My Dad's Favorite Ice Cream

This book is my favorite. David Muench, the photographer, has captured the essence of the Sierras in his photos. As a youngster I spent many hours smoothing down the book's glossy pages while eating a good bowl of Rocky Road and listening to Beethoven symphonies. The mountains in the photos exhibited personalities, a realness which pervaded my musings well after I shut the book and placed my ice cream bowl in the sink. It was like losing myself in thought after a really good movie, thoughts which encompassed the many moods of Mt. Sill, Mt. Brewer, Angels Wings, Temple Crag, Mt. Langley, Mt. Agassiz and many others. Later, when I encountered the mountains for real, face-to-face, it was like being served a huge bowl of Rocky Road. I could swim in it.

Page 106-107 highlight Dusy Basin at dawn on one page and dusk on the other. Dusy Basin is a 11,400 foot granite bowl with views of the Palisades Crest and down into Le Conte Canyon. My father once camped there, and in the evening, with water boiling on the propane stove, he snuck off with bowel trowel and toilet paper. His Nikon camera with hefty lens hung round his neck. Seeking perfect privacy, he wound through the maze of boulders perched on granite slabs and the springy marshmallow grass which bordered the countless ponds filled with still but crystalline water. He walked a good quarter mile. He photographed Isosceles Peak, then set the Nikon on a rocky perch. He dug a hole six inches deep and 100 feet from the nearest water...

Afterwards he returned to camp whistling a happy tune. The afternoon winds had dissipated. Back in camp the water boiled and dusk emerged with silent and profound fanfare. His campmates, which included my sisters Celery and Maple Sugar, greeted him. "Have some Turkey Tetrazzini," they said. He sat on a rock and readied his spoon. His appetite had returned after acclimating for five days in the mountains.

Then Celery noticed it. "Hey Dad," she asked, "Where is your camera?" It was not hanging around his neck. And so began the frantic, sunset search for the missing Nikon. They retraced my father's steps and fanned out. The boulders were shades of yellow and brown and granite and of innumerable shapes and sizes. They would run their hands over the rough, lichenified surfaces as they walked past each one. Disorientation set in; it was like treading water in the ocean. They simply needed to find the black, out of place object. There was no reference point, however, except for the setting sun, the rim of the summit peaks, and their own distant, echoey voices as they called out to each other.

In the end, as the scarlet hue of the alpen glow splashed on the mountain flanks, my dad found the camera in a location he least expected. It was as if someone had moved it, or moved the rock it had rested upon. He called out to his comrades, and they all gathered at the spot, walked back to camp and ate dessert.