Atmospheric river

    It has been raining steadily for two days and nights. Is it another atmospheric river? 

    Such a great term! My son, Ela, visiting during the days of intense rain before Thanksgiving, gave it to me.

    I was immediately charmed. It sounded like something from a fairy tale, a flow from mystical regions through the sky, touching down to earth with replenishing rain, flowing and weaving and meandering like an earthly river, carrying fairies and elves riding on dragonflies, riding the currents on invisible canoes. 

    I wasn't far wrong. The atmospheric river starts in the tropics and moves towards the North Pole, sliding over the Pacific Coast into the valleys, then up and over the Cascades. It's a river of vapor, carrying more liquid than the Amazon River and treating mountains the way the Rogue River treats boulders—obstacles to flow over. 

    Since 2019, atmospheric river events have been rated, along the lines of hurricane ratings, from AR 1 (weakest) to AR 5 (strongest). AR 5 means "exceptional" or "primarily hazardous." AR 4 means "mostly hazardous, also beneficial." Damage could be from mudslides, flooding, saturated soils, windstorms, and, where I live, downed trees. That week's storm was rated between AR 4 and AR 5. 

    At that, I abandoned the fairy-tale fascination. 

     That afternoon, clothed against the rain, Ela stepped through the upstairs window to unplug my gutter. 

    "Don't get swept away in the river!" I warned.

    Unlike the Rogue River, where you could, if you wanted, stand on the shore and watch it flow past for years, an atmospheric river eventually flows past. At 4:00 that afternoon the rain stopped. Everything became quiet. Occasionally a drop of water plinked against the deck. Patches of blue showed through thinning gray mists.    

A Great Job

    One of the most exciting jobs I have ever had is to write profiles of Marshall Scholars for the Marshall Scholars Newsletter. I have met so many amazing people this way, people who have followed astonishing careers and done much good in the world. Here are a few examples:

    Terrorism studies. Audrey Cronin's career has centered on understanding terrorism and terrorists and helping governments and other groups prevent terrorist acts.

   Pharmaceuticals. Alex Oshmyansky was so angry at drug companies for their exorbitant prices that he started a Public Benefit Corporation, backed by billionaire TV personality Mark Cuban, to lower the cost of generic drugs by eliminating the middlemen of the industry whom Oshmyansky called "the worst actors…a morass of, basically, theft." 

    Music. Concert pianist Donna Stoering started a nonprofit, Listen for Life, through which she has gone around the world to preserve native music by filming and interview musicians, making their music as exciting for young people as MTV. 

    Climate change. Jennifer Mills is a scientist at a company that counters the effects of climate change by using an "enhanced weathering technique" to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. (You can imagine what a stretch that article was for me to write!)

    Literature. John Galassi became a publisher with and, finally, president of the prestigious literary publishing house Farrar Strauss and Giroux, discovering, among other writers, Lydia Davis, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, George Packer, and Alice McDermott. He is also an award-winning translator of Italian poetry.

    Journalism. Lane Greene is a business and finance correspondent for The Economist. (Another topic way outside my usual path.)

   Sports. Ahalya Lettenberger is a world champion swimmer whose physical impairment (arthrogryposis) led her not only into paralympics sports but into bioengineering studies and a search for assistant technologies for people with disabilities.

    Medicine. Geoffrey Tabin, a world-class mountain climber and one of the inventors of bungee jumping (along with other members of the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club), has gone around the world as an ophthalmologist with the goal of eliminating treatable blindness in developing countries. He is a recipient of the Dalai Lama's Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award.

    These Marshall Scholars are also just plain brilliant. Take Alex Oshmyanski. He taught himself trigonometry and calculus when he was in grade school, graduated from the University of Denver in one year, entered medical school when he was 19 and won a Marshall Scholarship the same year, earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Oxford and an MD from Duke, and took a year of law school as "an elaborate hobby" while he was doing a medical residency. 

    I am awed by such brilliance, but even more, I am impressed by the way so many Marshall Scholars use their brilliance to make the world a better place.

    

    

First Ski of the Season

     After days of indecision—enough snow? wet snow? good snow?—my son, Ela, and I decided suddenly at 8:00 Monday morning, the day before his return to his home in Washington, that yes! We would ski at Crater Lake.

    I slung wax on my skis and flung them into the car along with boots, poles, and ski clothes, then drove to Jacksonville and met Ela at his dad's. And then more delays: coffee, ski rental, and, at Union Creek, a bathroom break. I was anxious about getting in enough skiing without having to dive home in the snow and the dark.

    Fortuitous delays! The turn-off past Union Creek was blocked with snow, but just as we got there, a snowplow pulled up behind us. Any earlier, and our plans would have been foiled. We followed the snowplow all the way to the park entrance.

    Snow was falling. The temperature was 21 degrees. Not a single car at the trailhead. Expansive solitude.

    We parked, gathered our gear, took a quick photo,

then stomped steps into the seven-foot snowbank, snapped boots into skis, and took off. It was just after noon. Still snowing.

    Ecstatic pleasure! Perfect snow—soft and fluffy as kitten fur and unbelievably deep—gorgeous soft powder through which we sank to our knees at every step. The tips of our skis only occasionally peeked through, sliding into view like little animals. Pretty soon we were breaking trail uphill. Such hard work! And gloriously beautiful. On and on we went, Ela usually in front. I did my share of breaking trail, too

though maybe not my fair share unless you take into consideration differences in age and stamina. The sky was gray, the snow soft, the route uphill, the forest dark-trunked and white-burdened. Snow fell and fell. We pushed on and on and on through the soft, deep snow.

    After two hours, at a suitable fork in the road, we started back, skiing in our tracks at a good rhythmic pace, in a slow, steady glide. Ela was far ahead of me, skiing fast, but every once in a while he stopped and looked back before continuing. At one point a huge blast of cold wind and heavy snow obliterated him from sight altogether. The last half-mile (or more, surely!) was uphill again, and by that time I was worn out. One step, the next step, then another, and finally I saw Ela disappear down the stomped-in steps to the road. (He tried to ski it. Bad move.) We dumped skis, poles, and wet clothes into the car, climbed into the front seat, and turned on the heater.

    We had skied five and a half miles, through that glorious deep snow. It was 3:15. The temperature was still 21 degrees, but the snow had stopped. 

    Ela drove again. We stopped for a beer, then to return the rented skis, then to Ela's dad's house, where dinner was waiting. I gratefully accepted the offer to spend the night.

    I fell asleep with my body still attuned to the graceful rhythm of skis on perfect snow and the bracing sensation of cold fresh air as I followed my son up the mountain and back down. What a wonderful, wonderful day it had been!

Cataract Removal

     Thursday I had cataract surgery on the left eye, the long-distance eye. Friday I had a post-op, everything-looks-good appointment. Saturday I took a walk through the forest.
    How the world has changed! I hadn't realized how restricted my world had become. Now, I peer through the trees and can see, sharply, to the vanishing point. I can see the deep clefts in fir tree bark and the tiny, shaggy shingles of madrone bark. I can see the difference in the patterns of bark on pines, firs, cedars, and oaks. I raise my eyes to the tops of white oak trees, where individual lobes of bright yellow leaves are etched onto the sky. Colors, which I had thought bright already, have deepened and glow.

    You know how images in some modern photographs are as sharp in the distance as those in the foreground? That's how it is: an unbelievable clarity, an indescribable depth in the world around me.

    I did an interview years ago with a Marshall Scholar named Geoffrey Tabin, an ophthalmologist who provides free cataract surgery in many developing countries In a video about his work, one man says he was knocked down by a cow because he couldn't see. Another says it was so hard to get to the outhouse he stopped eating. A woman hated being a burden on her daughter, who has her own children to care for. Then the operation. Then removal of the eye patch. Then amazing joy. Such dancing! Such ululation! Such smiles!

    I wasn't running into cows before my surgery, but, yeah, I know why these people were dancing.

    Next month I'll have surgery on the other eye. Then I'll be able to read without blurred vision, too.

Such joy! Such smiles! I might even ululate.

November 2024

    Tomorrow is election day. I've already turned in my ballot. (In Oregon, all ballots are mail-in.) I urge you to exercise your civic privilege and vote (unless you're a Trumper, in which case, maybe you can just forget it this time around).

    I am writing this blog post now because I don't want to face politics at the moment, as I will have to do, for one reason or another, after tomorrow. I want to write about something beautiful or fun or wonderful.

    Like this beautiful world we live in.

   In the Appalachians, where I grew up, autumnal glory is in the mass of colors, whole mountainsides vibrating with reds, yellows, oranges, purples, pinks, umbers. In the Siskiyous, the dogwoods turn pink, or, this year, a darker red. The leaves of black oaks and white oaks turn yellow.

The broad-leaf maples turn yellow. The viney maples are sometimes yellow, sometimes fiery red. The alders and willows are light yellow. The ferns are yellow-brown, and vanilla leaf is yellow-green.  

                                                                            Photo by Margaret delll Santina

    Boring? Not at all!

    In the Siskiyous we don't say, "Wow! Look at all the colors on that mountain!" We say, "Wow! Look at that spectacular tree!"

Sun-drenched maples glow bright yellow among the dark trunks of the forest,

The delicate viney maple, leaf by leaf turns red on the edges of yellow.

                                                                            Photo by Margaret delll Santina

Nowhere are our eyes so dazzled by the colored trees that we can't appreciate the subtler beauties of the autumn forest: the carpet of madrone leaves,

the sap-tipped red scales of a new sugar pine cone,

the patterns in a manzanita trunk,

the reflections of river-bank bushes in the river.

    Oh, how I have enjoyed walking in the woods this fall!

                                               Photo by Margaret delll Santina

Taking a Moment for Vanity

    As I was getting ready for dinner at Gogi's Restaurant, in Jacksonville, I considered my wardrobe. I could dress up for Gogi's, so I chose my purple-and-blue Komarov dress, with a light, loosely-knit lavender wrap for warmth. As for shoes—always a problem. The black Mary Janes would do; I've been wearing them for fifteen years. But could I possibly, having had foot surgery, wear the elegant, soft-leather, black boots I have kept in the closet, nostalgically, all these many years? 

    The last time I wore them, I hobbled with pain and had to take them off, surreptitiously, during the concert. But the foot surgeries, last year and the year before, have meant I hike with 90% less pain. Might I be able to wear my elegant boots now, too?

    With the help of a shoe horn I got them on. I zipped them closed over my calves, stood up, and took a tentative step. 

Possible. I wore the boots in the house for the next half-hour. No problem. When it was time to leave, I put the Mary Janes in a bag to take with me. If I had to surreptitiously unzip my boots and ease my feet out of them during dinner, one of my table companions could fetch the Mary Janes from the car so I could walk out of the restaurant shod.

    I walked to my car in my boots. I walked into the restaurant. I had a delicious dinner with charming companions and never thought once about my feet. I stood up from the table after dinner and walked to the car. No limping, no hobbling, no calling for other shoes. I drove home and walked into the house, carrying my Mary Janes in the bag. 

    I am exultant. To be able to hike without pain is a matter of physical joy and a necessity for continuing my favorite activity. To be able to wear my elegant boots is a matter, I am aware, of vanity. But oh, I do enjoy wearing classy shoes again!

Nothing But Air beneath Me

     I was running towards the edge of a cliff. A man running behind me was shouting,  "Run! Run faster!"

    This was not a nightmare, and it was a dream only in the sense of my having at any time in my life dreamed of flying, which, actually, I never have. But here I was, running as fast as I could, encumbered as I was by the harness around my chest and legs, towards the edge of a cliff and the emptiness beyond. Suddenly I was the Road Runner—one moment running on the cliff, the next my feet churning on air.

    Then I was just sitting in a hammock under a gorgeous kite bearing me up through the air with my pilot, Sebastian, behind me. All I had to do was sit comfortably on my swinging chair and enjoy the amazing sensation of floating above the Alpine peaks and the chalets and streets of Grindelwald, Switzerland, as the fog revealed and then closed again blue patches of sky.

    A few days earlier, walking back to our hotel after a hike, my sister Sharon and I had paused to look up at the colorful paragliders dotting the sky like bubbles. "Did you ever want to do that?" Sharon asked dreamily.

    I shrugged. Not really; basically I like my boots on the ground. Still, it would be beautiful to see all those snowy Alpine peaks, the Eiger and the Monk and all their minions, from the sky. "Well," I added with a shrug, "if someone offered it to me, I would take it."

    It didn't occur to me that all I had to do was pay my money and I, too, could be floating in the air under a large umbrella.

     But Sharon, who has always had dreams of flying, was already thinking that maybe this was her chance. In the next few days she did some research, some thinking, some looking at her budget, and then announced that she was going to book a trip with a paraglider.

    As easy as that? If Sharon was going to take this adventure, so could I. "Sign me up, too," I said.

    It was foggy on the day of take-off. The four paragliding pilots and their passengers waited at the top of the cliff for a hole in the fog. Sharon was first in line. "Run," her pilot cried, but before they reached the take-off spot, the hole filled, and they had to step aside. I was next in line.

    Um. I thought I would watch Sharon jump off a cliff first.

    Suddenly there was a hole in the fog and I was ordered to run and Sebastian was shouting at me to run faster, and then I was floating. As easy as that.

    It was beautiful. It was dreamy. The fog obscured the tips of the Alps, but its shift and swirl made beautiful, changing pictures. The pilot turned us to the left so we could fly over the dark green forest and silver ribbon of the Milibach River flowing out of Bachalpsee, where I had been swimming a few days before. There, from my floating chair, I uncorked a small vial of my husband's ashes and watched as his spirit disappeared over the river, the forest, and the Swiss Alps.

Bears and Apples

    Three nights ago I woke up to something big scrambling off my deck. I shook myself awake enough to turn over and look out the window and saw a large black bear lumbering through the moonlight into the woods.

    I never did understand what he was doing on my deck—or what startled him off it. But there was no mystery to why the next bear appeared the next night. 

    I awoke to the sound of apples hitting the ground. Time was when I would have leapt out of bed, down the stairs, and out the door to chase the bear off. My apples! But now I thought, well, I couldn't reach the apples myself, anyway. Might as well let the bear have them. And I went back to sleep.

    Yesterday late afternoon I heard apples hitting the ground again. I looked out the window. Bear again. A little bear, not a cub, but not one of those huge lumbering things, either. He was so little he was cute. I had to laugh. As soon as I opened the door and walked onto the deck, he was off like a shot, so I didn't get any pictures.

    I have never had so many apples as I have this year. They are small because I haven't given any attention to the tree, and, actually, they aren't quite ripe yet. The bear doesn't care. And, being a small bear, he doesn't break branches when he climbs the tree, and sometimes he leaves apples on the ground for my harvest. We have an agreement.

    I am careful in my relationship with the wild creatures. I love my lame fox, who looks right at me and barks at me and has no qualms about curling up to sleep in front of my garden. It is tempting to make a pet of him, but I won't. I don't think it's right or a good idea to make a pet of a wild creature. I'll let the fox recognize me and go his way; I'll let the bear eat the apples and let him still be scared when I open the door.

    But, darn he's cute.

Wine at Lucien Le Moine

Lucien le Moine cellar Image from lacavestore.com

    The perfect place for an education on centuries-old wine-making techniques is in a centuries-old wine cellar, such as the one I was standing in—seventeenth-century construction—in Beaune, France, last June. The large wooden beams, stone walls, arched stone ceiling, cool air, and redolence of aged wine gave testimony to what Rotem, co-owner, with her husband, Mourin, of Lucien le Moine winery, was recounting about making wine, 

    At Lucien le Moine, Rotem said, they make wine the traditional way, eschewing (if not actually scorning) faster, more modern methods. "Time is our best ally," Rotem said: the more time, the better the wine. At her winery, wines age long in oak barrels, harkening to the days when parents would buy a bottle of wine at the birth of a child, of that year's vintage, and open it at that child's wedding, many years later. So could it be with a bottle of Lucien le Moine wine. 

     Rotem and Mourin don't use sulfites in their wines because the lees, left to dissolve in the barrel, act as a preservative. Rotem puts it colorfully on the website: "The lees help the wines develop their natural energy and their freshness,…a tranquil and constant energy" that works with its best ally, time, to make a superior wine.

    Was it superior? We moved to the seventeenth-century tasting room to find out. "Inhale the odor of the wine," Rotem instructed, "then swirl it [don't swirl first], then sip it." Savor the taste. Recognize the difference in the second sip. Where did the taste linger? Did it remain in the sensory memory long after (days after) the wine had been drunk? 

    Rotem debunked one myth after another. The "legs" on the glass after the wine has been swirled are meaningless, she said. It doesn't matter what you eat with which wine; the important thing is that the food doesn't overwhelm the wine. Forget analogies ("hints of blackberries, plums, leather…"). "If you want to taste strawberries," Rotem said, "buy a basketful at the market." 

    The important things to consider when buying wine, Rotem instructed, are the date, the cru (the group of vineyards), the winery, and the very vineyard itself. Each vineyard on the spine of mountain above Beaune has a different terroir and therefore a different appellation. In this one wine you can taste the rock of the soil; in this other one you can taste the weather of that couloir. Each knoll, each year, each season produces a different taste. It isn't the name of the grape or the name of the vineyard that is important but the precise name of the village, the cru (go after grand or premiere cru), the aging—look at the date and, if you can remember it, I suppose, the weather at that cru that year. Look for well aged wine. The way they make it at Lucien le Moine.

    It wasn't a bunch of bosh. The wines I tasted at Lucien le Moine that day were superb. The taste of the grand cru wine stayed on my palate—remained in my sensory memory—for two days. It was that good.

[A case of 2019 Lucien le Moine clos St. Denis grand cru sells for $2,296. Just in case you wanted to know.]

    

    

The Slaughter of Owls

     I'm sorry to report that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is slaughtering barred owls in the Pacific Northwest. The barred owl, they say, is an aggressive species native to the eastern side of the United States that is moving into the Pacific Northwest, displacing the northwest-native spotted owl, the notorious icon of the timber wars of the eighties and nineties.

Northern spotted owl. Photo by Frank D. Lospolluto, on savetheredwoods.org 

Spotted owls need old-growth habitat; thus the conservationists' argument that cutting old-growth forests for timber was detrimental to the spotted owl, an endangered species. So timber sales were challenged in court, and again and again, the spotted owl won. Ostensively, the cutting stopped, although in actuality it only slowed.

    And yet the spotted owl has continued its downward spiral, and it seems that those mean bullies, the barred owls, are to blame. 

    So, again we're going to slaughter a species? Think: buffalo, wolves, coyotes. Think: passenger pigeons.

    But Elizabeth Kolbert, environmental writer for the New Yorker, tells us to also think hedgehogs in the Hebrides, rabbits in Australia, mongooses in Hawaii—introduced animals that wrought havoc in native populations of birds and mammals. Where we made the problem, some conservationists say, we have a moral obligation to try to fix it—to rid the Uist Islands of hedgehogs, Australia of rabbits, Hawaii of the mongoose—and the Pacific Northwest of the barred owl. US Fish and Wildlife has concluded that the demise of the spotted owl arose "almost certainly owing to the human transformation of the landscape"—i.e., destruction of old-growth forests, inviting the barred owl into spotted owl territory. 

Barred owl. Photo by Fyn Kynd on savetheredwoods.org 

    So, if we caused the endangerment of the spotted owl, are we not obligated to do what we can to reverse that trajectory?

    My heart, not to mention my mind, doesn't know where it rests because a beautiful barred owl lives in my woods. I cannot bear to think of someone shooting it. I can't bear to think of my nights empty of the barred owl's calls. I can't bear to think of that beautiful bird, that one particular bird, deliberately shot. I love the northern spotted owl in general, but I love the barred owl of my own nights in particular.

    But Fish and Wildlife has identified two main threats to the spotted owl's continued survival: competition from barred owls and habitat loss.

    Nonetheless, both the BLM and the US Forest Service are even now offering timber sales in old-growth and large-tree forests of the Applegate. Wouldn't it be a better solution to the demise of the spotted owl to stop destroying this habitat? Why have we chosen slaughter of birds and of trees instead of keeping the trees and, consequently, perhaps, keeping the owl, as well?

    I recognize the conundrum of invasive species brought into an environment by human acts. I don't know the answer. Still, I say to Fish and Wildlife: Stay out of my woods. Leave my barred owl alone.

    

    

Seven Days of Backpackng North of Yosemite

Diana Coogle, Sarah Nawah, Scott Mattoon
in the Emigrant Wilderness Area

     Standing at the rock edge of a pool of cold, clear-to-the-bottom water, I clasped my little backpacker's towel to my dripping body and gazed at the scene in which I had a moment before been immersed: the long, narrow cup of granite that held the water, the clump of red and yellow wildflowers in a crack of rock at the water's edge, the rush of a little cascade falling into the pool from the long stream down the mountain, and, beyond, occasional stands of pines among the enormous white boulders culminating, far above, in the peak called Granite Dome.

    It was beauty beyond comprehension. Not even a photograph could serve as Gerard Manley Hopkins's latch or catch or key to keep back such beauty, and so the beauty of that moment vanished except in my memory, where it stays rich and vibrant.

    My hiking partners for this seven-day backpacking trip in the Emigrant Wilderness Area were Scott, from California, and Sarah, from Pennsylvania, 

Sarah and Scott at our camp on Gnome Lake

with whom I had hiked in the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon last September. Scott, who is training to be a leader on Sierra Club trips, kept the lead. Sarah hiked next, I last. Day after day we hiked past enormous pine trees, 

through large meadows still vibrant with lupine, groundsel, butterweed, Indian paintbrush, valerian; past tiny streams giving life to still more wildflowers.

 We climbed Mosquito Pass, then rested for half an hour on its flat top with the stark, rock beauty of Sierra-rich views around us. Veins of rose quartz flowed through the granite. A packer with his mule train ambled past, an iconic picture in the high Sierra.  I spread some of my late husband's ashes on Mosquito Pass. 

    On the sixth day, Scott led us off-trail, over granite boulders with flowers tucked in crannies and cracks, up rock steps easy only for giants, on thin, narrow ledges, up flat slabs, or leaping from rock to rock over streams in deep chasms.

                        Photo by Scott Mattoon

It was stupendous hiking. We camped that night not far from an unnamed lake now dubbed Gnome Lake, blue water with undulating lines of green grasses outlining its contours, and a rock at each end for good swimming access. 

Gnome Lake

A waterfall made a long slender silver thread on the cliff above our tents. A glacier, we knew, was tucked up there on Granite Dome, on whose flank we were camped. 

    We hiked 42 miles in those seven days. Scott gave the trip a Sierra Club rating of four (out of five) for difficulty. Our highest altitude was 9370 feet, on Mosquito Pass, but we were almost as high at Gnome Lake. I had nine swims in five lakes, plus four dips in two pools. We spent our nights under brilliant stars. Scott watched the  Perseid meteor show. (I slept soundly in my tent.)

                                                                                        Photo by Scott Mattoon

 We saw an eagle, a marmot, various tiny frogs, a dragonfly caught in a spider web (which we set free), and we heard coyotes and an owl. 

    But there is no way to give voice to the beauty of that landscape. I will return.

Me and Sarah on the last day. Photo by Scott Mattoon

PCT Thru-hiker

        When I returned to my car at the top of Cook and Green Pass after a 12-mile hike partially on the Pacific Crest Trail the other day, a young PCT thru-hiker (Mexico to Canada) was sitting at the campsite there. He told me he had injured his leg and needed a ride to town, where he would "hang out for a few days and let the leg heal." I suggested he spend the night at my house, and I would take him to Ashland the next day, where he could find a motel to stay in.

    So after an hour's ride Nibbler (his trail name, because he was always nibbling on a block of cheese) found himself standing at the door of a lovely house in the Siskiyou Mountains.

   Taking off my shoes just inside the door, I asked him to do the same. 

    He took off his shoes, then said, "My socks are dirty, too."

   I turned to look. They were streaked black with dirt. I suggested he leave them outside.

    He took off his socks. He said, "My feet are pretty dirty."

    I turned to look. Indeed they were! I started to tell him to leave them outside, too, but told him instead to walk around the house to the bathroom door on the deck. There I gave him a towel and offered him a shower.

    What a change after no telling how many weeks or months on the trail! A shower. A good big helping of a tuna-melt casserole, which he wolfed down so fast I gave him the rest of it, too. A real bed, with clean sheets. Total luxury.

    For his part, he was a charming guest. He cleaned the kitchen after dinner, made his own bed, and entertained me with stories about the trail. 

    I learned, for instance, that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail these days is as much a social as a wilderness experience. Because you are basically hiking the same route in the same time frame as the people you start with, they become your trail family.

    I have long been curious how PCT hikers keep their pack weight low. Did they, for instance, carry tents?

   Some did, Nibbler said. Some use tarps, some just bivy sacks. Some people don't carry rain gear. Some cut the belts off their backpacks to lighten the load. He himself had cut the strap off his headlamp and velcroed the lamp to his hat. Some people, he said, considered headlamps extraneous, but he sometimes walked after dark to escape the heat and thought a headlamp a necessity.

    I asked about bear canisters. He said people carry them where they are required, as in the high Sierra, and then get rid of them. When I asked how campers keep bears out of their food, he said most people sleep with their food in the tent.

    I was aghast. A bear that smells food wouldn't hesitate a minute to rip into a tent. Weren't the hikers taking a huge risk? 

    Well, he said, there are so many people at the campsites that the bears don't come around.

    That many people?

    Everyone has their luxury item, he said. I pointed to my Kindle—that was mine, I said. (I didn't mention the camp dress.) He said his was an extra pair of socks.

    The next morning, on my way to a hike on Mt. Ashland, I left him, refreshed and well fed, in front of the Columbus Hotel in Ashland. He would stay there a few days, then rejoin his trail family farther up the trail when his leg felt better.

    A few days later, on another hike, I saw a thru-hiker with a big pack. "Smart girl," I thought.

    

The Birthday Hike That Wasn't

    Sometimes the good and the bad happen in rapid succession.

    The intended good: A 12-mile hike in the Red Buttes Wilderness with my son, Ela, for my birthday last week. 

    The first bad: A flash from the "overheating" light when we're six miles up a winding, uphill, gravel road headed for the trailhead. Steam billowing from the hood.

    The good: A lovely little waterfall at the side of the road from which I fill the water bottle. Ela pours water into the radiator. And again. And again.

    The bad: A leak in the radiator. We are going nowhere.

    The bad: No cell service.

    The good or the bad, depending: A 12-mile hike before us, after all, just not where we intended.

    The good: Cell signal after three miles. Ela texts a friend for rescue.

    The bad: No response.

    The good: After another mile: a car coming up the road. William! He takes us to his house, where I call AAA.

    The bad: On hold interminably.

    The good: AAA response.

    The bad: My AAA membership is in Oregon, but the car is just over the border in California. AAA won't cross borders. More long holds to talk to AAA California. 

    The good: AAA response. They will send a tow truck from Yreka, California. I explain that it would be closer to send one from Grants Pass, Oregon.

    The bad: Rules are Rules.

    The bad: More long holds while they try to find a tow truck driver.

    The good: Response from a tow truck driver. We send the GPS coordinates for the location of the car. He would meet us at the car at 2:00.

    The good: A car to drive while mine is in the shop—William's parents'. They are vacationing in Alaska and won't mind, he assures me. 

    The bad: Ela and I wait another hour at my car for the tow truck. He watches the road. I write a poem. The two truck arrives with a very unhappy driver. The road had been terrible. His big flatbed trailer had buckled and fishtailed over every pothole. 

    The bad: I'm not happy, either, with my crippled car.

    The good: The tow truck diver hauls my car to my mechanic in Grants Pass. Ela and I go home in the Prius.

    The bad: Modern radiators are plastic, throw-away parts. 

    The good: Lighter cars have better gas mileage.

    Conclusions of the bad: A long, tedious day. I had missed my birthday hike.

    Conclusions of the good: Good friends to help. A car to drive while mine is being fixed. AAA assistance at no cost. Best of all, the competent and cheerful companionship of my son on a frustrating day.

    Conclusions of the day: Not so bad, after all.

The 800th Mile

    My goal for my 80th birthday, on July 20, 2024, was to have hiked 800 miles during the year. 

    By June 18 I had hiked 796.2 miles. Then I stopped so I could share the 800th mile with my sister Sharon in the Swiss Alps.

    On June 25 we got off the gondola at Schreckfeld and started on the trail towards Scheidegg. Wildflowers colored the hillsides.

The snow-encrusted  peaks of the Wederhorn, Jungfrau, and Eiger rose above the trail. I kept an eye on my mileage. Suddenly I stopped. 

    "The 800th mile!" I cried. Sharon congratulated me and took pictures.

That night she raised a toast to me at our hotel.

    By July 10, I had hiked 856.3 miles on 90 different trails. I invited everyone who had hiked any of those miles with me to join me for brunch at the Jacksonville Inn on Sunday, July 21.

    On July 15 my son, Ela, came down from Washington to hike with me and help me prepare for the party. We created a chart of my hikes, one axis showing the chronology, the other the distance, each entry naming the trail and the people with me. I added notes: "Downed trees!" "Swim!" "Skied this trail." 
    We mounted photos from the hikes and pinned them to the wall of the patio at the restaurant.

We displayed a large poster Sharon had sent me of my victorious moment at the 800th mile (see below). It was a wonderful party.

    Here are the stats from the year.

        Total number of hikes: 145

        Total miles: 868.3

        55 hiking partners

        70 solo hikes

        Person who hiked the most miles with me: Cheryl Bruner (306 miles)

        Person who traveled the longest distance to be at the party: Traci Esslinger, from LA

        90 different trails (40 in the Applegate, 10 in the Rogue Valley, others elsewhere in Oregon and in Switzerland)

        Swims in 16 different lakes, rivers, and creeks

        Longest hike: 80 miles in 10 days (Lower Rogue River trail)

        Steepest hike: Bort to Waldspitz, Swiss Alps, 1643 feet in one mile

        Longest descent: Männelichen to Grindelwald, 4295-foot descent in 9 miles

        Highest elevation: Ice Lake, in the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon, 7980 feet.

        Biggest disappointment: Car trouble that waylaid my birthday hike

        Most fun: The whole darn year.

Highlights from Grindelwald

     The Swiss Alpine town of Grindelwald is, as it has been for two centuries, a tourist destination, crowded these days with Asian, Muslim, European, and American bicyclists, hikers, zipline riders, paragliders, and other sports enthusiasts and thrill-seekers, including many families with small children and teenagers. They zoom down the mountain in three-wheeled carts, fly across canyons on zip lines, and throng the easier trails under the famous Eiger, Jungfrau, and Monk mountains. In winter, mountain climbers and skiers flock to Grindelwald, too.

    I was there last week, along with my sister Sharon, for the hiking. It did not disappoint, on any level.

(1) Every trail offered astonishing expanses of wildflowers—

yellow globe flowers; deep purple, yellow-eyed spurred violets; lavender-hued, heath-spotted orchids; Carthusian pinks; the Alpine rose; azaleas; and then, just as I thought I had seen the epitome of Alpine beauty, astonishing clumps of deep purple, neon-glowing gentians. 

(2) Every trail was stunning—winding, climbing, and flowing under and among mountains spotted and streaked with the late snow. I hiked up to Bäregg, eye to eye with Grindelwald Glacier. (Until the 1980s, you only had to walk to the edge of the town to meet the glacier).

The hostel at Bäregg

On the way down just past a split in the trail, I saw fresh blood on the rocks, a good cautionary tale for a solo hiker: danger is only one false step away.

    I took a gondola up to Männelichen, meaning to hike up to and along the Eiger trails, but these high-altitude trails were closed because of snow and snow-melt flooding. so there was nothing to do but hike down—and down and down and down, for nine miles. Total exhaustion.

    I rode a different gondola to First (at 7165 feet) to hike from there to Waldspritz on what turned out to be a long, high trail over snowmelt streams and across tundra-like, fog-wrapped landscapes so lonely I was glad to keep in view the only other two hikers on the trail. 

    Another day I climbed from Bort to Waldspritz, with an elevation gain of 1643 feet  in less than a mile on tight zig-zag switchbacks. I kept passing people coming down, not another soul going up. (I mean, who would?) Finally, finally one of the hikers passing me said what I had been longing to hear: "You're almost there." 

    In short, the hiking was everything I had wanted—rugged trails, breathtaking scenery (and trails!), all in Alpine splendor. I was in my element.

(3) Actually, I was really in my element at Bachalpsee, a pretty lake at 7432 feet under snowy Alpine peaks, at the end of an easy two-mile trail. Snow clung to the lake's edges; two long, thin, mushy-ice lines on the surface of the lake stretched from the shore towards its center. When Sharon and I got there, we watched a young man in shorts (or undershorts) walk into the lake, quickly dip in, and rush gleefully back to his companion on shore. A few minutes later two young women arrived. One stripped to her underwear, walked into the lake, dipped in, screamed with the cold, came back grinning. 

    Yes! I stripped to my underwear, walked into the water,

Just before submersion and swimming

submerged, and swam, stroke after stroke, towards the center of the lake. In the video Sharon took, I swim until I disappear; then I reappear, swimming back towards shore. It wasn't a long swim, but it was a great one. Total exhilaration.

(4) Fondu. Of course. After all, we were in Swirzerland.

Sharon enjoying fondu

Me enjoying fondu