2008-09-18-0750 Decision-free bliss of the bus ride.
Out of the forest, where the only working people the rangers--some in a cabin in the woods the whole summer--and the horsepackers, to: [this, bus drivers]--
Did fairly well avoiding "exit fever" rush during final days. Much time contemplating what next. Avoid SD at any cost? Monterey? SF? Stay in Lake Isabella while researching merchant marine?
Seem to have settled on going to sea, getting job on biggest ship possible, rather than Mexico, for now.
The last week, wrote little. One down day: annoyance with "rangers" (permit asking, food storage lecturing--no canisters required on this section but required to hang or locker food) in Sequoia NP, bugs. Last two days in drylands along the Kern, trees increasingly rare--fishing people, expeditions, and coming to the road two newbie campers, Cambodian (bad guess) shared meal of prawns, corn, nectarine, tangerine, pork kabob--John from OC, out of work programmer with 1 year unemployment, and Keyanna (Minnesota).
The following, if any, if it matters, lessons from trip. Some clichés, but ones I'd forgotten.
(1) I can do it. I can get body to work and eat in a way that lets me walk ~20 miles/day, day after day, up and down mts.
(2) Wherever I go, I'll suffer. Much self-induced.
This last week, no escape--not much power to listen to audiobooks, only a little reading of Calvino, _Cosmicomics_, English translation (a genre-synthesis of modern scientific creation lingo and ancient creation myth)--so watched mind run and run. Memories of interaction with others that came up were often not joyful. Hence desire to avoid SD, people jobs. But remembering good interaction now: Rbec, Rhugel, etc, friendly Lake Isabella bus driver, guys on bus. Challenge Course work perhaps too meaningful and overstimulating? Too much time thinking about it when I planned programs.
Ah, prayers for collaboration were answered: help plan socal permaculture gathering, and a Frank Cook email: come to next rainbow gathering in NM. But why am I not doing those?
But the main point: wherever I'll go I'll suffer--in monastery, in forest, etc. So why try to be as comfortable as possible (that will never be realized: one of my mental representations of that is being a bum near Monterey)? Why not suffer in an interesting way?
(3) Will to nomadism has been suppressed. Mark Twain noted this (_Roughing It_?): ~"humans have nomadic tendencies: nomadism has nearly been trained out of some white men but never the indian." The neo-agricultural/permacultural ideal, the care for place and vow of stability which I attempted to sort of embrace, and the ideal of owning land, real estate--may repress this (though some leading permaculturists are among the most nomadic). Well, I may not adopt car or plane travel-- but ships? To wake up in a new place each morning? Ever moving?
Proust, et al: changes of seeing, of mind, not place. Well let's have both: read and move. _Cosmicomics_ changes how I see the granite cliffs I'd not have otherwise seen.
Suffering-- whenever I wish things were different than how they are rather than being engaged in doing something: "how much longer must I deal with this trail?" vs. engagement in dealing with it, vs engagement in writing this.
(4) Trail modulation/variety. After the shock of Forester Pass (highest point on PCT/John Muir Trail), I desired long, flat, forested, temperate, direct trails. On my Non-Muir Trail route south I got plenty of that and came to appreciate a trail, a day of walking, that has ups and downs, views and forest, direct + roundabout, varieties of ecosystems, varieties of company, and so on.
All that vs. stasis, sameness, comfort. Which I confess I've spent a lot of my life pointing myself towards, somewhat consciously (head south for warmer winter), and unconsciously.
--
That's about it!
A point for contemplation: the coming to some sort of resolve about what to do next in this past week. A simple retrospective view is that going to sea offers more variety than would either wandering in Mexico or living houseless near Monterey, two ideas that were there. I know I'll suffer with the diesel fumes in the marinas, dockyards, motoring ships, with the shifts (four on, four off, whatever they are), with some of the people I'll be with--we'll see.
I still feel the monastery would be perhaps the purest path--not sure what that means--but maybe next life?
If the name of the blog changes to "Colin's sea blog: ways of suffering at sea" that's what happened. Though I won't focus just or even primarily on suffering. Probably would still focus on feeling fulfillment.
and who knows how far I'll get with this idea--[and I wouldn't be at sea all the time, just between land adventures.]
--
here's the last resupply list, which worked pretty well (combined with what I had left from previous resupplies--such as the dried potatoes, bisquick, seaweed. Even so, all this lasted me only ~six days. I ate to be content, to recover, and to be motivated to move -- rarely was walking hungry.):
Lodgepole Market & Gift 9/11/2008
1 natural peanut butter ~18 oz 3.89
6 eggs 1.39
1 at least 16oz flour tortillas 1.79 (binged, eaten that pm)
1 2lb corn tortilla 1.89
2 apples 1.89
1 banana .39
1 iceberg lettuce 1.49 (had no cabbage)
2 8oz philadelphia cream cheese 6.40
2 3oz " 2.80 (cream cheese worked well and did not seem to go bad, and for me, not binged)
1 14oz minute rice 3.29
12 3oz armour potted meat 5.83 -- a sort of cat food for people. Kept me going. Excessively salty.
5 3.75oz roasted,salted sunflower seeds 6.45
1 42oz quaker minute oats 6.09
1 8oz organic spinach fettucini 2.89
1 3oz kraft parmesan $3
1 cliff bar mojo mixed nuts bar (nearly worthless) 1.89
3 3.75oz sardines in soy oil 4.17 (well worth it--a new staple--fat and protein, not something I'd overeat/binge)
Total: $55.43
when I got out: got lots of bananas, apples, sunflower seeds, cabbage, carrots, 3 tins of 3.75 oz herring. $10
re wild food:
I ate too many elderberries or something at one point: not sick, but very laxative.
Loved the dried rosehips.
Did pick a pound? of hazel nuts/filberts, and eventually cracked and ate them.
Ate bunches of dandelion leaves raw every so often. Get desperate for greens, fruit fiber after a bit.
Summary: a variety of fat, protein, carbs for each eating time.
I didn't get any/much thinner on this trip--partly because of the free hiker food at Muir Trail & Vermilion.
Peace,
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
low fruit, Proust avoid, Ret2HiSierra, ?
2008-09-11-1732 yay--a full-on connection. Different from last twitter post, I headed south through Giant Forest. _There_ I found my extensive grove of giant sequoia. But unlike the coast redwoods, it is a mixed forest--the coast redwoods can reproduce without seeds (asexually?), these cannot.
I'm headed south on the High Sierra trail now, and will take this to the Kern River & Golden Trout wilderness and probably head right back out (to Kernville) where I started if my food lasts long enough. I could be out in as little as one week, but I hope to be here at least two more. As Jardine notes, quality of food is key to wanting to stay out here. In the past half hour I've been thinking about other forests or ecosystems where I might have an easier time. But I did just chow down on some elderberries. . . eventually I may type in the list from today's resupply. Plenty of fat, carb, protein, but not a lot of fruit or anything that excites me a lot. The only mistake perhaps: the flour tortillas which I've eaten already. I also contemplated the bears--they're big, they get enough to eat out here. . . anyways. If I could get more lentils to soak, decent rice maybe--but I haven't wanted to hitch anywhere. Also, things are starting to shut/gear down for the winter.
Thanks Mike and Phillip from Ohio for sharing your site with me!
That's about it for now. I've been having fun with the camera--some photos of the Sherman Tree and the architecture around it, among other pics. Will comment on the photo when it is up, I hope--as a temple to a tree--it works. The design of viewers' approaches to the tree is apparent & well done.
Things have been a bit blah-er out here recently, but also times of a deepish love for the experience. Never sure what's next. Tropical fruit-bearing climates? Work on a ship or oil rig? More or less the same-old: how to make this more collaborative? to avoid ruts? and a half-wondering why I'm not doing anything particularly eco, beyond exploring a possible sort of path of less consumption.
No incoming emails, and not sure I want to fire up opera mini to see if there may be any input from the cyber world waiting for me.
Yesterday, was a storm with so much hail it looked like it had snowed--fortunately I was only ever on the edge of it and needed only warmer clothes, not raingear, walking through the snowy aftermath.
Time to head on, I suppose. Read some scifi yesterday and day before--_Ubik_ and _Spook Country_, but was sort of avoiding more meaningful stuff like Proust and Italo Calvino. This may have contributed to the blahness. And I haven't had enough batteries to listen to some audiobooks--
I did have a nice unfreezing lake to swim in yesterday!
Peace,
I'm headed south on the High Sierra trail now, and will take this to the Kern River & Golden Trout wilderness and probably head right back out (to Kernville) where I started if my food lasts long enough. I could be out in as little as one week, but I hope to be here at least two more. As Jardine notes, quality of food is key to wanting to stay out here. In the past half hour I've been thinking about other forests or ecosystems where I might have an easier time. But I did just chow down on some elderberries. . . eventually I may type in the list from today's resupply. Plenty of fat, carb, protein, but not a lot of fruit or anything that excites me a lot. The only mistake perhaps: the flour tortillas which I've eaten already. I also contemplated the bears--they're big, they get enough to eat out here. . . anyways. If I could get more lentils to soak, decent rice maybe--but I haven't wanted to hitch anywhere. Also, things are starting to shut/gear down for the winter.
Thanks Mike and Phillip from Ohio for sharing your site with me!
That's about it for now. I've been having fun with the camera--some photos of the Sherman Tree and the architecture around it, among other pics. Will comment on the photo when it is up, I hope--as a temple to a tree--it works. The design of viewers' approaches to the tree is apparent & well done.
Things have been a bit blah-er out here recently, but also times of a deepish love for the experience. Never sure what's next. Tropical fruit-bearing climates? Work on a ship or oil rig? More or less the same-old: how to make this more collaborative? to avoid ruts? and a half-wondering why I'm not doing anything particularly eco, beyond exploring a possible sort of path of less consumption.
No incoming emails, and not sure I want to fire up opera mini to see if there may be any input from the cyber world waiting for me.
Yesterday, was a storm with so much hail it looked like it had snowed--fortunately I was only ever on the edge of it and needed only warmer clothes, not raingear, walking through the snowy aftermath.
Time to head on, I suppose. Read some scifi yesterday and day before--_Ubik_ and _Spook Country_, but was sort of avoiding more meaningful stuff like Proust and Italo Calvino. This may have contributed to the blahness. And I haven't had enough batteries to listen to some audiobooks--
I did have a nice unfreezing lake to swim in yesterday!
Peace,
inertia, ambiguity . . . dream
2008-09-09-0713 I'm writing--don't feel like walking right away, walked till 830 or 930 last night in the halfmoonlight along a narrow, unstriped, paved, dead-end road, deserted but for a few cows.
What the story of the cows is I'm curious--I can't imagine how they're all rounded up, and maybe they are free cows. There seems to be an odd one or small group nearly every where making trails, leaving cowpies.
The two bushwhacks yesterday went ok, and there are no more coming up that I can see--a relief. I fear encountering impenetrable brush and cliffs. Haven't seen any poison oak for two days now (>5000'). I felt not-at-ease yesterday evening until I made it from the closed-to-public-travel OHV road to Landslide Grove up to this paved road here upon which a car may travel at least once or so per day (zero so far).
--
Ambiguity: been thinking more about ambiguity avoidance as a reason why I/we do or keep doing many things.
A basic ambiguity many of us deal with is: what should I do with my attention? An existential issue.
My itching poison oak/urishol(?) rash--sometimes my attention has been focused on itching. Interesting it is how attention can move from one patch to another, only one patch asking for attention at a time. But at some point I consider that I'm scratching a patch because it feels good, sort of, and because I don't have anything more compelling to do at the moment.
I see a similar action in eating, reading, walking, and what else?-- I continue doing these things because a compelling reason to stop has not occurred to me yet, and were I to stop, I'd have to wonder what to do next.
There is also the idea of letting something run its course. I don't want to walk just yet, but after feeling some completion writing here, I probably will. If I had nothing to write, I bet I'd read a while, then walk. Or sew a while.
Last night I played a bit with staying in ambiguity as a sort of meditation or stilling technique. Instead of using a positive instruction such as, "focus on breathing as felt near the belly" or "cycle attention through body parts, never lingering", I would note any seeking of attention/mind for something to do, and rather than allowing the action (scratching, eating peanut butter), would attempt to hold attention in an unfocused, un-acted-upon state until I tired of that or until something too compelling came along (I need to piss).
So, does this leave me with any great breakthroughs in self-management for more fulfilling living?
By now I have eaten all my 16.3 oz of peanut butter, and were it in the small ~3oz packets I got at Muir Trail Ranch, I probably would still have three packets left.
I may not have scratched as much--not by attempting to resist the temptation, but by noting that the mind is just trying to avoid the ambiguity of having nothing to do--laying in the dark, not too sleepy, not wanting to read--and deciding to attempt to prolong the situation of attention having no focus.
Possibly I can develop the practice of checking in while eating, reading, scratching, walking, writing, talking: am I avoiding ambiguity, or does my continuing this action serve in some way?
Who knows.
--
Last, I had a wonderful dream. The location was San Diego, but no SD I know--it would perhaps be on a back street of one of the more dense, walkable areas.
I came across a massive exercise or performance of "streets renaissance"/bike happening type activity, though bikes were but a minor part. A marching band or multiple armies of bands were all converging toward one highschool-type building. I was near only one group of dancers/musicians/costumed performers, but had the impression of far more. This was daytime. A huge part of the converging effect was due to wires, really only one set, perhaps, of seven or so parallel wires strung overhead from somewhere angling downhill toward the campus--and down these wires rolled people whose heads and outstretched arms wore airplane costumes.
It seemed to be a rehearsal, and during a pause I was able to praise or ask a question of a nearby director, a beaming young woman. She was joyful with my amazement and eventually I found my way into the campus of what I found to be a performing arts school. I had my little camera and took some pictures of the fantastic scenes.
One was of a musical performance/ rehearsal, a roman toga type guy singing (well, with great presence) in reaction to something (others of similar costume were nearby) in a hallway I happened to walk along.
One was of a cafe, victorian style, with costumed customers, next to a merry-go-round, with costumed riders.
Another happening later: as I walked away I approached a street crossing where at least two students were playing drunk bums in makeup and costume, crossing, or not really crossing the street.
What kind of school was this? Seems more like a collaborative workshop for practice of massive public performance art.
Well, what a vision, and another dream to wonder at where the sleep-mind comes up with these sets and scenarios resembling nothing, perhaps only new combinations of elements?, known in my life.
0854
Peace,
What the story of the cows is I'm curious--I can't imagine how they're all rounded up, and maybe they are free cows. There seems to be an odd one or small group nearly every where making trails, leaving cowpies.
The two bushwhacks yesterday went ok, and there are no more coming up that I can see--a relief. I fear encountering impenetrable brush and cliffs. Haven't seen any poison oak for two days now (>5000'). I felt not-at-ease yesterday evening until I made it from the closed-to-public-travel OHV road to Landslide Grove up to this paved road here upon which a car may travel at least once or so per day (zero so far).
--
Ambiguity: been thinking more about ambiguity avoidance as a reason why I/we do or keep doing many things.
A basic ambiguity many of us deal with is: what should I do with my attention? An existential issue.
My itching poison oak/urishol(?) rash--sometimes my attention has been focused on itching. Interesting it is how attention can move from one patch to another, only one patch asking for attention at a time. But at some point I consider that I'm scratching a patch because it feels good, sort of, and because I don't have anything more compelling to do at the moment.
I see a similar action in eating, reading, walking, and what else?-- I continue doing these things because a compelling reason to stop has not occurred to me yet, and were I to stop, I'd have to wonder what to do next.
There is also the idea of letting something run its course. I don't want to walk just yet, but after feeling some completion writing here, I probably will. If I had nothing to write, I bet I'd read a while, then walk. Or sew a while.
Last night I played a bit with staying in ambiguity as a sort of meditation or stilling technique. Instead of using a positive instruction such as, "focus on breathing as felt near the belly" or "cycle attention through body parts, never lingering", I would note any seeking of attention/mind for something to do, and rather than allowing the action (scratching, eating peanut butter), would attempt to hold attention in an unfocused, un-acted-upon state until I tired of that or until something too compelling came along (I need to piss).
So, does this leave me with any great breakthroughs in self-management for more fulfilling living?
By now I have eaten all my 16.3 oz of peanut butter, and were it in the small ~3oz packets I got at Muir Trail Ranch, I probably would still have three packets left.
I may not have scratched as much--not by attempting to resist the temptation, but by noting that the mind is just trying to avoid the ambiguity of having nothing to do--laying in the dark, not too sleepy, not wanting to read--and deciding to attempt to prolong the situation of attention having no focus.
Possibly I can develop the practice of checking in while eating, reading, scratching, walking, writing, talking: am I avoiding ambiguity, or does my continuing this action serve in some way?
Who knows.
--
Last, I had a wonderful dream. The location was San Diego, but no SD I know--it would perhaps be on a back street of one of the more dense, walkable areas.
I came across a massive exercise or performance of "streets renaissance"/bike happening type activity, though bikes were but a minor part. A marching band or multiple armies of bands were all converging toward one highschool-type building. I was near only one group of dancers/musicians/costumed performers, but had the impression of far more. This was daytime. A huge part of the converging effect was due to wires, really only one set, perhaps, of seven or so parallel wires strung overhead from somewhere angling downhill toward the campus--and down these wires rolled people whose heads and outstretched arms wore airplane costumes.
It seemed to be a rehearsal, and during a pause I was able to praise or ask a question of a nearby director, a beaming young woman. She was joyful with my amazement and eventually I found my way into the campus of what I found to be a performing arts school. I had my little camera and took some pictures of the fantastic scenes.
One was of a musical performance/ rehearsal, a roman toga type guy singing (well, with great presence) in reaction to something (others of similar costume were nearby) in a hallway I happened to walk along.
One was of a cafe, victorian style, with costumed customers, next to a merry-go-round, with costumed riders.
Another happening later: as I walked away I approached a street crossing where at least two students were playing drunk bums in makeup and costume, crossing, or not really crossing the street.
What kind of school was this? Seems more like a collaborative workshop for practice of massive public performance art.
Well, what a vision, and another dream to wonder at where the sleep-mind comes up with these sets and scenarios resembling nothing, perhaps only new combinations of elements?, known in my life.
0854
Peace,
moon about half full [acorns]
[addenda, 2008-09-08-0728: all sorts of berries are now ripe, and bear shit,smelling sweet, filled with them. I also picked up and peeled some white oak acorns I hope I'll have the industry to process.
I'm walking along a paved road as I type--loving this road: no brush to scrape against, as long as no cars, as now.
Data entry from resupply at Grant Grove Market:
guiding principles: some heavy fresh stuff to be eaten sooner. Diverse but not likely to be binged on options for carbs, fat, protein at each eating time. Price.
2 apples @ .79 ea
2 armour potted meat @ .70 ea
1 armour vienna sausage @ 1.09
2 barbie poptarts pkg of 12 @ $1.99 ea (on sale and Yogi?, I think, mentioned poptarts)
1 big can fruit (to be eaten there, on sale) @ .89
3 ~13oz instant potatoes @2.29 ea
1 bisquick 10oz? @ 2.39
1 sm pkg sunflower seeds, roasted, salted @1.29
6 eggs @1.29
1 its it vanilla ice cream @.99 (eaten there)
10oz cheddar @$6
2 potatoes @ 1.19 ea (charged for 1)
1 skippy extra chunky peanut butter @2.89
2 7oz mahtma spanish rice @1.09 ea
3 7oz starkist chunk light tuna pouch @2.89 ea
2 frozen chicken burrito @ .49 ea (eaten there)
3 large yellow onion @ .69 ea
total 46.51
--
so far the only mistake may be the poptarts as by this AM I've eaten them all--we'll see. Peace.
]
2008-09-07-2037 a good and hard day. I wasn't far from Lake Sequoia, actually, maybe only a mile. I was tired, dirty, hungry, thirsty. The lake is a YMCA camp, but it is possible to walk in, as long as you don't go where campers are. But there are signs. . . I was sort of walking on eggshells/crackly leaves. Found a spring eventually. Further on found a hillside in the sun, set out solar charger, went down to creek to rinse off finally--clothes, poison oak rash in the very cold water. Cooked breakfast: freeze-dried lasagna, seaweed, dried pepper, tesco yorkshire pudding/pancake dough congealed a bit. Felt a bit better, but flies were annoying, and food uncertainty nagging, and decided to move on.
That led to a bit of bushwhacking which I had had enough of and was very tired of. . . my energy wasn't the best. After a while (I had walked through a shrub which left me studded with sticky seeds--a variant on the velcro ones I had earlier been accreting and at least as painful to remove without scissors from leghair, and worse, they then stick to fingers. I do need to make those nylon shell pants--) I sat and cooked the last of my food: two more freeze-drieds (chili, spaghetti) + seaweed + pepper and read a bit of _Mason & Dixon_. Shortly after continuing on from this break I found, thank goodness, a maintained, used, and unovergrown foot trail which went up to overlook Lake Sequoia, and then went down to the east, the way I wanted to go.
Then I saw my first giant sequoias! I have yet to see them in such densities as the coast redwoods grow--maybe these sequoias need the mixed forest.
I was tired, the route seemed to take much longer than I'd expect from the map, and the roads were all over the place, and I wasn't sure which way to go. After a bit of wavering, I continued east-ish. Finally, my first parked vehicle sighting, then people--I arrived in Grant Grove.
A friendly ranger there by the Grant tree helped me plan out my potential route. There are small stores here, Cedar Grove (to the east, near the end of 180), and Lodgepole (south). Eventually I began to walk again, intending to find the store, hoping it might be good, and open. Again a maze of roads and trails (assumption is every one is going back and knows from where they started--this wouldn't be so hard, but there were no other walkers). I made it. The store was open, good enough, and I resupplied, so far it seems, more or less gracefully. I may give details later, but don't feel like doing the data entry now, just this: - ~$46. And I got through to my mom (has been an ongoing project)--she was able to call in to the payphones on the porch where I was eating and depackaging food.
I am partway up to Panoramic Point and Park Ridge. If the ridge is not too cliff-like, I should be able to get down to an OHV road, and then all is good, assuming the roads & trails on the map between there and Lodgepole exist and are in good shape. Else, I'll need to backtrack and try another possibility further north. A map with topo lines could be handy. I could also hitch various places, or walk along the highway, but would rather not.
Well I'm in no rush, know where to get food, and Lodgepole looks fairly close, and I may have a comfortable week's worth of food, and I seem to be high and south enough now that bugs, temp, and forest fire smoke are not making me want to move on. . . no rush. That fire is around the middle fork of the Kings River, and they've been letting it burn since July apparently, in Kings Cyn NP, but in the national forest part they try to put it out.
I never made it into the visitor's center. Maybe if I have to backtrack I'll stop in then. Tomorrow I might not move much, and do more reading and sewing/mending.
They have mirrors around here, and I have got to looking rather wild.
after Lodgepole, then perhaps to Mineral King, then through Golden Trout, south to Manter Mdw, and out the way I came in p'haps.
2204
Peace,
I'm walking along a paved road as I type--loving this road: no brush to scrape against, as long as no cars, as now.
Data entry from resupply at Grant Grove Market:
guiding principles: some heavy fresh stuff to be eaten sooner. Diverse but not likely to be binged on options for carbs, fat, protein at each eating time. Price.
2 apples @ .79 ea
2 armour potted meat @ .70 ea
1 armour vienna sausage @ 1.09
2 barbie poptarts pkg of 12 @ $1.99 ea (on sale and Yogi?, I think, mentioned poptarts)
1 big can fruit (to be eaten there, on sale) @ .89
3 ~13oz instant potatoes @2.29 ea
1 bisquick 10oz? @ 2.39
1 sm pkg sunflower seeds, roasted, salted @1.29
6 eggs @1.29
1 its it vanilla ice cream @.99 (eaten there)
10oz cheddar @$6
2 potatoes @ 1.19 ea (charged for 1)
1 skippy extra chunky peanut butter @2.89
2 7oz mahtma spanish rice @1.09 ea
3 7oz starkist chunk light tuna pouch @2.89 ea
2 frozen chicken burrito @ .49 ea (eaten there)
3 large yellow onion @ .69 ea
total 46.51
--
so far the only mistake may be the poptarts as by this AM I've eaten them all--we'll see. Peace.
]
2008-09-07-2037 a good and hard day. I wasn't far from Lake Sequoia, actually, maybe only a mile. I was tired, dirty, hungry, thirsty. The lake is a YMCA camp, but it is possible to walk in, as long as you don't go where campers are. But there are signs. . . I was sort of walking on eggshells/crackly leaves. Found a spring eventually. Further on found a hillside in the sun, set out solar charger, went down to creek to rinse off finally--clothes, poison oak rash in the very cold water. Cooked breakfast: freeze-dried lasagna, seaweed, dried pepper, tesco yorkshire pudding/pancake dough congealed a bit. Felt a bit better, but flies were annoying, and food uncertainty nagging, and decided to move on.
That led to a bit of bushwhacking which I had had enough of and was very tired of. . . my energy wasn't the best. After a while (I had walked through a shrub which left me studded with sticky seeds--a variant on the velcro ones I had earlier been accreting and at least as painful to remove without scissors from leghair, and worse, they then stick to fingers. I do need to make those nylon shell pants--) I sat and cooked the last of my food: two more freeze-drieds (chili, spaghetti) + seaweed + pepper and read a bit of _Mason & Dixon_. Shortly after continuing on from this break I found, thank goodness, a maintained, used, and unovergrown foot trail which went up to overlook Lake Sequoia, and then went down to the east, the way I wanted to go.
Then I saw my first giant sequoias! I have yet to see them in such densities as the coast redwoods grow--maybe these sequoias need the mixed forest.
I was tired, the route seemed to take much longer than I'd expect from the map, and the roads were all over the place, and I wasn't sure which way to go. After a bit of wavering, I continued east-ish. Finally, my first parked vehicle sighting, then people--I arrived in Grant Grove.
A friendly ranger there by the Grant tree helped me plan out my potential route. There are small stores here, Cedar Grove (to the east, near the end of 180), and Lodgepole (south). Eventually I began to walk again, intending to find the store, hoping it might be good, and open. Again a maze of roads and trails (assumption is every one is going back and knows from where they started--this wouldn't be so hard, but there were no other walkers). I made it. The store was open, good enough, and I resupplied, so far it seems, more or less gracefully. I may give details later, but don't feel like doing the data entry now, just this: - ~$46. And I got through to my mom (has been an ongoing project)--she was able to call in to the payphones on the porch where I was eating and depackaging food.
I am partway up to Panoramic Point and Park Ridge. If the ridge is not too cliff-like, I should be able to get down to an OHV road, and then all is good, assuming the roads & trails on the map between there and Lodgepole exist and are in good shape. Else, I'll need to backtrack and try another possibility further north. A map with topo lines could be handy. I could also hitch various places, or walk along the highway, but would rather not.
Well I'm in no rush, know where to get food, and Lodgepole looks fairly close, and I may have a comfortable week's worth of food, and I seem to be high and south enough now that bugs, temp, and forest fire smoke are not making me want to move on. . . no rush. That fire is around the middle fork of the Kings River, and they've been letting it burn since July apparently, in Kings Cyn NP, but in the national forest part they try to put it out.
I never made it into the visitor's center. Maybe if I have to backtrack I'll stop in then. Tomorrow I might not move much, and do more reading and sewing/mending.
They have mirrors around here, and I have got to looking rather wild.
after Lodgepole, then perhaps to Mineral King, then through Golden Trout, south to Manter Mdw, and out the way I came in p'haps.
2204
Peace,
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