rambling on

friends,

we're back for another brief taste of civilization, in old station, california staying with the wonderful heitman family amidst tents, treehouses, and hammocks nearly 1400 miles into the trail. not much time to write with a line of folks waiting for the computer, so just a quick little recount of our experiences in the high sierra.
walking the mountain peaks and shining snowmelt waters through in a world coming to life for another season. snow giving way to wildflowers and green meadows, clear cold waters with golden trout drifting the currents, marmots scanning the landscape atop the stones. silent alpine worlds through the sequoia and kings canyon park, sliding through the snow-ice and scrambling boulder channels we crossed the storied passes of the john muir trail. forester, glen, pinchot, mather, and muir. each with its own beauty and silence, snowbound at the highest points scraping into bright blue skies.
after leaving kennedy meadows we headed into the just burned clover wildfire, smoldering stumps beside the trail and gray dust ash covering the hillsides. a sunrise scramble up olancha mountain was our first high peak at 12,000+ feet. to the south smoke from the fire curling, east a barren desert valley, west the mountains of the kern plateau, and north the black snow-capped high sierra. we spent the summer solstice sitting below mt. whitney, beside timberline and guitar lakes, fresh crisp air, surrounded by granite walls. climbed to the peak the next day with clear morning skies and vivid clouds rolling in as the day passed.
the beauty continued to unfold as we walked through the sub-alpine forests, huge half-snag foxtail and lodgepole pines, bright red in the sun, somehow rising from the sand and stone slopes. desolate high lakes frozen and still and others glistening in the light, valleys carved by rumbling rivers deep below the peaks...much more beauty and peace than can be put to words...thats all i'll try for now. peace, jeramy