“After climbing Mt. Whitney, we celebrated Nick Russell’s birthday in the Alabama Hills. This is an incredible spot to camp with dry desert, spectacular rock formations, mild temperatures and great bivouac spots, right below 14,000-foot peaks in the Eastern Sierra.” Photo: Ming Poon 4/15/17—JOHN MUIR WILDERNESS ODE TO MUIR Here I lay in the heart of the John Muir Wilderness surrounded by 11 and 12,000-foot peaks. My body is tired, but my mind is spinning. How do I leave the show nature is putting on tonight? First, it was the never-ending sunset. Now, the stars take center stage. Specifically, the Milky Way. I have never seen it so low on the horizon. If Muir were here, he surely would have penned a chapter tonight. How happy would he have been to see us frolicking in his land? To watch us endure a cold winter storm? Feasting on a record season of snowfall and celebrating nature’s offerings? How happy would he be to see this land so pristine, so perfect and so unchanged from when he walked these hills? I wonder if he ever made it here, ever watched a sunset over these lands. Did Muir ever drink from these same streams? Sit under the same trees? There is just so much land to cover. I am sure he would confess to not seeing it all, but would also share my overwhelming feeling of its grandeur. He’d hold the same wish to have more time to walk these hills, more time to stand on these mountain tops. I marvel at the audacity and vision of Muir and our forefathers to protect all this land, to keep it so remote and inaccessible to the masses, to fend off the chainsaws and the road builders so future generations could experience deep wilderness. How many life courses have been altered by their work? They had to know the lessons learned out here are our most precious resource. That an America without this wilderness is an America without a com-pass. It gives me hope to know such a place lies not far from my home, gives me joy just to know it’s here. SIERRA MOUNTAINS 053
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 15.3 : Page 53
