John 'musings'

As I research this trip to yosemite I keep thinking between the mileage and only using backpacker camps that my knees will die. Or I'll have blood sugar issues from the freeze dried food even with my gels. Then I remember how long I've looked forward to Yosemite.

Since the days of Dr. Barnett going on and on about the parks in the west, The Hudson Valley school, and then the sierra club and the musing on nature of this guy I'd never heard of before.. John Muir.  There is was.. a great moment in my college career. I found the words of the voice I never had. John Muir was obviously far more talented that I could begin to dream. Dr. Barnett got me started on him, Sir Walter Scott, and to a lesser extent Thoreau. So when I sit in awe at the base of so many incredible vistas and I can't put it into words.. I have theirs :)

Here's what he had on one of his hikes thru Yosemite before it was what he made it.. a National Park.   He was going from the valley to Hetch Hetchy..chose not to do the 40 mile trek and go it on his own instinct:

:There was some little danger of being caught in snow thus late in the season, but as I was afoot and had no companion to fear for, I felt confident that I could force my way out of any common storm. I carried one pair of woolen blankets and three loaves of bread - I reckoned that two loaves would be sufficient for the trip, provided all went sunnily, the third was a big round extra that I called my storm loaf. In case of being snowed in, it would last me three days, or, if necessary, six days. Besides those "breads," I carried their complementary coffee and a two-ounce mug of the Fray Bentos Extracum Carnis of Baron Liebig. Thus grandly allowanced, I was ready to enjoy my ten days' journey of any kind of calm or storm. "

From the same passage; He has just built a small 'home' on the hike back due to increasing snowflakes:

"It was delightful to lie and look out from my ample windows to the forest. Scores of firs in my front yard were over 200 feet in height. How nobly and unreservedly they gave themselves to the storm. Heart and voice, soul and body, sang to the flowering sky, each frond tip seemed to bestow a separate welcome to every ward of the wind, and to every snowflake as they arrived. How perfectly would the pure soul of Thoreau have mingled with those glorious trees, and he would have been content with my log house. I did not expect company in such unfavorable weather; nevertheless I was visited towards evening by a brown nugget of a wren. He came in, without knocking, by the back door, which, happily, he found high enough for his upslanted tail. He nodded, mannerly enough, when he reached the middle of the floor, and I invited him to stay over night. He made no direct reply; but judging from his fussy gestures around my boots, I thought he intended lodging beneath them, or in one of the legs. I crumbled bread for him, but he had already dined in his own home, and required none of my clumsy cares. :

'And my favorite passage that I read in college. I just love the thoughtful informative flowing words.

The most famous and accessible of these cañon valleys, and also the one that presents their most striking and sublime features on the grandest scale, is the Yosemite, situated on the upper waters of the Merced at an elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is about seven miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep, and is carved in the solid granite flank of the range. The walls of the valley are made up of rocks, mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side cañons and gorges; and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously built together on a level floor, that the place, comprehensively seen, looks like some immense hall or temple lighted from above. But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious, yet heedless of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these mountain rocks are adorned and how fine and reassuring the company they keep—their feet set in groves and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the thin blue sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their adamantine bosses, bathed in floods of booming water, floods of light, while snow, clouds, winds, avalanches, shine and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by! Birds, bees, butterflies, and myriads of nameless wings stir the air into music and give glad animation. Down through the midst flows the crystal Merced—river of mercy—peacefully gliding, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks, things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, whether great or small to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.