On The Road Again

Unbearable pressure has been brought to bear upon yours truly to revive...resuscitate may be a better word...the "blog". I likened the effort involved to that required in starting an old car; long stored in the back reaches of a barn, tires flat and the battery dead. The needed spark was the aforementioned urging. A bit of huffing and puffing and a backfire or two and the old girl should run smoothly. One merely needs to keep the engine fueled with gas.

The last entry was over five months ago...September, 2012, to be exact. I knew it had been quite awhile since I last wrote...leaving readers stuck in the Sierras somewhere in the environs of Yosemite. But it did surprise me that so much time had passed.

Of late the need to write has been nagging me. So the first thing to address is my health; the reason I started the blog in the first place. It struck me in just the last few days that two years ago this March I was learning that I had a carcinoid tumor. By early April I found that my heart was in bad shape as a result of a pre-surgery cardiac checkup. A subsequent Angiogram led to triple by-pass surgery, and five weeks later, having barely recovered from the heart surgery, I underwent the abdominal operatuion to remove the tumor and a 24" section of my intestinal track. Subsequently,  I underwent surgery to repair a cluster of abdominal hernias.in July of 2012......

I am not bragging.

A round of scans and tests administered in January was designed to detect the return of any cancer activity. The results revealed nothing....no cancer, anywhere. I did not expect to hear that the evil presence had taken hold of my body, but it was a blessed relief that all was OK . I will undergo the same tests in August...and every six months subsequently.

I consider myself very fortunate.........

That's all for now......I will write again.

SRH

Old Memories....Yosemite

I had never entered Yosemite from Big Oak Flat Road. That left hand turn from the Tioga Road onto Big Oak Flat took me through a section of the Merced River Gorge. The narrow two lane road skirted the edge of the gorge. Oaks arched out over the lanes, casting shadows pierced randomly with the dappled light of the late afternoon sun.

It had been fifteen to twenty years since I had last been in the Valley. I simply could not remember exactly how long. And when I finally entered the Valley proper I was seeing it from a completely different pesrspective than I had ever experienced. The road came in at "ground level", in contrast to the tunnel entrance on the Wawona Road where one first sees the Valley from an elevated perspective.

I can only describe the experience, upon seeing the Valley open up to view, as entering a roofless natural cathedral....breathtaking in beauty and majesty...overwhelming in size and power.

Across the Meadow:  Late Afternoon

My immediate goal was to get to the Ahwahnee Hotel and see if chance looked kindly on my wish to stay that night
in any, I repeat, ANY room available.

The Ahwahnee Hotel was built and opened in the 1920's. It is "real", in that the granite blocks and huge timbers with which it was constructed are not some Disneyesque imitation of the those materials. They simply don't build things in that manner anymore.The Great Hall and the Dining Room are remarkable for the grandeur of the design and space.





Mrs. Curry's Room...Top Floor

Thirty-seven years earlier, almost to the month, the first days of our honeymoon were spent at the Hotel. By some stroke of luck we ended up on the top floor in Mrs. Curry's private room....(she had passed on some years before, of course). The Curry family was involved in establishing many of the tourist facilities in the Valley in the twentieth century. The old lady was allowed to stay at the Hotel in her retirement. Access was by special key to the elevator. The picture to the left shows the small balcony and the bank of windows that came with the room.




The Dining Hall at the Ahwahnee

Many years later we stayed with the boys at the Hotel...and any subsequent vacations at Wawona always involved taking breakfast or lunch in the Ahwahnee Dining Hall.
Every Christmas season the Bracebridge Banquet is presented in the Hall. A program of entertainment and caroling, the production is a tradition started many decades ago.

Perhaps I shall see it someday....somewhere.....some time.






Upon walking into the lobby I stopped and took in the near chaotic scene...I thought "Lord! There are an awful lot of old people here." That, and tourists from France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Mexico and the Commonwealth countries....a babel of tongues. It was the first and only time on the trip that I felt daunted by the situation.

The clerk smiled an amused smile when asked if there was ANY room available at ANY price. There was none and I was offered the opportunity to put my name and phone number on a waiting list with twenty other names. It was hopeless.

But there was always the hotel Book Store....an irresistable attraction to one such as I. An hour later,carrying ten or twelve pounds of books, I emerged and looked at the sunset-lit sky.

I had no lodging for the night.....

SRH

Getting Out of Mammoth...

Bankside Flora on Hot Creek

I have intended to visit the blog and maintain the flow of my story for some time...Frankly, I was stunned to see that the last entry was posted over three weeks ago. I never spent that much time in Mammoth when we had the townhomes, so it is time to continue the journey and get over the Tioga Pass before the first winter storm forces its closure.

With that aforementioned Schat's coffee and bun in hand I rolled out of Mammoth in the Explorer and headed to Hot Creek just a few miles south of  Mammoth off of Hwy 395. This Creek emerges from the ground as a huge spring of ice cold water. In a sense there is no identifiable headwater as one generally finds with almost all creeks and rivers.....no high mountain canyon or watershed is its source. Snowmelt from the peaks to the west percolates through the alluvial fans that sweep out of the canyons and travels underground until channeled through the volcanic bedrock that opens up near the fish hatchery. Hot Creek is known as one of the most challenging wild trout waters in the West, and it was always one of our favorite fly fishing/catch-and-release fishing spots.

Some distance downstream numerous hot springs bubble up and flow into the cold waters, so much so that the water becomes almost tepid and will not support cold-water loving trout. At one point the hot springs bubble and hiss and steam like a collection of cauldrons cooking some witch's brew. People have lost their lives in these steampots......the most recent, to my memory, was a man who went into the hissing water to retrieve his pet dog.

I have many fish stories from the time spent on the banks of Hot Creek with my son Scott...who is a far better and instinctual fly-fisherman than I. Sentimental feelings welled up as I walked the edges of the stream...the occasional trout rising to a emerging caddis or mayfly...searching out the old holes and undercut banks. Some looked the same...most had changed to one degree or another. Scott, never one to conform, generally went into battle wearing a broad brimmed, tattered straw hat, shorts and tennis shoes, a t-shirt and a worn out fishing vest festooned with the clips, snips and doo-dads necessary to the sport. I always smiled when the wind would drive that ragged straw brim up like that of a Pony Express rider hurtling across the plains.

That morning the Creek was fished by just two individuals. I chose not to string up and cast my line. I would become mesmerized and lost to the world...that is the reward and the main hazard of fly-fishing. The Tioga Pass loomed some thirty miles to the north just out of Lee Vining. Traversing the crest of the Sierra would be long and challenging on that road.

Hot Creek...With Mammoth Mountain Looming on the Right

Lee Vining, on the western shore of Mono Lake, survives on tourist dollars in the season. The town was nearly empty, but for long haul truckers and a few retiree vacationers. It was October and, like Mammoth, it was going into hibernation. The first snowfall would close the Tioga Pass and shut off the tourist flow and cash.

Tioga Pass Road...Into the West

It had been years since I travelled the Tioga and I had forgotten how many miles and how long it would take to get over the Sierra to Yosemite Valley. It took a very long time; the drive made bearable only by magnificent glacier-carved scenery. At the highest elevation of the trip the ancient glaciers stood many hundreds of feet higher than the roadbed.
All about me were bald, bare granite domes and mounds with preserved glacial polished surfaces that had not yet exfoliated. Large boulders lay planted in seemingly inexplicable locations...abandoned in place by the glacial advance or retreat. Called "erratics", they give witness to the inexorable force of glacial flow. Many of these boulders were larger than a house.

With several stops, it took two hours to drive to Yosemite Valley. The shadows were long when I turned onto the road at the western end of the valley. I had no idea where I would spend the night, though I hoped that I might be fortunate enough to find a room at the Ahwahnee Hotel....a vain hope as it turned out......

Mammoth Revisited

Aspens and Mammoth Crest

That cold morning in Mammoth was to be my last in the town and environs till the next time I travel that way. I was up and out on the road before the rising sun had cleared the White Mountains to the east. The aspens had not yet blazed that blinding yellow and gold peculiar to them with the coming of Fall. The high ridges were still in shadow as I sat in my Explorer waiting for the sunlight to bathe them in reflected light. Setting up my tripod and positioning the camera became near impossible because of my shivering hands and body, but short stays in the heated cab of the Explorer let me overcome the cold and I managed to accomplish the normally simple task.

The picture was taken near the entry to Snowcreek Resort....the development that was built on that vast meadow swept by those howling winds mentioned in an earlier post. I believe it is the most beautiful and carefully planned of all the resort complexes in Mammoth. Our first townhome (I still remember the address...733) is now nestled among large aspen trees and mature foliage. We owned that home in the mid-nineties and it was exceptional....I still get misty-eyed when I see it. The second home, much smaller, and built some years after the other, is still remembered fondly, but it does not have the same place in my heart as 733. The reality is that second homes, while raising a family, prove more often than not to be difficult to use as first dreamed. Kids are in school much of the year, they have football practice in the summer, and work schedules and other day-to-day responsibilities leave little time to spend away as a family. The stays we had were often filled with chores and maintenance issues, and there is little break from cooking, cleaning up, washing clothes and the un-packing/packing up ritual.

From that morning photoshoot, I raced out of town, but not before stopping a Schat's for coffee and a roll, and headed up Mammoth Mountain to beat the 7:00 a.m. deadline for descending into the San Joaquin River Canyon...the site of Devil's Postpile and the beautiful San Joaquin River. The Ranger took my money and we talked a bit.....about the beautiful gold charm she wore (it had belonged to her mother), the weather, the road conditions ahead (there had been a surprise snow storm two days earlier). There had been no need to beat the deadline....there were no tourist crowds that required limiting access to the valley.

The San Joaquin River starts in the high country and flows to the West. The San Joaquin Valley is named after the River which used to water the flatlands, along with other Sierra rivers, and create vast waterways and wetlands before the land had been changed forever by the agricultural interests that now dominate the San Joaquin Valley. The river had always been one of our favorite fishing destinations. We ranged far up and down the current and always had success with dry and wet flies.

I did cast my fly line for awhile and caught and released several trout, but I spent more time walking the banks and taking photographs, and sitting in the shade writing in my journal. Forestry people were busy shutting the facilities down for the coming winter and the public restrooms were down to one outhouse, much to the consternation of the few visitors who had to line up some discreet distance from the door. The women seemed to be particularly aggravated about the situation.

I decided that I wanted to be over the Tioga Pass and in Yosemite Valley well before the end of the day, so I packed up and drove back to Mammoth. But first a visit to Hot Creek was necessary.

-continued-

The San Joaquin River

 

In the Gutter......

I walk around the block where the business is located in Santa Fe Springs nearly every afternoon. The one mile (or 1.5 miles via an extended route) is covered in just over fifteen minutes. I usually walk with my eyes turned down to the sidewalk or the street pavement along the gutter. This habit resulted in my walking into one of those "Help Wanted" posts that look more like a gallows than anything else. Specifically, I bumped my downturned forehead on the horizontal arm that hovered over the lawn at about 5'6" elevation.

CLUNK.....I found myself sitting on the lawn. Had I been hit with a baseball bat?...A 2 x 4? There was a distinct metallic clang at the instant just before I looked about from my sitting position. "How did I get there?" ....I looked up and saw the 3x3 arm of the "Help Wanted" sign post. "OK...was I bleeding?...."Where in hell did my glasses go?"....."How embarrassing...Did anyone see me?"...."What was that grit on my tongue?...Oh-Oh, I chipped my tooth."

All of the above happened in the course of ten seconds or less. I got to my feet, gathered my dignity and glasses and resumed my walk, all the while feeling for blood and for a big knot to appear on my forehead. They never did...not even a bruise appeared within the days following.

So, not having learned the lesson, I still walk with my eyes on the immediate ground in front of me.
I do avoid the areas along the path where those "Help Wanted" sign posts are planted. I like to see where I am treading and the lowered head position is conducive to pondering and meditating along the way.

Often, I will cross paths with several employees who are out for a jog or a brisk walk. For some reason these guys wear sweatshirts, hoodies, or winter jackets while jogging on the hottest of days.
I imagine they are sweating off the pounds. We always exchange the "V" for victory finger salute.

One of these men and I exchanged a quip when I saw a strangely colored wooden ball on his desk. He had picked it up while running...and he had many more oddities nestled in a tray with the ball; strange handtools, a railroad spike, screwdrivers, bits of metal, unusual screws and nails. I recognized a fellow observer of the gutter....and a collector of the detritus cast off into the streets in mysterious ways.

I have often thought that it may be possible to earn pocket change by dragging some type of mobile magnet along behind me with the express purpose of gathering the steel and iron bits I see littering the gutters. I would not only make a bit of cash, but I would be doing the good Americans who work in the area a huge favor by removing the vicious-looking nails, screws, and shards of metal from the paths of their vulnerable tires. I almost always kick the worst of the things over against the curb or pick them up and throw them into the bushes along the way. I can't kick them all out of the way...I would never get around the block, and then I might also be suspected of doing the St. Vitus dance.

I think it time to tell you what I have found, though the list is not all-inclusive:

Mobil Phones (broken), a fully charged land-line remote phone ("too far from the base"), a shattered iPod, a walkie-talkie type phone, circuit boards, bundles of corrugated cartons, functioning cigarette lighters, super-hero torsos and limbs (plastic only), shattered pill boxes, notebooks, combs (left on the ground), an empty wallet, playing cards, religious metals, a silver chain, a gold chain, tokens, license plates, hub caps, radiator caps, sandals, shoes, socks, shorts, a belt, a flattened cat that had attained the status of dried jerky, brochures for improving sexual prowess (in Spanish and English...and I did not feel the need to call), some empty tube of numbing ointment that prolonged one's ability to perform in bed, empty condom packets and the discarded contents of such (all concentrated on a short section of a particular street near the Fed-Ex depot), springs, car parts, washers of all size, fast food containers (predominantly McDonald's), dead birds, dead squirrels, dead rats, dead possums, hair nets, ear plugs, pens, pencils, nuts, bolts, sheetmetal screws, wood screws, machine screws, eyebolts,
a toilet seat, copper pipe fittings, a bottle cap collection (?), dolls, a child's car seat, metal stampings,
cheap costume jewelry, a bra, wire forms, hinges, a shotglass and so on and so on.

In all the time I have walked those streets I believe I have never found cumulatively more than a dollar in small change.

I read many years ago that archeologists found a buried Roman town in a mountain valley in Southern France. There was no memory of it and no trace of its existence on ancient maps and documents. No one knew its name at the time of discovery.

Somehow, I see a connection between the street litter and this town.

SRH

Mammoth

Reflections of a Sunrise

I first visited Mammoth in my early twenties when I decided I wanted to ski...that would be in the winter of 1972. Over the next several years I became an intermediate skier at best....moguls always got the better of me, but when it was all just right the exhilaration of being the first to ski down a slope of new fallen snow is difficult to match. I forget the name of many of the runs, but the "Bowl" was my favorite. It was the back side of the main mountain, perhaps the blownout crater of the volcano. Upon first sight my companions pointed out specks at the bottom of the vast sloping field of snow. The specks were skiers, just barely discernible as human figures probably 3000' below. The one memory that most stands out was a fall that sent me tumbling, sliding and rolling for maybe two to three hundred yards down the slope. When my companions caught up with me, expecting to see a broken body, I was laughing at the fun of it all, not the least bit harmed.

Mammoth is a different place now because of commercialization and the growth of the second home sector. I remember clearly driving out to a vast windswept meadow just outside of town back in the old days. The wind literally howled and ripped the snow off of the meadow and into huge drifts along the road. I had no idea that the meadow, decades later, would be the site of a golf course and townhouse/condominium complex. We owned and sold two of those homes in the nineties. Kids grow up and lose interest in going to the mountains with Mom and Dad. I closed the last home alone, carrying away a few possessions in the SUV. Turning off of 395 at the Hot Creek turnoff I pulled the car over and gazed back at the mountain and the Minarets far beyond. Tears came to my eyes as memories and emotion swept through me. That was the end of an era in my life and that of my family's. I did not return to Mammoth for many years....perhaps ten or twelve.

The picture above is of the bluffs visible from the balcony of our second and last home.


I found Mammoth town was nearly shut down that October afternoon. The last of the tourists had headed home and the citizens were resting in anticipation of the coming November snows and holidays. The streets seemed abandoned, there were no waits at the few restaurants still open, and rooms were available at any house of lodging one selected. Mammoth was catching its breath. I had never experienced the town in such a state. It struck me how dependent the local economy was on the tourist trade. As it happened that coming winter was a bust. Snowfall was low, the economy was still strangling finances, the tourists did not come and many people were laid off......Pray for snow this coming winter.

I arose very early the next morning with two objectives in mind....to shoot the rising sun as reflected by the western ridges and bluffs, and the fall colored aspens.....and to drive into the San Joaquin River canyon before the road was closed to private cars at 7:00 a.m. It was damnably cold. My fingers were so numb that I was reduced to a fumbling fool with the camera equipment.

To be Continued

The Minarets from Hot Creek Road

 

Bishop to Mammoth....

Aspen Trees along  Bishop Creek

The drive down to Bishop was "ever-descending", for at a point in the road the whole of the Owens Valley stretching North and South of Bishop was revealed. It was breathtaking. Bishop appeared to be no more than a bug smear on the windshield. None of the landmarks were recognizable. I think I met only two or three cars on my way down and no one was visible behind or ahead of me on my side of the road. It was early afternoon and I wanted to be in Mammoth later in the day and find a room for the evening. A few more side trips around the neighborhoods of Bishop brought me into the Paiute Indian district.

I have no idea if the proceeds from the Paiute Casino trickle down to all the tribe members. That is the usual arrangement. However there is little or no evidence that any such flow of cash has improved the general condition of the reservation homes and environs.

The Paiute Indian War in the mid-1800's was a tragic conflict and it took the course of most such conflicts between the native Americans and the miners and settlers. The town of Independence was the site of Fort Independence....established and manned by U.S. Cavalry units expressly to subdue the Paiute bands that wandered the valley attacking isolated mines and ranches.

Tribes......We are all members of a "tribe". We don't think of ourselves as members of a tribe....but I think we are...... perhaps not in the popular sense or the strictly defined sense. But we belong to large groups of individuals loosely allied in classes defined by education, economic opportunity, race and culture, geography and environment. Passage from one's tribe to another is difficult if not impossible. Without overdrawing the analogy, that apple core demonstrated in a very real sense the difficulty in achieving transition from one "current", or tribe, to another.

When I was a teacher escorting my high school students on field trips I observed the boldest, most confident punks (they were punks with behavior problems) when in their social milieu, hesitate and virtually cower when required to enter a music hall or museum. They felt terribly inadequate and insecure when confronted with what to them was a different world. But then, I wonder how I would contend with Buckingham Palace and an audience with the Queen.

Not everyone thinks alike. Not everyone shares the same values. Not everyone has the same education...... Interests conflict. .......Ambitions are different.


I made preparations to leave Bishop...buying Sheepherder bread at Schat's, filling the tank at the Shell station, buying odds and ends at Von's and Target. Then on to Mammoth Mountain and the High Country and to a bed.

SRH

Red Foliage/Red Mailbox........Bishop