The magic of intuition drew me to this cut log lying beside the trail. The log was big, but after a quarter century of hiking the Sierras, I've seen a way to many cut logs to care. But it'd been a while since my last long hiking trip and this was going to be a doosy. So instead of just blowing off the inner call, I looked a little more carefully and there she was, staringback at me. Lizards are special creatures from the Native
perspective: they're dreamers, with knowledge of the future. And what a trip this turned out to be. I wish this one had shared its secret: I spent half the trip worried and pushing myself to the trailhead as my hiking companion got lost halfway through - never showed up at camp as agreed upon. Despite how bad that could sound, I had complete confidence that he would extract himself - it was up to me to be there and ready for action if he didn't materialize. He did, a day before I got out: 63 miles with 6+ high passes accruing more than 3 miles in vertical feet. My dogs were tired!!
John Muir called the Sierra Nevada the "Range of Light" and from my time there, I couldn't agree more!
This is looking East where the low 'V' on the left I would eventually have to pass and it was after this day I was committed to more quickly return to the trailhead instead of searching all the landscape behind me.
