Leaving the Sierra, for....somewhere

Again sitting in LAX.  I do a lot of sitting in LAX these days.  It is such a terrible airport; there is nothing in here.  And flying in out of here is just such a crazy [terrible] view.

Mono Lake at night

After taking off from Mammoth Lakes today I got a great aerial view of almost every place where I have stepped foot in the last month.  Such a fitting departure for me—all the while having MORE paperwork for Antarctica in my lap.  

Yosemite

I sat in the sun on the porch in June Lake this afternoon thinking about “home.” For the last month this place has felt like home.  I felt a relief every time I’d pull back into the driveway; even if it was only after coming five minutes back from the grocery store. 

Boardwalk down to Mono Lake

Then I started thinking about what home is to me these days.  I always call Missoula home.  But when I go back to Whitehall I call that home.  When I get off Denali I call the Mountain Trip house in Anchorage home.  When I got off the Ice Cap in Patagonia I called the place in Coyhaique home.  Most recently it was this place at the end of Garnet Street in June Lake, CA.

Looking down on our house in June Lake From Carson Peak

It has been three and half years since I have spent more than three months in one place.  I’ve never thought of that as much of a big of a deal, but tonight I put down on paper all the places I’ve been to in the last 4 years. The frequency of travel actually blew me away.  The weight of the question “where are you off to next?” made more sense to me now than ever.  I know I haven’t been able to stay in one place lately (for one reason or another). But I truly just now realized the extent of that.  Wow.  Wow, is really all I can say.

Mono Lake between moonset and sunrise

I’m supposed to spend 4.5 months at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.  What a long amount of time for me to be in one place now.  I will call that town of 1200 people on the Ice my home.  “Home.”

Initially in June Lake I tried to meet some people.  I met some great people, just not my kind of people.  Not the kid of people I know from Montana.  Yes, I know there are different types of people in different places.  I didn’t make any effort at all to build a friendship with anyone that I met though.  After things with Antarctica started working out I knew my time there was limited.  I didn’t want to build relationships that I would only leave yet again.  I really only wanted to leave the mountains behind.

Essentially I turned my time in June Lake into time in any other town I happened to get gas in during my travels. I was just passing through.

Owl in Flight

I have truly enjoyed my last month in California though.  I have seen some places that I’ve always wanted to see and have taken some of the best photos of my life.  I’ve even taken initiative to get these photos out to the world and have gotten some of them published in local CA papers and magazines.  But I guess it is time to board another plane. 

A plane that could go anywhere in the world.  A plane with hundreds of unknown people-all going to the same place, sorta.  But in this case I still have three flights to go before I actually get back to MT.  I could be a world away.  Think of the places that you could go from where you are right now in only three flights.  Really anywhere on earth. Anywhere on earth is only three flights away.

Looking down on Yosemite Valley

view of the Cables of Half Dome

Looking into the Sierra from Carson Peak

June Lake area from just behind my house

Mono Lake

Marmot Photo Shoot and More Mountain Views

These are only some of the adventures that are coming out of my first "office job." I can hardly call it an office job because it is really only answering a few e-mails a day (which I can do from my iphone at the summit of most peaks in the area) and maybe a phone call or two.  It is giving me a chance to get out and explore an area that I have always wanted to check out.  June Lake is a great jumping off point for so much cool stuff.  There will start to be a myriad of different views of things of different places and views of one mountain from the mountain I just climbed the other day and vise versa.  Look for views tomorrow from Boundary Peak and then Cathedral Peak soon to come.

Marmot with Cathedral Peak in the background

Curious Marmot.  Lost interest when I wouldn't give him food.

Boundary Peak (highest point in Nevada) from the Summit of Mt Dana.  Note this photo for the next blog post.

Line of cars at the Yosemite Entrance Station

Tuolumne Meadows

Mono Lake from the summit of Dana

Yosemite Backcountry

The Indian Fire from June Lake

Firestorm

Yosemite Backcountry

Most people go to national parks and stay on the roads and viewpoints.  Few ever venture more than a few hundred meters from the pavement.

Here is just a little of what they miss:

Back to Nature

It is interesting to me that when people say that they want to find themselves or they have a problem to figure out they go travel in the mountains or forest or along a river.  It is great that someone finally realizes that this is the best way to figure things out about yourself.  But the problem is that everyone becomes so far away from nature in their lives that they lose exactly what they go back to nature to find.  If you never go too far then you never lose anything.

American Gothic - High Sierra Style

 I just spent a week in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park with a great group of people.  All of these folks spent a large amount of time to raise money for the effort to restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite.  Each has a passion that they have spent much of their lives devoted to: photography, acting, climbing, gay rights, simply being in the backcountry, animal rights, writing, and trying to restore a beautiful valley in Yosemite.  Some people of this group have (and others certainly haven't) fallen too far away from nature, but below are some photos (and more to come in future posts) from our experiences back in nature.

Moonrise

more playing with some night shots

These guys wanted to see a bear for days.  Hours before the end of the hike this guy popped up.

Hetch Hetchy, under 300 feet of water.

Ranger Danger.  What you don't see in this photo are the armed cops in camo up in the forest.

After 6 days and 46 miles we crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Yosemite and The Coolest Gas Station Ever

My time so far on the east side of the Sierra has been great.  I got to do some good rock climbing and climb one of the most fun routes of my life on the West Ridge of Mt. Conness in Yosemite.  I may actually stay here until I go to Antarctica in mid-September.  There is a part-time job and a room here for me in June Lake, CA.  I was really looking forward to weeks of downtime in Missoula, but like I have said before Missoula will always be there.  There are a lot of places in this part of CA that I have always wanted to spend more time in. 

Climbing on Daff Dome

View of Half Dome

Yosemite

Yosemite

Sierra

Yosemite

Plus the coolest gas station ever is here.  What would make a gas station so great?  You take a simple gas station add good food, live music and neat people then you get the coolest gas station ever. 

The coolest gas station ever

I’m leaving this afternoon to guide a 6-day backpack through northern Yosemite.  It starts on the east side of the Sierra and ends on the western side at Hetch Hetchy dam.  This hike is part of a fundraiser to remove the dam, which like most dams, is pretty useless. 

Yosemite

More info on the restoration of Hetch Hetchy: http://www.hetchhetchy.org/

More information on the trip I am guiding: http://muirsmarch.landingpage.dojiggy.com/