Down From the Mountaintop

OK, well, not exactly the "top" of the mountain... But a ways up, anyway. And if I wasn't like Moses by any means, at least I took in the experience, and had time to reflect, and maybe got some things out of going that I wouldn't have otherwise.

The occasion for driving to Lone Pine, and climbing Mt Whitney as far as Lone Pine Lake, was the annual "memorial" climb my partner, Anne, makes. Her friend, Gene, died on Mt Whitney, at Consultation Lake, eight years ago. She's made a climb on September 3 every year since. This year, I was her companion.

Here are some things I learned:

--Be Prepared: The ol' Boy Scout motto definitely applies at Mt Whitney. I had done several months of weight-loss conditioning to get my body ready, and we had lots of water and other portable supplies. Plus we had emergency wear, in case it rained or snowed or one of us got hurt. We were as ready as we were gonna be.

Still, Anne took it easy on this old man! She stopped frequently; we rested; we paid attention to our bodies and didn't press beyond our limits. So it was a do-able climb.

Yet we saw folks, especially going up on our way down, who were without day packs or water, pushing themselves up the mountain as if they were on a walk in the park. True, we saw plenty of people (it was Labor Day) headed for the summit, with full gear and walking sticks. But we saw too many who were pretty casual about a fairly strenuous outing. One father was carrying his toddler daughter on his shoulders! I worried about them...

--God's Hand in Nature: The Eastern Sierras are spectacular! Nothing new, this is, to many. But to this Easterner, well, there was nothing like this mountain where I grew up!

Every switchback brought a new vista, a different perspective, another way of looking at things. The sheerness of the rock facings, the steepness of the trail, the narrowness of the path, the color of the sky-- so much took my breath away in air already made ever more rare by the altitude. The moon was a lingering wafer, holding herself back from going over the mountain; perhaps she, too, had to make sure she didn't hit the peak.

And the sounds... Or lack thereof. No traffic noise! A hush held by huffing hikers. The breeze whispered, the rivers roared like beasts, the birdsong, especially the jays', seemed rock-concert loud-- but came only in bursts. I thought I could hear my heart, or maybe it was the heartbeat of Nature itself.

Around Lone Pine Lake there was a cathedral of Rock and Trees. Such Beauty! Such Grandeur! Such natural holiness... Truly, it was less a climb than a pilgrimage, with a pause to worship in the middle. (Including PB&J and Gatorade for Communion!)

--The Shadow of Death: At one point we were elated to spot a mule deer lingering near the trail. We'd anticipated marmots, maybe even a bear. So to see a mule deer was a momentary treat.

Then we saw how thin she was. At a time when one would expect her to be fattened for the Winter, she was emaciated.

The drought that had left no snows on the Sierras and was melting the glaciers, had visibly diminished the foliage. Plants were yellowing; fruit was scarce on the bushes; the greenery seemed to crackle with dry frailty.

And of course there were the fallen trees, the victims of lightening and fire. This is Nature, afterall, where death is a part of life, and thus the cycle goes on.

But in the roots of many of the fallen trees was evidence of Life's tenacity: granite rocks ripped from the boulder by trees' roots, and held aloft. All of us are subject to forces greater than ourselves.

--Communing, Community & Camaraderie: This probably comes down to just how friendly everyone was to each other, the mountain making pals of passers by. But truly there was a sense of "being in this together" that came from our being on this together.

And I had to wonder: How can we, once down from the mountain, retrieve this sense of belonging with each other? How can we recover the realization of togetherness, that we all lose or gain... together?

Coming down the mountain, I had a further thought on something I'd written about in this space before. I'd talked about "dignity," and how there is "inherent" dignity (that which comes with each of us, our humanity), and how there is "attributed" dignity (that which we give to each other, say, through status or affection). But I would add to those now "communal" dignity, by which I mean the sense that we either uphold the dignity of another or disrespect them, but that in that process we either enhance or diminish our own dignity as a people. (We all remember how, years ago, at Abu Graib, our soldiers stripped people of their dignity-- and in that process, stripped us as a nation of our dignity as well. This same process happens in small and large ways all the time. But it is only occasionally we take notice.)

Anyway... These were just some of the thoughts I had while hiking-- a good activity for thinking, actually! If one can just keep some oxygen going to one's brain! I just felt that, like Moses, I ought to bring something down from the mountain, more than what I took up! HA!

Thanks for going both up and down with me...