#lake muir

[rainingmusic]

Ruby The Hatchet - Tomorrow Never Comes

[wildernessjournals]

Lower Alpine meadow and a group of small ponds teaming with trout. Pinnacles Lakes Basin, John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA  Photo by Van Miller

[vintagecamping]

Hiking down the switchbacks to Garnet Lake on the John Muir Trail

California

1989

[vanwinkle11]

Mount Ritter over Thousand Island Lake just south of Yosemite National Park

[torson]

Teir list of my favorite band

[new--tomorrows]

Ruins of old mines from Gables Lakes up through the Hanging Valley in the shadow of 13,654 foot Mount Tom. John Muir Wilderness, Inyo National Forest, California.

[desert-oracle]

EPISODE #216: MAKE IT SACRED

Nothing is sacred unless we set it aside as sacred. As Americans rapidly abandon organized religion, and the formerly sanctified church and temple sites go up for sale as designer homes, where are the places that are truly sacred? The places set aside for contemplation, meditation, festivals, the rituals of life & death? There ain’t much. Not nearly enough. But that can be fixed. New soundscapes…

[virtuouslibertines69]

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." - André Malraux Art by Jodie Muir

[tacit-semantics]

women doing weird shit remains the best literary genre free my girl she DID do that and she should get to do it more

[pcttrailsidereader]

A Sierra Storm

This past week in Northern California has been unsettled with nightly thunderstorms in the mountains. After a quiet fire season, we are now dealing with several dozen fires. While I am not in the mountain now, it made me think about some prior lightning encounters.

A summer storm in the Sierra is hardly a unique mountain experience. Yet I find them disconcerting … underscoring our vulnerability and insignificance.  I’ve been known to make promises in the midst of the alpine pyrotechnics that I still need to make good on. This story shares one particular episode just north of Muir Pass, on the stony shores of Wanda Lake.

RH

The National Weather Service calculates that my odds of being struck by lightning any given year is literally one in a million.  Just about the same as my odds of winning a gold medal in the Olympics.  As I sat tucked on my Thermarest pad trying to minimize any direct contact with the ground, I could feel the tension throughout my body.  My racing heart, shallow breathing, and knotted stomach.  Another flash illuminated the tent followed almost immediately by the demoralizing explosion of thunder.  Our little foxhole felt so incredibly vulnerable.

 Flash.  BOOM.

I stole a glance at Howard and Jim.  We were each mouthing the numbers as we counted between the flash and the thunder.  For a while we had been able to count and joke.  For the past eternity – perhaps ten minutes – we were happy to get to “1001” or “1002”.

Flash.                    BOOM.

A little longer.  Maybe the storm is passing.  Several rumbles chase each other down the valley, tripping and tumbling as they go.

Flash.BOOM

My body tightened.  I just hoped that it wasn’t my time yet.  You have to be fatalistic in these storms.  You are completely powerless. Impotent.  A minor actor on an immense stage.

We had started early to make the first climb into Evolution Valley in the cool of first light. That seemed so long ago now.  We made steady progress as the trail paralleled that series of beautiful meadows that follow the meanders of Evolution Creek.  After some half dozen miles of this leisurely stroll the trail climbed steeply into another hanging valley, the Evolution Basin.  We made an extended stop at Evolution Lake to do laundry and wait out the most intense part of the day. At 10,800’, trees are scarce and the sun fierce.  Through the mid-afternoon the skies had remained perfectly clear offering no hint of things to come.

          Grey granite walls touch

          Translucent blue waters that

          Reflect the heavens.

Flash… 1001 … 1002 … 1003 … BOOM

The lightning and thunder brought me out of my reverie and back to the present.  I stretched my legs quickly and pulled the sleeping bag around me to preserve the warmth.  This was the quiet between.  The waiting.

Flash … 1001 … 1002 … BOOM

Flash. 1001  BOOM  

“Damn,” I muttered.  Jim suggested that we should count faster.

As we had passed Sapphire Lake I can remember thinking, as I eyed the skies, “Probably not the best time to be heading into such an exposed world.”  Ah, the wisdom of hindsight. 

About 6:45 p.m. we topped the bench that dams Wanda Lake.  Just, and I mean precisely at that moment, as we took our packs off the rain began.  The first few drops gave us the illusion that we had ample time to select a suitable tent site.  That was not the case.

Almost immediately the rain transitioned from drops to sheets and with it a chilling wind swept across the lake. The rocky landscape offered little protection and a few totally inadequate tent sites, ones we would have scoffed at any other time. 

The leader of a Sierra Club outing group camped nearby amidst a jumble of rocks, motioned to us that there was a flat space near them.  Even as efficient as we were at erecting the tent after more than a week on the trail, we were pretty wet by the time we had the tent up and packs somewhat protected.  Then the lightning had begun.

          In this high country

          With lightning in a barren land

          I feel so naked.

Frankly there is little I find more terrifying in the high country than lightning, that massive electrostatic discharge caused by unbalanced electric charge in the atmosphere. 

“Separate,” yelled the Sierra Club trip leader. 

Flash                               BOOM.

We huddled in the tent.  The thunder reverberated off the surrounding peaks.  It was the hall of the mountain king with tympany pounding and cymbals crashing.  The rain alternated sleet, hail, and rain.  I took my sleeping bag and dry clothes from my pack sheltered (somewhat) in the vestibule.  Jim and Howard’s resources were under pack covers well outside the tent. We put on my clothes and covered our legs with the sleeping bag as the temperature dropped.  The sweat and precipitation that had dampened us, now began to chill us .  The wind buffeted the tent bending the tent wall toward us.

Flash… 1001 … 1002 … BOOM.

We waited.

Flash … 100BOOM

Too close.

Fortunately, the whole episode lasted about an hour.  Not an atypical Sierra storm. It was twilight by the time the storm was spent.  In the waning evening light we made a quick dinner, appreciated the illuminated peaks around Wanda Lake, and watched (rather ironically) the stars as they appeared.  No cards tonight.  Perhaps a few prayers. 

[wildernessjournals]

Council Lake, East Pinnacles Lakes Basin, John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA. Photo by Van Miller

[razzle-dazzle-13]

If I had a nickel for every time I read a book with a main character whose conception featured murder and death I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot, but its weird that it happened twice.

[htr2a]

Thousand Island Lake (9,864’)

Ansel Adams Wilderness just outside Yosemite over Donohue Pass, California

July 1 2022, 4:52 PM

[saruvanthewhite]

Hey, SFPD. You might want to come have a look at this gentleman. He parks out here nearly every day, and I thought he was coming out to go fishing but now it turns out he comes out here to drink in the back of his truck, only then to toss his empties out into the foliage by the side of John Muir Drive. He then leaves not too long after. This means he is drunk. He’s apparently been doing this here for a long time.

What called my attention to him this time was me actually witnessing him toss one of his bottles out. When I went to investigate, there were many empty beer bottles in a pile where I found the one he just tossed. I was starting to wonder about the origin of all the beer bottles I occasionally find out here.

I at the very minimum pack out my trash and don’t leave anything out here. Being unhoused is hard. But it’s so goddamn easy to maintain control of your own litter and waste. Being unhoused in the same proximity to irresponsible, stupid suoqqᴉƃʇᴉɥs makes me and the other unhoused van dwellers subject to scrutiny when people see litter building up. I personally dislike being accused of littering especially because, I pack out my ƃuıʞɔnɟ trash like a responsible human. I also don’t drink then drive drunk. I don’t drink anyway but that’s beside the point.

This.

Idiot.

Is.

Drunk.

Littering.

And.

Will.

Be.

Driving.

Soon.

SFPD, go get him.