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Show 1 1. of the Kuna Crest, the red masses of Dana and Gibbs. Across the meadow, Lembert Dome rises like a glimmering wave. These are the landmarks of my world, and I suppose of my thought. The meadows themselves undergo that strange and subtle modulatioi of colors, white under snow in early June, brown, green, and then the islands of gold appear. The summer flows by and one becomes part of it. It has not always been that way. I can remember summers when I arrived at the meadows and everything seemed flat and unreal, like a movie set. The air was so clear, the days so bright, I thought this landscape could not be real. I had become ghostly and disoriented after a year away from the mountains. It is an unfortunate human failing that one has to be continually reminding oneself about reality, about what is important and what is not. There may be a "phenomenological ecology" which leads us to enlightenment in the mountains, but the cities reverse that process and allow us to fall away from our best moments. I have spent many summers in Tuolumne Meadows, and all of them have been important. For several seasons I lived in the old Sierra Club campground which used to be here at Soda Springs. For several summers I lived in what we used to call the Mountaineer's Center, an old C.C.C. mess hall which has recently been transformed into a Visitor's Center. Later I lived above the confluence of the Dana and Lyell Forks of the Tuolumne River, in the tent cabins where most of the rangers reside. And now for the past three summers, out here at Soda Springs |
