without memory of the future.

W I T H O U T   M E M O R Y   o f   t h e   F U T U R E .

Day Two. July Thirty-One.  // Woke up in Granite Park. Above timberline. Last night after dinner J and I climbed up a knoll seven hundred feet above camp through the golden hour smoky haze to get a view into the upper basin toward Italy Pass still just out of view. A mess of granite. Feather Peak the most impressive of the craggy lot of mountains behind us. This morning zero smoke from the lightning-sparked Aspen fire burning rugged maybe twenty miles to the west near Huntington Lake. But no clouds either. Hoping maybe they sweep in this afternoon. We roll so much by the weather out here in mountains. Talked to a guy headed out yesterday us trudging up trail him down sounds like we just missed some epic storms! He spoke of three days of thunder and hail ending the day before. Still hoping for something dramatic. A spectacular breeze this morning keeping a chill but still lovely. Not another soul up here us having left the crowds all back at Honeymoon Lake. Feel amazing this morning excited for the climb over Italy Pass and off-trail over into Bear Lakes Basin. Maybe summit Mount Julius Caesar along the way. Even so today will be a pretty easy day with packs compared to yesterday eight miles and up four thousand feet. Then tomorrow a layover day packs off in the basin to explore and climb and goof. J wandering somewhere but we should be moving soon.

No real photographs from Granite Park unfortunately due to the smoke diffused pale light. Otherwise it looked as if it had been a spectacular evening. Up out of the tent in the middle of the night though and the stars and Milky Way overhead incredible. // We made it! Bear Lakes! Italy Pass was fun but we left without climbing Julius Caesar (J may have been a little intimidated looking up from the pass at a steep thousand blocky feet to the summit) in favor of moving onward over the talus traverse to Dancing Bear Pass. No worries. Another time. Flat light of afternoon cloudless Sierras so not terribly inspiring but a fine breeze still. So far today no smoke yet though from Italy Pass I could see it billowing west. And from here we can see our next target above us a couple miles away: Feather Pass. Seemingly so close but one of the tallest passes on the High Route. Day after tomorrow we head over it down through a trail-less canyon to Merriam Lake nestled among impressive granite walls above French Canyon. The Sierras have not disappointed. Seven Gables as impressive a peak as I could imagine. And Feather behind us with its wispy ragged spine. Feeling a bit so myself already and only day two. Ragged. Maybe rugged the better word? Getting into it though. The being out there. Out there over mountain pass after mountain pass no sign of another soul. The altitude settling in on me and the ruggedness of it all. The wind. The sun. Sitting on granite sharp. Miles and miles. I enjoy the peace descending that wilderness brings. How after just a few days no longer concerned with the day of the week or the date or news of any sort from the outside world. Concerned more with smoke and weather patterns and finding the perfect spot to pitch the tent and sprawl and photograph. Find water. To finally be completely lost in the wild moment where it all becomes one and everything. Part of the uncomfortableness becomes comfortable and comforting and I grow stronger. Figure myself out. Test myself trail-less wastelands high above timberline dotted with lakes and passes and endless stone. Leading a now-thirteen-year-old who just trusts in me the way. Tired but knowing then after spending the day climbing over stark gentle talus up crags and cracks there is still a tent to erect and water to be gathered and things to be organized. Dinner to be made. Shadows to watch. But I embrace the work maybe since I have such a terrible time relaxing. Brought Whitman but have not yet cracked the spine. Instead busy myself around camp maybe able to steal a moment to write or read by myself J off wandering. Exploring. Playing. It has calmed down now before dinner. Quiet. Unbelievable there is no one here in this enormous basin etched by the remains of glacial scourings the lakes picturesque and wonderfully delectable. Barren. Ursa. Big Bear. Bearpaw. White Bear. Vee. All under the shadow of the pyramidal obliqueness of Seven Gables. May try to photography the Milky Way. //

Day Three. August One. Rest day. Slept in a little until eight. Coffee whilst a marmot friend returned and watched (agreed it was a she and so we named her Rose). She moved from rock to rock to rock keeping us in sight and company. Found a way over into the grassy chute leading down down to Ursa Lake teeming with infinite bouldering cracks. Hollered to J. And so we spent the morning then solving some problems on the granite before descending all the way to the lake to cross the outlet stream between Ursa and Big Bear and climb again up the ridge to a highpoint separating us from the view to Vee Lake and directly across from Seven Gables. Breezy. Could see smoke gathering and moving east. Sure enough. By the time we returned to camp it had blown in cloaking the basin like a sheer grey dreary veil muddying the view. So afternoon spent mostly in the tent doors open fly fluttering in the thankful breeze. Cloudless though again and of course the grey haze. No epic light last night either but stars and the Milky Way again. Now nothing but blue blue blue blue blue. Keep hoping some clouds will gather and move in and cast their shadows on the granite. Be spared this dreadful fog. In the malaise of this afternoon overhearing J sighing me sitting outside the tent him bathing in it I cannot help but start questioning these trips. So sure and excited planning for it and thinking of it but under the Sierra sun relentless am left wondering. I know of course this is all part of it. The lazy times in the tent same as the scrambling over passes finding our way and climbing the sheer fun of it. The cloudless skies. The quiet. All part of it becoming as I have felt me. But for J does it mean anything? Is he wishing he were somewhere else? What are these holidays out into the mountains? This one even an extra day now six total. How to handle the quiet from a thirteen year old's perspective? Away from our distractions where does his mind wander? He can just play endlessly it sometimes seems Stanley and George to keep him company. Maybe it is just this moment and my worries will pass. Need to get out of this tent. // We climbed up a ridge and from the top spotted a pair of intrepid hikers who had made their way over Feather Pass now down far below us! So goes our solitude… But everyone has a story and so shortly we would learn some of theirs. We down-climbed hopping from granite to granite back to camp to find the pair slumped against packs right around the corner on a sandy bench. They seemed as surprised to see us as we had been earlier of them. Dan and Lori as we made our acquaintances. Them on day twelve of thirty on a south-north traverse of the two-hundred-mile Sierra High Route (of which this Bear Lakes Basin sat just about squarely in the middle). Off-trail they say it is rare to see many other hikers having gone six or eight days sometimes without passing a soul. As Lori continued to explain over their teas and our hot chocolates they started backpacking with their oldest daughter when she was three (now a climbing ski bum shedding herself of the college experience at the ski resort in Jackson Hole). At age seven they took her the entire journey of the John Muir Trail (some two hundred fifteen miles). Their two daughters now grown Dan and Lori make the more-precisely one hundred ninety-five-mile High Route journey themselves. //

It is that time now while dinner rehydrates and I am left to sit on granite while J scrapes at the rock next to me the view astounding. The quiet immersive. The smoke once settled here seems thankfully to be falling retreating back into the valleys below. This spot wildly absurd. Looking down from three hundred feet above the stairstep topography of this basin of lakes is obvious. Snowmelt off Feather Peak trickles down into Bearpaw. Then a small outlet stream from there to Ursa and another feeds further down into Big Bear Lake. Yet another stream drops then to Little Bear just visible and still further beyond into Bear Creek Basin towards the West Fork of Bear Creek and finally… ultimately… down down down into the by-then-tumultuous South Fork of the great San Joaquin River. It is utterly profound the geometry of rivers. How our existence not just here in Bear Lakes Basin where we dip our water bottles into the outlet stream from Black Bear Lake that drains into the aforementioned Big Bear and onward. But of the great San Joaquin and how it courses through the enormous fertile San Joaquin valley west to the Pacific Ocean (the source of the South Fork is Martha Lake whilst the North Fork source is the popular Thousand Island Lake under the shadow of Mount Ritter and Banner Peak to our north near Mammoth). Of all the millions of people who depend on it. From where it comes. Mesmerizing to me. // In talking more with Lori I came to realize the needlessness of my worrying. She emphasized to me in a way maybe without knowing how these sorts of trips are all about the experience. Sharing them with family. Kids growing up. Playing in mountains. And I realized how then in the back of my mind I should not care so much about clouds and light and shadows. Or of little things. I should care more about moments. Like climbing up a route we dubbed 'You Got Pwned.' Over and over and over again cos it was fun and a little sketchy but not too much and we were in the mountains after all. Uno in the tent every night followed by each of us taking turns sharing our pictures of the day laughing and joking and loving. Dinners in the fading light of a falling sun. Quiet. Absolute quiet except for the sound of waters off in the distance falling below. Just that… no distractions. The two of us. And I think back to how these trips have evolved. From him eight years old going over Kearsarge Pass spending two nights below at the lakes to ten years old cresting Bishop Pass twelve thousand feet and spending three nights in the spectacular and rugged Dusy Basin. And to now moving every night six or eight or more miles over rough terrain not marked by a trail us having to plan and find our way up and over and across and through. Endless. // Day Four. August Second. At the waterfall crashing above Merriam Lake we were greeted with a seemingly lush paradise below a forest of whitebark pine and shade! There is a comfort to be found amongst trees after spending days above timberline in barren rocky worlds. The blistering sun. We met two girls (the only other people other than Dan and Lori we encountered off-trail) on their way up the steep loose slope above Merriam. The one had a stuffed penguin strapped to the top lid of her pack. A mountaineering penguin she explained to us. She told J he was rad for doing this trip and how he was the only kid she had ever seen out here. He beamed on the outside. I did on the inside. It is from these trips I know he finds his unimaginable confidence. The girls did not know where they would be camping that night only at a place they found themselves after their legs had given up for the day. Sounded proper. We found ourselves at the lake searching for a campsite near the outlet. Dry. So back to the perfect sandy shore we had passed on the way in to drop our packs. Sit in the shade. Not long though before I grabbed for flip flops and towel and went running diving headfirst into the lake! Amazing! Nothing quite like swimming in an alpine lake no one around under immense mountain walls. Frigid spectacular! // Day Five. August Third. Morning. Idyllic. Sun. Clouds! Distant waterfall whitenoise otherwise perfect stillness. A sort of quiet of my dreams. A warm chill. My down sweater and shorts and coffee on granite on the shore of the blissful lake lapping perfectly against the rock. Gently. J rustling in the tent behind me. Do not want to leave this place we have again to ourselves. Or this moment. I think this is it. The moment. There is always one it seems that I realize I will remember always and will in its essence make up my memory of the trip. Last year it was whilst sitting on granite in Darwin Bench looking toward peaks infinite and talus endless clouds forming out over the horizon distant. Here so much granite. Towering over me. And the jumbled mess of whitebark pines and quiet. Unrivaled quiet. I am here at last able to embrace our solitude. Our peace. Never sure of anything before or after this moment realizing suddenly all that is wild and calm and beautiful inside me and surrounding me. Certain only of the finitude of the moment knowing that it cannot last. How we must with a little apprehension and some sadness pack up and head out. But that if it could surely its weight and meaning would fail. Two days of driving thirty-some miles of hiking sore and hot and thirsty all to realize this here and now. And to somehow hold onto it. Only the sound of that distant waterfall breaking now the silence. This is what I am. This one being surrounded by wild unknown literal here in this sense but figurative once we have left and find ourselves back home. To let this moment come back later to fill me again as the Sierra breeze perfect fills me now. Gives me life and hope and joy. Watching the clouds drift slowly across the pale blue sky I am surprised. I smile. Put on Exitmusic. One song. Close my eyes. Goosebumps. Tears. // A long day. Through French Canyon on up to Pine Creek Pass eleven thousand feet. A lake by surprise. We rested before the downhill past Honeymoon and Upper Pine finally to Pine Lake. Shade and a breeze! Doze for a few minutes. Enjoy the silence. It is coming to an end after all. An early dinner followed by a scramble up a peak opposite Pine Creek here for a view above the lake across over to Granite Park and the crooked peaks from where we had been. From where we had come no longer a mystery but still mysterious. Light turning from orange to pale pink and gone. //

Day Six. August Four. Cloudless above. Red sky east at quarter to six. Back wrapped up in down until a little after seven out here now on granite clouds have moved in but sun streams through Pine Creek canyon to me. Warm. Last day. We hike out easy all downhill maybe four or five miles. Then back. Bishop. I know J is excited. Me too in some ways the same. Cannot stay out here in mountains forever. Must return. Though I feel pointedly in this moment here how there is so much in this life for which to be thankful. None the least these very moments and days surrounded by storms and clouds and sun and granite and quiet unfelt anywhere but here not to be forgotten. The morning yesterday beside Merriam as effortless clouds gained their hold in an otherwise empty sapphire sky. And as Stipe sings in a sort of anthem for now…

I am made by my times… I am a creation of now shaken with the cracks and crevices… I'm not giving up easy… I will not fold… I don't have much but what I have is gold... I want me… I want it all… I want sensational… Irresistible… This is my time and I am thrilled to be alive… Living… Blessed… I understand… Collapse into now…

(Sorry… I am sorry… )

I hear that song this perfect mountain morning near Pine Lake half a world away from civilization now just beyond the rise. The clouds disintegrate above me. It will be my time to go. To wash up. Relax for one more day with J swimming under the dry hot sun reading under lazy cottonwoods their shadows lengthen across green green grass before the long drive home. I am not sure what this trip into mountains has meant. Last year a cleansing this year unsure. Maybe these trips are always a cleansing. To leave a little something of the past behind left only then to look forward but without knowing for what. To look without seeing. It is not in my hands these ties that bind I admit to these lodgepole pines shading me under which I sit here and now. There is no time. Maybe all this was these last six days of us shouldering packs over mountain passes lying under stars as winds shook our tent already a memory. Like everything in the past. All I have is living for now without memory of the future. So I write without entirely grasping the weight. Move forward is all as we must down this trail here now these last six precious days distilled to that singular moment along the porous shore of Merriam Lake.

I try to soak up the last of the quiet. Maybe that is what I will miss most… simple. Quiet. The sound of an outlet stream making its way from summits under snowfields through basins and canyons to gather itself swiftly and strongly into rivers. Already now distant and faded. A memory.

our summer holiday...

... through the lens of a garage sale find Pentax K1000 35mm SLR I had sitting up on a shelf and an old roll of long-expired Kodak Portra 160 colour film ...

Lunch rest stop along Oregon Highway 97 next to the Klamath River...

Me... outside the Mono Basin Visitor Center (where we always stop to eat lunch and get our wilderness permits since it seems like by the time I actually plan our route all the reserved permits are - well - reserved... )...

J...

Mono Lake...

Yeah... this place is definitely nostalgic (we also always buy a souvenir and postcards here)...

Stanley and George take in the view on the drive...

J walking along 395-slash-Main Street in Bishop... we love that little town!...

... and trying on a Black Diamond pack at the cool Bishop outdoorsy store...

Swimming at the good ol' Days Inn (we always stay there before we head into the backcountry)...

Umm... we thought the font was über-cool...

Downtown Bishop...

Reading in bed...

Cottonwood trees and sun whilst sitting and relaxing at the city park reading the day we returned from six days in the backcountry (and after swimming in the Bishop pool!)...

The same cottonwoods...

Long shadows...

Spencer...

Cool metal mountain sculpture at the best coffee house between Bishop and Portland... the Looney Bean! (made especially delicious after not having any for six whole days!)...

Driving out of Bishop north on 395 towards Mammoth... kind of hazy from the Aspen fire (but also just funky expired film)...

The town of Bridgeport (where from you reach the Twin Lakes trailhead sixteen miles or so south... or the northern terminus of the High Route... )...

Uhh... yeah... driving...

Swimming... : )

Best pool in Redding...

Whilst sitting in traffic in Portland...

Spencer after 1800 miles!!!...

And Stanley and George... glad to be home!...








And despite it being a spectacular holiday... so were we...




... so were we...

(Parting shot... - not taken on the Pentax -... of J staring off to Feather Peak in Bear Lakes Basin... )

setting our sights.

darwin’s god.

Monday July twenty-second.




Forty feet to go. Twenty. I let J catch up out of breath persistent as ever clambering up the rocks below a feeling in me impossible to write. A pride beyond belief exploding. I let him pass as I always do so he could lead to the top. Struggling now I could tell with his own will to make the last few steps to the col. I snapped a photo of him. Then followed behind. At the top at last there was the sign: ENTERING KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK LAMARK COL. Someone had scratched in the metal the elevation: 12,880. And then beyond there was the view. So epic it took me by surprise. Startled. There was the whole granite rampart of the Sierra spread out in front of us peak upon peak upon peak. Darwin and Mendel leapt forth from the canvas that had up until this point only existed in my mind. Now here tactile enough to touch as if a chiaroscuro painting heavy handed unfolding. Light and dark. I turned and pointed south in an exclamation of all that was real in that linear moment toward streams of sunlight bursting forth from the literal hands of God. A complete painting of Darwin Canyon unfolded awash in focused pale light. Brushstrokes of cadmium and bromine. The lakes still a thousand feet below shimmered effervescent. Scraped dirty ice of glaciers tens of thousands of years old. The granite millions and millions. And J. Above me on top of the rocks now silhouetted against the chromatic blue sky fading. I felt alight in the dim instinct of the mountains. Afire. The stone and ice and water and light and fear and joy and myself were one. There I wept. And now I stare at this journal here trying to etch the sense of that moment knowing I cannot. Hanging on the molecules of air were droplets of water like tiny prisms scattered somehow in four dimensions. The iridescent light over it all.

*  *  *

A little over an hour earlier we were huddled under a rock overhanging while the storm at last died down. Rippling off in the distant west and north. We had been there almost three hours cowered while lightning flashed and hail dumped from blackened skies to cover the mountains as if from a fresh dusting of snow. At one point tucked in a ball with Stanley and George as his pillow J fell asleep all the while the hail fell and thunder exploded. I shivered. We were facing north and could see the way back from where we had come down to all the lakes we had passed. Upper and lower Lamarck. Grass. And North Lake even where the trail began splitting from the other heading over Piute Pass further to the north. Out even beyond then the outskirts of the dusty eastern Sierra town of Bishop and across the Owens Valley and White Mountains stark. More rain. Hail. The bolts of lightning seemed not to stop. Thunder shook the granite. But eventually it all began to quiet. The thunder more distant. Subtle flashes of lightning replaced sheer strikes still northwest over Mount Emerson and Humphreys and the red rock of the Piute Crags. North over Owens Valley. At last sunlight illuminated Bishop. The hail gave up. We had to decide at that hour whether to continue on to the col still another thousand feet above or retreat down to treeline and a small snowmelt stream. We decided for the col. Grabbed our packs. As we climbed the skies eased more and as we crested the final plateau and snowfield below the col the sun found us while dark clouds still clung to peaks west. J valiantly kept up and I stopped every so often to look back and see him soldiering on his legs unwilling to quit. The group of three we had met earlier at the start of the climb had given up and decided to pitch camp near the tarn below the col. We greeted them again as we made our way past up through the talus a giant mess of boulders to the snow and then the last hundred feet crumbly sand and rocks.

*  *  *

The descent down to the lakes seemed to stretch onward to infinity. Both of us drained from the storm nervous and frightening. Steep and no real path. I’d pick up the hint of a trail through the talus and gravel benches but lose it in an instant. The lakes and patches of green dotting their shores beckoned in the fading day. There after such exaltation I felt the rush of an impending low. Crawling over talus along the second lake inching our way over to a flat area just further beyond. More storm clouds approaching. How did J do it? How was he so strong when I felt on the edge of such collapse straining to keep leading us on? Struggling with every pore of my being for the strength. I saw my own transience. Tried to understand the meaningless of the mountains. How they simply exist. How I do not. Here this place so wild and desolate as to overwhelm. Mythic. Unchanging and changing. Above all the sky. We arrived and let our packs thud heavy on the granite. Rushing against what little light was left in the canyon I lit the stove (always such a welcome and comforting sound!) and while our food cooked rushed about setting up our tent and preparing camp here on a small perch nestled against a wall of rock. The light melted to pink. The granite glowed radiant with the hue of stormy Sierra summers. In all of my desperations to get us settled for the night I managed to stop only a few moments before fetching water and inflating air mattresses and unstuffing down bags. To absorb the spectacle of the light falling and filling against the stone the ice the water. Everything around us. Flicked on the lantern in the tent glowing a pale soft green against the dark sullen blues and greys and blacks of night. We engulfed our hot meal. J literally fell backwards muffled into his bag exhausted. Me - I braved the night to quick as I could do dishes and fetch water. Finally crawled into mine soft and warm. I could feel the storms descending like a dense heavy blanket. Spectacular.




Monday July twenty-third.





Awoke to hail beating down. Five o'clock. Just getting light. The sound of thunder clapping rebounding scattered off the walls surrounding us and returning as an echo of itself. Lightning flashes through the walls of the tent. Rain. Hail. Rain. Then slowly the dawn. A grey glow. The storm ravaged outside around us and I scurried deeper into my bag all the while J slept. Eventually both of us awake and around eleven finally a calmness settled. Slowly. At last I could peek out and eye the clouds south towards Evolution. They were breaking up. Hints of blue skies propelled me to break camp after together a quick hot breakfast. Shouldering our packs we headed off through the trail-less canyon picking our way along and around each of the lakes following at last an outlet stream as it spilled itself onto Darwin Bench epic below before branching out to bring life to tens of tarns and smaller streams all combining to crash a mile south far down into Evolution Valley. We scampered along the eastern edge of the bench to find the 'good use trail' (as Roper described it ... ) that would take us down to the John Muir Trail and onward to Evolution Lake. Followed it to the top of the final switchback climbing up from McClure Meadow far below. Then at last to Evolution. Cloud shadows. The immensities of Mounts Mendel and Darwin. And finally Mount Spencer ahead as we came upon the lake. Found a spot on which to toss our tent. Now to wander. Explore. Try to put to good use a view camera carried all this way over mountains. Find a photograph to make that possibly captures the grand scale of it all. Witness water from the outlet of Evolution crash and carve its way over disappearing falls to a creek far below winding through endless meadows illuminated. Shadows lengthen. The setting sun.




Tuesday July twenty-fourth.





I love Sierra mornings. Not like yesterday morning the thunderstorms on again off again hail. But these like today where I watched from inside the tent shadows created by the sun. Moving. Spilling. Falling. Our little camp goes from shadow to full sun in an instant. Brewed some coffee. Now sitting on granite wrapped in my sleeping bag the sound of Evolution Lake lapping at the shore nearby. A light breeze. Spectacularly quiet. No clouds though today. A group of hikers sets off around the far side of the lake east through this Evolution Basin. Over the Goddard Divide and Muir Pass east. Down into LeConte Canyon and further onward. The light last night was brief. It turned quickly from pinks to greys and then lost to dusk. Today under harsh unforgiving skies we climb point 11576 on the map above the western edge of Evolution Lake. To see south toward the divide and Sapphire and Wanda Lakes and a realm of rock barren jumbled and forsaken. Return to break camp and head back up to Darwin Bench for the night. J is up and moving now. Soon we'll be off.




Wednesday July twenty-fifth.





Morning of the fourth day. Sitting on granite with sun and breeze looking out over Darwin Bench. Clouds materializing off in the west distant horizons it seems as if over the ocean! Listening to The Violent Bear It Away. Goosebumps. A Godsend the wind. For some inexplicable reason I realize how I am drawn to this view now here of a faint trail far off beyond that leads into a clump of gnarled whitebark pine disappearing off toward the edge of the bench. Beyond the drop to the chasm of McClure and Evolution Valleys. And beyond that the massive wall of Sierra granite peaks immense. The Hermit looms. I am mesmerized with that trail. I know where it goes because we found it - followed it - two days earlier onward to Evolution. But if I did not know - and even that I do - it disappearing off to somewhere that cannot be seen pulls me forward like gravity and reminds me of how I know but do not know. A mad-crazy wild. A treeless waste. Moby crescendos and tears well up in my eyes all of this exploding right now in this absolute moment unbearable. The secret of mountains. How they and we are the same. How we are both made up of the same elements. How we are both alone mountains and men. I here on Darwin Bench. Mendel beside me. Everyone everywhere spinning through the universe. Surrounded by these peaks in this immensity of silence is awesome. I am alone. I feel the onset of something more grand and frightening than of which I can speak. I break down in the instant. Walls crumble. I expect nothing. I am nothing. I aim to go forward lightly from now on without hesitation or thought of attainment. Ruined and at the same time reborn under the glistening sky. These experiences. This solitude. The complete and desperate loneliness. But just the same in utter contrast and harmony the sharing of these moments. How they parallel each pushing and pulling the other. The ones alone like this right now with the ones of J and I together. The immense pride a father himself weak of his son who under his own little power crested the mighty Sierra Nevada thirteen thousand feet above the sea then followed his father himself lost flailing inwardly down miles and miles. Always following without question. Without hesitation. Only trust. An absolute and complete trust that frightens me whole but also gives me an unbearable strength. An unbelievable responsibility to bear for which I am never certain I can truly fulfill but cherish the crushing weight of it perhaps more than anything else this life has so far brought. It is in these places looking off into infinities endless where I can find some resemblance of peace. Let my insecurities and failings and weaknesses disintegrate into the atoms of the air. I exhale. It is okay to feel alone at times. Vulnerable. Scared. Petrified even as I do now a sinking feeling deep within. To cower under granite and let the hail and lightning and thunder crash down and shatter the still silence and security of everything that once was now surely soon to be lost. The very frightful torment to realize the weight of everything every moment I have ever lived and have ever rejoiced and have ever regretted. To pick a way through a treeless canyon under towering granite and glaciers where I know storms have raged and ravaged raw the stone and waters pure then let revealed again the sounds of meadows and of waterfalls and of streams all finding their way endless to the ocean towards the omniscient sun. Clouds paint broad strokes across a calm sky. Tonight we plan to camp at the lake just below the col on the other side of civilization. Will have to watch the weather. It can approach fast and I do not want us stuck on this side of the crest. Should be going soon. From here it seems an impossibly long climb to the col and I relish this delicious moment made complete with the realizations of all I am. Of all I am not. I could sit here in the sun warm on granite forever. Just lie down. Rejoice in the sun and the storms and the skies. The soft trails that show the way. The sharp talus that does not. The shade and the water of streams. Listen. Feel. Push on. This wildness is in me now. I take it with me. Inside me. When I am back over on the other side of the crest I reassure myself now I will always have this moment. And the moment suspended at the col with J. Music washes over me like the imperial sun flowing through me and becoming part of everything that is here now real. I can touch it all. But time to let the silence now fill me. Time to go back. Find J (I see him looking for me now!) Skip rocks together in the tarn near camp. See if I can beat his six skips (the record so far!) Be his dad. Be strong for him. Lead him once more up and over these mountains. Reveal everything. Hide nothing. Climb. Laugh. Play. The present here and now.




Thursday July twenty-sixth.





Last morning. Had breakfast then coffee (coffee is infinitely more delicious out of beat up metal mugs!) Now sitting again on granite. Always. There will be time later for couches and cushions. For now there is sun and breeze a kind of summer Sierra perfection. Even the bugs have kept away. I am staring south to Mount Lamarck and the monolithic Sierra crest rugged stretching like a craggy spine along the topaz sky. Remnants of glaciers nearly melted forever now scrape hold to rock. Clinging. Grasping on with all their might. We were on the other side of all this just yesterday. Removed from everything else. From the impending tragedy that has me here now myself clutching to the past. To the present. Fearing the future. The arriving. The leaving. On the other side of the crest there was nothing but ourselves and light and stone. The elemental space found in these places where only God is as the Buddha described everywhere and in everything the sun and the stars and the time and the space in between it all. We were at the cosmic center of the universe. Nothing else mattered. I could forget all that had happened. All that had not and would still. Shortly we pack up for North Lake and Spencer and showers and swimming pools and real food and cotton. I try to hold on to this moment. Desperate. We even might try to see a movie in Bishop tonight to complete our reintroduction frighteningly abrupt and sudden back into civilization. For certain the Bishop town pool will do the trick swarming with California kids in bikinis and smiles skin darkened under months of the Owens Valley sun. But I will try when we've returned to keep this center. I must. No matter what. To not lose hold of the moment atop the col now centuries ago it seems the light shimmering everything else God it seemed even the universe holding its breath standing still for us. Allowing the pause. I face the crest now intentionally. To my back the view north to Bishop and the valley. An old gentleman khaki-clad daypack had passed us earlier as we stirred around camp. Seemed a bit lost looking to find the way to the col for the day. Silliness. Doesn't he know as Muir once said that to truly experience wilderness one must spend the night out in it? Under it. Surrounded by it. Where we can be boundless. Where our imagination makes us infinite as he once wrote. But I pointed the man in the right direction nonetheless. Just no sight of him yet across to the steep ridge switchbacked up onward to talus (he should be climbing it by now?) Maybe he turned back. We just have to pack. Easy hike out all downhill. A few miles. Crazy I think now the geology of mountains. How they all rise and rise and rise ever higher to a crest then fall away on all sides in every direction determining in their very essence which way the rivers spill to the oceans. Summits splinter the space above. To themselves fall away over time. Eons. And on the other side such wildness. Such incredible breaking beauty. How far one can go with only a pack placing one foot in front of the other. Thousands and thousands of feet up and down. Miles and miles and miles. J plays and swats at flies nearby. I must finish writing this. The sounds of the stream below the upper and lower lakes the only thing that breaks the silence now in between. The blue polarized sky cloudless. The grey granite looming.

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.

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