Big Baldy; Tasty Trout; Muir Grove; Suzanne’s Latest Book, Love At The Center, is born!

Up early Wednesday for bacon and pancakes. We drove over to Montecito Lodge, just outside the national park, where there was a kids’ camp going on; this speedboat is making big circles in a very small lake, about the size of a softball field (more suited to canoes than speedboats). I think the point was to splash water on the two kids sitting on the dock. Have you heard the phrase “more money than sense”? (Maybe I’m just getting old...) 

Suzanne had picked out a hike to Big Baldy, a granite peak with a fabulous 360 degree lookout. This hike had no Sequoias, but lots of big pines, firs and cedars. Here is Suzanne in her stylish hiking attire and matching Leki’s (hiking poles). She says she can climb like a mountain goat with them!

We hiked for three hours, including a sliced prime rib sandwich stop on a rocky ridge with great views to the west. (But here’s the best view...) 

Then up to the main peak, with views in every direction for 30-40 miles... awesome! This shot shows the 11,000 and 12,000 foot peaks to the east toward Mt Whitney (14,494 ft, the highest mountain in the Lower 48).

The trail crossed rock falls/avalanche slides where you want to make sure you keep your footing. Also, you don’t want to be crossing when the next earthquake hits.

Last night I decided to treat My Lovely Bride to a dinner out. Normally I would choose something ethnic and quaint, like Taco Bell, but alas, there wasn’t one in the park. I resigned myself to taking her somewhere nice; in this case, The Wuksachi Lodge, a modern version of the rustic lodges that many of us grew up seeing in national parks or woodsy areas back east and out west. Most of the guests there were foreigners, with Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan and Korea providing the vast majority. The lodge dining room looks out onto the mostly pine-covered granite sides of Alta Peak, although above treeline (9,000 feet or so) the rock was bare. With a nice glass of California wine each, we decided on pan-fried trout served with roasted potatoes, asparagus, artichokes, and a delicious white wine cream sauce. We passed on dessert, but the ice cream sundaes looked pretty good. 

 Our server, Allison, was from San Diego, and spends the summer here with scores of other young people who almost all return to their homes at the end of the season (after Labor Day, for the most part). After dinner, we took advantage of the only reliable Wi-Fi Internet access here in the park and updated this blog, downloaded email, and got a brief glimpse of what was happening in the outside world. In general, we don’t mind being “off the grid” for four to five days at a time. It’s a great time to commune with nature, and try to be amateur naturalists, if not naturists.  ;-)

This morning I woke early to a pretty heavy rain shower; it’s not supposed to rain much this time of year, except when a summer thunderstorm comes up, but this was 0600. We would have to delay our hike to Muir Grove until the weather cleared. John Muir was a Scottish-born naturalist of the 19^th century. He is a legend for his work in helping create the first national parks, as well as exploring the Sierra Nevada, which photographer Ansel Adams called “The Range of Light”. Here in The Sierras, most of the mountains have mostly pine-covered slopes with occasional rock slides, outcrops, and bare tops. Being of granite, the peaks reflect the sunlight quite well. John Muir was one of the earliest conservationists, and beat the drums to preserve the Redwoods and Sequoias for posterity. The grove named after him would be a two and a half hour hike out and back, but it is much less visited than the groves of Sequoias closer to the main road.

Suzanne packed lunch for us, rotisserie chicken chunks on bagels with avocado, red onion and mayonnaise, one of my favorite lunches. She is really good to me... We found the trailhead, and started hiking. After about 35 minutes, I noticed deer hoof prints on the trail. What was unusual about them was that they were very fresh, having been put down so recently that the many human boot prints had not disturbed them; and, they were headed in the same direction we were hiking. I noted them to Suzanne, and not 5 minutes later she whispered, “Buck, on the right”. There was a young four point Mule deer buck, his antlers still in velvet, browsing in the bushes about 30 feet away. Suzanne didn’t want to even disturb him with getting the camera out; we just watched him eat for a few minutes and then we crept silently away. Arriving at Muir Grove, we were again humbled and awed by the magnificent Giant Sequoias.

The grove covers about 215 acres, with average tree sizes around 200 feet high and 25 feet in diameter. There is not a lot of vegetation in the Sequoia groves, so it’s easy to walk close to the trees and even to touch them. Their thick bark is very resistant to forest fires, but it’s actually soft to the touch, sort of hard-spongy in texture, and very much alive.

We walked through Muir Grove to a granite outcropping/lookout point that was a perfect lunch spot. After eating, we headed back through the Sequoias, not talking to avoid spoiling the solemnity of the grove, only to see two teenage boys pick up a small log and start beating on one of the Sequoias. I immediately erupted, read them the riot act, and confronted their mothers who were nearby. How parents can let their children act like juvenile delinquents and defile these majestic trees in a national park is beyond me.  Suzanne would like me to add that a trip to the principal’s office wouldn’t even come close to my in-their-face scolding.

My blood pressure back to normal levels, we returned to The Bus, walked Rudy and Gretchen to a granite lookout point 50 feet from where we were camped, and set up our chairs and computers. That’s where I am blogging right now, and it’s heaven on earth. Suzanne is a few feet away writing; in fact, the preface to her next book, Love At The Center, is being born as I type these words.... Many people have been wondering when Suzanne is going to put the concepts from her S.O.A.R! Workshop into book form... now the word is out!

Here is a photo of her keyboard; notice that several of the letters have faded away from overuse... we had to order a new keyboard for her new laptop after only three months (that is a first!).