I finally got some time to pick up the banjo yesterday and didn't realize how much I missed playing it until it sat in my lap and I began to pick it. It sure is good to be back home. School starts in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to it. Spent all week working on syllabi, course outlines, homework sheets, extra credit sheets, and even went out to the office. Everything for fall semester is now uploaded on the school website, so I think there's nothing left to do before school starts except to read a little and do music camp. I can't wait.

 Having just gotten back from a week long solo hike in the High Sierras, I'm feeling especially connected to the beauty in our world and the amazing fact that mathematics seems to be the language of our creation. Why should that be? Why should mathematics describe our world at all? Over and over on my hike I wondered if mathematics was the language of God. I guess I should explain. On my hike I took a book with me on String Theory. I would hike a few hours and then take a break, eat a little, drink a little, read a little, and then write some in my journal. That was the pattern of my hike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I'm back from a fifty mile trek through the High Sierra Camps up in Yosemite. Visited Glen Aulen, May Lake, Sunrise, Merced, Vogelsang, and Tuolumne Meadows. I think my favorite was May Lake. A really beautiful setting, though it was the start of a very difficult day. May Lake is at 9100 feet, then a hike down to the Tioga Road at about 7000 feet, cross the road and up some relentless switchbacks behind Tenaya Lake, up to Sunrise at 9200 feet. Definitely the most difficult day of hiking. The highest point of the hike was Vogelsang at 10,140 feet.

 

This is the first time I've visited all the High Sierra Camps and also the first time I've done a solo hike of more than a few days. Hiking solo means that whatever comes up, you have to deal with somehow. No one to fall back on to help. Two things were difficult on the hike. Leaving Sunrise you climb up to a ridge, then over the ridge there's a seven mile downhill to Merced Lake. About two miles on the downhill one of  the shoulder straps on my pack broke. Ripped completely off. My first thought was to panic. I thought about filling up my two handheld water bottles, leaving the now useless pack behind a rock and hiking to the ranger station at Merced Lake. After the panic, though, I realised I could use my pocket knife to bore a hole into the strap, unscrew the now useless part of the strap, put the screw through the newly bored hole and hopefully use the strap again. It worked. Two days later the other strap also broke and I managed to fix it the same way. Luckily they held so that I could finish my hike, but it is definitely time for a new pack! Instead of using a day pack this year, I decided to use my full pack to prepare myself for a solo hike next year in more remote areas of the park. Since I've used this pack for 18 years, I think I've definitely gotten my use out of it. I'll start looking at one of those new fangled soft packs this fall. Not sure I want another ridged frame pack. We'll see. Next year I will also carry a needle and thread...

 

The other unexpected thing this year was fire. Lightening had caused a fire up on Babcock Ridge. The NPS has, rightfully so, decide to manage such fires by letting them burn the underbrush so that devastating fires won't happen as much. The trail down to Merced gets pretty close to the ridge, and the next day the climb to Vogelsang winds it's way up on the other side of the ridge. So both days the planned trail might have involved finding another trail. Luckily there are other trails one can use, but it would have added an extra day onto the trip. So I learned a valuable lesson when planning such a solo hike. Leave room to add a few days if necessary! In any event, the fire meant that the air was not as pristeen as usual. For two days the morning air was filled with smoke and haze.

 

Next year I'd like to hike from the Meadows to the Valley, with a side trip to Half-Dome, and then do some hikes on some of the passes I haven't yet been.

 

Some wildlife seen this trip: marmots, pickets, coyote, bear (just outside Merced), trout, mule deer, and a rattlesnake sunning himself on the trail. The scenary, as always, was spectacular. There seemed to be fewer folks on the trails this year than in the past. That might partly be due to how dry it was. Last year I was able to get water from some streams that this year were completely dry. Before I left on the hike I had read about that, so I carried more water than I needed most days. It would have been an easier hike had it not been so dry.

 

So another wonderful hike this year. It sure helps to do this after Pacific Yearly Meeting, getting off to myself and evaluating my clerking and my week of PYM. There's something about getting out in the wilderness, alone with God, that puts the week into perspective. There's also time to remember Shar and how much she loved Yosemite. I will be forever greatful for her finally convincing me to go up there. She had to talk long and hard to me to get me up there at first. It's hard to imagine anything more beautiful than my beloved Angeles National Forest, the mountains right behind my house. Yosemite, though, is certainly much more rugged!