Wawona, CA

Part One

  Wawona has been, and still is, a place of refuge for me. A place I go to slow down and gather my self. To think things over. To ponder my next move. And after being there a week, or even just a few days, the world starts to look and feel different. Hours of walking the sage and manzanita lined trails along the south fork of the Merced River and slowly the important themes of my life start to come into better focus. Wandering around the Upper Mariposa Grove of sequoias on a quiet winter morning my mind becomes more clear and the pettiness of everyday life dissolves away like mist.
  It's been twenty-five years since I first stayed here. Eksuzian and I had just camped and hiked in Sequoia National Park for a few days and then found ourselves exploring Toulomne Meadows on a pristine summer weekend. We climbed Lambert Dome and stayed in a park tent a hundred feet from the powerful Toulomne River. Not even in the Adirondacks or on the side of Mount Mansfield in Vermont had I ever seen so many stars.
  We planned on staying in The Valley the next night but being July it was a mob scene. We had a beer in Curry Village and decided we had seen enough of Yosemite and the summer crowds. We pondered going back up Tioga Pass and spending a few more nights in Toulomne but instead made our way south to check out the Mariposa Grove. The elegant Wawona Hotel caught our attention first and we stopped for a drink. We sat on the famous porch for a while and Eksuzian inquired about a room and as luck would have it there was one left in the main building. We took it and had our first hot shower in days. We spent a lazy afternoon reading on the porch and resting from our miles on the trail. We had dinner in the dining room and then sat up late into the night sipping bourbon by the grand fountain. Eksuzian even splashed around a bit.

  Many other visits followed. I was introduced to The Redwoods by John Reilly. The Redwoods is where you rent cabins and bigger homes up Chilnualna Road, which is behind the Wawona Hotel along the Merced River.
  It's one of the two places in The Park where there is privately owned property. The homes range from one bedroom rustic cabins to modern houses with dishwashers and hot tubs and satellite TV.
   The Redwoods is about forty-five minutes from the Valley floor. And it is a much more relaxed and tranquil place than the tourist packed villages of Curry and Yosemite. After a day seeing the amazing sights, the rocks and waterfalls of The Park or climbing Half Dome or walking the Panorama Trail, Wawona awaits with its peaceful and quiet charm.  On summer evenings with achy leg muscles the perfect tonic is to sit in the hot dry air listening to soft breezes in the tops of pines as the glow slowly fades on Wawona Dome.

  There was a winter many years ago when Pak Wu was unemployed and I was underemployed and that allowed us to meet every other weekend or so during the end of January and early February. It was also a winter of big snowstorms. Even Wawona, at four thousand feet, had deep drifts.  We rented a series of tiny cabins that overlooked the river and spent our days snowboarding and skiing at Badger Pass. On one memorable day it snowed heavily and continuously from morning until late into the night. It was a great afternoon on the hill. The flakes were big and fluffy and there was no wind. We had fresh powder on every run and we hated to go home when the lifts closed at dusk.
  That night Wawona was quiet and white under a foot of snow. Most of the houses were empty on this stormy weekend and with dark windows and the side roads and driveways un-shoveled, we felt like we were in a ghost town. Only a few chimneys had smoke rising from them and after a night walk to the river we looked back up the hill and our cabin was the only one on the riverside that had lights on.
  Because of the heavy cloud cover it wasn't really cold and Pak and I sat outside bundled up in our down jackets and pondered our luck as we watched the snow slowly falling before going in to sit by the fire and sip whiskey.
  The next morning it was still snowing, but not as hard, and Badger Pass was even less crowded and the powder was even deeper. Sharing the mountain with more ravens than people spoiled us into thinking that we owned the hill and we made runs until we were exhausted and famished.
  After a day in the cold high country air and once the fireplace warmed the cabin we were about knocked out. Pak made a big dinner, his usual multi course masterpiece complete with a soup and then a rice bowl and then several stir fry dishes. Then sated and after cleaning up we could barely keep our eyes open to watch the fire.
  The next day before leaving we made plans to meet back here in two weeks and before checking out booked another cabin. The snow had slowed to light flurries but the Wawona Hotel being closed for the winter and with the front porch buried, looked somewhat like the Overlook. Sleepy, cold and haunting. I had to keep the snow chains on all the way to Oakhurst.

  A few weeks later we were back doing it all over again. Gliding down the mountain, taking snowy hikes up to the Mariposa Grove, walking up and relaxing at the Lower Chilnualna Falls and then, wind burned and winter tanned, sitting by the fire devouring Pak's food. This time he showed up with a cooler full of live Maine lobsters. I couldn't think of a better way to squander through his severance pay.
  Two weeks later we did it once more and those hours and hours of just the two of us up on the slopes or strolling the woods gave us ample time to plan and contemplate the future. Our conversations were wide ranging. Years later nothing really turned out the way we thought it would. Some parts of our lives are more amazing than we could've imagined. Some brilliant plans fizzled to nothing. We've been more lucky than most. And sitting here again tonight, almost twenty years later, with a bottle of whiskey and smelling of woodsmoke, we laugh and marvel at the twists and unexpected turns of our unique paths.
  We are here yet again this January of 2014. We have one of those well appointed houses with all the amenities. It is Pak and Joanna and their beautiful kids, Ellie and Juliette, James and Marcy and their baby Abby. At three years old Abby is the newest member of our group of mountain rats. John Reilly is here, the one who started it all by bringing Pak and I on our first extended trips to Wawona. He showed us all the local trails and the deep hidden pools in both the Chilnualna and Merced rivers. He's been coming here since he was a kid, Ellie's age, and now he tells his old comfortable stories to the girls, instilling in them, perhaps, a love and an appreciation of this place that is etched so deeply in our hearts.

   The Upper Mariposa Grove is a very peaceful and quiet place on this late winter morning. Before everyone gets to The Redwoods and we can check into our house I've walked up alone from the parking lot at the Park's south entrance, about four miles. There's not a lot of snow and the air is still. There is not a cloud in the sky. I'm the only person for miles. The slope of the grove faces south but the upper grouping of trees fills a large flat area that resembles an alpine meadow except the flowers are hundreds of feet tall and thousands of years old. I spend a serene hour thinking about the slow growth of these massive trees and what's gone on in the world since they were seedlings.
  Down in the Valley there's a cross section of a sequoia and you can count the hundreds of rings and see the years of famous events like WWII or Columbus "discovering" America, the signing of the Magna Carta and the Battle of Hastings. And to think these majestic trees, the largest in the world, were cut to make toothpicks and grape stakes. Such an inglorious end to a powerful existence.
   There is a replica of Galen Clark's cabin that is a tiny information center, of course it's closed this time of year, and I sit on the steps and try to imagine living up here in solitude for an entire winter. Clark was the first tourist to wander into the Grove in the mid 1800s and he became its caretaker as well as an official guardian of Yosemite Valley. He came here as a young man in his thirties with health problems expecting to die but hoping the mountain air would prolong his life by a few years. The Sierras agreed with him because he lived to be just short, by a few days, of ninety-six.
   When John Muir found his way to Yosemite Clark had already been here for years and the two bearded mountain men became great friends. Together they fought to keep the Park wild and protected.
  They spent nights together in the Upper Grove sitting by a fire and planing for the future and preservation of Yosemite.
  Clark brought Ralph Waldo Emerson up to the grove and the sage of New England named a tree Samoset after a Massachusetts Indian who befriended the first settlers at Plymouth. Today the tree is unmarked and I would love to know which one it is that Emerson so admired that he felt compelled to name it. In his journal he mentions an inscribed plaque but the few rangers I've talked to are unfamiliar with it. I plan on doing more research next time I come here.
  That same day Muir was deeply disappointed that Emerson's entourage strictly forbid the philosopher to camp out in the cold woods with him lest he catch cold and then be unable to complete his lecture tour. Emerson was disappointed as well and called Muir a modern day Thoreau.
   A pair of ravens is keeping an eye on me as I sit enjoying my solitude, the tranquility of the grove is almost overpowering. I'm tempted to walk back to my jeep and grab my sleeping bag and ground pad and spend the night under the looming tree where the ravens now sit and quork at each other, or maybe at me. After all, I have disturbed their sanctuary with my heavy breathing and noisy clomping through the shallow patches of snow. Or maybe they are just sounding off for the shear fun of it. Their exuberance is infectious. A few minutes later they fly off and their calls become muffled and soon I'm in silence again.
  My daydreaming is interrupted by a loud whacking sound. I look around for the source but it seems to be coming from everywhere and it echoes through the grove. Then I see the bird, a Pileated Woodpecker. It's big, well over a foot tall, and beautiful. It has a jet black body and white at the head and neck. It's crown is a natural red that stands out sharply against the light rust colored bark of the Sequoia. The bird pounds at the tree with its sharp grey bill and I watch, fascinated, for about fifteen minutes until with a graceful hop into the air the bird on a two foot wingspan glides through the trees disappearing into the woods on this peaceful winter afternoon.
  I continue up about a mile to Wawona Point. I wonder why I'm breathing so hard until the sign at the stone ledge overlooking Wawona Dome informs me that I'm at almost seven thousand feet. I live at sea level so I shouldn't be surprised that I'm panting in the thin air. I rest for a few minutes viewing the silence of the valley.
  The air starts to cool and I put on my fleece and check the time. Everyone should be at the house by now, all settled in. Johnny will have the fireplace roaring and Pak will be making appetizers. The hot tub will be steaming and Joanna will have a bottle of wine breathing. I had better get moving.

   The night goes as expected. We are all so happy to see each other, it's been a good long while. It's been years since I've seen James and Marcy and I've never even met little Abby. Everyone is comfortable and relaxed when I finally get there. Ellie gives me a tour of the house and shows me my room. Pak is opening oysters, small sweet ones from Japan, almost like Kumamotos only slightly larger. I wash them down with a Guinness.
  It's Marcy's birthday and James baked cupcakes that the girls decorate with frosting and sprinkles while we older kids celebrate with glasses of Mumm Napa.  
 The big table is set for dinner and the first of many courses, halibut cheek baked with soy sauce, is delicious. Other dishes follow; pork loin, and rice, and a spicy vegetable curry. Dinner is relaxed and accompanied perfectly by a bottle Duckhorn Merlot. We happily spoil ourselves.
  The hot tub beckons and we move out to the deck. The night is clear and the temperature dips below freezing. One of the reasons I moved to California was so I could sit outside year round in a hot tub. That and I wanted to see Bob Weir sing Estimated Prophet near the Pacific Ocean, but that's another story.
 It's a pleasure that never gets old, sitting out in the woods soaking in the dark. Everyone goes back to the fire and Joanna tops off my glass before leaving me alone to watch the stars though the branches of the pines. I enjoy the quiet of the night, the breezes of earlier in the day having stopped and the cold air is still. How long later I'm not sure but my glass is empty and I dry off shivering before going back inside.
   Time flies and soon it is one am. The fire is almost out, just glowing coals. I'm too tired to read or take notes; the hike, the cool night air, the food and wine and the hours of conversation have all chipped away at my energy.

   One year I was lucky enough to bring my parents here. It was early summer and the usual crew joined us. It was our well practiced week of morning hikes and afternoons of reading and relaxing before big dinners out on the deck overlooking the Merced River. We had a day in the Valley to see the sights and a trip up to Glacier Point where we were lucky enough to see a Peregrine Falcon dive down the cliff at an impossible speed. Mom and I watched that display of grace with an awe that took our breath away.
  The previous winter had record snowfall and the rivers and waterfalls were flowing higher and faster than I'd ever seen. It was also a summer where the wildflowers bloomed late and the field by our house was a purple blanket of lupine. Dad loved walking around looking at all the flowers he was unfamiliar with. This was a long way from the lilacs and dandelions of western Massachusetts.
  One night we went down to the Wawona Hotel to listen to Thomas Bopp play the piano. He's been entertaining in that little room off the lobby that opens out on to the porch for well over twenty-five years. He is a national treasure in his elegant suit and bow tie. His repartee of show tunes and old historic Yosemite camp songs is a delight to listen to. He encourages sing-a-longs and, of course, Dad knew the words to all the classics; Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein, Johnny Mercer, those wonderful songs that somehow transcend time. What usually happens is we go early to listen to a few songs and have "the one" drink and end up entranced for a few hours. On the summer nights we spend with Thomas dinner gets moved to later and later and we end up back at the house eating outside by candlelight. It has become a tradition.
  Dad's hip had been bothering him and he was scheduling surgery when he got back home so his walks were short and he spent his mornings in the sun puttering among the flowers and reading the paper.  One night we were talking about the artists who were attracted to the Valley and Dad mentioned that he hadn't painted in many years. The next day Joanna found a artist's sketch pad and pencils at the nearby market. So for the first time in a very long time while we were taking a morning hike Dad drew pictures of the house and river. I still have them. I don't think I ever saw him more relaxed than I did that weekend. A few months before he died he told me that it was the best vacation he had ever had. It certainly holds powerful and wonderful memories for me. To be able to show my parents a place I love so much was a special experience for us all.

   By the time I get up at eight the kids are awake and Pak has breakfast cooking and the fire is warming the big room that is an open living room, dining area and kitchen. We linger over our plates then slowly gear up for a walk to the swinging bridge. It's a easy stroll on a big wide path. We stop and take pictures at a tall dead tree that somehow still stands. Twenty-five years ago I looked at it and said that I was doubtful it would make another winter. Yet here it is looking as if it will topple over any second, its base littered with dead bark and branches. I never make a trip to the Park without walking out to check and see if it has fallen. I'm always pleasantly surprised to see that it has weathered, like me, another year.
  While everyone is relaxing in the sun on the big rocks just above the swinging bridge I continue up stream. California is in what scientists are calling a five hundred year drought. The snowpack in the Sierras is seventy-five percent below the average this winter. Badger Pass isn't even open yet and it's already late January. The water level is so low that for a while I boulder-hop up the middle of the Merced. I scramble but it's slow going jumping rock to rock in mid-stream so I climb up to the trail that leads to the deep tub that we swim in during the summer. At the tub I sit on a ledge that is usually a few feet underwater. The pool that fills from a fast narrow channel that the water has carved into the granite is less than half full. During the dry hot afternoons in August we dive from rocks into the cool fifteen foot deep water. Today I could almost wade across the shallow pool.
   I sit for a while watching and listening to the water. At this spot several yeas ago I saw a Golden Eagle. It was the biggest bird I'd ever seen and it glided down the river at the level of the treetops. It hardly flapped its wings and was soundless above the roar of the river.  
  It's after noon and I make my way back to the house. It takes me over an hour because I ramble more than hike. Wawona Dome looms over the valley and I vow to climb it this summer. There's no trail to the top but yesterday looking down at it from Wawona Point it looked like an easy enough hike from the trail at the Upper Chilnualna Falls. I've hiked to the upper falls many times and from there I calculate it might take me another hour to reach the top of the dome.
  The upper falls are four miles from the trailhead near our house. The hike up is an annoying series of short switchbacks that gives you the illusion that you're climbing steadily but after forty-five minutes of frustrating back and forth you can look straight down and see where you were and it looks like you covered no ground at all. Gazing down at the winding trail I always think it would have been easier and shorter to make the path a direct climb rather than the constant zig zagging. Like the trail up Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks or Mount Mansfield in Vermont. Eastern trails seem to get right to the point without all the meandering. Here on the west coast the trails were cut with pack horses in mind.
  On this abnormally warm winter day there are hints of the summer aromas; cedar and manzanita, dust and pine. Wawona in summer smells like no place else I've ever been. The dry air and gentle winds mix the scents of trees and flowers and water.

  Back at the house Pak is at the stove making a curry dish, cheeses and breads are laid out and the beer is cold. The kids are in the hot tub and Johnny has rekindled the fire. The afternoon drifts away as we talk and laugh and tell stories. Ellie and I practice a card trick for later, Juliette and Johnny play games out on the deck. Abby naps, Joanna naps. Pak ponders the contents of the fridge.
  The sun sets on the dome and the temperature drops.  Steam rises from the hot tub and smoke rises from the chimney.
  No one is really hungry for a big dinner so Pak fills the counter with appetizers; sautéed mushrooms, fish balls, (true) spicy noodles, a shrimp soup, fried tofu and sprouts, sliced pork loin, and we all make little plates and sip wine. James opens a bottle of whiskey.
  After dark we walk down to the river and look at the stars and in our own particular way contemplate the mysteries of our lives, the world and the universe. It's hard to put into words our feelings about our connections to the transcendent without sounding trite and even slightly confusing. Our lives are certainly not trite, they are full and rewarding and if there is a deeper meaning for our existence it remains elusive. It is enough tonight to know that we love and are loved and, at least for now, we are lucky to be healthy and comfortable. None of us are arrogant enough to believe it will always be this way. So we agree we are grateful for all the wonderful moments that are fleeting and impermanent. Our strengths lie in our appreciation of family and friendships that we know sustains us on our journeys.
  Is it the incomprehensible cosmos, night air and stimulating ideas that intoxicate us as the river softly flows by in the dark? Or could it be the whiskey? Orion looks down on us without comment.

  Back at the house the wood stove gives off its heat and we are lulled a bit after being out in the cold. We sit quietly talking in front of the fire until I find my eyes closing. It's almost two am when I get up and go to bed. Pak, Joanna and Johnny are not quite ready yet for sleep and I go to my room leaving them watching the glowing coals. Much later I get up for a glass of water and Johnny is putting another log on. He spent the night fireside enjoying his solitude and the beauty of being in this place he loves so much.

  At eight my personal alarm clock, Ellie Wu, wakes me for breakfast by peeking in my room. We eat, pack and straighten out the house in time for checkout.
  We caravan to the Valley and at Inspiration Point say goodbye to James, Marcy and adorable little Abby. The rest of us go to the Ahwahnee Hotel for a light lunch and then a short stroll around the grounds where Joanna takes some pictures of the girls pelting me and Johnny with slushy snowballs.
  It's time for everyone to leave, the Wus back to Sacramento and Johnny to Santa Barbara. We are a bit melancholy and Ellie again asks if I can come live with them and sleep in their camper. I promise I'll think it over. It truly is a fine offer. We all hug and soon I'm standing alone in the parking lot.
  I've decided to stay another night, there are rooms available at Yosemite Lodge. I spend the afternoon missing everyone, even Johnny who I will surely see at The Twig Room tomorrow evening when I get back home.
  I drive over to Curry Village and park then hike out to Mirror Lake. In all the years I've been coming here I've never taken that walk. It's a beautiful day and in less than an hour I'm at the lake looking straight up at Half Dome and across the stream bed at Mount Washburn. The lake is really no longer a lake but more of a swampy meadow. Like all small natural bodies of water eventually they fill up with sediment and where a hundred years ago you could row a boat or dive off a dock you are now standing in a grassy marsh. There used to be a hotel here and in winter ice blocks were cut and stored for chilling summer cocktails. Today I sit on a rock in a tee shirt amazed at what a difference a few short generations make. Would Muir or Clark even recognize this place. The mountains are unchanged, for now, but the dry lake might present a mystery to them. Where did all the water go?
 I have a relaxing dinner at The Mountain Room and then grab my binoculars and walk out to the field across from Yosemite Falls to look at stars. The moon is not up yet and the sky is dazzling. I look for the Andromeda Galaxy but without my star map I'm unsure of exactly where it is. I'm pretty sure the cliffs obscure my view of it. Tonight I have to be content just knowing it's out there hurdling towards our own galaxy and someday, unimaginably far off in the future, the collision will be explosive. Too bad there will be nobody to view it. The earth will have long before been incinerated by our sun. Imagine that!
  The night cools and I go back to the bar and sit by the fire and warm myself with a Macallan 12 year and read from Alan Lightman's new book, The Accidental Universe.
Refuting the mysticism surrounding our myriad beliefs in immortality he says:
  "Although there is much that we do not understand about nature, the possibility that it is hiding a condition or substance so magnificent and utterly unlike everything else seems too preposterous for me to believe."
  I wish I had that quote memorized last night at our talk by the river. It was what I was inarticulately trying to say.

The next morning I walk the path to Yosemite Falls. The ice dome that usually forms in winter, between the upper and lower falls, this year is not there. Or it's so small I can't see it over the cliff. On the bridge near the base of the lower falls I look up at the trickle of water gently making its way down the rocks. I have been here in early Spring when you couldn't even walk on to the bridge without the watery cold blast instantly soaking you to the bone. It was like being in an icy wind tunnel.
  But today all is calm and I shed my jacket and climb the dry stream bed up to the pool at the bottom of the falls and I sit in the sun for a while marveling at the walls towering almost two thousand feet above me. I've never been here before either, the water usually being too high and the rocks too wet and slick to navigate safely. The only remote danger today is if a slab of granite breaks off the cliffs and crushes me like a bug. It's unlikely even though I'm surrounded by evidence of past rock slides. The myth that mountains are forever is just that, a myth. Some day even these solid stone walls will wear down to rolling hills as pastoral as the Berkshires. But not anytime soon, certainly not in my lifetime.
  From the pool I enjoy an unusual view of the Lost Arrow Spire. It sticks up like a massive finger of stone looking as if will flop over if the wind picks up. It is like a giant version of the dead tree back in Wawona, defying gravity, at least for now. The forms of the park repeat themselves in familiar shapes. Towering trees and pinnacles, rock domes and ice domes, rushing rivers and snowmelt streams. The same patterns played out large and small, some more fleeting and temporary, some seemingly eternal. The wind carved ice sculptures and tiny rivulets gone in a season, the trees will fall in a few generations, the rocks will shift and slide over eons.

   I walk over to The Ansel Adams Gallery and look at the pictures taken by the master whose eye for the delicate nuances of black and white was sublime. There is always a different photograph that catches me off guard and makes me see The Park in a new and refreshing light. It's why I keep coming back. I will never exhaust the surprises offered up by my slightly changing perspective as I look at the familiar views time and again. There is always more to see if you look at something long enough.
  On the way back to my jeep I pass by Galen Clark's grave. He dug it himself, aware that time is indeed fleeting. Someone placed two red roses on top of the stone. They are bright and fresh and seem out of place on the dark granite rock with the worn and faded inscription, his dates of birth and death barely definable after only a hundred and four years.
  Reluctant to start the drive home I walk out into the field across the road from El
Capitan and scan the three thousand foot face with my binoculars. On a warm winter day like this I expect to see climbers but the wall is empty. After a half hour of sauntering around the meadow and looking at the rocks and cliffs I climb into the jeep and aim for the ocean. Six hours later I'm standing in the dark at Shoreline Park. The crashing of the swells at high tide are thundering across the cove.