies).

In this entry below I recount our trip last year where we detoured a bit south to the Maroon Bells (on my request to be fair) and my thoughts on having hiked a couple easy miles up to Crater Lake beneath the pair of impressive north and south peaks ...



-----



25 september 2010.

Maroon Bells. Sitting here at Crater Lake after a two-mile hike with a throng of others. Found a spot above the lake nestled in the quaking aspens listening to the sound of the wind through the leaves over the sound of people yapping down by the lake. The view is astounding. And the aspens have turned their brilliant autumn yellow. There is a dusting of fresh snow. The weather is about as perfect as one could ask for. All ingredients mixed together begs the question can wilderness be a cliché? And in asking that in fact seems to me to be asking the bigger question that I think of often climbing and backpacking the mountains of Washington brutal and honest in their indifference weeding out the throngs of tourists the trails from foggy valley bottom to craggy peaks thousands and thousands of feet high steep ... is clichéd wilderness good or bad? That hordes of people stomp along the the two-mile trail to Crater Lake under the Maroon Bells to eat their fruit and brownies and take their photos under cloudless bluebird skies. Do they really truly walk away with a respect and awe for our natural world having been mesmerized by the sound of the wind through the aspens of the smell of air evergreen forest of the sight of these imposing peaks? Or just a postcard photo of themselves and another place they can tick off a list? Like Delicate Arch the other night. We didn't take the three-mile hike instead opting in the little light there was left for the shorter viewpoint just to see it if only from a distance. Got there right as the sun dipped below the horizon to see - literally - a hundred people lined up shoulder to shoulder tripods and all along the ridge west of the arch perched precariously on a canyon edge. Did they leave with an Abbey-esque reverence for the place or just another stupid photograph of an arch at sunset photographed by millions? Does accessibility like this do more harm than good? Or maybe more accurately simply does it do any good at all? Surely not everyone can have the respect for nature as Abbey and Ruess and their deserts or Muir and Adams and Manning and their mountains. So they just take their photos. Maybe they think twice about sustainability. Of the idea of the seventh generation. Of preserving wilderness rather than exploiting it. Or maybe they just sigh cos they had to take a bus up here to the Bells in an effort to reduce the pollution instead of driving their car cos thirty years ago even then it was obvious all the autos were wreaking havoc on the mountain air and the meadows. Maybe all they take away is a photo of them under blue skies and a kind of place I think is often misunderstood if not at least underappreciated so no harm done but no good either? People tossing water bottles and such on the ground. A kid carving something in the pristine bark of an aspen his mother standing nearby not noticing or saying anything. In the end do the throngs of tourists to these places help or hurt? Maybe I sound cynical or maybe I have turned elitist or into some old curmudgeon. Talked to some climbers headed down the trail behind us they had a go on Pyramid but turned back a hundred feet shy of the summit finding themselves on a bit of ice while their crampons and axes were tucked safely back in their trunk. Oops. But they get it I'm certain. How many now did we pass on the trail who also get it versus how many who did not? Just up there for their scrapbook photo from the lake a hundred feet from the bus stop only to turn around to head back home. Maybe that sounds elitist. Maybe not. I think of the trips I have planned that I hope to make before the snow starts to fall in earnest back home. Kool-Aid Lake in the North Cascades. I'll leave the same throngs of tourists behind lollygagging at Cascade Pass and head up the daunting if not slightly intimidating climbers' path carved into the side of Mixup Peak and then up to Cache Col to drop down on the other side under Mixup and Formidable and Spider to pitch a tent or toss my bag at the shores of Kool-Aid. The other trip of course to the Enchantments like I do every year a grueling ten-mile approach up six-thousand feet in itself weeding out the tourists and the ones who don't really care or don't get it leaving only those that do and who enjoy the solitude of one of the greatest little corners on Earth. Not like the Maroon Bells. Not like Delicate Arch. Bumping elbows with a hundred other photographers all with their tripods and expensive cameras just to take a photo that has already been taken a billion times. Manning writes -


'Wilderness - genuine wilderness - is the sum of many processes of life and death, growth and decay.'


Such places are the last of our primeval landscapes. The few surviving samples of a natural world to walk and rest in to see to listen to feel to comprehend and understand. To care about. There isn't much of it left. What there is (and this is key) is all that all of us will ever have. And all of our children. And so on. It is only as safe as people - knowing about it - want it to be. But do enough people know? So I come back to that question. Are the mothers and fathers with the strollers scrambling off the bus to get a view of the Maroon Bells in fact spreading the good word to their children that this wilderness is here and is finite? Is not safe and needs to be preserved? Maybe they will not take up mountaineering. Or head up and over Buckskin Pass to peer to peaks beyond. Maybe they will never again step into wilderness. But they will have had a glimpse. And is that enough?



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It is interesting to read my thoughts from last year given the perspective gleaned from this last trip to Canadian 'wilderness' in the Bugs and a trip into dare I say more traditional wilderness a couple weeks ago up to Whatcom Pass in North Cascades National Park. I feel I have gained a bit more insight into the idea and essence of wilderness since jotting down those thoughts sitting next to Crater Lake amidst all the others who had made the quick trip there, but that still - even back then - perhaps reveals the path I am headed - elitest or not - in my view of wilderness.

Not to jump too much ahead of myself, but pulling a quote from the Adams' book to close seems to sum my thoughts and direction perfectly and as succinctly as possible ~

'We either have wild places or we don't. We admit the spiritual-emotional validity of wild beautiful places or we don't. We have a philosophy of simplicity of experience in these wild places or we don't. We admit an almost religious devotion to the clean exposition of the wild, natural earth, or we don't.'

a glimpse.

Sixteen miles in. Six-and-a-half hours from shouldering my pack twenty pounds or so back at the Hannegan Pass trailhead earlier that morning. It was just about four in the afternoon. Another mile to go Whatcom. I had to command my legs to move up over the overgrown trail hot in the three-p-m sun. And then just below the pass I hit the sub-alpine zone. A beautiful scene of Brush Creek meandering and cascading through open heather meadows sprinkled with pinks and purples contrasted by greens and greys. It smelled amazing. A certain alpine freshness. I found the campground and a spot on which to toss my pack before heading up the last couple hundred feet and quarter-mile through heather to the pass for a bit of a break. Crested it with views east into the Little Beaver valley and Whatcom enormous rising from the rocky ridge that led south. Challenger was blocked from view. I'd have to climb higher before I could see it which I would in a bit. And then Luna from even higher. Right now writing this in my tent by headlamp Moby on headphones is mixing with the sounds of the chirping outside. The moon is bathing this alpine basin around the Tapto Lakes above Whatcom Pass washing out all but the Big Dipper. Cassiopea. Tired. Long day. Wandered around the basin away from where I set up my small camp to check the place out after dinner while the sun set behind Shuksan and Ruth to the west seemingly very very far away. I had passed by Ruth earlier that morning on the way over Hannegan. Am looking forward to sleep. Have on my Sacred Socks cozy-warm wool but it's crazy-warm outside. I don't think it's even supposed to dip much below sixty tonight. 9:23. I'll probably try to sleep and write more tomorrow. Have all day to myself up here before I head back the eighteen-plus miles to Spencer. Hoping for clouds or some beautiful light like we had on Sourdough two weeks ago or Cache Col two weeks before that but no such luck tonight and not really expecting it for tomorrow. This trip is just for a glimpse. A glimpse east into the crazy-wild Little Beaver valley. A glimpse of the crazy-remote Challenger. And Easy Ridge. And Whatcom. The Pickets. Finally. Morning now. The sun was late in getting to me camped here under this ridge to the east. But now it is here and I have already finished my essential morning cup of coffee the sound of a snowmelt stream nearby. Sitting on granite warm in the sun. Can tell it's going to be a warm day even at six-thousand feet. Already had the thought of swimming in one of the lakes crazy for September. A slight breeze feels heavenly. I can see Shuksan towering over everything to the west. And Ruth in front of it. Whatcom of course and the whole of Easy Ridge spread out to the south. Had some lunch and then climbed back over the ridge holding the Tapto basin for an absolutely incredible view of Challenger and the Little Beaver valley. I sit down now on some lichen-stained rock and pause to listen. The monumental cascades of waterfalls coursing down deep into the valley make a constant muted roar miles away. I can see pockets of glacier remnants clinging to life on the ice-scoured north side of Challenger. There's a lake even tucked under the sheer shadowed wall where the Challenger glacier stops abruptly somehow seemingly to defy gravity. As far east through the valley that I can see the landscape mellows. Ross Lake is hidden from view but I wonder if I can see Desolation Peak? I'll have to check a map when I get back. The breeze has mostly disappeared and I am reminded of how out here only the elemental matters. A breeze to ward off both the last of the bugs before the Autumn chill drapes itself over the mountains and the heat of the sun. No sound but that distant roar of waterfalls. Complete peace. I think back to the hike yesterday to get here. And about wilderness like this in general I guess. There are two other tents back down among the Tapto Lakes. I saw one guy head out on his way this morning. Then another. Not sure to where. Then silence. And still ... silence. What if there was a car ferry up Ross Lake to the Little Beaver valley? Or worse a road around it maybe turning the wild lake empty of any motorized boats into another place of a Lake Tahoe sort. Then say a road up Little Beaver smack up to where the insane geography of it finally impeded civilized travel. Then a parking lot there. And from that spot once crazy-wild wilderness maybe an Alps-like tram up here to Whatcom Pass. So that everyone can see this wild silent splendor that is this place buried deep in one of the wildest spots in the lower forty-eight. Except then it wouldn't be silent. It would certainly be more accessible. The seventeen miles in from Hannegan was probably a breeze compared to the eighteen mile easterly approach up the Little Beaver. Granted it doesn't need to be done in seven hours but regardless. It's a very long haul to heave pack up and over two passes. The ferry-slash-car-slash-tram option would be so much easier this place today would instead be thronged with people all clambering for the view. Afterall it is mindblowingly-spectacular.








But no ... thankfully. That other option is not yet an option.







And so I sit here on this ridge in shorts and shirtsleeves and flip flops where trees give way to rock a slight breeze completely by myself. The shadows on Challenger lengthen and swallow up the tiny lake I spied earlier. The folds in the snow on the glacier become more apparent. The light softens. And all of this to only that distant sound of cascades soon to silence with the coming of winter. I am enthralled by silence. In awe of this glimpse into such a wild place. And grateful to those who maybe sat here at this same spot and saw a wilderness worth preserving. I realize that in my staunch defense of wilderness preservation I also know not everyone can sit here and gaze and gasp at the sight of the Challenger glacier or immerse themselves in this sort of quiet. And searching for an answer or maybe more a justification I decide or maybe even know that is what makes it special. That those people who just drive the cross-state highway and pull off at the Diablo Lake overlook maybe only do so to stretch tired legs and point and say 'look at that mountain!' ('that mountain' being the six-thousand-foot relief of the north face of Colonial - a fantastically-wild climb). Take a photo of Diablo's glacial-silted turquoise waters and continue on their way. Sure they've seen something but I tend to think (or again justify) that they have not connected. There is no effort. Just a photo op. So with no effort it can be argued ultimately has any benefit been gained? Will they rush home and phone their legislators to support and save wild lands? Maybe. Not likely though I'd be willing to bet. But the one who treks up the mountain passes through fields of heather and wildflowers and granite far-removed with everything they need on their back grueling at times blisters maybe sore muscles for sure to finally arrive seventeen miles and hours and hours even maybe days away later to throw down pack. Sit. Stare. And take note of the silence of wilderness. Glimpse into its core. Spend a night or two or three or more sleeping out under the Milky Way. Open a tent fly up to the sheer vastness of trees or meadows or mountains or skies. Watch an icefall crash on a glacier across a valley as old as time. What can they learn? Take away? Much likely more than the passerby numb down there just winding around the bends of a highway as it contours the same landscape those who hike can feel inching across it by boot. Going now to scout some tarns or streams or rocks looking for a good foreground to strike against the incredibleness of Challenger. Not sure what the evening will bring but know it will be spectacular. I'll be dying to be done as I crawl back up Hannegan on my way out tomorrow. Then down. Down down down to the trailhead. But still grateful to have been here. Still in awe at such a place. Still reminded this was just a glimpse and I will most definitely - most definitely - be back.







Trip stats -

:: 17 miles one-way to Whatcom Pass (2000' gain to Hannegan, 2600' loss down to the Chilliwack crossing, 3000' gain back up to Whatcom Pass); another 1.5 miles to Tapto Lakes with an additional 1000' gain/300' loss; total time from trailhead to Tapto Lakes = 7 hours

:: The ranger back in Glacier apparently thought I was insane for attempting Tapto Lakes in a day confessing she normally takes three and subsequently actually would not give me a permit to Tapto for both nights instead suggesting I stay the first night at Whatcom Pass before heading up the rest of the way and still smug at thinking I wouldn't-slash-couldn't make it which of course did not stop me from, well, camping at Tapto Lakes both nights. Stupid rangers.

:: The cable car crossing of the Chilliwack was awesome despite hearing that there is a log draped over the river downstream at the ford.

:: There are lots of fly-infested camps along the Chilliwack buried in old-growth forest (not that there's anything wrong with that) for those less-inclined to attempt the entire trip in one day (umm, not that there's anything wrong with that either).

:: There were signs of bears at Whatcom and down below at Graybeal camps but I never actually saw one.

:: I may have become slightly delirious on the way back down the Hennegan trail through the Ruth Creek valley long-ago clearcut by the good ol' troopers of the US Forest Service so that all hikers now unfortunate to come down (or even more unfortunate to go up) in the afternoon get blasted by the sun no relief from what should have been a pristine old-growth forest hike but now just endless clumps of maple and other such brush and thus I may have been yelling at a fly that was pestering me once I finally reached the trailhead and was just desperately trying to get in my car and leave and there may have been a family or two having a nice lunch in the picnic shelter wondering what was wrong with that dude yelling at a fly and flailing his arms around.

:: The north fork of the Nooksack River makes a prime spot in which to dunk head, arms and feet after enduring the God-forsaken Hennegan trail which nearly quite literally never ends and for which even an attempt to drown the mundaneness of it out with Placebo's 'Battle of the Sun' proved futile.

:: Regardless ... this trip is utterly incredible. No, really. Utterly. I will be back.

home.

I am home here climbing along ridges above clouds

seas of white.

I am home here on front covered porch wood old but not peeling scarf wrapped around neck steaming mug

wrapped in hands.

I am home here in front of piano old and beautiful and worn

imperfect.

but I am

not home here.

at the edge of light.

It comes blundering over the

Boulders at night, it stays

Frightened outside the

Range of my campfire

I go to meet it at the

Edge of light.

The mountains are your mind.

~ Gary Snyder, excerpted from The High Sierra Of California

granite grey sierras below and topaz blue sky above.

Day Two. Trying to find a rock on which to sit where there's a breeze even slight so I can enjoy my coffee in peace from the mosquitos. I'm watching this group of three climbers wandering around this basin near Sailor Lake where J and I made our camp last night. Not sure where they stayed maybe down lower at Dingleberry. We met them coming up the trail yesterday morning and breezed by them pretty much leaving them in our dust. Last night we climbed up this ridge separating Sailor and Midnight Lakes and didn't see any signs of tents or people below. Could've been the hard side light but this place seems pretty remote for now. The first night was kind of restless for some reason. It's not really cold but my feet were which kept waking me up. Julian seemed to sleep soundly as usual so that made me happy. It's quiet now. Just the sound of this outlet stream from Sailor and the waterfall below Hungry Packer Lake above us. It was an impressive sight from the ridge last night - Hungry Packer - still littered with chunks of ice along the northern and western shores. Maybe I'll get a shot of it and Picture Peak on our way back through here in two days after we have a go at crossing the Sierra Crest via a col beneath Mount Haeckel at just under thirteen thousand feet. The rangers had promised solid snow above ten-five but we're here at eleven thousand feet and there are just patches of the stuff. I can tell higher up there is more - and more than usual - but my worry of spending our Sierra summer sleeping on snow is no matter. The basins here are what I wanted and how I always picture the Sierra littered with the squatty hulks of juniper pines and granite boulders open for exploration. Today the plan then is to climb back up that same ridge and continue on up to the col. Then drop down the southwest side more-or-less directly into the most spectacularly-remote Evolution Basin to meet up with the John Muir Trail winding through and head a bit north for Evolution Lake to set up camp. The original plan was the literally closer-by-a-mile Sapphire Lake but from photos I checked out back at the hotel in Mammoth Lakes it seemed pretty desolate there. Great for photos as I for some reason am particularly drawn to remote and desolate Sierra scenes but not so great for camping and trying to hang our food where the tallest thing around is maybe a six-foot boulder. It seemed Evolution Lake was surrounded by pines and places to hang our stuff and I guess then just that much more hospitable and inviting. I do like the quiet J still in the tent not sure what he's up to maybe playing with George and Stanley trying to keep away from the swarms of mosquitos. Yesterday back in Mammoth we were eating breakfast and watched as a young couple geared up for their own backpacking trip. The girl set down her pack outside the lobby door and I spied a stuffed Tigger sticking out of a water bottle pocket. I poked J and pointed to it and we laughed. He said he felt better knowing he wasn't the only one taking stuffed animals into the wilderness. So we're back now and I'm sitting on a rock in the shade to jot down some thoughts before heading off to cook dinner. Big day. And it's only four-something in the afternoon. We gave Haeckel Col a go. Climbed seven hundred feet up the ridge on our way to the cirque beneath Haeckel and everything was going marvelously. But all of a sudden we found ourselves quite quickly on some pretty sketchy terrain. There was seemingly no easy way around this couple-hundred-foot-tall knob of granite talus at the top of the ridge. We tried climbing high to get around it and traverse more-or-less to the top of the cirque but it got pretty dicey and I turned us around. Julian threw out some suggestions but they all ended up cliffing us out with drops of anywhere between twenty and fifty feet to the dusty solid ground below that which then in turn led up to the cirque. We ended up backtracking to the top of the ridge and skirted down lower to find a narrow loose gully leading a couple hundred feet down to where we could then climb easily back up and into the cirque and all the way up past Lake 12345 and finally the col to crest the eastern Sierra and get our first glimpse down into Evolution. The gully was not pretty nor did Secor's guide or anything else I read about the route to Haeckel Col over the past couple of months ever mention any of this sort of terrain but it honestly seemed there was no other or easier option. I had figured it to be a pretty straightforward - albeit inevitably more difficult than trail - cross-country hike and final climb to the Col to get us to the coveted Evolution Basin and putting us more remote than we had ever been on any of our Sierra adventures. We had been going for three hours to get to that point and still only halfway to the Col - a mile away and maybe eight hundred feet higher. From the top of the crest, we then still had to drop down three miles and sixteen hundred feet to the JMT and then another mile or so north on trail to Evolution Lake. Four maybe five more hours I was guessing from the base of that gully. I could tell J was overwhelmed. I had led us down to the base of it and J had followed expertly negotiating terrain that likely no eleven-year-old had gone. At the bottom once again on solid ground we gathered ourselves and talked a bit. He was as much a part of our plan as myself and I wanted to make sure he knew that. Make sure he knew if we turned around we could explore the wildly-fantastic Sabrina Basin for our remaining three days. No worries. No worries at all not one single bit. I admitted to him that my plan had been ambitious. That off-trail terrain always takes longer than plodding steadily along on-trail. That I hadn't considered the eleven-plus-thousand foot elevation at which we were doing all of this us just a couple of low-landers from Seattle. So with a bit of a heavy heart for both of us we decided we'd turn around. Go back. I know he was so excited to get to Evolution Basin. Just like on Agassiz last summer I had put together a route that pushed him until he made the call to go back. But realizing and telling him that was part of my job. To push him beyond his comfort zone with no worry of ever turning around. But I still felt a bit guilty. To get his hopes up of such an incredibly wild trip and then have it be out of reach. But also just like Agassiz as we headed back down the ridge - taking a shortcut from near the top straight down to Hungry Packer Lake - we talked about the adventure. He told me how it was just not meant to be this time and there was a reason we would not get there. His insights were spectacular. He shed a few tears it seemed maybe surprisingly at least to me out of some sheer gratitude he felt and then I wiped away a couple of my own as I listened to him tell me how fantastic all of this was and gave him a big hug. Maybe at the end of the day despite being a total hack I am doing alright with this kid of mine. I was so proud of him back up there I thought as a smile came across my face. He was so ambitious. So excited. 'Dad let's try going up there' or 'Dad how about going down here?' he asked with exuberance and experience beyond his eleven years taking it upon himself to try forging a route ahead. I got some photos of him climbing with the granite grey Sierras below and topaz blue sky above. Even that last attempt down the steep and loose and sketchy gully I was hesitant to go but no ... he persuaded me to give it a try. The kid is a climber at heart. Desperate to experience wild places just like his dad. To give this or that a go despite an uncertainty hanging over it all and a col a mile away and almost a thousand feet still-higher. No fear. Just eleven-year-old legs that wear out much faster than his incredible spirit which seems to show no bounds and for which I start to tear up thinking about. So no Evolution Basin this year. But just like Agassiz yet again no worries. It's really not about the destination we agreed. Be it the summit of a fourteen-plus thousand-foot Sierra peak or a super-remote basin most people take days to reach by trail. We were in the mountains and 'we never have a bad time in the mountains Dad' he told me. And then as we neared the base of the ridge and the edge of the lake - also like on Agassiz - we spotted our first marmot eyeing us from a sunny rock. As we approached he quickly jumped into his burrow, but Julian blew his marmot whistle on his pack strap and the little fellow immediately poked his head back out and called back in reply. It's just about dark now and I'm writing this by headlamp in the tent while Julian tries to sleep next to me. He's not feeling super-great tonight maybe the altitude we hit at the top of that ridge. I'm waiting for the Milky Way to come out. Maybe will try for some photos.

Day Three. At last found a spot on a granite recliner above the icebergs quickly melting out away from the bugs. There's enough of a breeze to keep them away for the moment. J is throwing rocks at the ice. The chunks at the shore I included in my attempt of a photograph last evening of Picture Peak reflected in the lake are gone today. Melted. An enormous waterfall of snowmelt plunges over the sheer cliffs above the southwest shore of the lake. It's an impressive sight. It's hard to be motivated under the blistering sun and cloudless sky. I just wish a storm would roll through to shake things up a bit. Sitting in the shade found a spot away from the bugs now thinking back to our third day in Dusy Basin last summer. How the clouds had rolled in that morning and changed the light. How I also had sat under a juniper pine in the shade middle of the afternoon zipped up in down against the ever-constant wind mesmerized at the changing shadows as the clouds chased each other from west to east across the blue afternoon Sierra sky. How much more incredible Dusy Basin seemed. Which maybe is unfair I realize. Maybe it's cos we haven't had any drama here with the weather. Maybe cos a quick climb up the ridge towering over us to the north gives a view back to Owens Valley and Lake Sabrina. Maybe cos we're not in Kings Canyon or any national park for that matter. But unfair because Picture Peak is really quite impressive. And we can see glimpses of the summits of the Evolution peaks surrounding us on three sides high above and at least sense their remoteness. It is amazing. But for some reason I am afraid I may leave here feeling slightly disappointed without knowing really why. To think of a reason I go back to our past Sierra summer holidays. The first one Julian was eight. I had an overly ambitious plan then as well. Two back-to-back double-digit-mile hikes under the weight of full packs for us both. After our first trip fell a mile or two short of Thousand Island Lake under the shadow of Banner Peak and we set up camp next to Badger Lake for our second we headed south to climb over Kearsarge Pass at just shy of twelve-thousand feet into Kings Canyon and dropped down a thousand feet to camp by the lakes under the crazy-impressive craggy Kearsarge Pinnacles. From the top of the pass we could see an afternoon thunderstorm raging in the remote heart of the park to the west. Each day we were greeted with changing weather. It was hot and we swam in our underwear in the lakes and dried off on warm sun-bleached granite. I remember tossing a pad on the ground and lying next to a stream one morning thinking of how fantastic and unbelievable it all was. I didn't heft a tripod or any of the medium-format gear I had brought along but instead left stuffed in the trunk back at the trailhead just my small but trusty G2 in hand to try and capture the place. But the four-megapixel pics still remind me of that spectacular spot. Of J wrapped in a towel staring up at peaks awash with alpenglow. The following year we were actually aiming for Dusy but a fire on the highway leading up to South Lake scuttled our plans so instead we backtracked our way to Yosemite and spent a night at Cathedral Lake. A thunderstorm had rolled in like clockwork during the afternoon giving me a bit of concern having chosen to leave the rainfly tucked back in the trunk rather than carrying it but the light and clouds later that evening were more incredible beyond any description I could ever muster. And last year of course we did indeed make it to Dusy Basin. We had missed a spectacular thunderstorm the evening before we arrived instead witnessing it from the safe haven of the town of Bishop. But on that third day the clouds arrived and the light that evening was miraculous. We're not far from Dusy now as I think about it. Maybe ten miles or so to the east. So maybe on all of those earlier trips we had just gotten lucky. I don't know. I do know I am weird and think there is just something - something magical about being in a national park. Particularly Kings Canyon and the North Cascades. Probably the two most inaccessible national parks in the whole collection of them scattered across the West and the rest of the lower forty-eight. And that of course appeals to me. Of crossing into them on foot over impressive mountain passes. And I think to the idea of climbing over those passes and the sort of magic then that brings. It's of course because of the remoteness. Of being on the other side of the rest of the world. Kearsarge Pass into the eastern heart of Kings Canyon. Bishop Pass into the northern heart of Kings. Over Easy Pass then dropping down into the fantastic Fisher Basin. Jackass Pass on to the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range of the Wyoming Rockies. You cannot see a road from the other side. Had we made it over Haeckel Col we'd be out there. Evolution Basin is pretty remote. Maybe more remote than anywhere short of the Cirque of the Towers I have ever been. And I really think it's that allure that now more than ever appeals to me. No doubt about it. And so maybe when it comes down to it that's the reason afterall that I feel this tinge of disappointment. And I say tinge because of course it's been an incredible trip. And we still have two days left. And I can't do much about the weather. But yesterday's attempt to climb over the crest will absolutely go down as one totally unforgettable moment. Just like Agassiz. These tougher times the ones where we're together in it one hundred percent the ones where I'm admittedly for better or worse pushing him beyond what he thinks he can do end up forging some unbreakable bond between us. Not really wanting to create a repetitive theme of over-ambitious trips for my still-young son I like to think of that at least to alleviate the bit of guilt that hangs over me for my failed plans. I see now the idea of five miles a day was not necessarily over-ambitious. But maybe those same five miles over rough terrain off-trail above eleven thousand feet over sometimes sketchy terrain and crumbling Sierra cols was. As opposed to sitting in one spot like we did in Dusy - although we did explore each day - I do like the idea of moving each day. See new sights. New angles. So next year I'll have to remember that. Maybe look again at the trip I originally planned for us deep into Kings Canyon over Kearsarge and Glen Passes to Rae Lakes and Sixty Lakes Basin. All trail. I liked the bit about my plan of two days of work followed by a day of rest and just exploring and then the two last days working again to get ourselves back to civilization. Despite my plan this year I am still left amazed. Amazed at our time spent here so far and of course amazed with him. Even if maybe it ultimately was the sight of the col from the bottom of that dirty gully seemingly high above and still far away too knowing we had as far to descend that blew the wind out of his sails it had not blown the wind out of his spirit. Like he said there was a reason we would not make it to Evolution this year. But we will. We will.

Day Four. Well we moved our tent for the third night this time in between Sailor and Hungry Packer Lakes in this big open granite basin Picture Peak towering above us to the south the outlet stream from Hungry Packer flowing through with quiet calm. I am sitting on a rock in the sun. It's still early listening to Moby's 'Stella Maris' and 'The Violent Bear It Away' watching the water fall its course. I love this time of day in places like this. The sun just having risen over the mountains to our east the shadows still long it is still quiet. Last night was spectacular. Never even saw a single person yesterday. After dinner early around five-thirty Julian grabbed for his summit pack and me for my camera and a liter of water and we headed off to climb the other ridge separating us from the Moonlight Lake basin and Thompson Ridge to the east up to the base of where Picture Peak fell abruptly to Hungry Packer Lake far below. Halfway up I stopped to snap a video of J climbing up a snowfield to me then past the setting sun blinding behind washing out the folds and crags of the mountains everywhere alpine and unveiling themselves to us from this new height. I felt an energy I had not felt yet on the trip surrounded by such desolate incredibleness. The Clyde Spires. Wallace. Darwin. Powell. Lamarck. The whole of the Evolution range lay awash in backlight. We could see Echo Lake surrounded in a deep granite cirque still covered in broken ice. I took photos of Julian climbing up. And then more photos. And knew instantly this was the highlight of the trip. I had needed this. This alpine setting remote-feeling and barren above the trees a world of ice and rock still even end of July. Scrolling through the pics later in the trip I could flick from the first frame I took on the trip to the last earlier that evening and thoroughly enjoyed the juxtaposition of the first CA-89 stretching straight out from Monitor Pass a few wispy clouds clinging to an otherwise flat blue sky to the last of J on a ridge the sun behind jagged Sierra peaks mountains and granite surrounding him seemingly in all directions. After our nightly ritual of washing up in frigid stream waters we took turns going through our pictures and looking at them all. When it was dark enough he and I scrambled out of the tent to a spot nearby to shoot the stars. The sky was littered with ten thousand of them and the silky stream of the Milky Way hanging overhead arching its way down to meet the horizon to the east beside Picture Peak. He was excited his camera was able to capture the scene and it was fun feeding off his excitement of the moment to try to take some pics of my own. It was a perfect evening not too cold. Us both wrapped in our warmest layer of light insulation to ward off the just-slight chill before tucking ourselves back in down bags for the night. But first some Uno by headlamp of course. Then to fall asleep to the sound of water falling its course from the mountains to the ocean. Today our plan is to pick up our camp one last time and head cross-country over that ridge we climbed to try for Haeckel Col and pitch our tent somewhere near Midnight Lake with its impressive view up to Mount Darwin. And of course directly on the other side of Darwin ... Evolution Lake. Separated from us by the thirteen-thousand foot crest of the Sierras. No clouds again today. Sitting in the tent with a slight breeze. We found a pool in between Midnight and the outlet stream that we'll try dipping in later this afternoon once we've had a bit of lunch. Almost down to the last of our food. Probably didn't bring quite enough but we'll survive. I'm realizing for some reason that out in this crazy-wild splendor it's hard for me to relax instead always feeling a need to be doing something or exploring somewhere or just on the move. I want to go climb. Go wander. But I know I should just enjoy relaxing in the still-quiet of these mountain afternoons just reading from the book I picked up back at the ranger station in Mammoth Lakes of John Muir's 'My First Summer in the Sierra.' I thought it would be fitting reading his rambling but lyrical prose as he describes his love affair with his aptly-named Range of Light. Or writing in this journal. Back from a dip in the pool. The water was cold! Maybe not as cold as the ice-laden waters of Hungry Packer but still too cold for swimming. The bugs are still swarming. But ... clouds have begun to roll in! It's hard for me to contain my excitement sitting in the tent constantly gazing out every minute or two to see how much they have multiplied and billowed. I can tell weather is moving in. There's a palpable feeling in the air I feel dialed into and I find I quite like watching the weather change in the mountains. The Sierras. The Cascades. A classic afternoon thunderstorm brewing here for sure. I can see an enormous cumulonimbus cloud ever-building to the north over the Owens Valley its top having just begun to flatten out to the telltale anvil shape of a perfect maybe slightly menacing-looking thunderhead the underside of it and the surrounding clouds turning more and more grey as the minutes pass. The wind picks up and howls through the tops of the juniper pines as we find ourselves under the shadow of a cloud for the first time in four days! Just to be safe I've guyed out the four corners of the tent. There is a ginormous cloud building over Darwin and the Sierra crest. It really is fascinating to witness this all from our vantage point on this high granite plateau-of-a-basin. Thunder! The distinct rumble still far away in the east. And now in what seemed like just seconds the cloud to our east beyond the ridge has darkened and broiled and I know in an instant it's headed our way now probably unleashing its rains over Sailor Lake and the basin where we were earlier today and I suddenly realize our slightly-exposed position in the thinning of treeline at eleven thousand feet. Enough so to cut dinner short to scramble down the trail and check out other options more protected amongst the trees. Finding some pretty quickly I raced back up to kickstart Julian into action. We stuffed what we had lying about in our packs and picked up the tent carrying it full of our bags and pads and everything else down the trail. Dumped it and quick staked it out with a handful of heavy rocks and jumped inside just as the rain began to pour all around us. The thunder intensified as we breathed a sigh of relief huddled again back in the tent the fly whipping about precariously but held stout by the solid granite weighing down its corners us tucked in our down bags and blankets sheltered amongst these pines. The thunder is coming from the west now so the storm has already passed over us. 6:25. Reminds me of the night at Cathedral only then I had opted not to bring the rainfly so I had crammed our tent under some low pines and draped our towels over the top as the wind howled all night overhead. Here and now time for some Uno to wait this storm out. 7:04. Rain more or less has subsided. Opened the fly doors and can see clearing blue skies to the east. I stepped out of the tent to check on the weather. Yes it had passed. And in its wake left clouds and light unbelievable! J and I both grabbed for our cameras and were off. He said he would try to catch up to me but by the time realizing where I was I had already left for another spot. I laughed and told him I moved fast with light like this cos it doesn't last and changes in an instant. We shared the tripod and I swatted away or tried to swat away the swarms while he focused on taking photographs and then we'd switch. The light changed ambient from hues of purple to pink to orange. We found crashing waterfalls amongst the granite boulders and patches of summer snow. Slabs of polished granite. This place in this light was too spectacular almost to behold. A spectacular final evening we were able to share before we hike out tomorrow morning. There is a quaint and humbling feeling hunkered down in a tent its nylon walls zipped up to a thunderstorm raging outside first crashing to the east then overhead then to the west abating and leaving in its wake a whole new world refreshed. The granite dries quickly I found. The birds were out and singing. The wilderness exposed in its most raw form. I am always impressed and grateful for the experience of riding out a storm in the mountains and this one was no different. Now here under headlamp writing this we tuck ourselves in after our final nightly ritual of washing up next to each other along a stream scrubbing off the dirt from a full day in the mountains. Brushing teeth. Hanging food. Or what little is left now. To snuggle in and look at each other's photos one last time before a few hands of Uno 'just one more Dad' Julian pleads and to which I cannot say no. Our last night of sleep peaceful to the sound of water but all else quiet the rest of the world.

Day Five. Morning of our last day. Last night after darkness fell the clouds completely evaporated to once again reveal the stars and the whole of the Milky Way. J took some more photos. I tried to get a shot of the tent under the trees the Milky Way streaming above but was having trouble with the focus. Don't think they turned out. It's quiet again now. Just a few clouds clinging near Mount Darwin and far north in the distance across the valley to the White Mountains. Maybe another storm is brewing. The hot air hanging over the Sierra crashing with a cold mass moving south from the Pacific Northwest. Home. J will be up soon. With the bugs buzzing back to life we'll no doubt be anxious to quickly break camp and head down the trail to Spencer patiently awaiting our return. Real food. Swimming in the Bishop pool a few leaps off the diving board for me maybe the big slide for Julian. Our holiday isn't over but I know tomorrow I'll be ready to just be home. It's a long drive. But all the same I have come to realize that after each trip each time into these wild crazy-beautiful places I leave with photographs and memories and - and maybe most importantly - an even deeper more insatiable desire to return.

--- journal entries dated July twenty-six through July thirtieth, John Muir Wilderness, California