Mountain Guides

Mountain Guides

Haven't been to the mountains since May. And that week it was blizzarding white walls of wet snow, filling up the woods again.

 The steeps above the Incline shoreline were quiet and wintry, while views across the lake were occluded by dense storm drapes down to the black surface of the water. 

Between storms there would appear momentary pockets of blue sky before the next cloud towers blew in, turning everything to mid-winter gray again.

Finally, the last day, we got more blue than gray, and off we romped, into the woods and up into the hilltops, climbing up to the saddle of the pass on the way to the Rim of that great bowl.

That eve, in late spring's evening light, the whole western sky turned chrome-bright, as cloudscapes in the western sky barely concealed the sun, and shafts of light broke through down to the lake, illuminating that wave-torn surface with radiant whitecaps. 

It was like something out of an illuminated Bible, from the shore of Galilee, when The Lord stepped out of the fishing boat, and showed his disciples how strong and godly he was -- and told them to "go and make yourselves fishers of men." That was not lost on us at the time.

The golden sands of Nevada State Beach, near Zephyr Cove, were noisy with the breaking waves and the wind in the trees. 

The difficulty of wading through deep sand was aggravated by trying to do it barefoot, in the cold of recent snows. It was a stimulating evening.

Next day dawned bright & beautiful, albeit with way-strong winds, and the aspens they did so bend! "40-mile an hour she blew, gale-force I warrant!" Certainly "Small Craft Advisory," as the branches were breaking, and blowing down the beach and street, while the waves tore at the cliff-banks.

Climbing up the pass, we encountered even worse weather, now complete with blowing storm clouds. And descending down the Western Slope, downcanyon, the clouds were so densified the rain was fairly squeezed from within, and the mists wrapped around the dark shoulders of granite cliff heights turned to blowing sleet.

 (Remind me to upload that great paen to Northwest driving at night down through the Calapooya Hills, from the Columbia down-mountain, down around Elkton & Red Hill, through those moonlit meadows known to be dark green horse pastures by day) and the fast-twisting canyonside turns side-drifting at speed on blacktop covered by wet sheets of leaves.)

Thus did we end our sojourn in the high places last spring, before the summer's very late coming.

 Breaking out from beneath clouds we lifted up into sunshine of the foothills, and after a few hours made our way so Westward that there were then no clouds to be seen, and nary a one visible from whence we had just come.

Summer in the valley hath seen few since, and our stay in these vallies of California have remained uneventful in the intervening months.

We expect to change this state of affairs shortly.