A huge,
light tan, rectangular figure glided noiselessly through the moonlit
distance. Opposite, across the lake, the mountain glowed with the
color of bone, intricately woven with deeply filigreed shadows in the
lunar light. In the next days, we would be stung by bees and gouged
by an endless procession of protruding manzanita branches. A
startled rattlesnake would slither to the side of the trail and
warily coil nearby. A mountain lion would slouch ephemerally up the
mountainside.
We were
descending through the Mokelumne River canyon, in one of the remotest
areas of the central Sierra. Decades ago the powers-that-be stopped
maintaining the trails here, making it necessary for us to find our
own route through the forest and over granite outcrops, with
occasional help from animal trails and “ducks” left by previous
travelers. There were abundant treasures to be found: a refreshing,
multiple-pool swimming hole carved in the granite; a stunning view
upstream to a geometrically proportioned, stairstep cataract in a
hanging canyon as we descended into the Enchanted Forest.
For two
days we encountered only three other hikers. What a rare and unusual
privilege it was to be in this isolated grandeur!
This was
a physically demanding – even exhausting – three days, but
magnificently rewarding, and every step for such a worthwhile cause.
I am
left with a final, lingering image. At the end of our thirty-mile
Segment 3, as most of us gratefully and wearily climbed into our cars
to drive down the mountain to a hot lumberjack lunch, our leader
Annette continued on in the rain, moving forward to Segment 4 and a
journey of another fifteen days, 120 miles to go.
