Piute Log...Close Strike, Tree Visit 1994

18 Jul (Mon)    Wet & humid; another hot day in the making. The two of us walked out to the outhouse and up the hill to the south fork of Dinky Creek, through what I call “the Gates of Delirium” (where the monkshood grows thick) and over to the north fork, which we followed over the hill (1800’ vertical gain) and down to Harriet Lake. Storm a-brewin’ again. We continued up to Cora and picked a bunch of trash out of the main camp’s firepit. ◦◦◦◦◦ On to Helen. It started raining so hard that we had to don raincoats despite the warmth. Strolled around in lush gardens interspersed with bedrock and out onto the peninsula where we found a big, ugly pit in a clump of whitebarks only ten feet from the shore. Set about tearing it down, throwing rocks in the lake. (Don’t like doing this but nowhere to hide ‘em otherwise.) It started to pour, then hail, and lightning was cracking around us just overhead so we decided it was time to stash the shovel and sit this one out. Hailing real hard so we hunkered down under a clump of the ratty pines in our coats & shorts and got pretty wet just sitting there. A real deluge so there was nothing for it but to hold tight and wait it out. Diane was soon chilled (there’s not an ounce of fat on the girl) but we just sat there. ◦◦◦◦◦ Both of us were looking right at it when it hit: a ground-strike not 70 yards away and we clearly saw an electric ribbon split the world open with an authentic, genuine roar and (a poof of smoke). Our bodies involuntarily clenched up tight in body-terror. I’ve had several strikes closer to me than that one but didn’t see any of them. This was different. Seventy yards sounds like plenty of leeway but I can tell you, when it hit the thing “felt” like half that distance. For the next ten minutes we were pretty jumpy, waiting resignedly for the final and fatal flash of blinding light (which, post-close-strike, your mind assures you is immanent…). Diane was getting real chilled, shivering, and when the hail finally slacked and the lightning was back up in the clouds again we walked over to find “the spot.” We’d literally been right there only 20 minutes before the strike. It hit in a clump of whitebarks but, surprisingly, didn’t blast the trees. Instead, it came down to the ground and we found scattered hunks soil & duff plus an 80-or-so pound rock that had been tossed five feet from its resting-place of at least several millennia. The thing was frosted white on one side with a 10,000 volt glaze, a thing to see. And ponder soberly. ◦◦◦◦◦ Walked back and finished our job. In lighter rain we marched over to Ruth Lake double-time just to warm up and tore out another big pit built up against a rock. The sun finally came out. We took off out coats to let them dry before heading up to Dorothy Lake Pass and walking back down. Stopped at Harriet and visited a group camped there. Bart had brought these folks in so we dropped off my bag of trash with them to be hauled out when the packer came for them. ◦◦◦◦◦ Marched home. Rain still threatening but none fell on us. Took that old trail from the Cascade Creek crossing and dove over the top and down, taking “Tim’s cutoff,” a cross-country route that crosses Dinky Creek and ends back at the Piute outhouse. Both of us real tired, legs wet and boots sodden from the dripping brush. An immense pleasure, getting back in the cabin. Once into dry clothes I sprawled on my bed soaking in the comfort. Whipped up a big ol’ frittata for supper.

19 Jul (Tue)     Woke up to a cloudy morning, warm and humid. Time growing short for Diane in Piute Country and still we’d not visited the Grandfather Juniper, just across the way. So, early, we took the little tour: walked up to “Big Jeff,” (the tree I string my hammock in) and checked out the ledge where the rope ladder is anchored. Then on to the classic viewpoint of the meadow and across to the Grandfather. As I usually do with visitors to this holy tree, I lead them by hand the last bit with their eyes closed and place them before it. When eyes open, all supplicants are stopped cold by the massive eleven-foot-wide trunk placidly standing before them. There are larger junipers and older ones (though I conservatively estimate this tree to be well into the B.C. range). This particular tree, though, is so magnificent and so plainly a witness to fleeting centuries that all are powerfully moved by it. The Grandfather juniper has a palpable charisma—everybody feels it. ◦◦◦◦◦ Later, a group of Scouts from Sacramento stopped by and I spent two full hours with them out on the porch. They (leaders in particular) were very receptive so I gave 'em everything—ranger version of “da woiks.” Bear stories? Hell, yeah!

Quotes copied inside the cover of this volume of “Piute Log”:

What I never wish for, not even in my worst hours, is an average state of mind, halfway between good and bad, a lukewarm, tolerable mean. No, rather an exaggerated swing of the pendulum—rather worse torment, and to make up for it let my happy moments be a little more radiant!

                                                               

                                                               Hermann Hesse, from Wandering

The ideal way to direct events is not to create resistance or elicit counterreactions. The technique to achieve a perfect flow of events is the art of wu-wei—of not working against the grain of things. Instead of pushing to make things happen, in the Taoist way you wait for the right moment, when actions seem to fall into place almost of their own accord. When that moment occurs, you are swept effortlessly along with time.

                                                                                                  

                                                                        Diana hunt and Pam Hait

©2017 by Tim Forsell         4 Jan 2017