Mountains and People

Late Spring / Summer

2010-07-20T10:10:00.001-07:00

It took a long time for summer to arrive. But good things come to those who wait, and it's definitely good now that it's here. A garden of vegetables is flourishing in the yard, even here at 8,000 feet. The mornings are warm enough to enjoy coffee and breakfast outside. Windows are left open all night.

Plenty of things have happened since April. All of them good I'd say. A few more prints have sold, been playing lots of music, performing a few times a month, with a variety of bands...from Old Coyote Moon to the Ragged Spurs, to just me and sharon, otherwise calling ourselves The Littlest Birds....there's talk of a fall tour even, with sharon, around the west...i'll keep you posted.

Old Coyote Moon will be playing at Millpond Music Festival outside of Bishop, CA, Sept 17-19. We're on at 11 am, Sunday the 19th. so BE THERE OR BE SQUARE.

There was a trip to Pt. Reyes a while back that finished up in kirkwood with a recording and hang out session with friends, which we now call The Ragged Spurs. An old time group without bass or guitar. There was a 12 day ski tour into the middle of the High Sierra with a few friends....we got great snow and skied some awesome stuff....hopefully an article will come out of that trip and those pictures...There was a quick trip to Ojai for my brother's performance at the festival and an afternoon of wine tasting at their wine festival. There's been the usual landscaping work outside in the hot 'n dry high altitude sunshine....and there's been lots of dreaming.
Got some good one's cookin' for the coming years I think.

Basically life is as good as it gets these days. My toes are about to be in the sun, the coffee is not yet done, and another day is unfolding. unraveling perhaps. Where will it lead? so many good things, different things, all coming together....i'm about to make another payment on a beautiful piece of land in baja mexico...working towards that dream still....gardening and dreaming about farming and playing music, and who knows where that will go...just throw the instruments in the car babe and lets hit the road....see where we end up...

it's all very exciting. Check out the photography section for new prints now available, and I hope to continue to keep adding them as well as take on a website remodel, and add additional products for purchase....it's all a matter of time.
And fortunately, time is something I've got.

that's it for now....

Desert Life

2010-04-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Well, the skiing has been great this spring, but I personally always have to give it up for a bit to slip away to the desert before things heat up too much. Spring is a great time (tho the winds can blow), with flowers and greenery in abundance. Here are some images from last week's six day adventure through northern Death Valley National Park....

I was traveling with my friend Sharon, who's never seen these particular parts of the desert before, never rambled in the shadows of the Inyo Mountains, or the washes of the Saline Range, and so it was extra special to be sharing a place that I hold so dear with someone seeing it for the first time....

Something about the open road, warmth, and empty spaces of the desert just draw me in, hold me down, and peel back the layers of bullshit piled on by even the most blissed "regular life" ... the moment gains its proper priority ...

history of people and mountains, lost times and forgotten "ways", trails fading into steep ridges and another day passing by into long shadows...

home time

2010-04-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

a variety of good things lately: good music and performances, selling photos, big backcountry travels on skis, powder, great spring corn, even a taste of bouldering....classic home life, absolutely classic...
so here's a few random shots to celebrate such good times (it makes ya feel guilty livin' 'em they're so good)...

"music" often means good food cooked at home, beers and wine, hours of playing...

which is usually followed every few days by some sort of adventure like this: 4000 feet of perfect corn! (see video too)...

...a fine evening rolled out in the sagebrush and budding flowers of the Owens Valley writing a new song on the banjo...

Good Skiing

2010-03-17T13:14:00.001-07:00

It's been a great, and exhausting few days climbing big mountains and finding fun snow.
Here's some images from the good times.

da Pow!

2010-03-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Well....
i'm back home and wouldn't ya know it, the skiing's GOOD.
REALLY GOOD.

Lots of snow on everything. The White Mountains look amazing. The Glass Mountains are covered, the Sierra is solid down to the highway around mammoth, and down lower than usual the rest of the way south...EVERYTHING's IN.

So here's a video clip of a friend enjoying the delights of just another day in the Eastern Sierra.

Other than good skiing, let's see...Joe Craven, of Garcia Grisman and the David Grisman Quintet not to mention numerous solo and joint projects with others, was in town and gave a "playshop" down in Bishop at the Inyo Arts Council which was really great and lots of fun. My band Old Coyote Moon is playing this Thursday the 18th at the Auld Dubliner in Mammoth, the local coffee shop is hosting an open mic on wednesdays that's active and interesting, and hosted Wild Mountain Thyme, a local acoustic irish band, today/tnite with a great dinner offered for 9.95 as well....Luv This Town Right Now...um, what else?
I don't know. McGee Mountain is on tap for tomorrow, might be good snow, might not be, but it'll certainly be yet another fine day in The Promised Land.
Cheers!

back home, been awhile

2010-03-11T01:46:00.001-08:00

so how to explain the last month?

some sort of dreamlike distraction that evoled into reality?

or some sort of reality that evolved into dreamlike fantasy?

one can never really know the answer to such things.
but i do know i have an entire new album of recorded music out of the deal,
i have weeks of steady surf and a few good live shows to gather from,
i have an effortless blissful feeling of joyful freedom.
NO COMPLAINTS BOUT NOTHIN'
Man if that's trouble
gimee double
cause it's GOOD.

something about the ocean, not sure exactly WHAT but it just pulls you in, won't let you go, wrestles you for fun and fires you off down the line on a train to PURE BLISS

xxoo

Oh santa cruz
waves and town and coast and farm
redwoods amidst a host of everything else

yes
you are good too.

Some from the Archives...

2010-02-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

a while back I began diggin' thru the archives...

boxes upon boxes, slides and negatives,

dust and scratches

the years pile up just the same

so i must return and take another look

relive, rejoice, recreate

LIFE

below is the ol' backyard for a few years...
Middle Fork San Joaquin River, California

...and this is the panorama...

|||THE FULL VIEW|||

AHhhhh, Mr. Ol' Calfee....John Lefty....out in the country

where he's happiest.

Drizzly Grey Day Lazy Magic

2010-02-18T20:33:00.000-08:00


What can I say?
What words can possibly describe?


Grey and cold
Tired and feeling sort of sick
I walked and drove thru the drizzling rain
and fog
and looked upon things of this nature.


I woke up to this
Greeted the day with coffee and thought
in the woods above Santa Cruz
my friend's place


Take a step outside
and Look Back
nice

the 
perfect
pick

room for rent


Northern Harrier and the seaside flower fields

a lurking slab amidst the long coast


and a bit later
out with the beer
and a new song
appears.


and the forest dances through the grey morning cloud

Big Valentine's Swell

2010-02-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

I'm still on the coast, and if the waves stay the way they are, I'll have no reason to leave...it's just too good...

Played a fun show at Asana Teas and Cafe in Santa Cruz, Thanks to All who came and stayed thru my Crazy Experiment of a show....then we jammed nearly all night with friends, and managed to wake up by about 1pm, Sunday to get some food and coffee in the belly by 2pm, and hop into the surf near 3pm for an EPIC 3 hours of sandbar perfection...no photos from this session, but the others hint at what's goin' down right now in santa cruz...sweet sweet sweetness.

ahhhh freedom how I love you. Freedom is my Valentine this year.

Along the Pacific...

2010-02-08T22:51:00.000-08:00

For the next little while I'll be kickin' it along the pacific coast of California...drivin' around for surf, music, and to meet up with old friends. The David Rawlings Machine (which involves Gillian Welch and members of Old Crow Medicine Show) is playing at The Fillmore in San Francisco on Tuesday (2/9) and I just grabbed a ticket for that to gain some inspiration and simply groove and listen to the sounds of my favorite acoustic guitar player...

Meanwhile I hope to gather inspiration from the moist climate, green trees and hills, roaring pacific, and clean waves and carry that on into my own shows....
(Friday-2/12 in Oakland at the Nomad Cafe (6500 Shattuck Avenue, CA 94609) from 7:30-8:30pm, and Saturday-2/13 at Asana Teas and Cafe in Santa Cruz (103 Lincoln St., CA) starting at 8pm and going till 10:30 or so...with perhaps a few friends joining in at the santa cruz show...

I'm polishing a host of new songs, including a few new cello songs and am excited to debut the new material.

Meanwhile, right now, the wind sings in the trees, and a light rain patters out of the dark night, good swells roll in off the ocean, wrapping even into the insides of deep bays to peel along sand bars, and the walls of a friend's old cottage seem to resonate with a warmth and humanity that I really only feel along the coast. It is a fine place, this California Pacific....and I think I'll lay my head down and rest upon it awhile...

a poem of thought

2010-02-05T23:53:00.000-08:00


late at night
a restless surge of idea-less
notion
a desire to create
but from what
into what
can I make
with nothing but a silent room
a sleepy head
tired eyes.

but there it lies
inspiration
naked and alluring
calling and singing
"You've Got It"
RUN RUN
while you can!

(perhaps I'll make it before thought gets in the way?)

nope...too late.

Sugar Skiing in the Pinon-Juniper & Mountain Mahogany

2010-02-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhhhhhh the sweet taste of sugar still lingers in my mouth....

Miles and miles of pavement gave way to the steel shimmer of Mono Lake on Tuesday afternoon, and before the sun could finish it's descent, I'd parked the car and found one of my own, arcing turns in the opens spaces between pinon pines and mountain mahogany above the shores of one of America's oldest lakes. It felt better than a breath of fresh air, it felt like a completely new stash of blood running through my body.

Home Sweet Home YES!!!! The sparkle and hiss of dried out desert facets days after the last snow, effortlessly skied in a nearly 30 year old pair of lace-up leather boots riding brand new mid-fat Karhu 10th Mtn. waxless touring skis. No one around, no other tracks, just sunset fading pink over the lake, and a beautiful ski line under my feet.

I got home to find my band Old Coyote Moon getting ready to practice...drum kit, amps, beers and friends in the livingroom with nothing to do the next couple of days but play music and ski.

Dry-side desert skiing, with nothing but the finest sugar. Some whoompfing kept us off the bigger stuff, and focused our sights on mining the small stashes...

With yet another storm already raging outside, I can't wait for the next round of clear sunny dry weather along the Eastern Front.

Folk'n Cello Home Recording Session

2010-02-04T23:17:00.000-08:00

Since December 21st I've been eddied out in Kirkwood Meadows, California, skiing, writing, playing music, and hanging out with my folks that are visiting from China. They are only in the States about 6 weeks out of the year these days, so time together is important...all this time of course has led to an incredible itch in my fingertips...not because I haven't been playing but because I hadn't taken advantage of the great acoustics to make some recordings...well, one afternoon I suddenly found myself alone in the house, with about two or three hours to spare. I set up my mics (nothing fancy, just an MXL4000 and companion MXL603s), and mixer and ran the line into my computer. Turned on the iSight camera on the laptop and started filming. What you have here are the two best clips in my opinion.

SHADY GROVE:::

CALIFORNIA (orig.):::

Late Afternoon, Carson Pass

2010-01-31T19:21:00.000-08:00

Some sun, cold mid-winter temps, windbuff and silky windboard conditions. Soak up some sun, the next heavy storm cycle is already bearing down on California...

Couldn't help but take this panorama...the northern Sierra is lookin' mighty fine these days..

The Trespassers @ The Divided Sky, South Lake Tahoe

2010-01-30T17:51:00.001-08:00

Good friends of mine, The Trespassers are a bluegrass/oldtime/gypsy jazz/western outfit from the westside of the Sierra Nevada. I've pretty much known them since their first gigs, playing late night around a fire at Tuff Rock Festival in Bishop, and the July4th Hog Roast at Rock Creek Lodge several years ago. They recently finished their second album of original music titled Western Front which is available for sale online at their website. They just rocked one of their favorite venues, The Divided Sky in South Lake Tahoe, the last couple nights, and these images are from Friday night.

A Day at Kirkwood

2010-01-27T22:16:00.001-08:00

So I got back up to Kirkwood after a weekend of music in Mammoth, and picked up an email from long lost friend Holly Taylor - "Keen to do some skiing this week – honestly, it was such a spontaneous trip...haven’t planned anything at all yet, but would love to catch up with you and maybe Todd if you guys are around?"
For those of you who have purchased or seen my first ski film A Story of Mountains and People you may remember her as Holly Pearson from the segment on the 35 day ski tour three of us embarked on during the Spring of 2001. So, as luck would have it, I'm in Kirkwood, and she arrived in time for the first bluebird powder day in awhile. After an evening of catching up and a day of skiing powder, I have to say that though marriage might've changed her last name, and New Zealand might've changed her accent, nothing has changed about her wonderful spirit. It was great to reconnect with a friend that shared in one of the great ski experiences of my life, and to even begin tentative plans for another tour...a Duct-Tape Fringe Reunion Tour 2011...here we come!

another house jam...at 90 Shadow...Old Mammoth...

2010-01-25T20:37:00.001-08:00

since one night's never enough, we booked two nights at the bar...

but two nights wasn't enough either...
so here we are on the third night...

Celebrating a friends birthday with a gathering of some fine musicians.
In attendance were Andy Roberts, Meghan Herring, and Ella Naiman of the String Slingers, as well as Yoseff Tucker of the Dalton Mountain Gang, Nina Weisman of Independence CA, Scott Roberts, myself and Jeff Meadway of the Sweetwater String Band, a classically trained fiddler named Amy, and another old time fiddler named Kathy Hillimire of Fretless in Santa Cruz...also Eiger Mike Williams of a variety of nameless or name-changing local bands made cameo appearences on the bucket bass and banjo...

lots of strings, lots of songs, too much in Bb - goddamn Capos! - and lots of beer and good times...drove back up the street to my house at 4:20 in the morning...

(it's still snowing in the mountains of california, this week promises to be another good one for skiing...)

Music Makin' in the Mountains of California...

2010-01-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

Since the days are so short in the winter time, it's the perfect season for playin' music...long nights allow ample time for inspiration, dancing and drinking...the past couple of nights some friends The String Slingers have been in Mammoth splitting shows with us, Old Coyote Moon, at the Auld Dubliner, where our friend Chris is the manager...two nights in public havin' a blast is leading us toward tonight, in private, at home with everyone, playing real backporch acoustic music...(perhaps they'll be some more photos tomorrow...)

Bruce Medhurst, who has been playing didgeridoo with us for awhile, brought out the guitar this night, playing a Beck song Golden Age, and two original songs of mine, opening up more sweet sounds of the cello.

If you look into the backroom on this one, you see Scott jammin' with Yoseff Tucker, classic bluegrass, can't get enough - you've got to jam in the back while your friends are playin'...

January—February—March—2005

2010-01-22T17:37:00.000-08:00

...in honor of the fine cycle which is currently burying the Sierra Nevada...I give you three months from the Red's Meadow lifestyle of 2005...ski ski ski

new camera - Canon G10 - playin'

2010-01-19T12:20:00.001-08:00

A storm is ripping across the mountains of California right now...somehow the UPS guy made it to the house, tromping through boot deep snow to the door with a single package. Inside was my very own Canon Power Shot G10. Let the Fun Begin....

The Eastside - Some Images of Home

2010-01-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

Home - spans a massive geological arena -
from a cold, forested cabin along the edge of a tremendous caldera, down along the deepest valley in North America which lies sandwiched between two 14,000 foot tall mountain ranges. It is a mostly desperate "land of little rain", but lush with wildness. Archeology, ancient trees, hidden springs, endless vistas, deep snows falling upon tall slopes, the finest, densest collection of rock for climbing perhaps in the world, with just one long highway connecting isolated small towns scattered amongst it all. The people here tend to be hermits, reveling in the isolation. Culture is a sporadic and chaotic occurence that is difficult to cultivate with any consistency. We are mostly here to be alone.

This is but a tiny sampling culled quickly from what I have stored on my computer. Click on any image to see a larger version. Use your back button to return to this page. Enjoy!

sweet clarity, 8-13-2009, a poem

2010-01-03T13:40:00.000-08:00


it is the wind, so wonderfully given voice
by the trees, the cliffs, and the canyons,
that speaks across my body.

I sleep with my head on a rock
and my back in the dirt
warm and smooth and gentler than last night’s bed.

I feel the peaceful, calming hand of emptiness,
the joyous, easy embrace of freedom,
and the open, plain awareness of solitude.

it’s been awhile,
sweet clarity,
glad to run into you again.

anger, frustration, restlessness, 8-13-2007, a poem

2010-01-03T13:22:00.000-08:00


anger
frustration
restlessness

the growing desire to break a window
                   if only to hear the shattering

this Franken-machine
how beautiful
how glorious our creation:

concrete lives of glass and steel
wirelessly tangled in a web
of vehicles and interaction
so consumed in our struggle for money
as not to notice, and/or not to care
about the spider quietly approaching.

restlessness
frustration
anger

shattering the notion that breaking a window accomplishes
anything
but still wanting to listen
to glass breaking.

to feel muscular tension relieved
bungee cords strung around and around and around
my body

left hanging—

I cannot scream.

in the canyon, 11-02-2001, a poem

2010-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

walking up the canyon
along the creek
over rocks, grasses,
stinging nettles.

thoughts beginning to turn inward
outward, fully encompassing
questioning, discussing,
finding answers as my
feet find their next step.

can this surge of energy
this ball of fire be my heart
telling me what to do?
does my mind have any
place in this conversation?

birds sing, rocks fall,
no breeze is blowing,
no air is moving,
just calm, soft, and chilly
in this deep remote canyon.

carving cliffs through my thoughts
leaving alcoves where some collect
for another time, but bringing the bulk
of them downstream into the
pulse, beat, blood of my body.

* * * * *

waves of frothy white pour
over Big Horn falls, and maybe
in the distance is the faint knock
of big horn rams in rut.

leaving snags of dead life behind
isn't good for the senses,
tying into old growth roots,
branches, arms of thought,
wisdom isn't to be bought by a long life
spent leaving things behind in the name of
success.

and I wonder if we can't just
all say fuck it to the clock,
shut it off and throw it away,
leaving that wrist band for some
other slave to wear.

Sweetwater String Band

2010-01-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

Beginning in late November 2008, four friends got together around the Jerry Garcia songbook and began running through songs. The idea was at first casual, something fun to do, with a bluegrass influence, to entertain folks one night a week at the local bar. But as with anything, over time, our focus became more serious, and next thing we knew, we were trying to live up to something we'd never actually attained. We were striving to provide a quality performance of original and traditional bluegrass music at a level that still remains out of reach, though we have gotten closer and closer with practice and performance. Now, more than anything, our energy is tempered with experience, our ability tempered and improved with practice, and our drive has slowed down to accept the reality that this music will consume the rest of our lives. Here are a couple of clips that were captured during our first year of existence as the Sweetwater String Band....

The Fretless Path

2010-01-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

I was introduced to making music at an early age. I couldn't have been older than five when my dad started me on the piano, and somehow I managed an award two years later in an entry level category at the SMYF competition in Southern California near my home right before I gave up the piano at seven years old "because I don't like it" and my dad offered me a cello. Initially I remember being more happy with the cello than I had been with the piano, perhaps because both my brother and father played the piano (my father being a piano teacher actually). But not long into it I began disliking and protesting the amount of practicing I was supposed to do. I just wanted to be a normal kid and go collect baseball cards and stuff like that.

But once I could "perform", I always enjoyed it immensely. I hated the practicing it took to get to that performance, but I loved the singular, brief moment of sitting down and becoming emotionally involved in a piece of music from start to finish. Often this was how I "practiced". I would just pretend to be performing the piece and play it as well as I could, doing it again and again. I would imagine an audience but really I just disappeared into the moment. This worked relatively well and natural talent took care of the rest considering I got away without practicing all that much. I read books, drew pictures and day dreamed instead, and once I was in high school and attending Crossroads, a private school in Santa Monica away from home, I practiced even less. Throughout my struggles with the motivation to practice and learn difficult classical music, my love of the moment of performance carried me through.

I believe the underlying root of my struggle to practice was that I'd never personally decided that I wanted to be a cellist. I had been told I was good, a "child prodigy" and very talented. I had been pushed into it and just sort of followed along because it was what my brother was doing too. The difference came when my brother decided on his own that he wanted to be a pianist and that changed the nature of his passion. Now he was practicing for himself, while I continued to play only because I was supposed to.

By my 11th grade year I'd pretty much decided that I should be able to make my own decisions regarding the direction of my life. I'd do my pretend-a-performance practicing routine but the magic had aged and was fading. I thought more and more about being a writer, moving to the mountains and being a ski bum. I guess they never should've let me read Thoreau or Kerouac, or Muir, that was their first mistake. Or really, their first mistake was teaching me to ski when I was three. And for that my dad has no one to blame but himself. Thanks Dad.

So I quit cello that year. Much to everyone's dismay, angering my parents tremendously, alienating me from my musician friends in the school orchestra, but allowing me the freedom to take my first job outside of music, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Eastern California. Working at a backcountry lodge that summer would be the beginning of nearly eight years of wild living where I hardly touched my cello, only sort of ceremoniously bringing it out of the closet to dust off the fingerboard with my stiff and sloppy performances once or twice a year. One thing I slowly began to notice as time went on was that when I did bring it out, I felt a personal urge to practice and get the old pieces back up to par again before putting it away. Sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't but often I caught myself sitting down to my cello for the first time in any given year and playing for hours without even noticing the time passing.

After years of pursuing nothing more than skiing, climbing, and backpacking, I got involved in a relationship with a girl who played guitar. She was also a snowboarder and surfer and we lived together in a cabin on the backside of Mammoth Mountain for a couple of winters. So not only did I learn to surf, but my fingers began gracing a fretboard for the first time. Initially I just sort of banged away at it with no real desire to undertake the learning process. I knew that it would be easier for me than for most because of my cello training but I was hesitant. I'd rejected music so powerfully for a life in the mountains that I think I was scared to open myself up to the effort of it again. It wasn't until our first (of three) break-ups that I went at the guitar with any sort of passion. I'd learned a few chords, and now all of a sudden I wanted to learn all the chords and start writing songs. With a sort of manic energy it immediately took over my life.

My first guitar was a "backpacker guitar" because I wanted a guitar that I could take with me anywhere and everywhere, and I began writing my own songs since I wasn't capable enough to learn anyone else's. Some of the earliest songs have been happily forgotten, but some I still play with as much passion today as the day I first wrote them. They capture a feeling or an image or a time that I'll never need to capture again because I got it right the first time.

As I played the guitar more and more, I wondered about the cello. I had never been able to "jam" despite my high level of playing ability, and now I could "jam" on the guitar and sing songs which was all I wanted to do. I'd found that my personal love of performance, my interest in writing, a desire to entertain friends around a campfire and a desire to speak out on social and political issues made the guitar my ideal instrument. I seriously wanted to sell my cello so that I could invest in better guitar equipment.
This feeling persisted until about two years ago when I first sat down and attempted to jam with some bluegrass musicians that are friends of mine. What happened with the bluegrass startled me. The guitar had opened me up to a different way of approaching music—to just playing by ear, not worrying about the sharps or flats, and not caring so much about mistakes. And now I was suddenly set free of the fretboard and relishing the freedom of a fretless fingerboard. Not only that but I loved how well I knew my cello compared to my guitar. It was like picking it up for the very first time and yet already knowing how to play it completely. Sure my intonation was a little off and my technique was slow, but I was hooked again. And this time it was for me. I felt the desire to become a serious musician, I'd already been feeling it with my guitar playing and songwriting, and now I had this whole other instrument that could allow me to do even more.

These days I can't even call it "practicing" because I play either my guitar or cello or banjo so much, either with friends or by myself that it's just a part of life, it's not practicing. I take breaks only when my fingers literally hurt too much to play anymore. If I added up the hours some weeks it would come close to a full time job. But I don't even notice the time passing, and I guess that's been the most powerful lesson of it all. You have to do it for yourself. No one else can ever make you a good musician, you have to want it, and love it, and feel it deep in your heart—it has to be as much a part of your life as eating and breathing.

So I continue to be a dirtbag ski bum, backpacker, desert rat, surfer and occasional climber, but now you'll also catch me performing in a couple of different bands at the local bars—taking trips up and down the fretboard of my guitar, or long glides up and down the fingerboard of my cello for free pitchers of beer and your generous gratuities. It feels sort of like a circular path coming to a close, but really it continues straight ahead—only now I make my own soundtrack.

Words and Images from Baja Winter 07/08

2009-12-29T15:26:00.001-08:00

Here I am--home again--the mountains turning green, snowfields like crowns upon the peaks, birds flashing in the light. Already I've been back a week and it's starting to feel like I never left, the same faces at the coffee shop, the same talk of jobs and rent and camping out--only the price of gas has changed.

Ahh—home sweet home never felt so strange as it has this time around. Five months away, nearly all of it spent in Baja, Mexico speaking a different language with a different people set in different space of Time. Time is a variable thing. Changes with your own motions through it. I guess I got pretty used to it, to the point that the spanish I hear on the street still sounds more familiar than the english,

still sounds more beautiful and tranquil and reminds me of my other home, so far away now, in the desert agave blooms, family histories running like so many tributaries into one great river--"buenas tardes" I say to the clerk here in RiteAid and I see the same smile, the same warmth that I'm used to amongst the people of Baja--this world is made up of one people, really it is, we are all the same. I know that now more than ever. It seems that the first level of blindness we are taught is that a different language or culture implies a different people, a different soul--but we all share the same soul, we all share the same feelings of love, hate, respect and family, sorrow, hunger, pain and joy.

Nostalgic for a chance meeting, a conversation, a family history, a view of the pacific, vast, unending, and full of power--the simplicity--"muy tranquilo" all the time—--nd of course the feel of a giant quart sized Pacifico "Ballena" cerveza in my hand while rolling down a dirt road headed for the ocean and a new place to surf. And the surf. What clear water, empty points, wrapping for minutes, and another just over the horizon and around the next bend. Found lots of magic spots, definitely the sort of places you do not talk about too openly, as well as other spots that perhaps you could talk about because most people aren't interested in 3 minute long, slow longboard waves...

Baja, you hold my Time.

My spirit is all hung up in your foggy mornings, your honest people, and my eyes have trickled down into an agave ready to bloom and die upon your desert—forever content.
Where can I hope to go from here?

There are stories one can tell, and there are stories impossible to tell—what can I say about the tears in Maria's eyes as we waved goodbye after 3 weeks of visits and coffee and food and trip to the mountain ranchos of her childhood—what is writable about such a connection? It is deep, like family--"como familia" as they told us in their kitchen one afternoon. It is a wordless feeling--this love--it is an unspeakable story of getting to know the people, the places, the language of this life, this Baja--

How I miss it.

Right now even surrounded by mountains and friends and memories.

Memories.

I remember our first day, as we drove out of El Rosario and into the empty desert of the central penninsula--how quickly and totally a calm enveloped me, a joy from somewhere familiar--ahhhhh I am back in Baja, I am here to stay awhile, to live almost--

How that narrow, dangerous highway calls me, despite the numerous near death encounters swerving and praying for forgiveness—sing to me sweet road, sweet blade wheel of life and death—sing, sing, sing—may I never stop feeling your song amongst these wide freeways of the American masses. May I never stop feeling your love. You hold my heart in your hand, please carry it gently.

I still smell the sage I picked on our last day, headed north, our goodbye ritual, a farewell that I drag on and disperse—leaving pieces of fresh sage at all my friends houses untl it's gone and all I have is one dry, brittle scent on my dashboard which I burn and breath and relive until it too is gone, leaving only memories of the arroyo from which it came.

We are nothing but plants and animals. Give us food and water and watch us grow. We can live simply on the air we breathe.

2008 The Summer of Music

2008-09-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

I returned from Oz....a bit changed, and without a girlfriend. But I returned, perhaps dragging my feet, perhaps feeling completely at home in Oz and not needing to return, but truly needing to get out on my own...for both of us needed SPACE. Oz was good to us but we were not good to each other and things went astray. But it's alright I guess, it seems that it was necessary. And I returned to the Eastern Sierra fresh with energy to play music and work towards saving for our land in Baja. It's still "our" land and we're still friends so the magic of Oz is still with us I guess.

What a LONG STRANGE TRIP it's been...wow...
starting almost immediately upon my return I got a backstage pass from my friends The Trespassers to be their "crew member" at Strawberry Music Festival and got to eat, drink, and watch awesome music up close and personal for free at the end of May, in the rainy pine forests of Evergreen Road...and it did rain boy, and we sloshed in the mud and played music out in it, and stayed up late jammin' and really ever since then things have been rather crazy.

A solid group of us pilgrimaged to Telluride, Colorado for the bluegrass festival at the end of June and lost our minds there...left them to be picked up in little pieces and reassembled later by some sort of haz-mat team from the future...it was glorious in all shades of glory, and kept us roaring for four days...(what wonderful things come from a tiny piece of paper sitting on your tongue, anyways....)...I'm not sure the people of Telluride will ever quite recover from the acoustic, without instruments rendition of Shady Grove that occurred on Main Street in front of the Hardware Store when a whole group of us "got inspired"....
After that it was pretty much ON...performing music with two different bands up to five nights a week, and jamming on the other nights, while working 8 hours a day five days a week landscaping, which means shovelling and hauling and lifting and grunting out in the dust and heat and brush sometimes...on other days it just meant dropping in some flowers but....QUITE a summer nonetheless...QUITE a summer....
I guess the highlights would be watching the sun rise on the July 4th weekend and rolling into it with bloody marys and music at Gull Lake along the June Lake Loop...the night at LuLu's when the Irish man and his family kept buying us rounds of beers and we played an hour later than we should've....the night at Side Door when the co-star to Kiefer Sutherland from the show "24" came in and made a fool of himself and I got it all on a recording...uhh let's see outdoors wise I did some fun climbs this summer with a friend, especially the Hair-raiser Buttress (5.9 R)....more highlights would include the old coyote moon show that we put on at the Auld Dubliner till two in the morning...the jam up at the Mono Lake Vista Point after the Blue Turtle Show on Saturday night back in September when a pile of musicians were there, basically three or four bands converging and combining to make a helluva a great jam that lasted till about four in the morning....followed the next week by our very own show at the Mobil Mart which was the best Calmer Than You Are show in history....
but this all reminds me of a few parties I've forgotten...namely the first BBQ at Marshall's house back in June or July or something, when we had roughly ten musicians, all friends, together on a porch at a 1930s cabin in the woods just jammin'...we had a couple other big jams like that...some fifty strings in a room at once...
It's been a great summer for music....we've all gotten better, gotten more inspired, taken it all more seriously and just plain progressed to being actual musicians.
There may not have been much backcountry time this summer, but the backcountry of my mind has certainly seen some time.

With summer gone, and fall in full swing, a large group of mammoth derelicts pilgrimaged to The City by the Bay for the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival...a wild weekend of music and walking and heavy heavy drinking, thousands of people filling the Golden Gate Park, having a front row position for Alison Krauss and Robert Plant only to turn around a realize thousands of people had filled in behind us making it nearly impossible to escape if one needed the bathroom...but what a show that was....definitely a highlight of the summer festival scene, Plant's still got it, and the two of them sound great together. Other great bands of the festival were Poor Man's Whiskey, The Bad Livers, Del McCoury, The Global Drum Project, and Iris DeMent's solo performance on piano.

Who knows folks. Who knows what will happen in this life. If you claim to know, you're full of shit or boredom one of the two, cause this life is magic and shifty and always on the move, lookout!----it's comin' after you!

....on our way to Oz.....

2007-12-16T18:18:00.000-08:00

Lucille, my 1984 FJ60 toyota landcruiser sits out front under a low hanging tree, tuned, packed, and rearing to go. Baja is calling. With a bull horn. We leave in two days. We'll return in April. Funny putting everything away, putting the rest of life OFF till April. Refocusing, redialing things to prepare for today. At least once a year I find myself packing things away, paying long term bills, arranging my life so that I may leave it for awhile, forget it for awhile, exist only as myself with no attachments but my backpack or my truck. As simple as my life is, things grab and tear and attempt to hold me back, attempt to delay my departure, attempt to convince me not to spend so long. It is these things that I fear, it is these things that I must balance ever so precariously. Chase one down, live it, be there, as with music, then be ready to stop, hold off, and chase down the dream of surfing and mexican fisherman culture, the dream of a sustainable home down there one day. Then when we return, I must slow my chase of that dream, even putting it off for months perhaps, while I chase down music and the mountains and the desert once again. This is the rhythm of my life I guess. It's what makes me a good fool in the Buckeye tradition.

Just yesterday a surfer in his 50s, who came by to look at our '71 VW bus that's for sale, said "keep moochin' while ya can." Following it up with saying that he has so many things to take care of and be a part of and be around for that he has a hard time leaving for very long. His message being that as life goes on, more things manage to hold you down. More responsibilities. One must be careful to maintain freedom. He didn't end up buying the bus, but we had a good time talking.

Now I sit and contemplate the present. Another big trip --- no work and all play makes dave a dull boy. Not really, but I'm no kid anymore, and so with each passing year now I feel that I must keep my eyes open, objective, and aware of my life because it is passing and I do not want to experience the sensation of "waking up" to realize that I'm 45 or something. I want to be awake the whole damn time.

And so it goes.
Here we go.
Establishing yet another new tradition: Winter in Baja. Warm winters chasing cold Pacific waves, giant cave paintings, and empty stretches of coast along the Sea of Cortez. As a friend told us once so wisely, "Once you've been to Oz, it's hard to go back to Kansas."
And that's how it feels. Everytime.
I've been to Oz so many times now, deep in the Sierra backcountry, skiing or backpacking, or living at Red's Meadow for three winters, or the five previous trips to Baja...even journeys out to Death Valley....Oz....Life in Oz is perfect. No work, good food, beautiful places, good friends.....Oz....the beer is always cold in Oz....the faces are always smiling too....

pura vida mi amigos!
adios---dave

Fall...early Winter...

2007-11-26T08:21:00.001-08:00

Eddied out for a bit in a swirl of oak leaves and dirt, helping some friends pack tires for their earthship home in the foothills of the West Slope of the Sierra Nevada. A rather blissed stretch of time that began with a four day music festival at Evergreen Lodge called Las Tortugas Dance of the Dead, with music that went practically all night. Then from there I drifted on to my friend's property and we began packing the last round of tires for the walls of his earthship. We needed 67 more when I arrived. After a week, and a good work party of ten folks or so over the weekend, there were four tires remaining.

I drove back over Tioga Pass, which remains open to this day, feeling high off the joint we rolled that morning, and the residual high of nothing but music, work, weed, alcohol, and friends for two weeks in the cooling lowland forests of falling leaves. I seemed to be floating as my car sailed through empty Tuolumne Meadows, sunshine warming only the southern aspects, skiffs of snow clinging desperately to the shadows, barely a car on the road. Also I was beginning to feel new excitement as my time in the Eastern Sierra winds down, and the upcoming 4 month winter trip to Baja gets closer. The granite domes looked like waves in my dreamy eyes, my feet turning on the pedals as if steering a board down a fast clean backlit green wall....ahh yes soon....Baja, the beach, endless pointbreak waves....warm sun...Tequila....

Now, a couple weeks have passed. I turned 28 years old drunk around a campfire at Benton Hot Springs, then drove out to Saline Valley for 9 days of the desert bohemian dirtbag existence of beer, bacon, and eggs, and steaks cooked over a wood fire. Drank 42 beers in about four days...and now I'm eddied out in Bishop, trying to dig up some work for the week to help pad the account a bit for this coming winter.

Life out of a truck. It's a sweet thing. Some say it gets old, and it does. But the hardy get old with it, and embrace the dustiness, the occasional loneliness, cramped quarters and messiness, in trade for the immense amount of freedom. I can just pick up and go. Work enough to fill the cooler with ice, beer, veggies and meat, and dump some gasoline in the guzzler and off I go to the next adventure, the next insane experience, the next total laughter.

Goddard Creek, The Enchanted Gorge, and The Muro Blanco in One Summer

2007-10-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

(The Triple Crown of backcountry canyons...)

We've been exploring the backcountry of the Sierra Nevada for years now, us Buckeyes. We call ourselves Buckeyes because we call this exploration The Buckeye Brothers Festival of Fools. Don't ask me why, lots of alcohol brought it about. Of course, this "Festival" never really ends. Sometimes it even delves into the nearby desert basin and range country, or drifts thousands of miles north or south depending on where we are any given time of year. Right now one Buckeye (Nate) is in Prince George, British Columbia, another (Ryan) is in Ocean Beach near San Diego, another (Ted) in Palo Alto near San Francisco, and a couple of us (Me and Todd) are holding down headquarters here in Bishop and Mammoth. Yet we all manage to coagulate into one group every summer for some sort of long trip into the High Sierra. For some of us these mountains gave birth to our adulthood, and for all of us this Sierra wilderness is where our friendship was born, so we feel a sort of nostalgia for this particular piece of earth. It is like Home, yet vast and wild and still unknown.

Our trips generally stick to the high alpine, traveling cross-country from lake basin to lake basin, but this year we decided it was time to break the shadows, and solve the mysteries of some of the Sierra's wildest canyons, starting with a 14 day trip that included descending Goddard Creek, and then ascending The Enchanted Gorge. Both of these canyons drain from the Ionian Basin area of the Central Sierra, west of Muir Pass, an area The Buckeyes know well from several previous journeys. On this trip we also included the White Divide region and one of the Sierra's most remote lakes: Tunemah Lake.

It all came together at the North Lake trailhead parking lot in a thunderstorm. We sat in our cars, and yelled back and forth. Todd, Nate, and Ryan had just finished a couple weeks of backpacking through the LeConte Divide, Ryan already on his way back to Ocean Beach, and Ted and I were hopping on board for the next two weeks of backpacking. Sort of like a backpacker's version of the Festival Express. We came prepared with flasks of Wild Turkey and other things Northern California is famous for.

Starting over Lamarck Col broke me and Ted down a bit, but we survived. Packs were heavy. Todd and Nate were already seasoned and moving fast. By the third day we were crossing Wanda Pass, and traversing the Ionian Basin headed for Lake 10,232 which lies between the Ionian Basin and the White Divide. It was great to see the Ionian once again—a remarkable, rugged moonscape with so many colorful, interesting rocks. But lake 10,232 really blew our minds. A beautiful slope drops you from the Ionian Basin to the lake shore, passing numerous cascades and incredible waterfalls, walking through luscious wildflower gardens. Ending up near the north end of the lake you stare into a vertical triangular cliff face that disappears into the deep water, earlier in the season there is probably an amazing little waterfall pouring off of it. The lake shore is steep on this east side and wants to pull you into the water, as Ted found out. Lake 10,232' sits at a joint between the granitic White Divide, and the metamorphic Ionian Basin. The east shore is red and black and brown, with green grasses and flowers and lots of water running, and the west shore is brilliant white-grey, with less grassy vegetation and more trees interspersed among the slabs of granite. The lake is partially embraced by a sub-alpine forest of lodgepole pines, and there was fresh bear scat near our camp.

We took a layover day here and climbed up onto the Ragged Spur, which is the metamorphic dividing ridge between Goddard Creek and The Enchanted Gorge. Walking along its crest we looked down on what little we could see of both, and stared out at one of the finest Sierra views. There was a meadow that caught our eyes over on the Black Divide, hanging above the upper part of The Enchanted Gorge. Ted thought it looked absolutely wonderful, and we all discussed how beautiful it appeared to be, sitting amongst a sea of broken rock, like this little piece of Heaven. The more we looked at it, and studied the slope leading up to it and beyond, we realized what a wonderful alternate exit out of the Enchanted Gorge it would make. Instead of slogging up loose scree to Chasm Lake, we could follow steep benches up to this piece of Heaven meadow and then follow a drainage up over a slight pass next to Charybdis Peak, taking a more direct line. Ted was amazed, "You mean to tell me we're actually going to go to that meadow?!"

On into the White Divide. We crossed an exhausting pass on the shoulder of Finger Peak and surprisingly I was the only Buckeye who wanted to add the pain of climbing the peak. The pass was that exhausting, with frustrating big talus. But the peak was a fun scramble, and it felt good to leave the damn pack behind for awhile. From the summit of Finger Peak you get a nice look into Blackcap Basin with beautiful granite slabs and domes, scattered with lakes and thick forest. Immediately west of Finger Peak is an area almost entirely consisting of granite slabs—graceful, drawn out curves of stone overlapping one another, stained and striated, rough and ground smooth, with a few tarns of vibrant blue water. There is Blue Canyon draining away from you beyond that, and all the lakes of the upper canyon seem immaculately placed at your feet. Or I could look off the summit block straight down through air at talus far below the sheer northerly face of Finger Peak, then look up at the Ragged Spur painting a swooping ridgeline horizon to the east.

We spent a couple days camped at a beautiful little garden of a lake on the southwestern edge of upper Blue Canyon basin, and about all we did was wander, read, play hacky sack, and barely make it up a short unnamed high point near camp. After that we found ourselves at Tunemah Lake, where we immediately climbed the dramatic peak off to the east, that hangs above Goddard Creek. A classic little route follows a steep ridge to the summit, and we got to check out Goddard Creek below—it didn't look bad. That evening we watched thunderheads roll towards us from out over the deserts of Nevada and Death Valley, lit up like a wall of cotton candy. In the morning we packed up and got out of there under grey clouds over a rough little pass that starts off fine leaving Tunemah Lake, but gets terrible once you drop down over the other side. First steep dirt and basketball sized deathstar rocks, and then a field of big, frighteningly loose talus. When car sized talus is moving on you it gets real interesting really fast.

But we made it on and over another easier little pass to Lake 9,797, just a mile or so downstream from Lake 10,232' where we were days ago. Such is the Buckeye Festival of Fools! Lake 9,797 sits at the upper edge of Goddard Creek, and from near its outlet you can look down the whole of Goddard Creek, as it drops some 2,700 feet in little over three miles to the junction with The Enchanted Gorge. "It looks fun actually," Nate said when he walked back into camp.

We left the next morning and entered Goddard Creek. I forgot something crucial at the lake but didn't realize it till we reached camp hours later.

Immediately you are astounded. Stunned. I guess it comes on slow, with a couple beautiful cascading waterfalls in the creek, but then the creek rushes into a red rock gorge and the land starts to really drop away from you and you get past a bend in the creek and are suddenly staring down this ripped out rugged canyon with whitewater roaring at your feet. The White Divide spilling granite on your right, the Ragged Spur all dark and torn on your left. Big boulders down the creek bed—I started to worry a bit because of my heavier pack, with my guitar and tripod hanging off it. And it was hard for me, I was the slowest by far—the polished creek boulders were sketchy, and lots of scree, and talus and side hilling and just your general off-trail rugged work in the upper part of the canyon. It stayed like this for the first half of the descent, starting on the east side of the creek, then crossing to the west side of the creek at the first level area, and then down the west side as it drops off past a beautiful waterfall, staying close to the creek down grassy ledges into a gully that points you straight toward the main gorge of Goddard Creek. Stunned again. If not perpetually. A waterfall arcs from a side creek off the west cliff of the main gorge catching the light magically way out in front of you, framed by thousands of feet of relief, and puffy, building clouds. Unbelievable. Perhaps my most cherished scene of the High Sierra yet. You hurry towards it.

The main gorge holds a few waterfalls actually. Goddard Creek itself pours over two falls, plus the side creek falls. You can hike right above the gorge, cross the side creek falls near it's drop, and continue on down. We followed the edge of the gorge downstream, though at a certain point you have to angle high to get around some brush. There's no bushwacking necessary in Goddard Creek in low water season, there's only some that's hard to avoid right above the junction with The Enchanted Gorge. After the main gorge of Goddard Creek you drop down to a flat section of Cottonwood trees where we all walked in the nearly dry river bed for a while. It is at the downstream end of this area that its best to head up onto the east side of the creek and keep a high line, and you might be able to get around the manzanita field that you'll otherwise have to shwack through to get to the drier slope that drops you to the junction with The Enchanted Gorge. It was amidst this manzanita that I thought my backpacker guitar would surely die.

At camp, under giant Incense Cedars, looking up at gushing white sweeps of granite off the White Divide, and listening to thunder roll, I pulled out my tent, set it up, looked for the rain fly and realized that I'd forgotten it at Lake 9,797.

It's funny but all the Buckeyes were traveling in their own tents on this trip—a first. And Nate had a two man tent as his tent, so I crowded in there with him, and tried to decide whether we should burn our last layover day here so that I could hike back up Goddard Creek and get my rain fly. We did, and I left early the next morning to get the rain fly, and I got to experience Goddard Creek again, without a heavy pack, and retrieve what would otherwise have become a giant piece of nylon trash at Lake 9,797. After I got back with my rain fly, I also went off and spied out a start through the beginning of The Enchanted Gorge, something to get us going on the right track in the morning.

And it did. We were able to follow what appeared to be a Bear trail, probably also used by other hikers of the Enchanted Gorge, through most of the lower Gorge which is full of oak and brush, and avoided all but a minimal amount of bushwacking. The rest of the Gorge opened up out of some Cottonwood trees and was a very enchanting hike along a beautiful creek hemmed in tightly by thousands of feet of nearly vertical rise to the Ragged Spur on our left, and the Black Divide almost as steeply on our right. Starting early, we hiked in shade most of the way. These walls close in tight to the creek bed for the whole central part of the Gorge, and we switched from side to side of the creek getting our boots soaked. Nate just walked right through the creek and I said to hell with it and followed his example, the rocks were just too slippery and there was more water here than in Goddard Creek. Todd was the only one that made it through with dry feet somehow. Just below the first of the upper lakes, we stopped to check out a big cavern of blue ice melted out deep into an old, debris covered snowfield. We walked around inside of it, listening to the drips, and watched rocks fall into it through big cracks.

It was at these first upper lakes that we made our turn upwards and eastwards towards Little Piece of Heaven Meadow. It was steep, and the sun was hot, and we'd all worn pants because we'd expected some serious bushwacking in the Enchanted Gorge. Now we were rising above it, sweating our way out of it, looking down its dramatic cleavage. We found a miner's camp along this climb out. A shovel, a hole, a camp, and some other fragments of existence. And then, by god, we levelled out at our own Little Piece of Heaven Meadow. And it was, and it was.

Here Nate decided he would have to haul ass out to his truck the next day to get to San Diego and take care of various family related business. And the rest of us just took 'er easy and made it out in a couple days. Little Piece of Heaven sticks in my mind like a postage stamp, glued on there and strangely tasty. The sun seemed to hit the grass and make it glow supernaturally, and when you walked around the meadow, rolling up onto metamorphic slabs and whalebacks, the meadow looked so wonderfully placed, absolutely right, like a pillow for The Enchanted Gorge to sleep on.

* * *

Flash forward to just a week ago, October, yellow leaves getting blasted from the trees by winter's first real storm, the mountains all socked in. Nate's up in B.C., Ryan's applying for a doctoral program in Sociology down in Ocean Beach, Ted's off substitute teaching rooms full of fourth graders in Palo Alto, and Todd and I are ready to hike into The Muro Blanco—or at least Todd's ready.

I show up in the evening to our friend's Greg and Brooke's house in Bishop where we're all getting together for dinner, bottle of wine in hand, having just quit my job with a contractor I've known for six years. The night before I performed music with some friends of mine till the wee hours of the morning. Nothing's packed, but I've been to the grocery store and I've got all my food. "You didn't need to bring a bottle of wine Dave, we're going to drink the Laetitia you gave us a year ago," Brooke said when she saw my bottle in hand. But we proceeded to discuss my boss's crazy antics, his rediculous proclamations, and everything else about why I'd called it quits, and it was agreed that another bottle of wine was a good thing. We had an amazing dinner and drank all of the wine and beer, and it wasn't till around ten that night, feelin' pretty buzzed that I started packing for the trip. Storm clouds still billowed off the Sierra out in the darkness. I was worried about the cold weather, Greg gave me some fleece gloves for the trip, I packed an extra thick wool shirt, and an extra pair of socks—sort of wandering around with an attention deficit disorder looking at everything that needed to get organized and go into my pack. Don't forget anything important you idiot, I told myself, and near midnight I finally laid down on one of the couches for the night.

This trip was for real, with only four nights of food in our packs, and five days to make it from the Taboose Pass trailhead to the Sawmill Pass trailhead, both trailheads sitting out in the open desert scrub of the Owens Valley. As we got closer to Taboose Pass the first day, we met two John Muir Trail (JMT) hikers cutting short their trip because of the snow, and up on the pass itself we walked through ankle deep snow covering everything, with drifts up to shin deep. The deer had already beaten out a trail through the snow down the canyon, and we saw several that day. Walking down off Taboose Pass towards the head of the Muro Blanco was surreal, everything white and radiant, and a low angle sun cutting shadows and rich hues. We were good and tired setting camp that first night, after ten miles and 6,000 feet of gain, getting down into the woods along the South Fork of the Kings River, and falling asleep immediately after dinner.

In good old Buckeye fashion we got a 10 a.m. "alpine start" the next morning, heading into The Muro Blanco. The sun warmed up nicely, and the flawless blue dome of sky rewarded us with a perfect day. Not long after leaving camp we emerged from the thick forest into a nice view with Arrow Peak dusted in snow all the way down it's north face to the valley floor on our left, and the peaks of the Cirque Crest filling the skyline to our right. Lodgepole pines and aspens fill the valley, broken by areas of talus coming down off the canyon sides and pouring nearly to the river bank, the river running over granite bedrock in many places. There's the old John Muir Trail appearing in places underfoot in the upper canyon, guiding you, vanishing, reappearing, leading you to a dead end. Lower down the basins of the Cirque Crest are hanging valleys dropping off into bulbous granite domes and slabs to the valley. At one point we stopped next to the river where it fans out over a perfect 100 foot water slide into a big pool, but we didn't swim—the water was in the upper 30s. At our next stop along the river, Todd walked up to a dark spot in the slab and found that it wasn't just a dark spot, but a deep beautiful hole ground out of the granite, a large trout darted down from the surface and out of sight. Must have been the right combination of current and a good stone caught in the swirl that ground out this monster tube. You could've easily disappeared into it and who knows where you would've ended up, or what you would've become—was it perhaps the fountain of youth? Todd and I joked about this. Maybe we'd just stumbled upon the divine tank of youth, the reenergizing station, the bath that left you forever young.

The heart of the Muro Blanco presents a picturesque narrows, with both sides of the canyon coming to near a hundred yards apart at a curve in the river. A beautiful area of pines mixed lightly amongst aspens and birch and meadow grass all shades of yellow and orange and green with the river cutting through. The canyon wall of the actual "Muro Blanco" , or White Wall, as indicated on the topo map is impressive—blaring light-grey granite walls with several prominent aretes leaning over you as you walk, all graced this time with a dusting of snow. Most if not all bushwacking could be avoided throughout the upper and middle parts of the canyon. The river was low enough that we walked many sections right in the river bed itself hopping from rock to rock, sunlight shimmering off mirrors and reflections of sky between our footsteps.

All day we slowly approached the side canyon of Kid Creek, which lies where the Muro Blanco turns south, hoping that there would some place to camp there. Sure enough, tired and burnt from hours of problem solving and brush avoiding and rock hopping, we walked past Kid Creek and out onto an open granite slab with a perfect sandy camp spot and a view out to the walls above Woods Creek below. Here in the shadows, tucked in the bend, the canyon feels tight, with granite soaring way up and out of sight. A beautiful place to sleep. In the morning, as the sun performed its slow march down the canyon wall to our camp, I noticed some Black Oaks on the hillside, the leaves a rich orange, and long, curved Sugar Pine cones strewn about camp. We were dropping into different forest.

We had our worst encounter with brush in the Muro Blanco below this camp. With few options we found ourselves plunging into overhead birch for awhile, weaving around Black Oaks, sort of finding a path and then plunging into the brush again. But it was relatively short lived and gave way to classic forest, walking through fields of dried brown Bracken ferns, and strolling along the riverbed till we suddenly found ourselves on the Rae Lakes Loop Trail, and took a long break on the sandy beach at the bridge. We'd made it. Down another fine canyon! Todd and I cheered to The Buckeye Triple Crown: Goddard Creek, The Enchanted Gorge, and The Muro Blanco in one summer. Yeah that's Buckeye-in', that's the Festival of Fools alright. I pulled out my guitar, it's survived them all as well, and played some music for awhile. Todd read "The Hills Beyond" by Thomas Wolfe, and the river rolled, the river rolled.