Some Assembly Required

Hannegan Peak

North Cascades National Park

08/25/05

In this picture my brother, Joe, is looking at a map in order to identify the peaks. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the summit of this sublime peak in the heart of the Cascades, we realized we did not have the correct map. Actually, we didn't have any map. We did, however, have the assembly instructions for the futon Joe had purchased several years ago at Ikea. Somehow those instructions had found their way into Joe's backpacking equipment, and he had mistakenly carried them along on this trip. So there stands Joe, examining assembly instructions for his already-assembled futon back home as the scenery unfolds before him. The nearby cairn* stands as a memorial to Joe's befuddlement.

*cairn 1) n. A mound of stones erected as a memorial or marker. [Middle English carne , from Scottish Gaelic carn , from Old Irish.] cairned cairned. 2) n. Astroturf

Betty in Yosemite

According to Betty Crocker, the ideal S'more consists of a marshmallow gently skewered by a two foot stick, preferably a stick pulled off the fallen branch of a Sugar Pine. The marshmallow is then patiently turned rotisserie style 8 inches above a blazing camp fire. When the marshmallow is slightly swollen and just starting to hiss and complain, and just a moment before it starts to ooze its gooey white center, it is done. It should be uniformly bronzed and subtly crisped, like the skin of my kids after a week at Tahoe.

By the way, when I was a kid, my family owned a Betty Crocker cookbook. The book was thick and dense, like Bible dense, and it would thud and startle everyone present when you dropped it on the kitchen counter. The book cover was checkered red and white like a picnic tablecloth. The margin of the book cover displayed a postage-stamp sized painted portrait of a middle-aged woman who looked like a homemaker. Was this a picture of Betty Crocker? Was Betty Crocker a real person? Interestingly, however, the woman in the picture looked like she had a moustache. You didn't even have to squint to see it; it was plainly a darkened area on the upper lip. Nothing wrong with a hirsute countenance, I suppose, especially if Betty were Mediterranean. To this day, though, I wonder if my older brother, Joe, had taken a pencil eraser and "erased" the moustache onto the picture. We used to deface a lot of perfectly good pictures in National Geographic and Time Magazine back then by giving people moustaches.

Betty Crocker through the decades:



Anyway, back to the perfect S'more. Only women like my wife and daughter are able to create the perfect S'more marshmallow. Insert a Y chromosome, however, and you have instant mayhem. Just observe my boys. The boys stab the marshmallow with a flimsy stick then shove it into the fire such that the hair on their knuckles are singed. The boys are precipitously close to tumbling headfirst into the hot coals. Once the marshmallow catches fire it is removed and held aloft Statue of Liberty style. Feeble and requisite attempts to extinguish the flaming marshmallow are made simply to appease Mom, but the flame persists. Bearing their torches, the delighted boys then run around the campsite like adolescent hyenas. It's all programmed in the primordial male brain, just like defacing perfectly good pictures with moustaches.


The flaming marshmallow shrivels on the stick and becomes a sugary briquet dripping it's sticky white innards down the length of the stick. In the end the boys flick the exhausted marshmallows into the fire, then, predictably, declare, "We need more marshmallows! Ours caught on fire."

Boulder City

"Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you"

St. Jerome, on the feast day of St. Jerome, 09/30/2009

Little Jerome with his boulder city on the shores of Cathedral Lake, 08/17/09.

St. Jerome and John Muir had a lot in common. Note their similarities in the pictures above. St. Jerome lived over 1,600 years ago and spent much of his life monastically by praying, fasting and studying. He actually lived in a cave for a few years. John Muir lived 100 years ago and spent his life hiking and climbing in the brilliant sunshine of the Sierras. Actually, I guess St. Jerome and John Muir had very little in common, except for their beards. They both had really cool beards. They also liked Rocky Road ice cream, although this is pure conjecture.

Sierran Signage

3.5 miles out of Tuolumne Meadows on the John Muir Trail:


"You can hike ahead," we've told our kids, "but stop when you get to the signs." And off go the kids. When we meet up with them they are gathered round the signs which mark the way or announce the mileage. The kids are catching their breath. How many hikers over the decades have congregated around these signs while waiting for others? When we were young we'd stop at the signs and wait for my mom. When she arrived she would throw down her pack and collapse in a heap. "Ok, Mom's here!" we'd all say while jumping up and hoisting our packs, "Let's go!"

If you're lucky enough to hike in the same area more than once in your life, reaching a familiar sign can be like meeting an old friend. Hello. How are you? I have been here before.

At the signs, out come the water bottles and the M and Ms and the Power Bars. Somebody applies chapstick. Somebody scuttles off to pee. Somebody rustles through a pack in search of a bandana or a map. The older signs are covered with the rust of 75 Winters. The rust is flakey like a pastry, and when prodded with the tip of a hiking pole it falls to the ground and disappears into the pine needles. The signs lean precipitously and are supported by granite stones. They can be lifted and turned 180 degrees. Or 360 degrees.

The newer signs are smooth and metallic. They are lacklustre. But they still serve their purpose. They let you know that you've arrived, or that you aren't nearly there yet. They serve to orient you. Half mile to go. You are at 11,320 feet. You are here, in Kings Canyon. By the way, if you've brought your Golden Retriever to this point you should turn around and head back.

Entering Sequoia National Park at Siberian Outpost:

Selden Pass:

Other signs look like they were created by a Boy Scout who used the wood burning set he received from Aunt Rosie last Christmas. The sign is typically weathered like a retired park ranger's face. It may be screwed into a lodgepole pine branch which is buried into the ground. The branch smells like vanilla.

Sometimes there are no signs. Are we there yet? Did we miss the cutoff? Where are we? So, as we do in life, we just keep walking, trusting that we are on the right trail.

Already?

The other day, September 19th, I was walking our dog, Bella, down our street. Summer was almost over. I noted that one of the houses up the street had a cut-out ghost taped to the front door with the word "Boo!" underneath. "Wow!" I thought, "Halloween decorations up already? That could only mean one thing...It's Christmas time!"

Infamous Spaghetti

August 17th, 2009. 7:30 AM, Cathedral Lake

Sunrise over Cathedral Peak

Lydia and I celebrate our 18th anniversary with Clare, Sam, Max and Henry.

This was a much better venue than when we celebrated our 3rd anniversary with our daughter, Clare, (10 months old at the time) and my hiking buddy, Pete. "What was Pete doing there?" Lydia always asks even to this day. At that anniversary we were staying in some car camping spot half way between Lee Vining and Tioga Pass. I had tried to make spaghetti on our backpacking stove. I didn't have a strainer, and the noodles were overcooked and starchy. The meal had the consistency of fresh paper mache. We could have used the leftovers (there were lots of leftovers) for an arts and craft project, like the construction of either a piñata or a model of Jupiter.

Salmonberry

"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous."

Leonardo da Vinci


Japonski Island
Sitka, Alaska
July 16, 2009