Gambolin' Man

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA: A Vibrant Manifestation of Birds in the Wild Urbanscape of an East Bay Neighborhood

2012-02-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

Birds, birds and more birds – a charm of finches, a host of sparrows, a party of jays, a murder of crows and an unkindness of ravens. What next, a parliament of owls? The birds are highly evolved, ethereal beings and I enjoy watching them revel in the one-hundred year old oak tree gracing our side yard. We live in an historic apartment building situated in a primo North Berkeley neighborhood just a couple of blocks from where the first rises begin in the Berkeley Hills, a funky 17 unit building that looks like a stately Victorian married the Alamo. Back in the sixties, it was an acid dropping scene of ongoing

Townsend's Warbler (Dendroica townsendi)

bacchanalia, a Windowpane into a freaky world, a Mr. Natural crash pad, a Love Saves sanctuary of bliss, a Purple Haze haven of orgiastic parties with a gallimaufry of legendary Berzerkeley characters coming and going through the psychedelic revolving door. Before that, it was some rowdy boardinghouse, back in the vanquished day of horsemen and iron horses, when the old Berkeley Branch Railroad (a line of the Central Pacific) ran a few blocks away. Allen Ginsberg once lived in a cottage just up the street. And way before any of this, indigenous Ohlone people – Berkeley’s first natives - gathered not far from here at volcanic outcrops of rhyolite to grind acorns into mush in foot deep cylindrical mortar holes for many

Bushtit (Psaltriparus minimus)

delicious and nutritious treats to sustain their journey through life. Over time, things settled down; we were informed that, several years ago, these very premises were spiritually graced with a visit by Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist and writer, Thich Nhat Hanh, who stayed here for several days, in our very own ‘umble apartment, right next to the one hundred year old oak tree that the birds (and many other appreciative critters) love so much.

Berkeley is blessed with wonderland parks, home to spruce and redwood, bay, alder, big leaf maple, sycamore, madrone and manzanita, plus many oak varieties. Neighborhoods in Berkeley are lush and tree rich, perfect bio-sentinels to attract urban tree loving creatures on the prowl, such as possums, squirrels and raccoons. Deer browse and nibble in the simulacrum of a forest in our back yard. Free-flowing Codornices Creek is just one yard over. I’ve seen wild turkeys strutting nonchalantly down our street on deserted early mornings, and – a spectacular appearance ending in tragedy – a mountain lion was shot and killed by the Berkeley police right down the street a couple of years ago. Birds, too, are a natural and integral part of the eco-equation, and the fascinating, flitting, fugacious, freedom-loving feathered friends of the sky come in droves, frequenting the one hundred year old oak tree to engorge on bugs, larvae, grubs and acorn nuts.

Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus)

Sprouting from a tiny seedling acorn of the Valley clan of arboreal wonders, our venerable Quercus lobata grows in a gnarled network of tentacled branches, elephant leg in girth, rising a hundred feet to form a dense, nutrition rich canopy, a woody and leafy world unto its own. From where I stand on my porch, binoculars affixed to eyes in an oft-futile effort to locate and identify the many birds that come to roost, peck around, and bounce from bough to branch, it seems a most unlikely place to watch for birds. Yet this mature, robust tree draws in like a magnet many avian wayfarers in search of abundant sustenance and tasty victuals - in the case of the stunning adult female Nuttall’s woodpecker I spotted last week – delicious pickings from the underside of rotting strips of bark, a technique she has down pat resulting in a notable absence of the repetitive rat-a-tat-tat knocking associated with Picoides nuttalli and others of her ilk. The experience almost seems oxymoronic, watching a woodpecker engage in silent work.

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)

I read in a bird book that an urban observer could spot up to 50 distinct birds in a given period. In my two counties (Alameda and Contra Costa) over 300 species have been counted. In the past several weeks, during a spell of some La Nina inspired superb Mediterranean weather, I must admit, I have spotted more species of birds from the vantage of my porch in one sitting than in far wilder places up in the hills. Lately, I’ve taken a greater interest in connecting with our resident and migratory bird population in the big old accommodating oak. Of an early morning, with the tree situated nearly within reach outside the bedroom window, I awaken to a clamor of sweet pitched melodies from several different, completely anonymous birds. Who are these little winged royalty announcing their joyful presence at my crepuscular window, I want to know. It’s the same ambition that drives any crazed bird lover (or bird lover crazy), such as Ted Stevens, author of Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America, who poses the abiding question: “What is the name of that bird?” He goes on to make a case for the importance of identifying / naming / classifying: “A name is a tool for organizing our thoughts, for making sense of the world around us. Knowing the name of something makes it more important. Giving a name to something immediately triggers a cavalcade of questions, of discovery, and of wonder.” And yet it’s hard to disagree with Walt Whitman, who counseled, “You must not know too much or be too precise

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Yellow-throated Warbler (Dendroica dominica)

or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.” I’m divided on the issue. I’ve always been a rank amateur when it comes to knowing the Linnaean underpinnings and taxonomic fine points of flora and fauna, hence my broadly aesthetic and spiritual (as opposed to scientific minded) approach to my appreciation and understanding of plants and animals and natural history in general (perhaps characterized as the “Gambolin’ Man” world view?). I only hope that the discovery and wonder that Stevens writes of inspires a deep (organic) understanding and respect of our relationship to birds, all creatures and to the earth, and does not, at the same time, drain too much of the mystery and magic out of birds’ fabulous existence.

The birds attracted to the big oak tree are unpredictable and, like most of nature’s comings and goings, usually go unnoticed – their “here one day gone the next” proclivities keep you guessing and on the constant look out. Migratory patterns may or may not matter. Birds, occasionally delicate little sailors, get blown off course and / or food and climate trends instinctually create revised flight patterns for many long distance winged trekkers. And yet, ecce arborus, behold this oak tree that has been on the scene for one hundred years and for another century or more will likely continue to be a bonanza of shelter, a cornucopia of food, and a smorgasbord of insect delights for many different avian species, such as, for example, the sweetest little peeper you ever saw, the handsome Black-capped Chickadee, a skittish, acrobatic little fellow often seen hanging upside down, clinging with the tiniest of talons to a shred of a branch, dangling ever so momentarily to pick clean the underside of a moldering leaf.

California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis)

Around 925 of 10,000 known bird species have been noted in the US and Canada, almost four times fewer the number found in South America and half as many as are found in Australia. Still, 925 is a lot of species, and I doubt if any birdwatcher on the planet has seen all 925 of ‘em. Maybe 200 live in or visit the Berkeley area? I suppose if you were determined and lucky enough, you might be able to spot 500 or 600 in a lifetime of traveling from the deserts of the Southwest USA to the tundra of Northern Canada and all points in between. I’ll be lucky and content enough to spot 150. Bonus side note! Just today I added to my Life List a Varied Thrush, a beautiful orange / yellow/ bluish member of the Turdidae family spotted in Tilden Park in a dense entanglement of trees, brush and vines near the Botanical Gardens. I was zooming by on my bike when I noticed at the last second a group of intent observers with hi-tech binoculars and expensive camera equipment. I knew it was a serious sighting. I told the group, you made my day!

House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)

Birds are profoundly fascinating and are “among the most conspicuous forms of life on earth” writes Stevens in his important book; they are profusely dispersed and insanely well-adapted around the planet and are undisputed master survival strategists. On the scene for perhaps 150 million years, they thrive by their ability to exploit every available niche imaginable (sound like anyone else you know?), from the harshness of arctic and desert climes to the unending riches and variation of rainforests, to a plethora of microhabitats in between: forests and woodlands, prairies and meadows, deserts and shrublands, alpine and arctic tundra, wetland and aquatic, swamp forests and boreal bogs, rivers, lakes and ponds, fresh and salt water marshes, ocean beaches . . .and everywhere humans dwell. The bounty of our urban neighborhood trees brings us a beautiful dissimulation of bird, birds, and more birds!

100 Year Old Oak Tree (Quercus lobata)

Birders, you see, are serious fanatics. There’s a ton of top quality bird related websites. People travel to the far ends of places like Arkansas and Siberia to spot unique birds. Birdwatchers go to conventions for bragging rights to life sightings. As scientific research (at the molecular level) continues to pry open the mysteries of genetic (“racial”) variability among songbirds, more and more species will “split” and become two, sometimes three, species – upping the birders’ life list number – while, of course the reverse can happen, too, where two species are “lumped” and become one, thus diminishing the birder’s life list tally. The super-odd thing about it is, why are some people bird-crazy and others just plain couldn’t give a gnat-catcher’s ass? Now, I'm no bird expert, just a hobbyist, so no discourses on complex alternate molting strategies or kleptoparasitism, but it is fun to speculate about them while learning astonishing things in the process.

Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius)

Until I brought a couple of jocose birds into my immediate purlieus with the aid of binoculars, these tiny creations of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary design had heretofore been nonexistent to me as individuals; they were aggregated in my mind as an abstraction - merely the “birds”, nameless, unknown, featureless entities. But get to know them, and their personalities jump out. And you want to get to know them better. No wonder bird lovers are so fanatic and passionate about their subjects, because birds are expressions of freedom and symbols of vitality, merry songmakers without a worry, care or regret - “little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art,” waxed Izaak Walton.

"Slate" Junco (Junco hyemalis hyemalis)

I think my love and attraction to birds stems from when I was twelve, still in the BB gun phase, I took a perverse delight in pulverizing into mud dime-sized frogs on pond shores and taking aim at a barn swallow or other bird dumb enough to get in my sights. One day, in the woods near by boyhood home in Oxford, Indiana, at a place called (yes) Slaughter’s Pond, I shot a little sparrow or some such bird, and down, down, down, the mangled bird fluttered to my feet, in writhing agony, not yet fully dead. Even at that tender age, I was stricken with a dreaded sense of having violated a major karmic rule – I killed a creature wantonly. Heart-broken and grievous, I knelt down to cradle her in my hands, but she died. From that day on, I put down the gun and never picked it up again. The only birds I would ever shoot from now on would be with a camera.

Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)

Bird watching, I’ve found, is a hobby requiring patience; no use getting fidgety or anxious or bored. You’ve just simply got to want to spot the colorful little firecrackers! And let me clue you in on a secret - spotting them is difficult, requires time and skill, like finding chanterelle mushrooms camouflaged in the loamy detritus of an oak forest floor. On the other hand, identifying and knowing birds should be as simple as James Whitcomb Riley’s commonsensical declaration: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

At the root or heart of birdwatcher fanaticism are the questions: Do you enjoy doing it – watching birds do things, engage in their sophisticated behavioral quirks? Does it bring you pleasure - being drawn into the peeping tom world of an unfettered birdie’s life? I’ve found that birdwatching brings a great sense of connection and , and is an enjoyable way to add dimension and spice to a nature (or porch!) outing. But sometimes there just aren’t any birds reporting. And so it’s easy to get distracted or lose interest. The process is akin to filtering water at the river – no sense in trying to strong arm the precious stuff through the mechanism into the bottle to get it done quicker. It’s a sacred thing – breathe, give thanks, and take it one steady pump at a time. Same goes with the art of observing birds in their natural habitat. With patience comes a sweet reward, an intimate glimpse of, say, a Common Yellow-throated Warbler. This dancing, preening specimen is so friggin’ common I didn’t even recognize the adult female first time I espied her. What – Who? – am I looking at, I kept saying, putting down the binoculars and running into the house to consult the omniscient field guide. Sounds ingenuous and overly earnest, I know, but I’m just enthralled with making the acquaintance. Thoreau once expressed a similar preference thusly: “I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.” I’m still hoping to spot her dolled up companion, the adult male, a flamboyantly emblazoned character donning a black Zorro mask and a brilliant yellow throat and underbelly. How can such a tiny, insignificant creature – I’m the only person on the face of the earth aware of this particular bird’s

Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

existence - be so achingly beautiful? The name may be Common, but a sighting and positive identification is truly exotic. Often these birds seem fragile, neurotic, frantic, with barely a motionless moment to rest or preen. All the constant nibbling, pecking, hopping, bobbing, and flitting about makes it difficult to home in on them. You might be lucky to get a tenth of a second appearance. Try identifying that! When the diminutive specimens are viewed through binoculars, their bulk is magnified significantly; but when viewed up close, it’s astonishing how tiny they are! Like the time my little friend, the Townsend’s Warbler, landed in a bush right outside my window, surprising me with her Lilliputian frame. Checking in at ten grams and five inches on average, this chic little bird is a regular patron of the big oak. Not much to twirp about, but he’s become a constant companion and a beautiful one at that, almost like my little pet when I see him decked out in his feathery duds, with the dark cheek patch of nifty black radiating out from his eyes surrounded by yellow on the sides, a flitty chap on the constant qui vive. The littler the bird, it seems, the more frenetically paced it is, like wound-up dynamos, spunky engines of aerodynamic superiority and survival mastery, doing their thing in the one hundred year old oak. The ultimate legacy of the lumbering dinosaurs may be these very birds, descended from chicken-size therapods who didn’t die out at all, but morphed into flight masters of the empyrean realms giving them a superior evolutionary competitive edge.

Steller's Jay (Cyanocitto Stelleri)

One day a pair of Cedar Waxwings – who? huh? – took up residence for a day in the dense foliage of our neighbor’s unidentified red-berry producing tree; seeing them has to count as a special sighting. These rather unusual looking birds are normally seen in flocks, not just two lovebirds by themselves. So seeing just the two of them for the first time ever caught me off guard, especially since their plumage is of a more exotic nature and I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t hallucinating a tropical bird or something. How is it that I had never heard of, much less noticed, these Code 1 birds (commonly sighted) in my entire life? Because if I had seen one, I surely would have marveled at the distinctive red stripe at the base of the tail, and appreciated as though from the palette of an old master, the subtle splotch of yellow where God spilled a bit of paint on the lower wing, and would have been taken in and charmed by the little crest of a wave of feathers in her head. How, I ask again out of sheer disingenuous implausibility, had I missed the Cedar Waxwing in my lifetime of ??? – well, never being a serious birdwatcher. . .

American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

Sadly, songbirds are taking a beating, have been for a long time, at the hands (paws and claws, rather) of domestic and feral cats; by their own kind, the maligned cowbird being a notorious example of aggressive behavior displacing songbirds from their nests and habitats (the bird equivalent of Manifest Destiny); and sadly but not surprisingly by destructive human activity, including mass poisoning by power plants. In a report just released by the Biodiversity Research Institute they’re finding, according to a New York Times report, “dangerously high levels of mercury in several Northeastern bird species, including rusty blackbirds, saltmarsh sparrows and wood thrushes” causing reproductive and other health and well-being problems that threaten their existence as a species. And that’s just a few species at risk. Oddly, Audubon does not mention a thing about mercury poisoning caused by coal burning power plants on its website. What does it mean not to be able to hit a high note anymore? How can a marginally competitive bird avoid the risk of extinction if x-percentage of surviving hatchlings continues to plummet? These and other pressing questions plague me, as they did the doyen of birders, Roger Tory Peterson, who wrote that birds are “sensitive indicators of the environment, a sort of ‘ecological litmus paper’ and hence more meaningful than just chickadees and cardinals to brighten the suburban garden, grouse and ducks to fill the sportsman’s bag, or rare warblers and shorebirds to be ticked off on the birder’s checklist. The observation of birds leads inevitably to environmental awareness.” Alas, with all that freedom comes a heavy price - extinction.

Nuttall's Woodpecker (Picoides nuttalli)

So far, I’ve compiled a list of over twenty birds who’ve come to visit the one-hundred year old oak tree in our yard. Dramatis ornithonae include: Black-capped Chickadee; Dark-eyed Junco; Slate Junco (immature female); Bushtit; Lincoln’s Sparrow; Common Pigeon; Morning Dove; American Crow; Raven; Townsend’s Warbler; Yellow Warbler (immature female); Orange-crowned Warbler; Unidentified warbler (w/ tiny patches of yellow on underwing, otherwise drab color); American Robin; California Towhee; Anna’s hummingbird; Common Yellowthroat Warbler (adult female); House finch; Purple Finch (adult male and female); Yellow-rumped Warbler (adult male); Nuttall’s Woodpecker (adult female); Steller’s Jay; Blue Jay. I’m always enchanted by each and every one of them, even the “prosaic” and “common” ones. (How about the pedestrian ones? – a passel of pigeons clucking up and down the sidewalk the other day.)

The minute an unindividualized bird become familiar to you, you will never regard it again with detached disinterest – lo, Stevens is right! Wonder and discovery does spur excited inquiry into other matters of their nature, like their mating habits and rituals, their lifespans, where do they go in the dead of night, where are their hidden nests and shelters, what are their survival strategies against competitors, how do they make a living, and do they do the things they do for fun and

Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)

enjoyment? The magic and mystery will always remain, because they are eternally unknowable, all their unseen secrets, infinite, hidden. . . And so let me better understand corvine family behavior - the amazingly intelligent crows, ravens and jays. (Crows are a Top Ten Intelligent Species.) With more knowledge, more sightings, you suddenly want to know everything about birds, because ironically, they are the canaries in the coalmine, or coal power plant in this case, harbingers of our own future; we are inextricably linked to birds; our welfare is their welfare, or vice versa. An eco-visionary ahead of his time, Roger Tory

Peterson foresaw the interconnectedness of the fabric of life, the fragile bond that holds it together, the fatal consequences of our continued misguided acts in the mirror of birds held up to
humans’ image: “Alas, we are linked with them: Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we'll soon be in trouble.” And so you yearn to glean an understanding of the complete natural history of all the birds you’ve met so

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna)

far. Maybe to save yourself and the earth. Deep down, you really grasp and appreciate what Emily Dickinson meant when she penned, “I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.”

Note: all bird photos are included in the Wikipedia commons.

CLEAR CREEK OF THE SISKIYOUS: Timeless Rhythms, Eternal Cycles Persist Through the Years at Gorgeous Klamath River Tributary

2011-09-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

Time, these days, whizzes by, like that, evaporata. Take five years. . .certainly, a whole lot can get accomplished in five years; or nothing at all, because five years is so fleeting, it really is, and we are often so lazy and uninspired, we really are. The older you get, after 35, especially, suddenly you're 40, then 50 and before you know what hits you, you're shockingly in the early throes of your dotage. Ah, five years. . .what is it but a middle aged dog? We mark the passage of chronological time by observing solstice rites and birthday ceremonies, anniversaries, and other important commemorabilia; the years are replete with incalculable days of adventure, innumerable undocumented dramas entailed in living, gravid with the banalities of routine quotidian existence; indeed, five friggin' years can seem to drag on forever sometimes. But then, with a casual flick, it's suddenly five years on, know what I mean. From the haggard vantage point of retrospective time, five years is rendered over and done with in a veritable instant, consigned to dustbin of personal history in the blink of an eye. Next thing you know you're staring sixty straight on. (Just you wait, all you youngsters and whippersnappers not of the Baby Boom Generation and full of dreams of immortality and delusions of invincibility! Or, as Satchel Paige famously advised, "don't look back, it might be gainin' on ya.")

When I look back on our last visit to Clear Creek in 2006, it seems like only a few short months ago. But sixty of them have already passed. Just like that, in a dreamy idyll rendered in misty memories. Beginning in '93, it was, a summer without a visit to Clear Creek was unthinkable; we ticked off a string of fourteen consecutive summer pilgrimages, eight hours away, gladly making the long slog up I-5, dangerous with so many pendejos on the road and congested with big rigs hogging up the lanes, always relieved to pull off on the world-class beautiful Klamath River Highway (Hwy. 96 West), bereft of traffic for the most part, where we'd proceed leisurely along its anfractuous course the remaining seventy miles to the turn-off into the Clear Creek drainage, always a thrill and ever special to be there.

Sometimes, we'd stop and camp at the Tree of Heaven Forest Service campground, on an oxbow bend far enough down off the road where you felt removed and isolated under a big starry sky with the strong current whooshing by and a moist scent of chlorinated pine duff, it seemed, clinging in the air to keep you company the night through. Once we met a strapping Native American fellow by the name of Wesley Tall Grass, recently retired from a career in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where, he told us, he tried to, but failed, to make a difference in the corridors of big government on Capitol Hill. I remember his Spartan words: "Nothing changed." Now, he was just taking time off, he told us, his first vacation in twenty-two years. He was loving Klamath Country like no other. Before anyone else was awake, the ex-BIA official, big Wesley Tall Grass, and I talked of many things that early morning at river's edge - (can't remember a single one of them now) - hands-in-pocket figures scuffling slightly to ward off the chill, as a ghostly miasma of wispy condensation spin-tailed above the churning river, and early morning birds began peeping at the dawn. We established the spark of a connection, something unnamed and soulful, exchanged e-mails, shook hands (his big clutch with an exquisite turquoise ring adorning the pinkie nearly swallowed up my homunculus appendage), and said we’d keep in touch. Yeah, sure, adios, Chief. Most other times, we'd press on to the next wild blackberry rich campground, Sara Totten, and crash there late at night or early in the morning, always a relief to get out of the car and breathe in the great American outdoors, the intoxicating fresh scent of summer air in America's Big Wide Open Wild, Wild West. Usually brain-wracked and excruciatingly tired, so much so that I would always just toss and turn the night through, the white noise of the river filling my head with oddly soothing static music as I drifted on and off into very weird realms of dreamland. Other times, like this time, we time it right and plow straight on through to Clear Creek, eagerly anticipating tuning in to our favorite reality show - the Nature Channel (and Premium Content, at that!)

Always dreading it, the drive up isn't too bad. I manage to secure an upgrade from my favorite Rent-a-car company, Enterprise, to a big ol' boat, a funky ostentatious Gran Marquis (certain to amuse and delight a car aficionado friend) - that takes us there in pimp-my-ride comfort at no appreciable loss of gas mileage. We be stylin’ for sure. At one point, Ray Charles is belting out a jazzy rap tune that's a perfect anthem for us. I set 'er on cruise control at about 66, and we're off 'n runnin'.

In Yreka, up in Shasta country, the county seat of Siskiyou County, after all these years, we finally stop and actually check out the historic business district, comprised of a block or two cluster of turn of the century and older buildings that once served as hardware stores, bakeries, breweries, bars, and, naturally, houses of ill repute (prostitution AND gambling, oh my!). In 1854, the then hugely celebrated poet Joaquin Miller noted Yreka was a place with "... a tide of people up and down and across other streets, as strong as if a city on the East Coast.” Today, this tide of people has moved up and down and across an increasingly sprawling frontage road commercial strip. Back in the day, mining and minerals and ranching drew people here (and I guess the huntin's good); today, it's some of that, but largely Yreka appeals because of its perfect inducement of the three R's - recreation, relaxation and retirement. Who wouldn't want to live here, in the shadow of looming Shasta, on the boundary of vast acreage of federally designated wilderness areas, where neighbors, heaven forbid, actually know and talk to one another, where the everyday pace of life is conducive to low blood pressure and peaceful states of mind. . .but what would you do all damn day? Might just drive you (stir) crazy.

I guess you'd run an old timey sporting goods / hunting store. It takes us all of about ten minutes (hey, after all, we are on our way to paradise) to check out the historic edifices and read the dignified plaques commemorating some event or another. Our primary mission for having detoured off the interstate is actually to score some butane for the camping stove, which I neglected to do in Berkeley. We get in a wild goose chase going to this place and that - and I'm amazed at how much traffic is going up and down the strip boulevard on a Monday afternoon - finally being directed to a Wal-Mart – "Oh, yes," we're told in an ignoring fashion by a young wholesome female clerk working the register at some kind of propane / outdoor equipment establishment, "they have a big camping section there." At the Twilight Zone Wal-Mart, we're met with menacing navigational challenges, blinding florescence, chemically pungent, fake scented aromas permeating, zombie crowds of pathetic shoppers, bent-up old ladies standing in the air-conditioned foyer to escape the oppressive heat (it's about 90, but a hot, dry 90, to be sure), but we strike out in our quest to score some camping gas. They have every damn item in stock except our gas.

Can’t get out of that place fast enough, so we head back to the historic district where we had been before and had overlooked - or mistook for closed - an old-fashioned sixties era sporting goods store. I mean it's totally classic like from my boyhood or something. I go in and am relieved to spot the cannisters. (Yes, we can now eat our oatmeal, tea and soup!) I pick up two and approach the old-fart proprietor (a transplant from somewhere, like probably four-fifths of Yreka) and I ask him (obviously I am a mere city slicker in my big honkin' Gran Marquis and faux-cool shades) about the kills on the walls - about ten severed taxidermized heads of Tule elk, stalked and shot in the local hills, stare down from on high, mounted way up on the lacquered fake wood walls, his personal trophy kills presiding over this grim little store. Or at least two of them are. "Oh, yeah, I killed both of them," he says, spinning around and pointing proudly to two massive rack specimens. "So," I ask, "were they clean one-shot kills?" It's as though I asked him if he shit and wiped his ass this morning. I'm not kidding. I avoid looking at the old fart, affixing my gaze on the once magnificent elks' glassy distant stare. I try to imagine doing what it takes to - sportively – massacre a peaceful beast. My question, which I repeat, flummoxes him and he fumbles with a response something to the effect of "it took me several bullets on that one there." I nod, say "I see", complete our transaction, thank him, and I'm outta there, and we're outta here - on to Happy Camp. Should be there in ninety minutes. That ought to put us on the banks of Clear Creek in plenty of time to set up camp and take an evening swim. Time to tune in (to the Nature Channel), turn on (the switch that activates the crack between two worlds), and drop out (of all routines, preconceptions, imagined fallibilities, insecurities and false narratives). At least for a few days of fantasia.

Happy Camp is a sleepy spread out community of a couple thousand souls situated where Indian Creek flows into the Klamath. Like Yreka, it's a strictly-business stop, short, sweet and purpose-driven; we're in and out of Larry's Market - or is it Parry's now? - in ten minutes, with some essentials, chief among them ice, fire and lottery tickets. I ask the (whom I believe to be a slightly surly Native Karuk) woman for five Super Lotto Quick Picks and tell her we're in it together - if I win she wins. She gives me this dull, disbelieving look and shoos me along to attend to her (whom I believe to be slightly sullen) sister or cousin next in line. (Bulletin we'd all love to see: "Berkeley man hits Motherlode jackpot in Happy Camp! Shares fortune with no-longer-surly clerk!") We tend not to spend too much time in Happy Camp, mainly because there's not a whole lot to do here. We pay our respects to the big statue of Sasquatch on the main drag welcoming visitors, and head out of town, just another couple of transient big city tourists contributing paltrily to the local tax base, just passin' through, and the Happy Campers probably wouldn't have it any other way. (But, God, are we really reduced to such a characterization?)

After a few miles, we turn off at the clearly marked Clear Creek sign, and head up an eight mile Forest Service road hacked in the rugged hills of the drainage, dead-ending at the trailhead. In the old days, we always used to get lost, invariably taking a wrong logging road leading high and away from the drainage - duh! Now, it's much better marked, and there have been some upgrades - trail maintenance, signs posted, toilet, camping areas with picnic benches. (Heard tell in '04 or '05, campers left their unattended dog leashed at one of these trailhead areas and when they returned, only the collar was there - with evidence suggesting a visit by a hungry mountain lion.)

Our special spot the last few visits has been No Man's camping area right before the trail head - an easy, but easy-to-miss (for nothing seems to be there) turn off with a secret trail heading down fifty feet to a nice little spread overlooking a deep green pool. It's right here, and oh so beautiful. If you didn't know what was there, you'd never know it was there. And it might remind you of a place you've never been, but intense deja vu remedies that minor disorientation. One day we pull in late and are too tired to hike in that evening, and so resign ourselves to the horrible prospects of this little pull-off gem. Lending a semblance of a "backpacking trip" we had always hauled in our over-stuffed loads a couple of miles up and over the ridge to a sweet camping area we always adored, where I'd hang up my Yucatecan hammock and we'd spend four or five days there in contemplative lethargy, engaged in the usual do-nothingness one does nothing of whilst languishing on a river in the thick of the lazy dog days of a hot August summer. Might see a bear, might not. Rattlers always made their presence known, respectfully. One year, with nothing better to do, I join the ranks of Preston Little Bear and Laura Little Hawk and proudly carve a youthful moniker from my early Mexican daze (ca. '74 - '92) into the ramshackle picnic table; last I checked it’s still there, with a sun emblem forming the “O”: "Acapulco Slim 8/20/94."

We are homecoming queens and kings as we approach our serendipitously discovered camping area. Look around! This is an intimate slice of wildness, all within our grasp, no effort (except for the driving) in getting here, right off the little-used road, conveniently tucked away out of sight down below where we throw down our camping gear and head straight for the inviting swimming hole. A blinding brilliance prevails at the river - slanting late afternoon rays splay across half the pool, with lengthening shadows darkening the other half's depths to the color of cold forged steel. We strip down and slink in, surprised by the tugging current and warmer than expected water. Usually, Clear Creek is a shrivel your balls experience, a work up to it inspiration, an inch-by-inch sidle into its bracing cold water - that, or just the wild plunge. Now, though, covered in sweat and grime, hot and in need of a refreshing dunk, it is pura vida and subudibal, mon! AAAAH! What a feeling to be soaking away all of our aches and frustrations, not to mention our fears and worries, and, of course, melting away all stress like asphalt under a Death Valley sun, in this precious, healing, cleansing wilderness mountain stream. It can’t be beat (well, a secluded hot springs experience come close).

A quick look around tells me superficially nothing has changed. I sigh in relief, I really do. And yet, on closer inspection - a look here, a glance there, everything has changed. What’s that old adage – you can’t step in the same river twice. Therefore it is continually changing. A pair of diminutive madrone trees guarding the entrance to our camp seem to have sprouted at least two or three feet since our last acquaintance. That giant log never used to be there. What happened to that cliff - it just collapsed into a pile of jagged sharp scree. And our camping area has washed out a bit, so I find a good stick to brush and smooth it out, making it a suitable site for supine relaxation - perfect for looking up between tall pines at a big wedge of star-studded firmament, a faint breeze keeping bugs at bay, snug in my sleeping bag, in a place I've spent fifty nights dreaming away; it's a nice feeling. Other details of our surroundings command my attention - certain familiar trees of heaven and identifiable rocks and assemblages of boulders and cliffs and logjams and sets of rapids and corridors of emerald liquidescence flowing through ancient gorges. Particular views. The snakelike root engaging the stupa shaped boulder. The silky smooth madrone tree with tits and belly button. It is all the same and entirely different. It is as though yesterday these images burned in my consciousness, swelled in my heart. Father Time has progressed, but milfy Mother Nature has not aged one bit. I think she will always be young, even if geology tells us otherwise.

How long does it take, barring a catastrophic natural event like a major landslide or fire or flood, for a serene place like Clear Creek to effect noticeable change? Will Clear Creek look any different in a hundred years, or 5,000 or 50,000, or a million? Big fires have burned in these parts and it just makes the ecosystem all the healthier. My guess is - with just the elements working their relentless fracturing and erosion processes through wind, rain, ice, heat, cold - my guess is that it would take at least 100,000 years for the forces of nature to sufficiently render Clear Creek unrecognizable from today. But the way the earth works, with unpredictable dynamism, it could happen, relatively speaking, or literally, overnight with calamitous climate change, or how about an asteroid plowing into things. But left to its own devices - unceasing ebb and flow of life, timeless rhythms, eternal cycles - Clear Creek will always be. Clear. Creek. Will. Always. Be.

What has always compelled us to retreat to wilderness settings? Beauty and solitude alone, no - although those elements create the sacred context for stopping the world and dismantling the routines, for fostering a meditative floating sensation of suspended time, for the magical chance to revel in eternity’s flow. Along a river, away from the hordes and civilized society and urban depravity, we tend to engage in as little "monkey mind" thinking as possible - no thinking allowed (aloud)! Our intention over the next 100 hours is to turn it off and shut it down, or as an earnest 19 year old Hemingway wrote in a just-released 1918 letter to his "Dear Old Pop", to "give my buszing, crackling, bushed high tension, twin six brain a rest." (Hear, hear, Hemmy!)

For us, it’s not about adventure, thrills, excitement, or challenge (synonymous with FUN) - some nice to haves - but our dog-day August ritual demands so much less of us, or so much more because it's not all that easy to just turn it off and focus on the here and now, the being of being here with nothing to do, nothing to prove, nothing to chase after, nothing to worry about, nothing to read or write or file away. Nothing to fix, resolve, deal with or plan for. Unwinding from so many workaday stresses, the challenge becomes to rev it down in pure chillax mode, contemplate the navel if nothing else in a splendiferous narcoleptic reverie, beset in mindless rapture. While all about you the magisterial manifestations of miraculous phenomena persist - otherwise known as the life's unceasing ebb and flow, Mother Nature's unfolding dramas and unnoticed little things, her animated blueprint and unseen interactions and confluences and overlappings, occurring by the quadrillion every second.

It's hard to find new ways to describe Clear Creek, unrivaled in purity and beauty. What it means. What it means to us. After already posting two accounts of my impressions and non-doings over the years, let me make things easy and just plagiarize my own writing: "Clear Creek’s virginal waters originate high in the ranges west of the Marble Mountain Wilderness, and runs its 23 mile course through an ancient canyon gouged out of raw earth and bedrock, wearing down tortured boulders into jagged and jumbled banks, narrow channels and gorgeous pools of jade green water flowing wild and pristine as a mountain creek should."

In my prior posts (which have undoubtedly sunk to the bottomless depths of your river of very important but forgotten about things to read) I've gushed about Clear Creek and described the landscape and sketched out the history and limned the culture of native Karuk, Happy Campers and the fiercely independent and radical denizens of Siskiyou County, and have profiled other aspects of the contumacious "State" of Jefferson. To wit: "Klamath Country is the ancestral homeland of 'upriver' spiritual Karuk tribes who have lived simply in harmony with sacred Mother Nature for millennia. Karuk peoples come from a tradition of spirituality, healing, sacred worship of animistic nature and restoring earth harmony, and community values. Such splendid isolation and scenic natural wonders and beauty have also made the area a 'below the radar' mecca over the years for a gallimaufry of characters: enterprising German immigrants, thrill-seeking rafters, wealthy fly fishermen retreaters, gold miners and dredgers, sun-toasted dreamers and river rats, odd ball recluses, out ’n out rednecks, mom ’n pop outfits, B ‘n B-ers, retirees squeezing 'a good livin'' out their frugal dollars, dying breeds of scheming secessionists plotting for the State of Jefferson, and, of course -- you know he’s out there! -- Big Foot. . .and he’s watching, watching, stalking, stalking YOU! (No, quite the opposite; ol’ Sasquatch is probably deep in hiding, if not in the woods, buried in your zoo-mythic consciousness.)"

I really would love it if something better comes to me, some newfangled poetic flourish or highfalutin lyrical riff, but I have mere left-overs to offer: "Clear Creek is flowing mightily in front of our camp site, forming a large emerald green super-inviting pool. A couple of hundred feet downstream, it drops thirty feet to tumble rapidly over a mossy jumble of boulders and logs. Here, it shoots through a gorgeous channel through a narrow gorge whose limpid celadon waters are twenty feet deep. It disappears out of vision into a distant pool at a horseshoe bend right below the road (which you‘d never know was there in a zillion years). Not a soul in sight. Not a sound but the wind and the water. It’s like we just hiked in ten miles to a precious, secret, stunningly beautiful spot that no one goes to or gets to easily. We won’t see a single person in our camping area for five solid days. That‘s one-hundred hours of solitude. (There are a couple of through-hikers on the National Scenic Recreation Trail, and, thankfully, fewer than normal of the usual suspects -- local yokels, yahoos, Christian youth brigades, hippie and punk kids, couples from Redding -- at the easy-to-get-to swimming hole downstream from us.) Well, Ms. Ranger Lady was wrong -- it’s already about a hundred and fifty degrees. I head straight for the sweet pool. After a refreshing swim in the - I’m guessing- 52 degree water - I’m down for the count. With beer and champagne on ice, things are looking chill."

Four nights and five days, hour by hour melting away, time mobius stripping into a circular flow or like the river, with no beginning or end, just an eternal unfolding of which we are but a part carried along like a helpless twig in the torrent, like leaves twirling to the ground, to the creek, swept up in the rush of water like tiny rafts headed on their unknown epic journeys. "World of rock, world of tree, world of water, world of sky—home to all of our animal friends. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing your home."

This setting - an uncontained wild river - creates a condition of forced meditation, a state of mandatory induced calmness. You cannot rush the river, or hurry it along, or oppose its way; therefore, you cannot do these things to yourself in the presence of the river. All you can really do is let it sink in, give yourself over to it, love it, and learn from it. In Siddhartha, Hesse wrote, "It is a very beautiful river. I love it above everything. I have often listened to it, gazed at it, and I have always learned something from it. One can learn much from a river." This acknowledgement or notion that natural features of the earth - rivers, mountains, rocks, trees - are our teachers comes easily for tribal peoples living in close harmony with nature (unlike Western humankind), who for tens of thousands of years have sought out sacred places and revered holy natural creation in order to unlock mystical secrets and tap into the animist power earth features hold and represent - an ultimate lesson learned of humility and respect, of knowing our proper place in Nature as but one of many inter-connected strands in the complex web of life.

And so, all you can do is fight it or succumb to it. In the old days, I used to fight it, itchin' and restless after a couple nights, driven to explore other places to hike, be on the move, active, working out, productive. Picture this: an argument where it is suggested that I just go off on my own, then! Well, these days, I've learned to fall loving victim to the captive spell of torpor. I've become adept at shedding my base human ways and peeling off the "carnal incrustations" of life. Viz.: "A typical day at Clear Creek? Think of sloooooowing waaaaaaay doooooown. Imagine walking in meditative mini-steps. Certainly the 108 degree temperature helps, but the exercise is to deliberately gear it down several notches. It is revolutionary to just wind down, let go, not rush, not think, not do. . .just be. And that is when the animal magic happens!"

Sun rising over ridge tops, spilling soft light over mountains and creek, then latish in the afternoon dagger rays stippling patches of amber limpid pools, dazzling, kaleidoscopic reflective visions of upside down cedars and inverted salmon-colored cliff faces, as finally night unveils its ebon curtain, revealing the infinite cosmos, "the grand celestial show above of meteors, satellites, Milky Way, glittering pinpricks of millions of stars, and the occasional UFO sighting."

Opening our hearts to the animals' presence, brings them out, so they feel comfortable to emerge from their hiding spots - soon the shrill bzeet bzeet bzeet of the ouzel cheers the air and the sweet song of canyon wren is carried on the wind, and the playful squawk of jay livens things up. "We have had the pleasure of visiting with ant, beetle, bee, bat, butterfly, bumblebee, bird, caterpillar, cicada, cricket, dragonfly, deer, fly, frog, fish, grasshopper, horsefly, hummingbird, kingfisher, lizard, moth, mosquito, midge, mantis, pheasant, spider, snake, squirrel, slug, water strider, wasp, water ouzel. Oh brother and sister, where art thou, raccoon, bear, bobcat, lion, weasel, skunk, hawk, badger, Bigfoot?—all creatures great and small we love and admire. We feel a powerful, almost shamanic connection to the animal soul-world. We truly are fortunate and blessed to make any acquaintance whatsoever, for Muir, perhaps lamenting, writes, 'Gliding about in their shady forest homes, keeping well out of sight, there is a multitude of sleek, fur-clad animals living and enjoying their clean, beautiful lives. How beautiful and interesting they are is about as difficult for busy mortals to find out as if their homes were beyond sight in the sky.'"

Slow-boiled, sun-drenched Saharan days with sirocco zephyrs meld into "one great time flow, a river of events and happenings, comings and goings, of few doings and pure being. No hurry, no worry. Be here now. Sleep, dream, wake, swim, eat, one endless activity." And then no sooner are we becalmed, settled in and kicked back than it's time to leave. Imagine if five years can pass so quickly, how ridiculously evanescent five measly days are - vanishing like that (snap!) into the thin air of our mysterious existences.

Whether twelve months, five years or two decades pass before we again find ourselves immersed in the magico-animated world of Clear Creek, doesn't matter. We carry the place in our hearts for all time.

To read more about Clear Creek, visit my other posts:

gambolinman.blogspot.com/2005/07/siskiyou-wilderness-magical-encounters.html
gambolinman.blogspot.com/2006/08/klamath-national-forest-return-to.html

BOGUS THUNDER: A Strenuous Exploration of Isolated and Pristine Canyon Country Deep in the Heart of the North Fork of the Middle Fork American River

2011-09-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

This is the tale of Bogus Thunder
A land of riches once rent asunder
Where gold crazed men went to conquer and plunder
Where today I sit by the river and wonder. . .
-Gambolin' Man

Around the witching hour on a warm August evening, we’re drawn to the river, the river with no beginning and no end. We're taking in the last of the sun's rays peeking over Deadwood Ridge, watching the turquoise / jade colored pool meld in amber liquidescence. Suddenly, we look up to spot an adult female fish eagle reconnoitering her surroundings - her impressive two meter long wing span elegantly extended in a swooping and banking maneuver high above. Just to be sure, she does another quick fly-over, then vanishes over the canopy of green never to be seen again. No doubt a mother with juveniles nearby in a massive stick nest high atop some scraggily snag, growing big and strong from mama's adept hunting skills at plucking up the many trout darting about and coming to the surface to feed on massing swarms of insects. Whether Ms. Osprey's visitation is a welcome - or cool admonishment - we don’t know. But the elusive bird’s soaring splendor surely embodies the spirit of a deceased friend, Russell Towle, who I like to believe claimed Ms. Osprey as his personal totem. pee pee pee! peep! peep! pee pee. . .

Late summer is the Sybarite's season to seek out the sublime glory holes of Sierra Nevada's low elevation rivers, to take a hint from ol' Ed Abbey and find a place off the charts to just "breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space." I’m hoping to ramp up the SFP factor (Seriously F***ing Pretty) by several notches somewhere in nearby Gold Rush territory, ideally find a place I've never ventured to before, in foothill country beyond historic Auburn. This unsuspecting wild place harbors hidden treasures - healthy forests, rugged mountains, pure air and water, no people (but it's not necessarily a place to find spectacular waterfalls like in the iconic Royal Gorge of the North Fork American River). The land is a fissured matrix of small, deceptively rugged canyons that are largely ignored, unexplored and unknown about. Tiring year to year of the "same old same old" (why, shame on you, Gambolin' Man! How can the enchanting and luscious South Fork Yuba or the incomparably beautiful upper reaches of the North Fork American ever bore?) – well, anyway, this year I'm seeking to feast on some higher hanging fruit.

So where to? Unless you’re a GPS-equipped, topo map-reading, compass-using hiker, good luck finding and then getting safely to these out of the way, inconvenient places on your own. How good are your topo interpretation skills? Are you confident of your cross-country gambolin' capabilities? What’s the status of your fast-fading acumen of being able to bushwhack through harsh, impenetrable terrain? And, can you rely on anyone else to join in on the scrambling escapade, thereby lessening the likelihood of a potentially fatal accidente solitaire?

So if you want to enter this temple, you've got to know the high priest with the keys. You need to know someone like Ron, a long-time resident of the area and hiker / bushwhacker / explorer extraordinaire, who, I'd stake a buck on it, knows the various secret ravines and forks and canyons and bi-forks and sub-canyons of Placer County’s American River system like no other person alive. (Tom Peterson, you there?) Ron is also a tireless open space / free passage advocate and trail clearer with Fiskars loppers always in tow. Matter of fact, hiking and trail maintenance are one and the same thing! At the juncture where Bogus Trail splits off from the Western States Trail, Ron and Gay (and Gambolin' Man in a tiny supporting role) pull out their loppers - Ron also extracts from his pack a foldable saw - and begin earnestly clearing out a huge downed tree that's blocking passage to the spur trail leading to the saddle of the ridge before all hell breaks loose and the trail drops down, down, down a slippery and rollicking 1600 ft. through the crackling dry forest and to the big payoff - the gorgeous river, whose cool ripples, Thoreau consoled, will ensure that whoever hears it "will not utterly despair of anything." In under twenty minutes, the trail is cleared of the fallen tree, and we congratulate ourselves on our handiwork in removing the huge obstacle from easy ingress. The only thing missing is a sign pointing that-a-way to Bogus Thunder. (Not!)

Ron had written to me earlier in the summer, "Hey, Tom, I’m going to get back into the NF of MF American sometime this summer/fall. It really is a pretty nice area and I want to do some more exploring of the canyon. I would probably like to go into Bogus Thunder for at least two nights to have some time to explore around. It’s probably about 2 miles and 2000 ' down to Bogus Thunder where there is a nice big camping flat just downstream. Let me know if you are interested in doing a trip into there."

Bogus Thunder!?! Having never heard of the place (surprising!), let alone having never been there (doubly surprising!), and with an appellation like Bogus Thunder - hell yeah, I’m interested in doing a trip into there, Ron old boy! What more memorable way to celebrate my birthday, than buck naked and high as a kite (spiritually) in a spectacular, unknown river canyon, where, traditionally, the celebratory rite is spent doing as much of nothing as possible except for maybe a little swimming and frolicking about. But if you've ever spent any guilt-free time just hangin' and chillin' down on the river for a fifty or hundred hour stretch, listening to its eternal song, melding with the flow of hours, that's tiring, too. No matter what, you're always active, doing something, jumping up, filtering water, exploring; supine relaxation is for the night and early morning hours only, generally, otherwise, you're constantly engaged in some hard scrabble bushwhackin' up or downstream, to see what you can see, to follow the river to its new place.

Bogus Thunder of the North Fork of the Middle Fork American, flows through the canyon here in showcase splendor hemmed in by prominent 4000 ft. Deadwood Ridge. Located in an area around Foresthill, this place has always been by-passed in pursuit of the next great North Fork American River adventure whose several extremely difficult trailheads are found at higher elevations, up to over 6500 ft. Although the Bogus trailhead is easily accessible down a 9-mile dirt road by passenger car, off the relatively well traveled Foresthill Divide Road - the place feels much farther away from the developed world than seems likely. Yet I venture to guess that only twenty people a season might make it down to Bogus Thunder. Translation – except for the most foolhardy - viz., intrepid - of Central Sierra Nevada western foothill canyon explorers, it’s way too rugged and steep, too easy to get lost, with its tough to discern trails and intractable terrain further adding to the severe under use. Not to mention a proliferation of poison oak, constant threat of a rattlesnake bite or bear encounter, god-awful heat, horrible disease vectors like mosquitoes and ticks, and the unthinkable prospects of twisting an ankle or injuring yourself, with no help on its immediate way and no easy way out. Ah, yes! Just how you want and expect a wild place to be! So if you’re going, you’ve got to be fearless. (But don't be stupid or out of your element.)

Ron’s casual description of the hike disarms me initially - "The first mile of the trail follows the well graded Western States Trail. The route to Bogus Thunder then follows an old miners trail for about 1 mile down to the river. The old trail has a foot bed but parts of this old trail are steep, not like the well graded trail into Palisade Creek.”

Steep! I’m familiar enough with the trails in this area to know that anything dropping down to the bottom of an American River canyon has got to be one mighty tough trail - perhaps a Bogus Trail falling away 1600 perilous feet at ridiculously steep pitches over slippery layers of oak leaf duff, pine needles, and dusty, cobble-strewn surfaces. I press Ron for more details, only confirming my suspicions that the short trail is going to test our mettle, kick our butts and thrash our knees, ankles, shins and feet. "The trail down to Bogus Thunder is mostly a dirt type trail bed. May be a little slippery/loose in a couple of the steep places, a walking stick could help someone feel more secure at these places. The last little drop to the river is a little rough. . ."

A little rough! A little steep! But what’s Ron gonna say to an old "North Fork" canyon hand like Gambolin' Man? So as not to scare me off, he understates the obvious. When it comes to exploring Sierra Nevada foothill canyonlands, a good motto is be prepared for and expect anything, and certainly you can count on a little roughness and a little steepness. Cowboy up, Gambolin' Man!

Curiously, I learn that Russell, who ardently explored and wrote extensively about these lands for over three decades, had never made the hadj to the temple of Bogus Thunder. When I ask Russell's loved one left behind, Gay, how he could have overlooked this one on his bucket list, she shakes her head and spreads out her arms, indicating how much there is to explore in this vast realm of heavily logged but largely untamed Tahoe National Forest wilderness, but I also sense, sadly, the implication that he would have eventually hiked into Bogus Thunder, like and with Ron and Gay, a half-dozen times by now had he not met with a tragic and untimely demise in a freak auto accident on the Yolo Causeway in August of 2008 just outside of Davis. (Resquiat In Pacem, Amigo!) (Hey, that IS you, isn't it, Ms. Osprey, Ms. Canyon Wren!)

In dropping high off Deadwood Ridge, in going down into the depths of this special canyon, down, down, down into a hauntingly beautiful oasis environment that bedazzles the senses with endless magical expressions of animist power - Mother Nature humming and buzzing with vitality and abundance - in having the privilege of being guided into this cut-off-from-civilization paradise, I feel a huge connection to Russell - we all do - and a promise welling up to meet his protector spirit, as I have on past occasions, in the ancestral lands of his eternal wanderings. Ms. Osprey is a sure sign, but maybe Ms. Canyon Wren, too, plays into it. One hot afternoon, we're taking a break from our gorge scramble, entranced by our wild surroundings, and hoping to evoke a response, I whistle in my most convincing bird call (not very good!) the lilting, sonorous tweet of Russell's favorite bird, when some other bird calls back, and Gay and I exchange bemused glances - that isn't a Canyon Wren! - and a second later, we hear her clarion call saying hello! (Ted Floyd, editor of Birding Magazine, characterizes the "shrill beet" song as "a decelerating series of 10 - 15 clear whistles, each note descending in pitch: dyeer! dyeer dyeer dyeer deer deer. . .") Hello, RussellSpirit!

Bogus Thunder is but a mere speck on the face of the earth, yet it is such a powerful force of nature. The entire North Fork of the Middle Fork American River, situated at 2037 ft. above sea level, is tiny and insignificant as life-blood arteries of water go, and yet it is a masterpiece, a showcase, of wild splendor. Having belabored the point enough already, I can't help myself - not many people get to Bogus Thunder, or know about it or could find their way down and back up and out, and it's just as well, don't you agree. The world needs more such places not many people can get to - "in wildness is the preservation of the world" Thoreau foresaw; or Gerard Manley Hopkins' "What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wilderness? / Let them be left / O let them be left, wilderness and wet / Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."

But sometimes I wonder, if by publishing this entry, am I contributing to the ruder clarion call for every river rat and pool junkie to make the bang-up pilgrimage to Bogus Thunder? I think not. Anyone with a sniff of curiosity and inclination can find it on a topo map, or despite my professed stance that not just anybody can get there without expert guidance, you can probably do it if you're in good shape and you have experience hiking wicked trails and if you really, really want it. (Best to go in with a party of at least three.) With the exception of an in-the-know cadre of local hiker/explorers such as Ron, who has hiked down here a half dozen times, and lucky people like myself and Gay, the only other humans who make it down here are thrill-seeking kayakers. Driven by fierce motivation of one kind or another, in our case by another deeper purpose to pay homage, a spiritual call of the wild, only a few of us ever get to experience the magic of Bogus Thunder, get to willingly subject ourselves to the challenging rigors and rewards - not to pan for gold or hunt for fish or seek wet and wild monster runs - but to do it for the sheer existential reason of simply. . .being there. Being here, a part of the grand, eternal show. Being immersed in the purity and truth of the unfolding pageantry. Being cellularly cleansed by the experience. Being transformed. Being leavened spiritually. Being able to let what Muir referred to as the "carnal incrustations" of life melt away like bear fat in a miner's hot pan.

Back in the day, though, it was another story. Gold, of course, was the raison d’etre, the alluring attraction, for humans' presence in this no man’s land. Deadwood the town was founded in 1852 by fortune-seekers who amassed a 500 person strong settlement - there were probably Chinese laundries and lurid opium dens, harlot-infested hotels, and sinful gambling parlors. By day, the men tunneled and hydraulic mined until the terraformed landscape was sucked dry of its precious nuggets. In a frenzy to coax ever more gold from the riverbed and high flood walls, teams of bedraggled men labored mightily to dig out dangerous gaping holes in unstable cliff faces, construct ditches to channel flushing water through, and build trenches to support flume boxes. They piled pyramids of rock – monuments to futility – up above the river banks, their bodies wracked from doing hard penitential, mostly fruitless labor, since just a fraction of the gold miners who went for broke actually ended up not going broke. (Translation: only a tiny few struck it rich.) The vast majority of these enterprising souls eventually realized a better more predictable line of business was in the cards, and packed things up and moved on back to the cush accountant job in bustling Sacramento, or went off to peddle shovels and Levi's in Hangtown, or headed back East to reunite with the wife and kids. Could these bestial men, so single-minded and philistine in their devotion to finding a precious metal – dying for gold, killing for gold – could they really have been, as an 1860 report averred, “independent, prosperous, and happy”?

Even though Deadwood was on the decline by 1855, sporadic settlements existed into the early part of the twentieth century, as hundreds of men, enslaved to the cruelly hopeless belief of hitting it big, hustled and bustled like a nightmarish formicary, laden with all their bulky tools and heavy equipment, all in the vain hopes of striking a rich vein. How did they get this clunky mechanical shit down here? (Poor burros!) Steely lengths of cable and pulleys and high-powered hoses kept the miners busy working their asses off from dawn til dusk in a perfervid dream to tap the next Mother Lode. Even pistol maker Sam Colt took up residence in Deadwood for a while and no doubt tested his handiwork on a few renegade souls. But when the riches were exhausted, the place was quickly deserted and has remained so ever since.

Which is what makes Bogus Thunder such a special place - the angst and agony of the trip in and out, and down there on that little river of radiant beauty and sublime charm, it's a world removed, a snapshot of how things used to be anyoldwhere in California. A friend of Gay’s, an avid hiker named Julie, pined about her love affair in a post from several years ago, "But really, you just want to take this one home in your back pocket!" And so, we’re all stealing her line left and right as we gawk in amazement at every new beautiful view unfolding downstream of city-block long aquamarine channels of water held in by polished alabaster rock walls - "But really, I just want to take this one home in my back pocket!" – as we ogle in lascivious reverence at every new erotic pool - "But really, I just want to take this one home in my back pocket!" – as we sigh in breathtaking epiphanies of rapturous joy breaking out in our hearts at every nook and cranny of this impossibly beautiful and charming river - "BUT REALLY, I JUST WANT TO TAKE THIS ONE HOME IN MY BACK POCKET, DAMMIT!"

But we can't. The river ain't goin' nowhere, except along on its relentless never-ending journey. The river is here to stay, defying our wishes, denying our influence and mocking our authority. The river, thankfully, exists of its own, apart from human meddling - it is "ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins." This is goodness. Well put, Langston.

The key to Bogus Thunder’s mystique, immense charm, redoubtable isolation and preserved pristine character. . . is in the getting down. The simple act of descending a mere couple of thousand feet over a mere couple of miles. Doesn’t sound too, too bad, until you read from an 1860 account, “The sides of the ridge upon which it stands are so steep, that rocks rolled from the top in some places would continue their motion until they reached the bed of El Dorado Creek on the one side, or of the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River on the other, a mile distant from the place where they were set in motion.” Ouch! That sounds steep!

Averaging out this minuscule distance of two miles seems reasonable, so how bad can it be? Well, the truth of the bogus trail is that the first mile (or last out) is a stroll in the park along the well-maintained Western States Trail. As you approach a lower saddle off the 4000 ft. Deadwood Ridge, where the remains of about thirty people are buried somewhere in unmarked graves in the lonesome cemetery, the trail plunges down and out of sight immediately; it’s not so much a walkin' trail as it is a rutted animal trail, or series of faint pathways, fanning out in various directions into plunging lengths of trail made additionally slippery by brittle debris and doubly treacherous owing to roots and rocks and downed trees which require special exertion and agile maneuverability in getting up and over, or under, or around their massive web of downed branches or huge trunks. We all slip more than once and land smack on our butts, legs splayed high and packs nearly thrown off. Not only is it mirthless to slip and fall, it's a huge expense of precious energy, and dangerous to boot. A sprained ankle or poked eye or dehydration or heat stroke or hypothermia or a rattlesnake bite could prove fatal. Out here, down here – there is nothing, nobody to rescue you; you’re truly on your own. Every move requires caution, confidence and composure. Be smart. Have respect. Stay humble. (Banish stupidity, irreverence and hubris!). It is easy to get lost but for a keen eye, common sense, and the colorfully flagged branches every so often sure help. But, yes, I admit it - I'm nervous, what with my bum ankle and all. . .but up for the challenge! My spirit says go for it, you can take on the sloping, twisty brown snake on whose slippery back you will make a switchback-bereft beeline nearly straight down 1600 exhilarating feet . . . surely, it is the most arduous mile of my life. Even so, it sometimes actually becomes a decent footbed, winding through an aromatic, arid forest of live and black oak, Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and several attractive specimens of California Torreya, a conifer also known as nutmeg yew, identifiable - and felt - by its stringy stingy sharp needles. The day is hot, but in the shady forest the sun's heat is tempered, and stretches of the trail are actually quite pleasant, apart from occasional plagues of mosquitoes and biting flies and those annoying and dastardly wicked trail plunges.

But, all said and done, moving through and negotiating each step of the journey through this difficult landscape proves to be manageable with a one step at a time, I can do it mindset, and an inspirational sotto voce mantra murmured to a good steady breathing rhythm. I joke to Ron and Gay, both billy-goats, that going up will be a whole lot easier than coming down. It always is, isn't it? In what seems like no time, really - but maybe it takes us an hour? - or two? - maybe we've been glissading down this nasty trail with our big loads for three hours? The next thing I sense - I swear I smell it before hearing it - is the river, still about 75 ft below us. A ridiculously tough 75 ft., let me tell you. By now, the fatigue and heat of the day is getting to me, but following Ron's lead, Gay taking up the rear, we bully our way down the final pitch - stepping on and over crazily unstable, slippery rocks, clinging to (hopefully not poison oak) branches, vines and roots for support, scooting down if we have to on our butts - until we safely emerge, wiped out, exhausted and all scratched up (well, I'll speak for myself) at the river's edge.

Dazzling damsels and dragonflies dancing above the lush river, flitting about magisterially, rushing water whirring by. I'm instantly charmed and enthralled by the soothing song and gurgling motion. I'm oohing and aahing vocally, as are Ron and Gay, by the beautiful surroundings of this wild and remote setting we've arrived at. It’s putting me in a swoon, as though my pants have been charmed off by a stunning beauty at the county fair giving me a flirty once-over. I throw off the weltering weight of my pack, and feel delirious of mind, and light of body, a sensation with the river rushing by in sparkling hues of lavender and salmon that leaves me feeling euphoric but debilitated, and in dire need of a major head-dipping in the chilled water. Too wobbly to bend over or get in, I fill my cap with pure clean sparkling (healing) liquid gold and repeatedly drench myself. Soon, I'm feeling back to my normal chipper Gambolin' Man self. Thank the Spirits of this Sacred Place! Heat stroke, sun fatigue, dehydration - these are not things to take lightly here or anywhere, so I'm grateful to have weathered the dizzy spell after just a few minutes. Without a doubt, the river has touched me, and my energy and spirit are reinvigorated. (While I'm in baptismal mode, I also give my mangled feet a good soaking in the healing waters.)

Ron, Gay, and Otis - doggone it! How could I forget about Otis, Ron's affectionate and loyal hound dog! - they all seem fine. Actually, I am too. Bad ankle and all, I have survived! We recoop for a few minutes, then figure out the best way to ford the electric current bustling along in riffs and cascades and rapidy little chutes and suddenly deep dipping holes that could knock you on your ass in a second and, maybe not carry you away to your death, but drench you and your belongings, and possibly bang yourself up pretty seriously if you aren't careful enough to not get knocked over in the first place. Not an easy thing to avoid. Looking upstream, then down, the beauty and grace of the river easily mesmerizes and holds your consciousness hostage to its "grand eternal show", its random, ever changing, never duplicative processes unfolding in ceaseless rhythms of Mother Nature humming and buzzing with vitality and abundance. But don't get distracted - you've got to ford this puppy safely!

Ron helps Gay cross over a bridge of well-placed rocks, but it looks slippery and awkward, with dire consequences resulting with one little bungle. It's not that I don’t trust Ron, far from it; it's that I don’t trust myself. So, I choose another route, where I sidle awkwardly into a small channel with water up to my knees, pressing down against a large boulder with the weight of my pack bearing down, white water swirling by with enough force to destabilize me, and bit by bit I inch my way across, exploiting strategically located boulders to help me with each lunge forward. It's so awkward I can't use a walking stick even if I had wanted to. Finally across this little kicker of a stream, we climb up a ziggy jumble of moss-covered rocks to crest at a short trail - an old miner's ditch from the Gold Rush Days - and then down through a gnarled oak forest to come upon a large clearing about fifty feet above the river. "Here we are," Ron announces, "What do you think about camping here?" It's a commodious and propitious site to call home for a couple of nights. The sense of isolation is real and enduring. We throw off our packs, and go off to explore the epicenter - the meadow is probably the size of two football fields - and we come upon evidence that others in the past have also enjoyed coming here - via helicopter. Ron recounts some story of some guy who had something to do with mining or logging, no doubt, who used to drop in and party down. The landing tracks, who knows how old, are smeared and faint but clearly visible in the layer of packed dirt. But what a cop-out, getting to come here in style like that! Shouldn't being here be an earned privilege? Shouldn't experiencing this pay-off require grit and guts and gumption? Shouldn't this culmination of our supreme efforts be achieved by the pain and rigor of physical torture? Well, not always, evidently. I'm sure they toasted to that, whoever they were.

Our meadow - the only available camping site within two river miles up or downstream - affords wonderful views of the surrounding forest, and there are even picnic tables, although they are rotting, but serve us capably nonetheless. Fast elapsing hours of physical activity and non-stop action blend into relaxing evenings of conversation, eating, and a shot of whisky before retiring to the sack. The comforting white noise of the river - the bogus thunder invoked by spooked miners - stills all thoughts at night, calms nerves, allays fears, inspires a deep yearning and connection. Lying awake in the warm open air, under the starry firmament of a night sky featuring infinite constellations of stars, flashing meteorites and a glittering Milky Way. . .I'm cozy and exhausted, dreamy-headed and out of it, happy to be listening to the song of the river that, as Norman Maclean writes, "has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us." Well, I know what the river speaks to my heart - it speaks of eternal beauty, power, sustenance of the soul, love even - effecting a magical quieting down of jumpy anxious energy, a lasting lesson about my place in the flow of the universe, more poetically stated by the grand master Da Vinci, "In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time."

First thing we really do is hang our food - actually, Ron takes it upon himself to hoist up the victuals, while Gay and I discourse animatedly about Lord Knows What (at one point we we discuss her experimentation with preparing and cooking with acorns, a too time and labor-intensive process to further pursue it). . .all the while, I'm observing his technique, a simple trick to foil the bears by hanging the bags 12 ft. up and 6 ft. away from a trunk. He ties a rock around his nylon cord and on his second attempt he manages to fling it accurately right over a limb situated according to those specifications. After last year's Royal Gorge bear debacle (see http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2010/08/snow-mountain-wilderness-adventure-and.html), I have vowed to never learn that lesson again, and so hanging is the law of the land. In places like Bogus Thunder where the presence of humans is virtually nonexistent, the bears haven't been corrupted or spoiled and so there's not a lot to worry about, but it's still wise to hang all food, cosmetics, liquids, toiletries, and - if you're real old school - your stash of 35mm film; but chances are you won't be staring down or seeing the ass-end of any she-bear down here anytime soon. It's too wild. (Sounds like a contradiction, but it's true.) But in places like Yosemite, where cunning and determined bears are inured to humans, and know how to exploit their weaknesses and mistakes, hanging is not an option; bear canisters are mandatory in the back country. (It's never a bear problem; always a human problem.)

The morning of my birthday, August 20 - I open my eyes to a new dawn and wake up one year older, and now here I am, three-fifths of the way to sixty, and deep in (not debt or doo-doo, my friends!) but deep in a wild, remote, rugged canyon harboring the spirit of a primordial river on its mystical journey through life. Waking up to this realization - breathing in the fresh morning air redolent of pine duff and toasted pecans, loving the gentle light - it moves me to a self-reflective moment of spiritual introspection and reverential silence. I just want to revel in the sensory glow of this glorious creation. (Well, Happy Birthday, Gambolin' Man! Fifty-six and still gettin' yer kicks!)

After brewing a cup of coffee, and greeting Ron and Gay, having breakfast, small talking, I head down to the river to filter water, and just sit there silently, me and Otis, who has now joined me. Otis is thirsty as hell, lapping madly at the water. I'm entranced by the refractory tableau, the utter peace and calm and tranquility of this river world. I can't express the feeling welling up in me at this cry-your-eyes-out sight of such.. .such. . .such primordial purity and pristine beauty.

Ah, everyone's thinking - there goes Gambolin' Man again with his hyperbolic evocations and exaggerated descriptions of a river is a river is a river ... certainly the North Fork of the Middle Fork constitutes a familiar scene, typical of California's Gold Rush country, of rugged mountains and ridges, striated colorful rocks, sweet swimming holes, mythical gorges, cliffy promontories. With variant exceptions, ain't it all the same? Bogus Thunder somehow is set apart, feels different, is self-contained light-years from anywhere I've been or know. . .I can't explain it. Perhaps, though, I feel this exalted sense only because it's a new venue. Perhaps only because it's a place of extraordinary privilege to be. Perhaps really because it's the living embodiment of wilderness purity. And to think at one time the miners down here, trashing the place, tearing things up, polluting the water, their crude and impure lives. . .today it has recovered and been left alone. It probably hasn't changed in a hundred years or more. I doubt a hundred years from now things will be much different.

The river is borne from the land of sky blue waters. . .originating high up in the Sierra Nevada on the western slopes of Duncan Peak - and generates enough carving force to sculpt out its own hidden canyon for maybe a 30 mile run before joining forces with the Middle Fork American River. It is a riparian arm of a rugged watershed system that flows unimpeded, uninterrupted, unpolluted, pure and pristine from its high fount to the confluence - a journey through a little canyon that might easily go unnoticed or unexplored during a lifetime . . .as I've mentioned, the King of Placer County hiking, Russell Towle, never made it here in all his scouting and forays.

We stock up on food and head upstream to a place Ron wants to share with us - a place called Devil's Gate. . .there they go again with their daemonic appellations! Once you scramble up and over refrigerator-sized boulders, and make numerous semi-hazardous creek crossings, and detour 150 ft. high above an impassable bend in the river, and arrive at a tight walled gorge with a massive oval turquoise pool with a gushing cascade emptying into it, your jaw dropping and filling the air with exhilarating hoots of joy and irrepressible hollers of praise and awe . . .then, you would be calling this gorgeous cul-de-sac God's Gateway or Heaven’s Back Forty. I never understood how or why Satan always got something named for him - Devil's Slide, Mt. Diablo, Devil's Gate, Devil's Postpile - Uh, probably 'cause in classic Western dualist mentality, Mother Nature has always been viewed antagonistically and fearfully as an amoral, evil, godless force.

Allowing for easy going, we follow the miner's ditch for a good length; it's an engineering feat of no small achievement by these determined fellows who devised a preposterous scheme of altering the landscape by digging a huge ditch to transport a non-stop flushing stream for their sluice operations and by building flumes and anchoring them somehow to the steep hillsides. Strewn here and there is forensic evidence of a past life, a vanquished history - of desperados seeking to strike a rich vein frantically digging out hillsides and piling up the rocky slag into baleful pyramids - monuments of futility. Try as I might, I can’t quite close my eyes and visualize the community of miners working here engaged in their endeavors to extract as much gold as possible at any cost imaginable. I have an easier time closing my eyes and letting my mind wander to bucolic images of a clanspeople - the nomadic Nisenan Maidu - here long before1849, collecting the sacred acorn harvest, checking their traps and nets, making baskets, weaving clothing, fashioning instruments, utensils, pots and vases. In many ways, it was a near perfect society, showered with the abundance of natural resources, enjoying intimate kinships, creating art and excelling in mythic dancing and storytelling. These tribes, and others who frequented Bogus Thunder, surely were in awe of the place as much as we humans are today. I wonder - did the old prospectors stop for a moment to ever look around and offer up thanks and praise, throw a prayer to the wind, or were they too damn distracted by the sweet allure of easy riches, the narcotic spell of the prospect?

We walk along the ditch trail for a leisurely thirty minutes, coming upon rock walls, odd structures half dug into the earth, cable lines slung for pulley car systems, foundations of old huts, caches of detritus from the mining era (weights, corroded engine parts), tunnels and caved in earth. All very interesting, these "ruins" of a vanished era. The easy traversing ditch trail soon drops down to a jumble of boulders lining the river bank; here, we ford, then clamber up and over some really big rocks, ford again, scramble high up around a detour, and stop momentarily - hey, we're on our way to Devil's Gate! (I mean, God's Gorge!) - to gaze down at a particularly pretty bend far below with jutting algae-stained cliffs, deep pools, and a generally rugged look and feel. Chock-a-block boulders with tree trunks stripped of their bark pose atop like gargantuan toothpicks. Stunted oaks dot the cliff edges, clinging precariously to their little roothold. Pressing on, the going getting rougher, and it's a relief to find ourselves on a sandy blanket of beach finally - the only of its kind in two river miles at least. Here we stop, rest, rehydrate, admire the stunning scene before us, and I could just put things on hold for the next few hours right here. No sooner am I kicked back than Ron says, "Well, we've come this far, and it's only another hundred yards to Devil's Gate, shall we." Or something to that effect. I just remember the hundred yards part. . .because it was at least five hundred yards, wasn't it, Ron? Tell me it was, please!

But it is not to be denied. We make it to the lovely dead-end pool of no getting around; above the cascade pouring its pounding waters in through a narrow slot over a ledge, the North Fork of the Middle Fork is inaccessible, tough, tough country. By now, you'd think we would all be cured of our fever, the entranced state come over us, the peculiar spell of the river that stuns, amazes, tickles, entertains, charms, and soothes, and then at the crepuscular hour when the light softens and colors are peyote mellow - then, at that bewitching hour, when Ms. Osprey might pay a visit, or Canyon Wren might sing her sweet song, and the air moves with a gentle breeze keeping pests at bay - then, the river astounds, impresses, enthuses, transubstantiates. I don't know what I even mean by that, but that's what happens at the magical hours whiled away on Deadwood Creek.

Got to love what the name Deadwood evokes! It’s all “dead wood” meaning easy pickings in the placers. How many Deadwood ghost towns must there be? And what's this about Deadwood Creek? Well, yes, that's the name I do declare for the North Fork of the Middle Fork American River. Eventually, I start referring to everything as Deadwood this and Deadwood that - Deadwood Canyon. Deadwood Meadow. Deadwood Falls. Deadwood Pool. Deadwood Creek. The only real Deadwoods, I believe, are Deadwood Cemetery and Deadwood Ridge, but legitimately, every feature named above could and might as well be (affectionately) labeled with the Deadwood descriptor. There's just something about the sound of the name - Deadwood - rich in intrigue and mystery - a name that beckons, for its association with Old West zeitgeist or something.

Fifty hours have never passed so quickly - it is time to pack up and head out, or more likely, pack it out and head UP. We take a final campsite swim, salute the place goodbye, and head up the ditch trail, then down the pile of rocks to the tough crossing that first thwarted us. It seems a lot easier this time. Safely across, we strip down and take a final refreshing dip, eat a bit, chat, recap our adventures, and start to buck up after this languorous break for the ascent. Gay goes off to gather some twigs to make a broom, using her Fiskars loppers as the handle, and intends to sweep the trails clear of debris to make the going easier. (Does it work, Gay? It's a cute sight watching you sweep the pathway - your rhythmic, meditative motions seem more like a zen practice akin to raking sand in a monastery.) Finally, we break the spell of this special place, bid very reluctant adieus, and hoist our packs on for the SFD hike (Serious F***ing Difficult) awaiting us.

The first 100 ft. are the worse - so steep that my feet bend back painfully a couple of times, and where I slip to my knees, grappling with a motility solution more than once. That leaves just another 1500 of 'em to go. . .one foot in the front of the other, just keep moving. It's grueling, and just when you think the tough part is over, another tough stretch looms - like attaining false summits when mountain climbing. Regarding this, a real old hand, Gene Markley, wrote a hard-to-find book in 1976 called Bogus Thunder, where he calls out Placer County terrain for its "upside-down mountain climbing on boulder strewn, brush covered canyon walls with the V-shaped depth lined with slick moss, smooth river rock and containing rushing water. Such is mountain climbing Mother Lode style..."

And as such, we climb up and out of that mountain, straggling and struggling, groaning at another 150 ft. stretch of impossibly steep and sloping terrain, stopping only for a drink of water, which I have to keep asking Ron to get for me on the outer pocket of my pack - "Sorry, Ron, I know I should be using my hydration system" - but finally, worn out but elated, we reach the saddle and have the battle won. Although it's only another mere mile and 400 or so mere feet more of steady uphill, by the time we reach Ron's truck, I throw my pack off and say to my hiking compatriots, "Might as well bury me right here in Deadwood Cemetery, I'm so beat." But, I recover and live on for another day's adventure and exploration in the bad-ass canyonlands and river systems of Placer County's Gold Rush Territory.

Postscript: if you notice, an annoying date stamp appears on many of the photos. This is because one morning Gay and I are discussing my shoot-from-the-hip, amateurish digital photography skills and Gay, being a teacher and former professional photographer of outdoor sporting events, suggests I change my pixilation and some other settings to achieve a different perspective. I agree and later on I fumble about trying to adjust the settings and accidentally screw up the language settings so now everything's in Japanese and in my further bumbling efforts to change it back to English, I somehow managed to insert an irreversible date stamp onto each shot. Well, things could have been worse - the battery could have died.

To view complete Bogus Thunder gallery, visit:
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjw7mqJ5

MOUNT DIABLO & MOUNT TAMALPAIS: A Natural History in Praise of the Bay Area’s Two Sacred Mountains

2011-05-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

High above from an airplane window, thrilling views unfold of an inspiring landscape – a glittering vision of steely skyscrapers surrounded by forested greenbelt, impressive rocky ridges, rolling hills, hidden valleys, shimmering blue lakes, and endless miles of bay and ocean shoreline. From a bird's eye perspective, the incomparable metropolitan Bay Area and its abundant natural beauty offer up a spectacular panorama made all the more notable by the presence of two imposing landmarks standing above and apart from lesser topographical features.

These are the twin “holy eyes” – the peaks of Mount Diablo and Mount Tamalpais. Together, but separated by 37 miles, they loom on the curvature of earth, anchoring opposite ends of this slice of Turtle Island like geodetic monuments to creation. The former, a double massif rising to 3849 ft., dominates eastern Contra Costa County and much of Northern California. The Mount Diablo Interpretative Society has proclaimed the heralded feature “one of California's most significant historical, cultural, and geological treasures.” The latter is Marin County's highest point, a pyramidal mass of earth rising 2571 ft. out of San Francisco Bay, just off the San Andreas Fault at the continent’s geologically unstable western boundary. Of this iconic piece of real estate, Robert Louis Stevenson gushed, "There is no place on earth so beautiful as Tamalpais."

Five to ten thousand years in the past, up until a relatively short time ago, humans lived alongside grizzly bears, mountain lions, elk, condors and bald eagles in an alt-universe we can only hope to replicate or imagine in today’s virtual reality / CGI world. Various Ohlone and Miwok tribes revered this earthly bounty and worshipped the prominent peaks as holy mounts for their cosmological significance and animist power. Both mountains were the Valhalla of prehistoric Bay Area, the ancestral dwelling places of the Creator Gods. Mount Diablo was where the divine personages of Coyote, Eagle, Condor, Falcon, and Hummingbird reigned. These Supernatural Beings created the world after some catastrophic Diluvian event (sound familiar?) and spawned the races of humankind – the First People – providing them with “everything, everywhere, so they can live.” After their act of genesis, they departed mysteriously, but in his Top100 Books of the American West classic, The Ohlone Way, Malcolm Margolin notes, "The animal-gods of Sacred Time still pervaded the everyday life of the world."

Despite centuries of oppression, disease, enslavement and the sad litany of abuse and cultural debasement at the hands of terrorizing Spanish colonizers and the Church, today’s ancestors of the First People, although few in number, are strong survivors and carry on the traditional totemic belief system of worshipping the mountains and their spirit entities and protectors. Mount Diablo has always been well known for its religious significance, a place where “the dead must cross or enter for purification before going to the land of the dead.” John Peabody Harrington, an ethnologist and early expert on California’s native peoples, recounts in his 1929 field notes Chochenyo (Ohlone) consultants revering the mountain as "a very powerful place that could mysteriously hide things, where large snakes were seen but could not be caught, and where spirits still danced and whistled in cemeteries." In 1985, Mabel McKay, tribal elder, scholar and last of the “basketweaver dreamers” of the Pomo Indians (1907 – 1993), was quoted, “I would listen as Jim [Cooper, an herb doctor who was born in the Diablo area] told my grandmother about how sacred Mount Diablo is. He said that as long as the mountain stands it will be a sacred mountain. He said that the entire mountain is sacred. He called it the Medicine Mountain. In his language it was called Kinchiiwi.”

The history of Mount Tamalpais is also steeped in legend and mystery, dating to a time when “men and animals spoke one language.” Various Miwok legends, handed down orally through the generations, recount stories of the mountain’s creation. One speaks of the “Great White Spirit” who offered the “Gift of Healing” to the beautiful Tamalpa, who sleeps on the mountaintop eternally. Another tells of the daughter of a Miwok chief, beautiful beyond compare, who was courted by the Sun God. They married and while journeying toward the heavens, carrying her, he tripped over Mount Diablo and she fell to the ground. The Sun God, in his everlasting grief, turned her into a mountain – the Sleeping Princess – each night draping her in a cloak of fog as he moves across the sky.

Both "Medicine Mountains" have been known by various indigenous names, depending on the dialect spoken, and many namesake etymologies remain a mystery. Mount Tamalpais, it is said, comes from “Tamal payis”, Tamal being a generic name for the Indians of the area. It has also been referred to, without reference, as “Pa-le-mus”. Mount Diablo, on the other hand, is a veritable gazetteer - the Chochenyo called it “Tuyshtak”; “the Northern Sierra Miwok knew it as "Oj-ompil-e"; the Central Sierra Miwok christened it “Supemenenu”; while the Southern Maidu (Nisenan) referred to it as “Sukku Jaman” or Dog Mountain.

The mountains have had various historic appellations bestowed as well. Mount Diablo has been known as San Juan Bautista, Cerro Alto de los Bolbones, and Monte del Diablo. Mount Tamalpais has several hard to pin down monikers - Pico y Cerro de Reyes, Picacho Prieto, La Sierra de Nuestro Padre de San Francisco, and Table Hill. (The “Sleeping Princess” of alleged native myth is actually a contrivance of nineteenth century German immigrant hikers to the area.)

Besides rooted in peculiar creation mythologies, the mountain sentinels share a somewhat common geological heritage, even though Mount Tamalpais is born of the North Coast range - wetter, foggier and more humid - while Mount Diablo basks in the notoriously hot and arid Diablo range of inland Central California. Both appear to be of volcanic origin, but they owe their existence to faulting deep within the earth. Unimaginable events - contorting, buckling, folding, uplifting – occurred over millions of years and have writ in the layering and depositing of rocks the story of these mountains’ creation born of severe plate tectonic upheaval.

On Mount Diablo, evidence of the ancient manifests in its quarter billion year old rocks, and when you happen to see a Paleozoic era dragonfly landing on the tip of a Devonian period horsetail, the earliest land plant, you are bearing witness to a 350 million year old relationship. But, geologically, the mountain itself is a mere tyke. Somewhere between one and two million years old, it came into existence eight million years after volcanic eruptions tore through the East Bay. Hard as it is to imagine such fire and brimstone convulsions, the tectonic forces involved in uplifting a 4000 ft. mountain must have rent and shook the earth something fierce. Was this great mountain born in a single tumultuous day of orogenic ecstasy, or did it take eons to produce the familiar form we see today? However long its catastrophic birth took for the mountain to assume its present shape, it is still alive and growing to the tune of a few millimeters each year.

Mount Tamalpais similarly owes its existence to tectonic activity deep within the earth when the North Coast range began uplifting some fifty million years ago as the North American and Pacific plates collided and pressurized tension forced subterranean crust to burst through the core with mountain-making fanfare. With its sweeping ridges and rollicking slopes falling away to the ocean, and its twin East and West peaks flirting in cerulean realms, Mount Tamalpais stood fully formed, tall and isolated at the coast range’s southern terminus, long before Mount Diablo was ever a gleam in Coyote-God’s eye.

Both mountains’ inner core is composed of Franciscan rock - chert, sandstone, shale and serpentine. The rocks on the slopes and summit of Mount Diablo were formed on the bottom of a shallow sea that once covered the Bay Area. Domengine sandstone formations (tafoni), occurring at lower elevations, were laid down when the sea receded in the Eocene. Today, eerie and intriguing wind and water caves lend a desert Southwest feel or Alabama Hills ambience to places like Rock City and Castle Rocks. Mount Tamalpais also claims its share of fantastical outcrops, often taking on whimsical “Indian face” features and other anthropomorphic resemblances. It’s easy to imagine why and how the mountains became so personified and imbued with animist power, such is the magical nature of rocks, the bones of the old mother, to borrow a phrase from Robinson Jeffers.

Serpentine outcrops characterize both mountains. Their geo-chemical make-up (rich in iron, magnesium and nickel, and lacking in calcium, molybdenum, sodium and potassium silicates) has contributed to depleted soils lacking essential nutrients, allowing for only a handful of certain plants, found nowhere else on earth but their incubator habitats on some remote hillside or shady canyon, to adapt and flourish. These rare species include native perennial grasses and wildflowers, and on Mount Tamalpais, a unique thistle, and the endangered Jewelflower of the mustard family, with fewer than a dozen occurrences noted. Over on Mount Diablo, endemic flora include the yellow fairy-lantern (a delicate lily), the diminutive Mount Diablo sunflower, and the “Holy Grail” of flower chasers, the Mount Diablo buckwheat, rediscovered in 2005 after a 70-year absence by UC Berkeley grad student Michael Park. Today, the buckwheat is safely propagated and continues to grow in secret spots on the edges of the mountain’s chaparral zones.

The “island mountain” environments, responsible for endemic flora and fauna, naturally host classic California low elevation habitat such as chaparral, grasslands, oak woodlands, vernal pools, and riparian, enabling shared biodiversity with particular localized adaptations. Each mountain lays claim to its own special (and rare) variety of manzanita – not surprisingly, named Mount Diablo Manzanita (Arctostaphylos auriculata) and Mount Tamalpais Manzanita (Arctostaphylos hookeri ssp. Montana). The Mount Diablo variety has pinker blossoms than other varieties. Botanists believe that the characteristic stripping away in ribbony tatters of the creamy chocolate colored bark is a defense mechanism to shed parasites and mold. No matter its cagey survival strategies, all manzanitas have found a way to adapt in the rocky, rugged soils of the two mountains. Often, seemingly dead specimens, skeletal like sculptures with scraggly branches poking up, perished in fire or claimed by old age, refuse to relinquish the gift of life and provide a grafting base for another one to sprout. Death - and life! - intertwined, co-existing, one and the same. . .

Also found in abundance and much appreciated by human observers and the many animals, birds and insects who symbiotically depend on each other for survival and adaptation, are California buckeye and stream bank loving red and white alders and bigleaf maples; parasitic Pacific mistletoe; the bright red berry bush, toyon; pungent smelling California bay laurel; multiple species of pines and oaks; and the minty-smelling coastal scrub plant communities of chamise, chinquapin, artemesia, coyote brush, blue witch and black sage.

Mount Tamalpais supports a unique species of dwarf cypress, a delicate orchid (Calypso), and, famously, boasts extensive preserves of old growth Sequoias at Muir Woods National Monument. If Mount Diablo could, it would, too, but it sits just outside the climatic zone conducive to supporting Coast Redwood and so must be content with its more pedestrian (not!) arboreal line-up - gray (Digger) pine, dwarf Western juniper, California nutmeg, madrone, manzanita, Douglas Fir and venerable blue, coast live, black, valley and other oak species.

Droves of photographers and admirers flock to the mountains’ slopes and meadows in anticipation of seeing profusions of wildflowers in season. After spring rains, abetted by a few days of that famed California sunshine, colorful explosions of fiery orange poppies, bright red Indian paintbrush, pink checkerbloom, golden monkeyflower, bluedick, daisies, mariposa lilies and purple lupine light up the hillsides and meadows. Throughout their short life span, dozens of species of butterflies (many rare) and bees are attracted to the sweet smelling flowers laden with succulent nectar which they gather up in the process of helping them propagate.

While it’s not uncommon to see many types of insects, a few reptiles (watch out for rattlers!), amphibians, mammals and avifauna - ground squirrels, Steller’s and blue jays, hawks, quail, hares, vultures, lizard, frog, deer, any of the thirteen species of bats hanging around cliff faces, or the occasional gopher snake or coyote - most of the animals roaming the back country of both mountains are unseen and elusive – who among us has seen (more than once or twice) a bobcat, cougar, fox, badger, skunk, jackrabbit, Coast horned lizard, shrew, long-tailed weasel, tarantula, opossum, kingsnake, and the endangered Alameda whipsnake? If you happen to espy any of these animals, you are extraordinarily patient, invisible of presence, non-perfumed smelling in laundry or personal hygiene products, light of foot, slow-going and nearly immobile, or maybe you’re just plain lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Most of these animals are very weary of humans, and so remain out of sight, hidden, venturing forth only at the crepuscular hour to prowl around.

Both mountains enjoy a world-class reputation for birding - herons, egrets, shorebirds, woodpeckers, swallows, swifts, flycatchers, wrens, warblers, hummingbirds, quail, owls, larks, wild turkeys, turkey vultures, along with many easy to spot raptors such as red-tailed and Cooper’s hawks, northern harriers, falcons, kites, and golden eagles, ever on the prowl for a tasty meal of vole, mole, rat, mouse and pocket gopher. Birdsong enlivens everything along the trail!

Mount Tamalpais has a flourishing steelhead / rainbow trout migration spawning history. Originating high up on Mount Tamalpais, these streams – Lagunitas Creek being the most famous - speak to a greater preservation of pristine conditions and more successful restoration efforts in Marin County. Mount Diablo cannot lay claim to a spawning migration today. A 2005 report by Oakland-based Center for Ecosystem Management and Restoration determined that the watersheds of Marsh Creek and Mount Diablo Creek, with their creeks originating on the spring-fed north slopes of Mount Diablo draining to Suisun Bay – Marsh Creek, Donner Creek, Mount Diablo Creek, Irish Canyon Creek – are pitiful to poor habitat, but assesses that evidence exists “for the historical use of Mt. Diablo Creek by anadromous O. mykiss as a migratory corridor.” Mount Diablo’s other drainage system, Walnut Creek Watershed, the largest in Contra Costa County, once supported large spawning migrations, and a few still manage to straggle up into lower Walnut Creek. So, there is hope for the steelhead / rainbow trout coalition, but not much.

There is no greater reward for the hiker or biker than attaining the hard-earned summits for the ultimate payoff - world-class panoramas of California and the West Coast. The breathtaking views from cloud’s rest offer unique perspectives on the wild and urban landscapes of the Bay Area – and far beyond. Since the earliest of times, through historic settlement days, people have been drawn to the mountains as though by magnetic allure, for it is the closest we can get to experiencing heaven on earth or a return to our “Buddha nature,” connecting with our primal selves, for mountains, their mere presence and existence, beckons us to climb them to “get their good tidings” - “the mountains are calling and I must go,” John Muir urged. Even Dr. Suess exhorts us one and all - “Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So…get on your way.”

From atop Olympian Mount Diablo, on a (rare) clear day it is possible to see 35 of California's 58 counties, encompassing an area 40,000 square miles the size of six New England states. Far-flung views with the naked eye can be had of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada crest, and, 200 miles distant, the 10,462 ft. Lassen Peak in the Cascade range is visible. With radiating 360 degree views, every reference point and natural feature in the 9-county, 7000-square mile Bay Area is telescoped in the thinnish air. Etched in minute precision, details are laid bare and stark beneath the behemoth mountain’s purview, revealing an intimate topography of finger-splayed estuary systems, the sinuous San Joaquin River delta, sprawling ridges and voluptuous hills; even that “insignificant” little blip on the southeast horizon, 1702 ft. tall Brushy Peak, stands out at the edge of Morgan Territory as a prehistoric beacon, a gathering place at the juncture of the San Francisco Bay Area, the California Delta, and the Central Valley for dozens of passer-by tribes coming to trade, socialize, gamble, and share stories and laughter.

To the north/northwest, an impressive phalanx of dozens of 2000+ ft. tall peaks, between 90 and 126 miles distant, serrate the horizon in a single unbroken ridge system; the biggest of these include the Mayacamas (3250 ft.); Mount St. Helena (4343 ft.); Mount Konocti (4299 ft.); Hull Mount (6873 ft.); Cold Spring Mount (3587 ft.); and pinpointing high above the others, Mendocino’s Snow Mountain topping out at 7056 ft.

To the south/southeast/southwest, the cloud-poking peaks of the Diablo Range and the Santa Cruz Mountains come into view - Mount Hamilton (4213 ft.); Junipero Serra (5862 ft.), 123 miles away; Mission Peak (2658 ft.); and Loma Prieta (3791 ft.). Across the expanse of East Bay hill lands, the volcanic remnant of Round Top at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve stands out at 1763 ft. with nearby Grizzly Peak at 1754 ft., and Vollmer, the highest point in the Berkeley Hills, at 1905 ft. Rocky Ridge’s 2000+ ft. spine at Las Trampas Regional Wilderness is a revelation of modest grandeur in the near foreground. And there in the glittering distance, across the bay, lies the Golden Gate Bridge, and the silvery city of San Francisco, with Mount Tamalpais shining eternally and resplendently across the strait.

From the empyrean vantage of this coastal promontory, gazing out beyond the rugged Headlands, the prevailing views are striking of blue ridge sylvan slopes angling to the sea, the mirage of San Francisco floating on a cushion of low-roaming clouds, the Farallones 30 miles outside the Golden Gate, the inland flanks of the mountain harboring several hidden lakes (reservoirs), the summit of Mount Burdell (1555 ft.), to the dim wilds of Mendocino National Forest. Beyond, naturally – impossible not to notice – sits the crowning jewel, the twin peaked silhouette of Mount Diablo, emblazoning the horizon in purple mountain’s majesty. The "little mountain" might not look like much from here, but it is nearly forty miles distant, and so proportionately, it looms with an unusual grace and presence.

During the changing seasons, the mountains take on personalities suited to their whimsical natures. Though rare, winter storms can bring freezing temperatures and dustings of snow to the higher elevations, 2000 ft and above. Occasionally, three feet of snow can dump on either mountain. When this happens, the picturesque backdrop of snow-capped mountains in the Mediterranean climate of the Bay Area is an incongruous sight, a magnet for drawing people to the mountain who otherwise might not give it a second glimpse. Add snow, though, and suddenly you’ve got something exotic and dramatic to crow about and play in.

Springtime on the mountains is earthly paradise (don’t let the ticks and poison oak deter you) - wildflowers grace the hillsides and meadows, and a sense of renewal and freshness pervades the air as the hills are transformed by rain falling to soak the parched earth. Creeks are recharged and burble merrily along, waterfalls boom in the canyons. When the water’s flowing, expect magic and miracles around every bend. Sunlit dappled pools, rushing cascades, water swirling through carved chutes, towering redwood trees, fern-cloaked stream banks, mouthfuls of sweet edible Miner's lettuce.

Summers on both mountains are wicked hot. Mount Tamalpais offers shadier woodlands and, with its lakes and perennial streams, shelter from the day’s blazing temperatures is never far away. A sweat drenching hike leads to a place of solitude and peace, with small wading pools here and there to soak your feet in and while away a lazy day at Steep Ravine, Cataract Falls, or Cascade Canyon. The shady, cool retreat of Muir Woods offers respite as well from hot temperatures. Plenty of places to escape to, relax, enjoy a picnic, and revel in the day's languor.

Over on Mount Diablo – its name now hinting at the hellishness it can turn into on a blistering summer day – the 20,000 acre park is often closed due to extreme fire danger from tinderbox conditions. There are not too many places to hide. Coyotes hunker down in the tall grass. Hawks and vultures lazily circle; even the ground squirrels stay in their burrows. You can die on this mountain if you venture too far without enough water or let the hubris of your bravura overdo it and heat stroke claims you halfway up the mountain trail. For the goddesses of Diablo will surely exact their price for the privilege of sharing her natural wonders, splendors and secrets. Venture with caution – and respect - always.

Mount Tamalpais is a gigantic bulwark of a ridge system whose high point culminates in the 2571 ft. East Peak. Its 6300 acres abound in natural wonders, cultural resources, and recreational opportunities, with over 60 miles of hiking trails, towering redwoods, booming waterfalls, rustic cabins and environmental camp sites. This wild land serves as sanctuary and get-away to millions of people. Zen poet and circumambulator of the mountain, Gary Snyder, notes that “Tam is a model for appreciating nature close at hand and not needing a total icon of pristine wilderness to get your attention.” I second the sentiment, but consider more importantly what Galen and Barbara Rowell, in their fly-over reconnaissance missions, revealed to be “unbroken forest. . .more than over the national parks of Costa Rica.” Roadless or not, I decree “Tam” to be a slice of veritable wilderness in our back yard! Same goes for ol' Dog Mountain.

Kingly Mount Diablo stands alone on the horizon, an irregular topographical feature, a conspicuous presence unmatched by nearby smaller formations. In 1860, J.M. Hutchings, who wrote Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, declared, “almost every Californian has seen Monte Diablo. It is the great central landmark of the state. Whether we are walking in the streets of San Francisco, or sailing on any of our bays and navigable rivers, or riding on any of the roads in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, or standing on the elevated ridges of the mining districts before us – in lonely boldness, and almost every turn, we see Monte Diablo.”

John Muir, who eventually settled down and became a gentleman farmer in Martinez, was rather silent about Bay Area beauty in his rhapsodic nature writings, but he did comment, after a visit to the mountain in 1895: "Clear and cool. Beautiful silvery haze on Mount Diablo this morning, on it and over it – outlines melting, wonderfully luminous." Nobel Prize Winner Eugene O’Neill, a resident of Danville, swooned, "Mt Diablo, a mass of purple in the morning. Nature is always lovely. . .” Gambolin’ Man himself wrote of the mountain a while back, “It’s no wonder that Ohlone peoples north south east and west all turned to Tuyshtak for spiritual renewal and sacred cosmological allegory as the birth place of the universe. Or that it was later plotted as the fixed meridian for surveying vast portions of California land. And there it sits, the dominant Bay Area landmark. . .known and loved by many, but ignored and taken for granted by the vast majority.”

The idea that these mountains, because they are at sea level, are not “real” mountains is a misconception to be dispelled if you believe that they don’t rank right up there with Sierra mountains in sheer presence, bulk and grandeur. Mount Diablo's broad contours especially compare to a “real” Sierra mountain. Take Mount Tallac (from the Washo Indian, “Dala-ak”, great mountain), which rises majestically near Lake Tahoe to a sky-kissing height of 9735 ft., and subtract the lake’s surface elevation of 6335 ft., which leaves a mountain 3475 ft. tall - just about the same size as Mount Diablo using the same formula of subtracting its height from its base elevation above sea level. The point being – and no further need to defend – Diablo and Tam are legitimate mountains, complete with distinct topographical and ecological zones at varying altitudes, hosting endemic flora, exposing vestiges of a violent geological past, harboring creatures great and small, hiding charming hollows and intriguing nooks and crannies, and whose deep wellsprings create beautiful water plunging, flowing, pooling, and, finally, everyone's criterion, offering up stellar views in all directions. What more can you ask of a mountain?

Like Orion or the Big Dipper in the night sky, these readily identifiable Bay Area peaks are hard to miss, and for the homesick and wayward, they serve as reassuring monuments of familiarity and sanctuary. Self-contained, amidst unmitigated urban surroundings, the mountains seem to exist solely for the weary and overly citified, beckoning us from our artificial enclosures to come explore and seek respite from the harried day in the shady nooks of the mountains' welcoming bosom, to enjoy the opportunities they provide for unlimited recreational opportunities, and to gravitate to their summits for incomparable views and memorable outings. The mountains offer some diversion for everyone, whether it's hiking, biking, hang gliding, horseback riding, or simply strolling leisurely to photograph wildflowers or bird watch. No agenda is a fine agenda. Time ceases to exist on the mountain redoubts, or takes on a different meaning, a vague construct of less urgency and importance. On the mountain, you're able to forget about petty trifles and mean concerns. There is nothing to remind you of the things you cannot have. There is nothing or no one to be but your joyous self, in the sanctity of the mountain setting. The mountain gives freely of its generous spirit. The base existence of “carnal incrustations” of which John Muir always sought to shed, and the world “late and soon” which Wordsworth thought was “too much with us’, fades below, out of sight and mind, when lost in meditative reverie or intoxicated on the drunken glee imbued by nature’s distilled spirits. Yes, the unfettered pursuit of fun and adventure is what captivates and draws us to these special mountains, but there is something more. We seek what our ancestors have always sought in retreating to places of eternal power – personal enlightenment, communion with higher powers, spiritual renewal, the replenishment of our drained souls.

Check out more of Gambolin' Man's posts on the mountains:
Mount Diablo:

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2007/03/mt-diablo-st-park-traipsing-and.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2005/06/mt-diablo-state-park-eagle-peaks.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2006/03/mt-diablos-western-foothills-casual.html

Mount Tamalpais:

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2006/06/marin-county-california-day-hiking-mt.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2006/12/muir-woods-national-monument-humbled.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2009/02/marin-municipal-water-district.html

BONUS! - Photo Perspectives Identified:

Note: these photos were taken between 2006 and the present, from many vantage points and during the changing seasons.

#1: Mount Tamalpais from Marin Headlands, Coyote Ridge Trail

#2: Ditto

#3: California Quail, posing for me on Coyote Ridge Trail

#4: Redwoods, Muir Woods National Monument at Mount Tamalpais

#5: Telescoped view of Mount Diablo, from Pine Mountain, Marin County

#6: Mount Tamalpais summit, 2571 ft., from Railroad Grade trail

#7: Rugged ridge of Mount Diablo massif, from Donner Falls Trail

#8: Mount Tamalpais from Tennessee Valley, Marin Headlands

#9: View looking northwest from Mount Tamalpais summit

#10: Black-tailed deer browsing in early evening, common site on either mountain

#11: View looking south from Mount Tamalpais summit

#12: Water flowing, Mount Diablo

#13: Rattlesnake hissing at me, Mount Diablo

#14: Southeast perspective of The Sleeping Princess, from single-track bike trail at Camp Tamarancho

#15: East view from Mount Tamalpais' rocky summit - Mount Diablo can barely be seen in the far distance

#16: Alligator lizard, Mount Tamalpais

#17: Looking northwest, from behind Mount Diablo, at Morgan Territory, near Livermore

#18: Eastward vision of Mount Diablo, from Briones Crest, Briones Regional Park

#19: Another view toward San Francisco from summit of Mount Tamalpais

#20: Mount Tamalpais as viewed from 1250 footer Wildcat Peak in the Berkeley Hills

#21: The big mountain, Tuyshtak, seen from ridge top at nearby Las Trampas Regional Wilderness

#22: View of Mount Tamalpais from Berkeley

#23: Mount Tamalpais from Pine Mountain to the northwest

#24: Mount Diablo from Wildcat Peak in the Berkeley Hills

#25: Rugged landscape, Mount Diablo

#26: Rugged landscape, Mount Diablo

#27: Coyote skulkin' about on Dog Mountain

#28: Mount Tamalpais, from shores of Kent Lake, Marin County

#29: Rugged landscape, Mount Diablo

#30: Furry trees, Mount Tamalpais State Park

#31: Dog Mountain from Donner Creek Trail

#32: Pesky blue jay, Mount Diablo

#33: Peeling manzanita bark, Mount Diablo

#34: Mount Diablo from Wildcat Peak, Berkeley Hills

#35: Steep Ravine Creek, Mount Tamalpais

#36: Rugged Mount Diablo landscape below East Peak

#37: Valley oak, Mount Diablo State Park

#38: Mount Diablo Manzanita

#39: Outcrop with California poppies, Mount Diablo, Falls Trail

#40: The Sleeping Princess from Marin Headlands

#41: Water flowing, Mount Diablo

#42 & 43: Mount Diablo sandstone formations at Rock City

TILDEN REGIONAL PARK: A Humble Little Stream Turns into a Raging Torrent, Replete with Frothing White Water Cascades and Tremendous Waterfalls!

2011-03-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

"That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter."
- Rainer Maria Rilke

The past few days, we've experienced some wild and wacky weather patterns - water spouts at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, a tornado touchdown in Santa Rosa, hailstones in buckets, and streaky displays of lightning over the Bay. And the rain. When rain falls, in the right amount, it can turn a place you think you're familiar with into somewhere completely different and wholly unexpected. Rain resuscitates a dried out forest, lending the bark of trees and the texture of rocks a glistening patina, soaking the earth and releasing heady aromas of oxygenated air, pine duff, eucalyptus mint, and mud, sweet mud. Little rivulets burst to life in their fossil channels. Creeks are recharged. And, if you know where to find them, and time it right, secret waterfalls boom into being, miraculous manifestations of the transformative power created by raindrops from the heavens, “each one of them,” noted John Muir, “a high waterfall in itself."

On a puddle-licious and mud-lectable day, in between blustery downpours, I borrow a car and steal away after the grind of work to my favorite local watershed haunt – a veritable Pacific Northwest rainforest environment during these times - Wildcat Creek in Tilden Regional Park. I have written a few posts about Wildcat and Tilden, but with new rains come new adventures, new dimensions, new inspirations and insights. (And new photographs, folks!) A mere seven minute drive away, I’m perpetually astonished (and always irrepressibly enthused) to know that a beautiful rugged "park" exists so close by. ("Park" because I consider it the wild land.) Even by bicycle, it’s under half an hour up the big hill – and there you are. Or are you? Today not a single other car is at the Lone Oak Trailhead. Granted, it is 5 pm , on a Friday, and the weather is, well, a bit iffy - but just how Gambolin' Man likes it!

I pay the price to get these "great photos" today! A poke in the eye, a strained arm, a hobbled ankle, poison oak, nicks and scrapes - all wonderful souvenirs! - and doggie-style wet and muddy from head to toe. Just how Gambolin’ Man likes it! I know I’m in for a treat, after this latest series of fierce late-winter squalls that have soaked the Bay Area, bringing drenching rains to the tune of several inches. Drought schmought. (At least for now.) During such wet spells, the creeks pulsate with a spellbinding current. With limited daylight remaining, my intention is to check out the most accessible, as well as one of the most beautiful, stretches of the creek - a lovely riparian corridor from Nook Pool to the Lake Anza spillway. The winding course of bedrock-cutting creek supports a lush habitat and is home to many - mostly unseen - aquatic critters, birds and mammals, as it charts a path through mixed woodland and rocky volcanic outcroppings. It's a most familiar place, visited a hundred times, and believe me, it's a lovely little walk any time of the year. . .but on a day like this, bursting to the frothy seams, I feel overwhelmed by a raw primal energy, disoriented in a barely recognizable world. Such is the mysterious nature of the electric power of water to transport and transform.

Wildcat Creek - look at 'er go! - is churning fast and high, joined at gully junctures by the muddy run-off of countless freshets and snaky streams of water channeling to their natural low-point destination. It almost looks kayakable, as nuts as that sounds! At Nook Pool, a roaring tumult of water barrels down the sloping cascade in a fury of foam and frenzy! This normally reserved, tranquil little trickle of a flow suddenly is overpowering and dangerous – one slip and you’re done for. I stop for a long while, absorbed in wonderment and devoid of thought, just to soak in the unbridled energy of the place. Creation's handiwork - a mysterious, unseen ability to call into being a force majeure of nature – however temporary – rocks the mind!

I stop to inspect a familiar old friend - an outcrop I believe to be a volcanic plug – an imposing rock jutting thirty feet high and forming a creekside wall and standing out in bold textural sensuousness after a fresh shellacking of rain, a living entity, vibrant with mossy patches, delicate ferns, splotchy colorful lichen and intriguing in its curious aspect of sculpted relief so characteristic of anthropomorphic designed rock. When this same outcrop is dry and dusty, lacking in texture or drama, it's just sort of there, a bland part of the landscape. . .but wet and washed and smelling like a steaming mound of solidified earthly slag, it is a thing of beauty to behold, caress, look up to.

I slosh and squish through sucking mud up and along the root exposed trail leading through a pretty forested area of bending bay limbs and stout oak trees. Up on the ferny hillside, one of the bays, leaning too far and loosened by the erosive action of water, has tumbled over, like a downed Brontosaurus. Its trunk will grow new shoots, eventually into large trees again. The forest creatures recycled, nothing wasted or lost. My very atoms are part and parcel of this process - miracle of miracles. More down to earth, I see the wild charming lover - Wildcat Creek - swooshing below faster than I’ve seen it in years. Every little square foot of everything fascinates, enthralls, absorbs, and threatens to delay my progress. From a perch at creek's edge, I return to the trail as it winds up to a small prominence for a nice look-down at a pretty bend. If this is all there is – count me among the fortunate and grateful to be here, witnessing it. But there’s more!

The trail continues through a real muddy stretch - who cares! I'm at a favorite little glade home to three or four century-old sequoias – stunning in their heavenward reach, right here in my presence! Miracle of miracles. I let them know I love, admire and respect them. Here, the creek cuts a blistering course over half-submerged rocks, roaring in a foaming bed of water turbid with the soil and silt of hill country being washed away. Can't take my eyes off it. Farther along, I come to the area below Lake Anza , the pretty artificial lake / dam built up above and held in place by 73 year-old giant berms whose impounded waters long ago buried a 90 ft. waterfall back in the day - imagine that! In place of this recreation lake, once existed a dramatic cliff-strewn valley - "Berkeley's own Glen Canyon” as it was once characterized by park naturalist Margaret Kelly in an article by Gordy Slack in Bay Nature Magazine. Ah, what a loss, you're thinking! Imagine the spectacle of a miniature Yosemite plunger right in our back yard!. . .well, guess what. . .we are still blessed by the presence of a comparable waterfall / cascade tumbler - and here's the kicker - that is twice as tall! Let me repeat that - twice as tall! Like frogs coming to life from deep below cracks in the dry earth after a downpour, it is the rains that animate these falls in all their glory. I kid you not! And - here's where I leave the world behind! - I'm about to (do something foolish or fearless)? I'm about to climb up that suckuh right now and see what's up! For in a few days it will all be over, done with, gone, nothing to indicate its splendiferous momentary existence, as it trickles into obsolescence once the rain stops and the run-off has exhausted itself. But now, today, this minute even as I write this, it is surely an amazing sight, a sparkling curtain of plunging water that stops you in your tracks when you first gaze up at it from the tangled and gnarled vantage point below. How can it be such a wonder exists. . .? What is the source of this phantom spectacle, this dissipating display, this evanescent event? I’m determined to find out, come hell or high water. (Turns out to be a little bit of both!)

But first, at the big S-curve, I stop again to marvel for several minutes at a very scenic stretch of Wildcat Creek that whooshes over mossy boulders and the detritus of fallen trees, carving a path around a pretty darn impressive ten million year old lava flow. Say what!? A 10,000,000 year old remnant of one of several volcanoes that spewed and spilled its deadly cargo of magma to help (along with earthquakes) create and shape the geology and topography of the Bay Area. Again, a normally prosaic dusty old rock pile turned to a glistening stupa of sacred proportions. A spiritual monument to the Gods of this place. These outcrops rise to heights of forty or fifty feet and form a rugged rampart alongside the opposite bank, nearly impossible to get to - so to get to the spillway waterfall, it's necessary to traverse back up and around and down, and finally, there I am - standing in front of a free falling wonder of nature - a tremendous flurry of white water that lures me to its intimate façade, stopping me live in my tracks to prostate myself, very nearly, at this unexpected altar. It almost doesn’t compute - this kind of powerful display of nature's wild wet watery force is not supposed to be seven minutes and a short jaunt away from your urban home. But here it is defying all expectations. Chilled spray covers me in spurty gusts created by the force of tumultuous water. It doesn’t seem possible. But the rains have made it so. Tilden's unique geology has made it so.

Surrounded by an ancient world, perfusing its ambient magic. Water in eternal guise and infinite disguise. Primeval newts and frogs. Phanerozooic redwood trees. Volcanic outcropping reminders of a violent earth in upheaval. Entities millions upon millions of years old, truly. The moist earth, decaying and renewing simultaneously, an age-old symbiosis of life and death feeding off one another, interplaying in an eternal elemental dance. Here I am. Miracle of miracles.

As mind-blowing as the spillway waterfall is, I am in search of another, secret, hidden waterfall / cascade combo that eludes possibly nearly everyone who braves the muddy slog because, not only is it hidden from the trail and from all purview, essentially, but even if espied, most would deign to stay away because. . .because it's too intractable to deal with, too remotely situated (this, in a pretty tame park!). Just getting to its base, a little above the dilapidated old pump shed, requires a slippery scramble up a faint path through poison oak, stinging brambles and other thorny botanical nuisances. Follow me, boys and girls!

I first “discovered” and beheld the ephemeral glorious sight during last year’s rainstorms, but from the lowly perch looking up. What lay high above and beyond seemed at the time (and still does) well nigh as distant and impossibly out of reach as Angel Falls jet-streaming down some lost world jungle tepui. Okay, slight exaggeration, but this time I'm determined to seek the source of this little seen and shadowy wonderland. It’s an impulsive decision – I had no plans to scale the falls. Turns out it requires pigheaded resolve and upper body strength I thought had abandoned me long ago. I instinctively chart a course up and around a slippery rock face, untrammeled by human or deer. Each upward step is calculated, deliberate, each grasp of tree branch or rock a careful study of finality, for one mis-hold or slip, and I'm a goner. Even ten or fifteen feet would be a cruel fall – and I’m fairly certain the bottom third of this gusher is a free-fallin’ 50-footer over sheer rock façade. As I get higher and higher, it becomes clear that the length - the depth - is much greater than I thought viewed from below. I estimate the whole thing is over 175 ft. of vertical and semi-vertical ruggedness. It is not child's play. I’ve made it to the middle point, and can now look out across the curtain of water which takes on a whole new mien, a dramatic sight worthy of North Forkian adjectival hyperbole - but enough! We're in Tilden Park! It's then that I realize I've still got quite a ways to go to scale the uppermost top shelf. Gotta scramble up there, and over that, and around this . . . over increasingly bigger outcroppings of volcanic ejecta – heretofore unseen by Gambolin' Man's eyes - still-life painted colonnades of colorful cliffs framing the snaky cascade of spraying water! And still I haven't topped out. Finally, after much slipping and grappling and pulling and nearly falling a half dozen times, I make it to what I think is the ultimate – or first – shelf drop. I'm nicked and scratched up pretty nicely. But now, to my chagrin, I’m faced with an obstacle-laded course up the bedrock of the drop falls. If I can just get up and over it, I’ll be home free. To my right, it's impenetrable owing to a 70 degree incline, so the only way up is over this shelf in the heart of the cascade. I lean as much as I can into it and find a teensy fingerhold with arm outstretched to the max, just enough to secure my position, and then heave my left leg high up and onto the table rock. Before committing myself for the pull-up, I glance down - a mistake – and gulp when I see it’s a dead drop of 75 ft. - it could mean death or severe maiming at the least. . .and who would find me up here in this uncharted speck of wilderness? Well, I'd come this far, and there’s no turning back. I take a deep breath and without hesitation pull my weight over the lip of rock, to safety and the prospect of more intense scrambling up ever more impressive cliffs and cascades. Hell, this thing might be 200 ft. when it's all said and done.

And still not to the top, but it’s pretty easy clambering from here on. The gully narrows into a smaller defile until its cut lip emerges onto flat ground – the top of this big cliff. Finally, I can see the source of the dramatic waterfall flowing off the cliff face. Unbelievably, all it is is a pathetic, thin ribbon of shallow water no wider than two feet snaking along an undistinguished trough in the ground. How could that make such a commotion? Momentarily disoriented, I look around and realize where I am once I spot the brown body of water looming in the dusky gloom of the late afternoon emerald forest – Lake Anza. I've climbed to the high ground above the lake, connecting to a matrix of trails I’m not too familiar with, but certainly if I'd come from the lake I would have avoided all the danger and nastiness – but what fun and adventure would that have (not) been? I start to head down the trail, taken aback by an absolutely elephantine eucalyptus tree. How'd I ever miss that? But impulsively, instead of continuing down the trail the easy way back, I turn off and head through the forest again, drawn by the muffled roar of the falls, still not sated by their magical pull and throng. I’m now finding myself going back down the way I came – always a more difficult prospect, going down than coming up. But I can’t get enough of it, and so the steep thicket-laced descent is worth every step. I begin by carefully lowering my bulk down over a rock, daintily testing the sodden unlevel ground beneath my feet. I follow the trampled vegetation and displaced rocks from my ascent, lingering here and there to soak in the magic a final time. To revel in a mirage of beauty. To cling to a precarious perch and just listen and look in breathless wonderment. To lose myself in familiar but wholly unrecognizable surroundings, mesmerized by white static noise of running water brimming over in my brain, penetrating to the core of my bones, with the electric healing energy of radiant positive ions.

Getting to the bottom of things turns out to be as difficult as I suspected - at one point, I loose my footing and slipslide on my ass for a good ten feet, helpless as Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in that scene in Romancing the Stone, where they're sliding down a mud chute faster than the speed of sound - the only thing that saves me is my last-second grasp of a spindly stalk of a plant that keeps me from going over a cliff and crashing on the rocks below. Shook up, I'm hanging in a limbo of immobility, unable to pull myself up, unable to let go and drop to the little slickrock ledge beneath me for fear of slipping on the wet rock. I maneuver into an awkward twist and find a stable rock with another little fingerhold just secure enough to pull myself up and head-first into a faceful of unfriendly brambles. I'm a wet, muddy, thoroughly happy mess by the time I get back on the trail, super-enervated by this unexpected little adventure. Sign me up for the next one - do I have any takers?

Check out other Gambolin' Man write-ups of Tilden Park and Wildcat Creek:

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2010/04/east-bay-regional-park-district-hidden.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2009/10/wildcat-gorge-trail-seeking-wonders-of.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2008/02/tilden-regional-park-replenishing.html

http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2006/02/wildcat-creek-watershed-backyard.html

LIVE OAK PARK: Meditative Strolling and Reflective Lolling in the Wild (and Urban) Environs of Berkeley's First Nature Park

2011-02-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

A small parcel of gently sloping land, cleft by a small ravine, is nestled in a pretty neighborhood two minutes away on foot from my North Berkeley residence – and a creek runs through it. Not just any creek, but Codornices Creek, named after the many California quail who once graced the area. Codornices is one of dozens of primordial East Bay hill streams that used to run free and easy, emptying into once prevalent brackish marshes and sloughs along the vast bay shoreline. Most of the East Bay hill streams and their tributaries were long ago concretized over, buried, relegated invisible, but progressively, city planners and environmentalists are restoring our charming little creeks to see the light of day once again.

Live Oak Park, through which Codornices Creek runs for about - I don't know - maybe a total of 300 yards - is Berkeley’s first “nature park”, so designated in 1914 by the Berkeley City Council at a time when Berkeley took up the gauntlet and ascribed to the guiding principles and philosophy of the “City Beautiful Movement” – urban beautification campaigns aimed at promoting “a harmonious social order that would increase the quality of life.” (Wikipedia) They got that right. Without Live Oak Park a heartbeat away from my doorstep, my quality of life would be greatly diminished. Especially after forsaking a car two years ago, having this slice of beautification at my instant disposal is a welcome gift of relief after a hectic day at the office, or whenever I'm feeling restless, stressed, or just homebound and in need of a quick "nature park" fix.

Over the past forty years, Codornices Creek has been daylighted - outed! Most of its entire journey to the bay can now be enjoyed and admired by nature-starved urban dwellers, by appreciative deer who come to sip from its waters, by raccoons who come to claw out crayfish, and by birds who find sanctuary and shelter along its shadier stretches. Many years ago, though, residents of the hills despoiled their little gem with raw sewage and whatever else was deemed dumpable, and officials thought it in the best interests of public health to just bury the effluvia the creek had become under roads and sidewalks. Out of sight, out of mind. Such an easy thing to destroy a beautiful natural habitat....but, of course, to quote T.C. Boyle in his latest novel, When the Killing's Done - "Restoring an ecosystem is never easy."

Today, after much tireless work by advocates and friends of Codornices Creek, the little brook is, without doubt, a precious natural resource, and veritably a pretty sight as it meanders through parks, back yards, neighborhoods and industrial areas. But I'm guessing that only the devout worshippers among us of the small, overlooked and unheralded might find this simple city creek worth crowing about. I hope I'm wrong. I hope people do look beyond the seeming mundane and get excited about the creek's presence, notice it, pay it homage. It's easy to overlook its charms; after all, apart from being an overly-familiar backdrop, it's not a powerful Sierra river worth gawking over, or some big north country trout stream to get worked up about; it isn't in a designated wilderness area; and by all means it lacks the drama and scale and magnitude one wants in their wet dream water scenery (although upstream, on private property, there exists a multi-tiered sixty foot waterfall in a small canyon that is as impressive as anything outside of Mt. Diablo St. Park or Marin County. Seriously.) So why would anyone gush over something so commonplace and unremarkable? Because it is!

Because Codornices Creek is what it is - a modest, humble, tiny ribbon of water, about three to five feet in breadth, flowing through two densely populated East Bay cities. This stripped bare characterization doesn't make the creek's existence any less wondrous, its presence any less beautiful, its form and function any less appreciated. Certainly not to the resurgent steelhead who have come home to nest; not to the deer, raccoon, squirrels, birds (and foxes, coyotes and - yes! - mountain lions!) who rely on its cool cache of water and other "mean and lowly things" to munch on and sustain their living populations hidden in gaps where the urban / profane intersects with the natural / sacred (the so-called ecotone). And, most definitely not to Gambolin' Man and to those of a similar heart-soul-mindset who realize, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, "the invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common"; who understand, like Paulo Coelho, that "each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle"; who, like Frederick Franck, grok the "extraordinary, the sheer miracle of the branching of a tree, the structure of a dandelion's seed puff"; and who resonate with Edward Weston's photographic dictum, "not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual." (To those not of the choir, I feel compelled to trumpet these virtuous philosophical sentiments in defense of Codornices' creek cred.)

Because Codornices Creek is what it is. Originating in the central Berkeley hills 900 feet up, it drains an area of about one square mile, and flows nearly three miles to San Pablo Bay through the cities of Berkeley and Albany. Although much of the watershed evaporates, Codornices Creek never dries up, awing (some of us) with a perennial flow - albeit a trickle in places during prolonged months of zero precipitation. Many, if not most, hill creeks dry up within weeks or days of downpours, while a select few owe their existences to ideal geological conditions that collect and store rainfall - a living body of kinetic water is created and sustained by an endless release and flow of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of trapped rain, released from humongous subterranean cisterns sculpted by the complex vulcanism of East Bay geology. (Slam-dunk miracle!) I've often wondered how long it would take for that well to run dry and what is the mechanism by which water is gradually, but continually, released - is it by means of gravity? suction? seepage? sponge-action? - big mysteries in such little things! But, thank heavens, it always rains just in time to replenish the cisterns and keep the creek a viable habitat to attract ocean-venturing (and threatened) steelhead trout - Oncorhynchus mykiss - to their aboriginal spawning grounds farther downstream. Imagine! Our little neighborhood creek is healthy enough, to the extent possible, to play out the primal ritual after so many years of being shut off from the cycle vital for anadromous fish - fish that live in the ocean mostly, and breed in fresh water - to carry on and survive. Give Mother Nature half a chance, and she will rebound. We're witnessing this up and down coastal Northern California where rehabilitation efforts to return spawning creeks to their wild state are paying big dividends for increased populations of coho and steelhead. (We hope.)

For millennia, native Huichin peoples established their village life in the shady lushness of Codornices Creek and reaped the bounty effortlessly - trout, shellfish, salmon, deer, berries, herbs, and acorns from the many varieties of oak trees kept their baskets and larders overflowing. It’s easy to idealize their existence and imagine a time when aboriginal people lived traditionally off the land right here in Live Oak Park, co-existing peacefully, trading with their Ohlone relatives - a proud, quick-witted people whose every need in this Land o' Plenty was met by a proliferation of abundant natural resources and a cornucopia of plentiful edible foodstuffs - all of which enabled them to achieve heights of cultural sophistication, as they were able to devote so much more of their time engaged in - not survival pursuits - but storytelling, dancing, arts, rituals and myth-making, and family cohesion and community harmony. Real social networking connections.

After a good steady rain fall – over two inches in the past couple of days – the creek has transformed itself from a kitten to a lion. I've never seen it so bad-ass. It's amazing what a little rain can do. The park has a resplendent aura about it. Trees have burst to radiant life. Sensual, earthy aromas pulsate in the brain - dewy tree branches, the smell of laurel in mud, heady, pungent redwood duff. The spellbinding rhythm of churning, melodious water burbling through Live Oak Park in a snaky bed framed by 100 ft. tall redwood trees entrances and captivates. The roar and commotion won't last long, maybe twenty-four hours. I stand motionless on a big redwood burl and gaze mindlessly into the foaming and churning water, oblivious to everything and nothing. The dry familiarity of the commonplace has suddenly become a glistening, exotic, almost unrecognizable world unto its own . . .all because of a little rain. A changed perspective also helps. I get right down to the creek's little shore, looking beyond the obvious observations, and begin examining things from a new angle, a different perch. At once, I'm in Live Oak Park, and I am not. The sensation of being lost in a private wilderness sanctuary is enhanced, and very real. On a lonesome late afternoon, lured by the Siren call of a rainstorm, with barely anyone about, and the creek's mighty little roar drowning out the noxious noises of city life, it can surely seem like you're transported to another realm. Returning to an all too familiar scene, it turns out I really am getting to know the place for the first time, seeing it, truly, through different lenses. Codornices Creek is not what it appears to be.

Live Oak Park is an amalgamation of pure, sweet nature and grim urbanity. The contrast can be subtle, the dichotomy unsettling, when urban chaos and natural sublimity intermingle and intersect. But when you're lost in your little world, the industrial world can seem nonexistent. I'm entranced at water’s edge, admiring colorful rocks and tangled roots. There is no one about (who wants to be in this horrible pouring rain for heaven’s sake?), nothing going on except me and turbid water surging beneath a towering tree canopy. Then I look up and spot ugly graffiti and a beer bottle some teenagers tossed several days ago – a jolting reminder that I’m in the city, not lost in my imagined wilderness area. Then, moving along, my attention shifts to a white flowering tree; squirrels prance high atop in branches, ravens' screeches pierce the air as four of them land in a tree top. I am grabbed by how the creek cuts a sinuous course - a perfect S-curve - through the red needle covered flooring of the understory of redwood trees. I'm thankful for this little nature park. Then, a few steps beyond, I come to the entrance of a grimy tunnel, spray painted with crude symbols and figures and words, and in a dingy corner of a barely dry patch of shelter, a forlorn-looking homeless man is making do. Urban ills and ugliness, in yo face. Then I turn to focus on a grove of aromatic bay trees and flowering dogwoods growing tall and proud alongside a steep embankment of the creek, a willowy stretch showcasing a set of snappy riffles sing-songing over small rocks, instantly cradling me back into the arms of nature. Then, I look up and see a dog-walker coming by, a woman with a panicky, hurried look to her stroll - shuffling along, head down, not at all enjoying the inclement weather. The beauty and raw power of the resurgent creek means absolutely nothing to her. Her dog, leashed, wants to run. Urban constraints vs. natural flows. Further along, I check out in closer detail than I ever have the elegant old stone fireplace, completed in 1917, when Live Oak Park was one of the few gathering places for people to come together and experience community; back then, it hosted more than 10,000 people and 300 gatherings a year. Today, it serves a similar function – people come to celebrate, party, or just hang out and barbecue. . .which, thankfully, on this day, no one is doing. Barbecuing, let the rant begin, is an urban activity harkening back to our troglodyte ancestor days and disguised as tradition that, frankly, gets me real heated up. Give it a moment of honest reflection before dismissing my extreme prejudice as a fascistic stance - from my point of view, breathing in the toxic effluvia of incinerated particulate matter while trying to enjoy fresh air in a public space really detracts from the City Beautiful Movement’s goal of “quality life", doncha think? How many times have I felt compelled to leave the park owing to suffocating and lingering smoke from a barbecue pit? Stinky, cloying smoke that just seems to hang in the air above Live Oak's spacious lawns. Some kind of smoke trapping effect that - to my astonishment - most people (barbecuers themselves?) hardly seem to notice or be bothered by. The harmful particulate matter permeating the fresh, clean air in the park on a lovely day, while children are playing and people are lounging about and playing with their dogs, constitutes an unconscionable public health violation, and has no place in a nature park. But, alas, I realize I'm a lone dissenter here, way out of line, and certainly in the strict minority of people who decry barbecues as violating our right to enjoy non-polluted air. Because it's so ingrained in our cave man DNA, it's doubtful laws will ever be passed to prohibit or curtail barbecuing in public places. After all, who doesn't love a good barbecue! A little toxic air is a small price to pay for carrying on the tradition. (Of course, you win the argument; I would rather live in a society that allows the indiscriminate burning and release of toxic particulate matter, our individual health be damned, than one that bans it.)

The charm of Live Oak Park is Codornices Creek, without which the park would still be a lovely place, providing respite from a harried world, and a place to run your dog, picnic on Cheeseboard pizzas, and sit and read in the sun. But urban afflictions are prevalent - the Banksy wannabes, who uglify walls and spaces with their street "art" (very little of it is any good); the frequent bad air from burning wood and charcoal; and the unsightly homeless men and women who find refuge under tunnel overhangs, in bridge nooks and crannies, and on cold days, at the barbecue pits where the impoverished build fires to warm themselves. (Can't blame 'em.) It will always be an urban park, replete with urban ills, and defined by people doing mostly urban things. But if you look deeper, and happen to visit on a day when no one's around, when rains have freshened the dust of earth and filled the creek bed with life-affirming water, when your heart is open to experiencing the goddess of small miracles, you will find that this little ol' place called Live Oak Park, and its little ol' "it is what it is" creek, will surprise you with a treasure-trove of sublime natural beauty in the midst of (largely avoidable) gritty urban phenomena.

To read an account of Codornices Creek and see the hidden waterfall photos in Benner's canyon, visit http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2009/03/codornices-creek-paying-homage-to.html

GAMBOLIN' MAN PARSED & GOOGLED: Vox Clamantis in Deserto

2011-02-10T11:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends, Followers and Fans of Gambolin' Man:

If you’ve noticed, I’ve been absent lately - how about you? It's just that I haven't gone anywhere, or maybe it's that I'm not inspired for the moment. How about you? Speaking of you, I have often wondered, who are you? Where are you coming from? Thank heavens for Google Analytics.

Most of you, of course, are from the U.S., but many also come from places as wildly varied as Slovenia, Bangladesh, Uruguay and Egypt. I know some of you, in the real sense - loyal family members and friends from my "Amigos!" distribution list. And then, there are those of you I know only in the unreal sense - fellow nature bloggers and outdoor enthusiasts surfing the web who stumble on, were turned onto, or have bookmarked my site. I know one or two of you, in the real sense, but for all the rest of you, even though our mutual acquaintance has been purely virtual, it somehow feels like we really do know one another.

From one perspective, how cool! What better way to build my Amigos! list than by making friends through e-mail correspondence, website back 'n forth commentary, Facebook interactions, and bite-sized Twitter sliders! But, c'mon, is this really how friends are made today? Does this define what a 21st century friendship is? People with whom I have become virtual friends, and who know me as a good ol' cyber buddy – we’ve never met! (With a few exceptions.) In a day and age not so far removed, these virtual friends I lay claim to would otherwise be total freakin' strangers. I wouldn't even know their names, nothing of their existences – people like guidebook author and adventurer John Soares, North Fork American River trail advocates and avid explorers Russell Towle (RIP), Ron Gould, Gay Wiseman and CanyonSpirit O'Riley, hiker extraordinaire Rebecca Sowards-Emmerd (“Calipidder”), Russ Beebe of Winehiker renown, Tom Mangan of Two-Heel Drive fame, waterfalls chaser Leon Turnbull, Bay Area Hiker site guru Jane Huber, mysterious Smokey of Smokey’s Mountain, inspirational Bob “4WheelBob” Coomber, and Randy of Waypoints. And yet, crazy as it seems, the Internet has enabled like-minded people from all parts of California and the world to become friends! Hello, Amigos! Well, it'll have to suffice, for it's as close as you can get, online, to a give and take struggle, a dance of flesh and blood, shared sweat and pain, simple laughter and touching, spilled tears of joy and agony. How many of you can give me that?

Ultimately, I write Gambolin' Man pretty much for the sake of Gambolin' Man. Which is okay, I gotta have some narcissistic pride. Still, I have to pinch myself after posting a particularly sexy piece and ask what's the point, when the average time spent perusing my site is one minute and a quarter, and not one second longer. Seventy-five pitiful seconds! Just enough time to quickly scan the photographs and ignore everything else except for maybe an opening paragraph or two. Instead of plaudits for my written descriptions, the (paucity of) e-mail accolades and (near non-existent) posted comments are variations on "Great photos!" "Awesome shots!" "Wow, what a beautiful place!" Well, I suppose I should be thankful for the photos, for without them, I imagine that 75 pitiful seconds would wither to about 7.5 seconds. Like with this post, no doubt. (Is anyone still with me?) Such a pity, for the juicy stuff takes at least twenty minutes to get to!

Turning to the grim statistics of my Bounce Rate - egads! From what I hear, if your Bounce Bate is over 50%, your site is a black hole. You want people to linger in your world, pore over your words. A knowledgeable person I know, a marketing analytics expert, recently consoled me by writing, "Interpreting Bounce Rate is a bit complicated for a blog like yours. The intent of Bounce Rate is to measure the correlation between customer intent and the mission for your site. In other words, why the customer came to the page, versus why the page exists. . .the top-secret Google algorithm that measures Bounce Rate might be overly emphasizing clicks-per-page, meaning that 'interested' readers show their interest by clicking on things on the page. In the case of an e-commerce site, readers would be clicking on offers. But on a 'journey story' blog like yours, the content is essentially text heavy, with few opportunities to click, so the number of clicks per page is less relevant."

My knowledgeable friend then goes on to suggest ways to improve the flypaper effect of my site by "giving people something to click on" such as a mini-book ("The Adventures of G-Man") or a video ("Babbling Brook in Yosemite"). As if this isn't discouraging enough, he goes on to lament, "More troubling is the combination of high Bounce Rate and low time on the page," meaning that readers basically are unable or uninterested in devoting time to finish the entries. This is a painful truism, borne out time and again by the preponderance of "great photos!" comments and very few “great writing” comments. How ironic! And sad. But typical, I suppose. Yet it is my writing, not my photography, that is the source of my greatest pride, warranted or not. My photography skills are like my basketball game, where I just throw it up there and hope for a swish (and often get it). But I am such a rank amateur compared to some of my more polished cyber-buddy auteurs who really know how to capture an image and make it stand out – Dan Mitchell and Leon Turnbull come to mind.

So, maybe people pin ball away from my site so quickly because my writing is too long, or just not that good. I think it has everything to do with the precious commoditization of time, the deluge of information overload, and the glut of articles and posts demanding and competing for one’s attention. I really do think my site attracts people who are looking for interesting places to hike, but end up browsing and looking at the pretty pictures instead – almost like flipping through a dirty magazine. (There is, somewhere on the net, I am 100% positive, without even Googling it, someone's take on nature photography vis-a-vis pornography.) People's inability to get through my posts also has a lot to do with, I’m convinced, people being afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder - in this day and age of chunked information and 140 character communication, who has time for lengthy posts? (A fellow I know suggested that it's not A.D.D. but rather, he teased, I'm blessed with a speed-reading audience!) Finally, no doubt, people ping-pong off my site because, once there, they have zero to little actual interest in reading about boring old hiking stuff - least of all my rambling floral descriptions and fervid faunal encounters; they could care less about poetic narrative apotheosizing the commonplace, elevating it to the stature of the miraculous. But isn't that G-Man's unique angle? Isn’t that the hook that draws you in and keeps your interest?

Coloring prosaic natural worlds with effusive ebullience:
". . .subtle lighting enhancing every natural detail - phosphorescent green moss carpeting trees and rocks, tiny ferns dancing the hula atop a boulder, bizarrely patterned shelf mushrooms thriving on a rotted log, richly yellow leaves layered like an artistic creation of Andy Goldsworthy, deeply textured, magnificently colored red and blue creek rocks."

Infusing ardor and life into the seemingly pedestrian:
". . .now, the creek widens in a big S-curve, enlivening the forest with whitewater noise as a minor drop in elevation galvanizes the flow into a display of mini-falls and swirling cascades, now channeling into shallow turbid pools eddying up against ten foot high banks composed of some hard clay or mud-like rock bearing ferns, horsetail and other aquatic plants. Giant trees, growing on the banks’ precipices, their tangled masses of roots gnarled up in balls of Medusa head snakes, and choked by creeping lianas, lend a Maya jungle world look and feel to the scene."

Transforming the commonplace into the unrecognizably exotic:
"As the day continues to warm up, a few wildflowers have popped out to brighten things evermore. Lovely Painted Ladies appear out of nowhere in large numbers, fluttering around us in a magical, ethereal dance. Skittish Western fence lizards dart here and there. Birdsong fills the air. Everything’s coming to -- LIFE! It’s a golden moment, you’re fully grateful to be alive, blessed to be healthy, happy to be enjoying the great California outdoors."

I don't know where my propensity for this writing quirk comes from, but in many posts I have invoked kindred philosophies by quoting some sagacious soul or another echoing this inherent truth. But I wasn't aware that in 1627, John Donne, one of the great poets of our language, also reflected on the miraculous in the everyday. The following passage is lifted from the 2011 edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac by Robert B. Thomas:

"We experience the world around us, Donne observed, as made up of mundane occurrences that we hardly notice but which, if they were rare, would be accounted prodigies. 'Nay, the ordinary things in Nature would be greater miracles than the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once.'

"How many events of a June afternoon bear him out? The sky darkens, thunders sounds, rain arrives, passes. A rainbow appears in the east, a vast shimmering arch of light above the valley. We pause to enjoy it, we don't fail to notice it; but then we go on about our business. We've seen rainbows before. If that rainbow were the only rainbow, if it 'were done but once', we would be astonished.

"As the shower passes, a hummingbird returns to the delphiniums, hovering, feeding, zooming off, circling, zooming back, halting, poised on invisible wings. Its movements are so quick that they can be hard to follow, and its brilliant colors make it look like a high-speed gemstone. As with the rainbow, however, though we admire the hummingbird, we don't marvel: It's familiar. If, as Donne reminds us, this hummingbird were unique, we would behold it with wonder."

One solution, my friend suggested, would be to find a way to get readers to spend more time on my posts: perhaps shortening them (Heavens no! Just an analogy, but try telling Jackson Pollack to use just a bit less paint next time); or - here my friend's marketing acumen shines through - I should try creating a strong brand association with what he refers to as my "Mark Twain" influenced style. What a nice compliment! Not to forget Muir and Thoreau, but any pretensions I may harbor to being party to such esteemed literary company are laughable. Still, I would like to think I have created a phenomenon of sorts – outdoor gonzo style nature writing – that people do find enjoyable and entertaining.

For those of you who actually do anticipate my posts and actually do take time to read them (you must work in an office) and actually do enjoy the purple passion of my profligate persiflage - I sincerely appreciate the flattery. I've written over 70 posts during the past five years, and despite the telling tale of Google Analytics, I've managed to continue to be motivated to post. Upwards of 90 unique page visitors a day, even if they’re only spending a minute or two. Not bad, you say? Plus, there is some recognition (viz., my 4th place “Best Hiking” site blogosphere award from Tripbase.com), along with some truly gratifying comments left by admirers of the G-Man style. . .but, truly, it all boils down to this: who is waiting on the edge of your seat for the latest and greatest, fabulous new content from Gambolin’ Man? Raise your hand, go right ahead. Probably my mom, one of my sisters, and my wife, good ol’ Gambolin’ Gal. Maybe Chokeweed, Doughboy, Brock, Indio and the Perfesser, too, are waiting. But not with baited breath. And since my last post, I’ve had a total of two – count ‘em – two – people ask me when my next post would be coming out. People just don't care.

Don’t get me right. I'm not exactly calling it quits just yet, and believe me, I am going to do everything I can to make it an even 100 posts before bowing out gracefully and leaving my humble legacy forever embedded, like fossilized papyri, in the immense unsearchable depths of cyber-strata . . .but, circling back, I must ask myself, who really gives a rat's ass? If the resoundingly empty echo of a response is a lone and humbling, "I do!", then so be it. I will continue to write Gambolin' Man for YOU, and for my own passions and pursuits, and if perchance I bring 75 seconds of joy and entertainment into your A.D.D. bollixed brain, then, wonderful! And if it’s a lone voice crying in the wilderness - vox clamantis in deserto - that’s okay, too, it will be my own barbaric yawp sounding over the rooftops of the world.

For those of you who DO feel enough of a rodent's rectum to keep coming back, after five years of blogging, it must be the thematic content that draws you in, G-Man's irresistible hook, right?

A repetitious insistence on calling out the simple miracles that abound in the commonplace:
"Barely catching my attention owing to a masterful camouflaging technique, I'm lucky to espy, right in front of me, tucked away on a tree branch protruding above a small brook burbling through Codornices Park in the city of Berkeley, a ruby-throated, green and turquoise feathered hummingbird roosting peacefully in a perfectly constructed, symmetrical nest, fashioned out of tiny bits of grass, mud, sticks and moss."

Broken-record pronouncements, elevating from the depths of obscurity to heights of rhapsodized glory, the grandeur and magnificence of an everyday, ho-hum natural setting:
"It was a day in paradise! Wildflowers in profuse carpets across vast rolling meadows rich with the scent of wet earth and sage. Creeks burbling, waterfalls crashing, lakes placidly shimmering deep impressionistic reflections of bright green forested hillsides and snaky-long trees undulating in the chthonic depths. Long views of rugged wilderness ridges and valleys stretching in all directions, so pulsating with life's renewed Spring energy!"

An endless proffering up of irrepressibly enthusiastic descriptions of Mother Nature's glorious bounty, revealing her many guises:
". . .a velvet-smooth, bullet-shaped acorn which you caress softly between your fingers like a lucky talisman; a veritable hand grenade, a heavy and dense Digger pine cone, sticky with aromatic resin and armored with claw-like scales; the amusing spectacle of metallic blue bellied western fence lizards doing pushups on a lichen-plastered boulder; who-cares-what-they're-called pinhead lavender blooms carpeting an area next to an unheralded stream with pretty pebbles and reflections of glorious clouds; watch out! - a juvenile rattlesnake sunning on a little used trail; and looky there! – camouflaged the color of the redwood floor, an inch-long baby newt creepy-crawling up and over a stick. And of course, you take in the big things, too -- panoramic views atop Mt. Tamalpais of remote Marin watershed lands; at Tuyshtak's (Mt. Diablo) summit you gaze out on a flawless day across the great Central Valley at Sierra snowcapped peaks stretching up and down an azure horizon for 300 miles; you espy golden eagles, northern harriers, red-tailed hawks, kites, great horned owls, and perhaps, if lucky, a regal bald eagle circling overhead in between nesting sites at Del Valle and San Pablo lakes; voles scurrying; ground squirrels scattering; blue jays screeching; butterflies fluttering; a field of wildflower dreams; painterly grasses swaying in the wind; still life cows grazing on a bucolic hillside; a young coyot'l resting, half-hidden up the ridge; stringy moss-draped bay and oak trees evoking swampy Mississippian bogs; ocean waves crashing; tidal pools revealing their sanctuaries of innermost marine secrets; the magical allure of waterfalls and that ineffable sacred quality of simple water flowing through carved channels and bedrock on a homing instinct journey back to its oceanic origins. The protean beauty of the Bay Area’s forests, trees, rocky outcrops, bodies of water, hills, mountains, ridges, canyons, fields, meadows, valleys, and views may not be singularly grandiose, magnificent or spectacular in the sense of Yosemite or Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon embodying monumental grandeur and iconic qualities, but what appear on the surface to be merely modest natural features are, in fact, great and small wonders of nature in our very midst, preserved eternally for all to enjoy in this lifetime and beyond."

Heartfelt love letters to sacred tree friends:
“Trees are among the earth’s grandest and noblest creatures / creations. Some trees are spookily draped in stringy moss clinging from branches like spider webs; others harbor epiphytic creatures in their boughs; some, like the great redwood trees, have VW-sized lumps (burls) you can sit on, and unattainable canopies hundreds of feet skyward with heretofore undiscovered ecosystems thriving in them. The bark of some trees is velvety smooth, the color of chocolate ice cream or pearly beige and peeling in delicate patterns of frill and lace; some, like the nuisance exotic eucalyptus, shred long pliant strips of bark that hang from branches like bizarre laundry; other trees have striated or course integument, mottled with moss and maculated in colorful lichen, an isolated close-up view resembling a 3-D map of a mini-canyon. Some trees’ bark smells sweetly of heaven scent fragrances – bury your nose in the furrowed bark and breathe in the sweet woody body odor – mixing olfactory sensations of vanilla, carmel, pineapple, or butterscotchy scents. California is home to the world’s tallest, girthiest, and oldest trees – redwoods and bristlecone pines. Other trees are merely tall and venerable – spruce and valley oaks, for example. Some trees are short and dwarfed, owing to serpentine soil low in nutrients, yet they thrive in abundance as you can see atop Pine Mountain in Marin County when hiking or biking past groves of Lilliputian Sargent Cypress. Some trees are evergreen, while others turn polychromatic in the fall, transforming landscapes into palettes of earthy red, purple, and yellow hues, and when they lose their leaves, there is something starkly beautiful about their skeletons silhouetted against a crisp, blue winter sky. Even dead tree snags can take on an otherworldly aesthetic, with their weathered, insect-bored, bony protrusions thrusting heavenward like weird sculptural deformations.”

Lyrical homage to special rocks:
“What makes Bay Area hiking such a joy and constant source of wonder is coming upon favorite boulders, rocks and outcroppings which are like old friends awaiting you. Some might say they’re just inanimate things, but they are really more than “just rocks” or the metaphoric skeletal structure of the earth – they are sentient sentinels of time’s relentless passage; they are the sacred, the ganz andere or “wholly other”, or the inexplicable otherness of God / Goddess’ earthy manifestation. And so to come upon them, to bear witness to their existence, is equivalent to approaching a holy relic or shrine, encountering and communing with some force from beyond, living things emanating from the earth, projecting out of sacred ground. . .Aeolian forces have sculpted the boulders at this unique East Bay preserve into fantastic shapes and figures, tinged in chartreuse yellow algae and splotched with vermillion red lichen patterns, situated in picturesque hollows like a Georgia O'Keeffe mirage, a chance to test your Rorschach quotient at every turn – see what you can spot in the sculptural contortions of the wind-carved formations -an eagle's beak, an Indian chief profile, a manatee, a badger, and elephantine figures and other fanciful forms."

Not least, melodious gushings of much highfalutin verbiage in vainglorious attempts to breathe life into sacred water worlds - from imponderably vast oceans to tiny ponds, from thundering waterfalls to trickling rivulets - of our blessed blue planet:
"Yeah, verily I say unto thee, seek it out, and you will discover scenes of water that will amaze, soothe, and inspire; you will chance upon water in its natural element that will never be reported on, admired, heralded or honored -- until now! -- miraculous water that, on first impression, might appear to be nothing more than a simple fountain bubbling up, or an imperceptible seep dripping pure sparkling dewdrops through a filter of lush green moss, or simply a little riffle of a miniature cascade gurgling over rocks in the glinting sun, or a ho-hum stream making its unimpressive way somewhere. Go by your instinct to seek out the unusual and exotic, yes, right in your commonplace surroundings, your own backyard. It could be an urban creek cutting passage through neighborhoods and shopping malls. It could be a small city park pond somewhere. It could be water spilling over roadside rocks like a perfect little zen fountain. It could be a hidden cove at Lake Merritt in the middle of Oakland. In actuality, these secretive, elusive, “insignificant” water settings are beautiful and exotic beyond description. What they do is provide a simple means of experiencing the sublime sensation of finding God in a blade of grass, or in this case, Goddess in the melodic riffles and reflective pools of a nameless little creek. . .Any simple little scene of water collecting here and there, running along in a mesmerizing undisturbed flow through enchanting surroundings, water sing-songing a merry little course in a paradisiacal setting, water gently lapping at a remote shore, water merging and intertwining with other arteries in Gaia’s great circulatory system, even trailside puddles of steel-blue water reflecting billowy clouds in a cobalt sky, and freshets of new water livening up the woods after a good soaking -- these are truly quite rare and fugacious, beautiful and special aquatic phenomena - aquanomena! - every last bit of it. As the “lowly” worm is to the health of our soil, “prosaic” water, unnoticed in a “pedestrian” setting, is the foundation, health and character of our watersheds.”

So, photos aside, that’s why you return to check out Gambolin' Man! For in 75 seconds, you are able to harken back to and enjoy the simple pleasures of pastoral nature writing (such a quaint thing of the past). I intentionally keep my posts un-political; while I may occasionally express a sentiment railing against the machine that has destroyed trees or despoiled meadows, my real intention is to invite you to come along with me on a stream of consciousness journey through the spirit that moves through all things, of self-discovery and pure joy-in-action, where my narrative is unconcerned with “how to get there” or “which trail to take”, disparaging of outlining for you in detail the contours of my hike using the latest and fanciest GPS techo-gadgetry. Rather, I want to transport you to lovely, intimate nooks of nature where you can experience the simple and miraculous joys of nature’s bounty and beauty, hidden, undiscovered, unnoticed, unappreciated, right in your own backyard, right in front of your eyes. If only you’d just stop, look and listen. Because I believe in the whole "God in a blade of grass" thing. Because I believe in a miracle beholden in a dew drop. Because I believe in the impressionistic majesty of a lichen-plastered boulder. Because I believe in the atavistic thrill of a small cascade equaling in iconic grandeur a Yosemite plunger. Because I believe that, even if we have passed a point of no return where there are fewer and fewer pristine places to write about, nature in its purest form is still pristine and pastoral, and so through my writing (more so than through my photography, I'll tell you that!), I try to capture the unheralded moment, the unwitnessed scene. I attempt to bring acclaim and grandeur to the simplest of nature settings. I endeavor to understand the grand mysteries and simple miracles, how they intersect, how they affect us and change us and inspire us, if only we'd open our eyes and hearts to their largely invisible, and indivisible, presence.

And, not last, I hope to help restore your senses, clear your head, and help to refresh your soul so that you, too, can face the discordant music of society another day without going crazy. Gambolin’ Man, it is my hope, gives you something to look forward to! To say, I’m going to do that! I’m going there and have fun like that! Because extreme pursuits, outré beauty, is not a prerequisite for thrilling adventure – only a passion for enjoying the little things in your midst whilst trapisin’ along on a pretty forest trail.

Admittedly, Gambolin’ Man’s style is Brobdingnagian and sesquipedalian. It may not appeal to everyone’s sense and sensibility. It has been suggested that I tone it down, shorten it, change this, add that, break it up here. Well, if I took all this advice, it just wouldn't be Gambolin' Man anymore, now, would it? (How many of George Orwell’s “simple rules” of good writing do I break?) And so I pile it on. I wonder what Mark Twain would think of my humorous and wryly cynical bromance posts of the boys' Walter Mittyesque outings? Would Thoreau scoff at my "divine trees of nature, heavenly nature of trees" essay? What would Muir have to say about my lionizing narrative of him in his adopted wilderness home, Yosemite? After all, they are my literary influences and nature heroes, I do admit, but being long dead, what do they care? It’s really more important what YOU think, today! Orwell went on to say, "A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?" I admit, I am guilty on at least one count – I probably could have posted consistently more shortly.

Finally, dear reader (and photo admirer), it is my hope all along to lure you into an escapist adventure, draw you into a pristine world that still exists and still evokes a time and place - or timelessness and placelessness - that can be found amidst industrialization, overpopulation, urban sprawl and the disappearance of natural ecosystems. Perhaps that is what draws visitors to my site and what keeps me excited about providing new content as often as possible. The idea that you might find inspiration for your next adventure in the great outdoors is motivation and gratification enough for me. That, and find some truth, beauty, love, and avoidably ugly writing.

By the way, did you miss the photos?