My old friend and climbing partner from early Yosemite days, Diane, came up for a long sojourn while she was on break from nursing school in Pocatello, Idaho. She accompanied me on my rounds and helped with trailwork; cooked meals. We also took a superb four-day backpack into northern Yosemite on my days off. And started having an affair. (Naturally, I made no mention of any of this in my log.) ◦◦◦◦◦ I’d fallen in love with this wild outdoorswoman when we first met in Tuolumne Meadows, back in 1984. The two of us really hit it off but, not surprisingly, she already had a boyfriend. Later, Diane ended up getting together with a good friend of mine (another Yosemite climbing partner and all-around fine human) and moved to his place in Driggs, ID, just outside Grand Teton National Park. They eventually got hitched and had a child—not in that order—but the marriage wasn’t working out and Diane’s and my fling finished it off. No surprise, our backcountry hanky-panky also killed my friendship with her husband, Lars—a really exceptional person who didn’t deserve such treatment. Needless to say, these tawdry details are outside the scope of my work log but…there it is. Diane ended up leaving Lars and moving to Lone Pine where we shacked up for a couple of years in a real-live shack at the foot of the Sierra. (Before that, I’d more or less been living out of my truck during the off-season.) Then she just up and left…moved on. Unfortunately, the Diane saga didn’t end there but I won’t go into any of that. What can you say? This one was a gypsy at heart. She broke mine once, twice, three times. It took me years to recover from all the melodrama. ◦◦◦◦◦ That said, Diane and I had several fine years together. We officially became a couple about a year after this, her first trip to Piute and she came up to visit many times over the next couple of summers. She was strong, brave, and willing; a keen partner and we shared many an adventure.
18 Jul (Mon) Wet and humid; another hot, muggy day in the making. The two of us walked up the hill behind the outhouse to the South Fork of Dinky Creek via that narrow gap I call “the Gates of Delirium” (where the monkshood grows thick) and on to the North Fork, which we followed over the hill—an 1800’ vertical gain—and down to Harriet Lake. Another storm brewing. We continued on up to Cora and pulled a bunch of trash out of the main camp’s firepit. ◦◦◦◦◦ To Helen. It started to rain—hard. So hard that we had to don raincoats. Strolled through lush sub-alpine gardens interspersed with glaciated bedrock and out onto the peninsula where we found a big, ugly firepit by a cluster of whitebarks, just ten feet from the shore. Set about tearing it down, throwing all the rocks in the lake. (Prefer not to do this but nowhere to hide ‘em otherwise.) It began to dump, then hail, and lightning was going off right overhead so we decided it was best to ditch the shovel and sit this one out. It kept hailing so we hunkered down beneath a clump of scraggly pines in our coats and shorts and got pretty wet just hunkering. Turned into a virtual deluge so there was nothing for it but to hold tight. Diane was soon chilled (there’s not an ounce of fat on this girl) but we stayed put. ◦◦◦◦◦ We were looking right at the thing when it hit: ground-strike, not seventy yards away. Both of us saw this electric ribbon tear the sky in two with simultaneous resounding roar. There was a poof of smoke. Our bodies involuntarily clenched up tight in full-body terror. I’ve had a few ground-strikes closer to me than that one but didn’t actually see any of them hit. So this was different. Seventy yards sounds like plenty of leeway but I’ll say this: when that bolt struck it felt a whole lot closer. For the next ten minutes or so we were pretty jumpy, waiting resignedly for the fatal flash of blinding light that, post close-strike, your mind assures you is imminent. Diane was getting chilled—was actually shivering—and when the hail finally slacked off and lightning was back up in the clouds where it belongs we went over to check out “the spot.” We’d literally been right where it hit only twenty minutes before the strike! Hoo. It hit in that clump of whitebarks but, surprisingly, didn’t blast any of the trees. Instead, it hit ground. We found scattered hunks soil and duff plus a hundred-plus pound rock that got tossed five feet from its resting place of many millennia. The thing was frosted white on one whole side with a pale, 10,000 V glaze; quite a thing to see. And ponder soberly. ◦◦◦◦◦ Finished the job. Then, in lighter rain, we marched over to Ruth Lake double-time just to warm up and tore out another big pit. The sun finally came out. We took off out coats to let them dry before heading for Dorothy Lake Pass and, walking back down, stopped at Harriet and visited a group camped there. They’d been packed in so we dropped off my bag of trash to be hauled out when the packer returned for them. ◦◦◦◦◦ Marched home. Rain still threatening but none fell on us. At the Cascade Creek crossing, jumped on the old trail then dove over the ridgetop, taking “ranger’s cutoff” [a cross-country route that led directly back to the cabin]. We were both pretty beat. Cold feet (boots thoroughly sodden from the dripping brush). It was an immense pleasure to be back in the cabin and into dry clothes. Ah, the comforts of home! Tea, et cetera.
19 Jul (Tue) Woke up to a cloudy morning, warm and humid nonetheless. Time growing short for Diane in Piute Country and we’ve yet to go see the Grandfather juniper just across the way. So, early, we took the tour. First, walked up to Big Jeff, (the tree I string a hammock in) and visited the ledge where my rope ladder is anchored. Then on to the classic viewpoint of the meadow and on to the Grandfather. As usual, when taking visitors to this holy tree I lead them by hand the last bit with their eyes closed and position them before it. With eyes open, all supplicants are stopped cold by the massive eleven-foot-wide cinnamon-red trunk. There are larger junipers and older ones (though I conservatively estimate this tree to be well into the B.C. range). But this particular tree is so magnificent and so plainly a witness to fleeting centuries that all are powerfully moved by it. This Grandfather juniper has palpable charisma—a blind person would feel it. ◦◦◦◦◦ Later, a Scout troop from Sacramento stopped by and I spent two solid 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? You betcha!
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
©2017Tim Forsell 4 Jan 2017, 30 Jul 26
