The Yosemite Day Trip

05/28/2010

Hindered by lingering snow and no crampons

Four Mile Trail

Yosemite Valley

Yesterday, Turkey Tetrazzini Pete and I found ourselves hiking the Four Mile Trail, the path which ascends from Yosemite Valley to Glacier Point. The trail is actually 4.6 miles and not 4 miles as its name implies, but this is a well-kept National Park Service Secret, like the fact that Smokey the Bear is not a real bear, but just some guy in a cheap bear outfit.

I highly recommend the Yosemite day trip. Like a run at dusk in mid-October, it is a balm for all that ails you and fresh air for a deflated perspective. It infuses you with creative prowess. Years ago, for example, I spent the day hiking to the top of Yosemite Falls. In close proximity to the thundering cataract, I sat on a spray-covered rock, whipped out my notebook and promptly wrote Hamlet. All in one sitting! Afterwards I descended while whistling Flight of the Bumblebee and speaking to Turkey Tetrazzini Pete in iambic pentameter. He was not amused. He also reminded me that there was no need to write Hamlet, as it had already been written. "That it should come to this!" he said.

Tim the Bull

Sequestered Ice

Summit of Mt. Langley

Sequoia National Park

U.S. Geological Survey Bench Mark

Mt. Langley Summit

My parents gave me a compass for my 13th birthday. It wasn't a cheap cereal box compass with air bubbles and a plastic needle always pointing toward Arizona; it was a real compass, a sturdy, dependable, life-time guarantee compass. My father made a comment when I unwrapped the gift. "This is so you'll always find your way," he said, "especially with women." Everyone laughed. I laughed, too, but I'm not sure what my dad meant. They also gave me a book called "Be Expert with Map and Compass." I read every chapter and learned about things like magnetic North and true North and orienteering and interpreting contour lines.

I found some maps of Santa Cruz County in my parent's closet behind the box containing my mom's vacuum-wrapped wedding dress. I unrolled the maps on my bed. Then I lost myself in the details, the demarcated hills and gullies, the undulations along West Cliff Drive corresponding to the indentations Monterey Bay made along the coast, the forested areas surrounding UC Santa Cruz.

For several weeks I studied the maps carefully. I noted the designation "B.M." in many remote areas on the maps. I consulted my Map and Compass book and discovered that "B.M." stood for Bench Mark. Bench Marks are placed in prominent locations all over the United States and often are found on summits. Like the one pictured above, they are small, metal plates fixed into the ground with the elevation and other information inscribed. Their location is shown on maps.

"Look, Jay! Look!" I told my older brother, Jay, one night. "There's a bench mark above Wilder Ranch up the coast. Let's go check it out!" Our dad was enthralled as well. "I wish I could you join you!" he said, "But I have to make a trip out to the dump." Funny, my dad was always making trips to the county dump.

Next morning Jay and I packed a canteen and some space food sticks into a backpack and rode our bikes (without helmets, of course) up Hiway 1 North toward San Francisco. We also brought the maps and my compass (having read the book, I was now an expert with map and compass). When we reached the bridge over the creek by the prominent bluff, we pulled over and leaned our bikes against a barbed wire fence. A prominent No Trespassing Under Penalty of the Law sign stood nearby. "Don't worry," Jay side. "Those signs are put there just to keep people out, so it's no big deal."

We helped one another through the barbed wire. We were now free to roam! I whipped out my compass and placed it on the map and made the proper calculation to account for magnetic North. I made some notations in a notebook with a little catechism pencil then told Jay, "That way!" while pointing up toward the bluff. It was a mile yonder. Off we strode under a blue sky with the sound of distant waves pounding the coast and the subtle but acrid smell of brussel sprouts wafting over from nearby farms.

We waded through the knee high grass and made steady progress toward the bluff. Periodically I paused and took a reading with the compass. "Yep," I reassured Jay, "We're going the right way. The bench mark is on top of that bluff for sure." We ran our hands through the foxtails and tossed the little stickers into the air and watched the wind carry them away. Soon we noted cow patties with increasing frequency. We picked them up and threw them like frisbees. They disintegrated on impact. Sometimes we flipped them over with our tennis shoes. The pincer bugs underneath would scramble for cover. We flicked the bugs with our fingers.

"Hey," Jay suddenly said, "Be quiet. Don't move. Stand up slowly and be very still." There was deep fear in his quiet, commanding voice. "What?" I asked. Then I saw it. I saw them. A herd of about 100 cows stood facing us. They were the big, brown kind, the kind with pink flaring snouts covered with flies, the kind that looked comical but at the same time unpredictable and threatening. And that is what frightened us. It was like being at a clown convention. We dared not draw attention to ourselves.

"Back up slowly," Jay instructed. However, we realized that additional cows had move in behind us. "My God!" I told Jay. "They seem to be organizing!" Some, the ones on the outskirts, ate mouthfuls of grass, others swished their tails, some chewed their cuds. Some simply stared at us without blinking. Those were the ones that really scared us. "What are they thinking? What are they planning?" I asked Jay. We were surrounded. There was no escape.

Then, in the midst of the herd, we saw the bull. The brown cows lowered their heads and parted as the bull regally approached. He was black and shiny and huge, and his maleness hung unabashedly between his hind legs like a dangling pestle.

I couldn't help myself and whispered to Jay, "Look at the size of his..."

"Will you shut up, you idiot!" Jay retorted.

The bull had a brand on his rump. His horns were sharp like barbecue utensils. Steam rose rhythmically from his nose like a locomotive engine. I hadn't planned on meeting the bovine equivalent of Darth Vader. "Look," Jay instructed, "On the count of three, run!"

"One!" The bull was pawing the ground with his front foot, and the cows seemed to be swishing their tails more urgently.

"Two!" The bull was snorting, and the cows started mooing lugubriously in unison. It was their rally cry.

"Three!" The bull was charging.

Jay and I ran. We ran away from the bull and through a wall of cows. The cow bodies pressed against us. Their fur felt heavy and hot. The weight of their big bellies pressed against our ribs. It was like getting squeezed by a python. For one interminable moment, Jay and I couldn't move. We tried to push the cows away. It was hopeless, though. Their weight lifted us off the ground, and we waved our arms like we were treading water. We were essentially trying to stay afloat in a sea of smelly cows and their snorty respirations. Thankfully, one of the cows shifted its weight, and we squirted free to the outside of the herd.

We collected our wits then ran and ran. Jay looked back. "The bull is closer!" he screamed. "Don't stop, keep running! Keep running Jerome. You and your damn bench marks!" Suddenly, a pick-up truck approached and drove up along side us. It rocked violently and kicked up dust as it accelerated through the field. "Get in the back!" the driver yelled. Jay and I hopped into the truck bed. There was a rifle mounted on the inside of the truck's rear window. Once we were secure the driver sped off. We turned and saw the bull. He had missed us by inches.

The driver drove for a few minutes back toward our bikes, back to where our misadventure had started. He slammed on the brakes, turned off the car and jerked the emergency brake and jumped out of the truck. He marched around to where we sat. He was an older, bearded man with overalls fitting snug around his generous belly. He wore a baseball cap that said Copenhagen. It satisfies. His face was scarlet, and his nose was cratered with pock marks. His left cheek bulged, and he spat out liquid brown chewing tobacco. Some of it leaked down his chin and left a muddy brown streak in his silver beard.

"Now what in tarnation are you two trespassers doin' on my prop-tee?!"

Jay and I simply sat in the pick-up truck bed with our mouths open.

"Well," the man continued, "I just might right call the Po-leese if you ain't gonna answer me!"

"Um," I said sheepishly, "Please don't call the police. And please don't shoot us, mister! We were just out looking for the bench mark on that bluff over there." I pointed to the bluff.

The man squinted and stared where I was pointing. "Bench mark?" he said. "How do you know about the bench mark?"

"I've seen it on the maps," I told him. I took out the map and held it open.

The man walked over and looked at the map. "Well," he said. "Why didn't you say so? I know that bench mark. Put there by the U.S. Gee-oh-logic Survey back in 1934, elevation 165 feet, Santa Cruz County when Rosy-velt was pres'dent!" I thought he might poke a hole in the map as he pointed at the bench mark location with his index finger.

"So who's your parents?" he asked. " 'Cuz I wanna' know what parents in their right might minds would let there young 'uns go out wanderin' among my herd and riskin' their lives around Tim, the bull?"

Jay told the man our dad's name.

"Wait!" the man said, "your dad happens to be my doctor! Well, ain't that a soo-prize! This here's your lucky day! I know your dad. He's a right might fine man! He takin' good care of me and my old lady! He got me off the cigarettes!" He spat out more tobacco and wiped his chin with his sleeve. "I do know, though," he continued, "he's a good 'nuff man to knock some sense into his boys such that they would never have trespassed!"

I almost told him that our dad had wanted to join us, but he had to go the dump. Jay saw me open my mouth. He shook his head "no!" and I kept my mouth shut.

"Tell you what," the man finally said. "I'll take you and your poppy out here someday. We'll head up to that bluff, and I'll show you that old bench mark. Now you boys get yurselves home."

Jay and I rode our bikes home. Our mom made us quesadillas, the kind with the paprika sprinkled onto the cheese. We ate them all for lunch.

Peter's Primacy

North Guard Peak Ridge

from Sphinx Lakes

Clearing Storm

Kings Canyon National Park

On that afternoon in July, 1984 a lazy, hesitant rain fell and soaked through my equipment and dampened my resolve as I set up camp in Little Pete Meadows. It was still and cheerless. I managed to sweat in the mugginess while setting up my 1970s White Stag tent (which my dad had purchased on sale at Long's for $19.99). The ground was mushy, like a bowl of unfinished Raisin Bran left on the kitchen counter on a Saturday afternoon. Glowering, pregnant, misty clouds, like the ones in the novels by Charles Dickens, hung above the cliff faces. I smiled, though. This was like that bumper sticker I often saw on pick-up trucks: The worse day of fishing is better than the best day of work.

Into the afternoon I hunkered down in my tent while studying maps. I also had a pocket New Testament with the words of Christ in red. However, because the tent fabric was red, a dull reddish hue filled the tent, making it impossible to see the words of Christ. This made for interesting reading and reflection. Suddenly, Peter seemed to be a rather chatty fellow who did all the talking. That Jesus, though, He was a great listener!

In the evening, while the rain continued to fall, I ventured from the tent and boiled water for my Top Ramen. I emptied the "flavor packet" into the noodles and licked the inside of the packet, trying to eek every extra calorie out of my dwindling food supply. A nearby backpacker strolled over to join me. He was a bearded, Muiresque, middle-aged man with steely blue eyes and deep wrinkles etching his face like contour lines. His name was Bill.

Bill was a Viet Nam vet. He said he was spending the Summer backpacking in the Sierras "getting his head together" after the death of yet another army buddy. He pulled up a stump and offered me Swiss Miss hot chocolate, the kind with the little pencil eraser marshmallows. I said yes please. I emptied the chocolate into my bowl then carefully licked the chocolate dust out of the foil pouch. I sipped the cup and listened carefully to Bill. He spoke about his time in Viet Nam, the lingering pain which he could not relinquish, his lost friends, the healing power of a simple walk in the mountains. Such a walk was like a balm, he said, like releasing a clenched fist, like embracing weakness, like letting the rain fall on your head and drip through your hair and down your face, washing away the tears and dirt inscriptions.

Bill spoke matter-of-factly, and I simply listened. I could offer nothing except my presence and gracious acceptance of his hot chocolate. The chocolate dried on my cracked and tired lips. I held the bowl up to my nose and let the steam enter my nose as I lost myself in Bill's stories.

At dusk, the rain had calmed. Bill stood and spoke plainly. "I want to thank you," he said, "for being with me this evening. You have been a good friend. I will never forget you." He walked away, disappearing through the mist as he made his way toward his campsite.

In the solitude of my tent, now fully caffeinated from the four hot chocolates I drank, I listened to the gathering winds buffeting my tent and nearby trees. Sleep would not come easy, but that was fine. I knew the sky would be crystal clear in the morning.

Life List

Mt. Corcoran and Mt. LeConte

above Miter Basin

(is there something inherently comedic about the word Corcoran?)

When I turned 30 I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish during the next decade. I have found that making lists is a wonderful way of procrastinating, a way of hosting my own private filibuster.

Following is a sampling from that list:

Learn to speak Spanish fluently using nothing but the vosotros form of the verbs

Write a book about all my travels to a place I've never visited

Learn to cook veal parmesan.

Show up at a party with a nametag that says, "Hello, I am Bic Pentameter."

Write a haiku every day for a year

Purchase a bald cat, like a Mexican Hairless, for example, (because of my allergies) and train it to push around a doll-sized grocery cart

Floss occasionally

Organize a Ker-Plunk tournament

Write to Dear Abby every day until she publishes one of my letters

Walk a mile in another man's shoes

Streak with a bag over my head at the Chinese New Year's Parade

Work at Sears for a day then quit

Walk into Baskin Robbins and complain if they don't have 31 flavors

Eat a hot dog from 7/11

Walk the entire John Muir Trail by hiking backwards

Sign my check to PG&E as Tom Hanks and see if they send it back to me

Show up at jury duty without being summoned and pass out Bingo cards to all the people in the jury selection room

Order an iced latte from Starbucks and ask if they can make it extra hot

Go bald for just a day to see what it was like to be Telly Savales

Spend an entire day talking like Mr. T

Say "What you talkin' about, Willis?" to anyone who asks me a question

Get thrown out of a baseball game for wearing a rainbow afro clown wig

Start a fund-raising campaign for a parakeet sanctuary

Walk into a chiropractor's office and ask if the chiropractor can adjust my attitude

Learn yo-yo tricks while listening to Yoyo Ma

If a policeman signals for me to pull over for a traffic infraction: don't stop, race home, park the car, run inside the house and hide under my bed (as my sister, Celery, once did)

Compose a concerto for ukelele and orchestra

Spend a night in a 24 hour laundromat

Purchase a bag of ladybugs from a nursery and release them in my office

Learn how to knit

Enter a pie in the county fair

Wear a grey sweatshirt that says "coach" and a whistle around my neck and stand in front of the grocery store telling people to drop and give me 50.

Finish all of my vegetables.

Put a bumper sticker on my car that says "Vandelay Industries."

Spend the day with a Del Monte banana sticker stuck on my forehead

Sadly, I have accomplished none of these things, and I am well into my 40s. I will get started, however. Where can I find a Mexican Hairless?

Above All

David Stark Wilson, photographer, has captured the essence of the Sierras in his remarkable book. The photos highlight the Sierra's fourteeners, those peaks above 14,000 feet (as well as Mt. Shasta and White Mountain Peak). The photos are shot in crepuscular light, meaning the peaks appear etched, stark, unreal, yet strangely approachable.

The book sits on my nightstand along with some old Charlie Brown comics, reading glasses I'm supposed to wear but don't, 3 by 5 cards with a nearby pen, a book about St. Francis, and a radio alarm clock which is set 11 minutes ahead (thereby allowing me to sleep 11 extra minutes every night).

The book's glossy pages smell really nice. The smell reminds me of the Barnes and Noble down in Emeryville. I like going there and saying to the salesperson, "Excuse me, where is the travel section?" The salesperson then directs me accordingly. I say, "Thank you very much," as I ride upstairs on the escalator. On the way to the travel section, however, some book always distracts me, like The Idiots Guide to Dog Training or Learn to Speak Klingon.

Before long, I have developed Saturday afternoon bookstore legs, (not to be confused with fabric store legs, which often leads to coma). I slip into a delicious lassitude as I stumble around the book shelves. I find the nearest couch, and under the dull hum of the fluorescent lights in the Business and Finance section, I fall asleep.

The Journey of a Single Step...

Sky Blue Lake

11,552 feet

Sequoia National Park

(View Toward Arc Pass on the Flanks of Mt. McAdie)

For bonus points, and if you might be mired in the gentle ennui which a quiet Saturday night affords, find the blue tent in the picture (you will need to click on the picture and use your zoom function).

I can reassure you, devoted readers, all three and a half of you, that in my life, I have spent no fewer than 72 total hours pacing across some gravelly rock in my own glorious nakedness, absorbing sunlight, staring into the yawning blueness of some high Sierran lake which threatens to envelop me in its icy grasp, if only I step from the brink. One step. One step Jerome, one step.

I find a million excuses why I should not step into the water. It's windy, now, at this moment. I should wait for the wind to be still. The water's surface is rough. It needs to be smooth as glass. There's a cloud over there, a big, inflating cumuloid which might cover the sun like a thumb over my eye. A nearby marmot is staring at me. He seems to be laughing. The moment is not right.

I walk from one end of my rock to the other like a cat stuck on a branch. I will count to ten. I do so but then find myself counting past 10 to 300. I do rock, paper scissors with myself and lose every time. I check my pulse. I note the goosebumps on my outer arms and rub them away. I spit and blow all sorts of things out of my nose. I sit on the ground but promptly stand, not relishing the sharp sensation of the prickly grass along my oh-so-delicate hiney. I note my filthy, bronzed legs and how they contrast with my white butt, the whiteness which is criss-crossed with the red pressure marks from the weightiness of my pack. I examine the blisters on my toes. I sing Happy Birthday. I say a quick Hail Mary while glaring at the marmot. I stare at the sun for a second just to see what it's like.

I dip one toe in the water and withdraw it immediately. "There is no freaking way," I mutter. My toe has gone pale and numb. I remember that story in C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where the lost lord jumps into the water, and he turns to gold, dies, and sinks to the bottom. Such a fate would be untimely.

I stare into the sky and lose myself in its endlessness. It envelops me and, along with the hovering sun, waits patiently, like a conductor holding up his baton while a violinist in the orchestra's back row quickly fixes his broken string, or like St. Monica waiting and praying for her son, the saint-to-be, Augustine.

One step. One yes. Not a soul to push me in. I run forward and leap at the brink. "Heeeeee-yahhhhhhhh!" For a moment I'm suspended above the water, sandwiched in mid-air between the blueness of the sky and the lake. The marmot runs for cover. The wind holds its breath. The rest is effortless...