Walking West With a Mountain

Walking West with a Mountain

by Mark Liebenow

Cloud’s Rest Wikipedia

It’s early October, 54 degrees, and I’m standing in a dark meadow in Yosemite, cautious of any bears that might be wandering around looking for things to eat. In the stillness before dawn, the valley is cloaked in night’s shadows, but the stars are clear, and a half moon illuminates the white granite walls that seem to glow. The Merced River flows out from the forest like a ribbon of black ink, curves around the bend, and surges past me. I’m waiting for enough daylight to see the trail and begin my hike. Now I’m wondering if this is a good idea.
        The hike will go from Camp 4 where I’m staying to the top of Clouds Rest and back. It’s regarded as the most strenuous day hike one can do from the valley. It will cover 26 miles, take an estimated 12 hours, and go up to an elevation of almost 10,000 feet. It will go higher and take four hours longer than the hike to the top of Half Dome. There is less than 12 hours of sunlight today, so I can’t dawdle on top if I want to make it down the canyon before night erases the path.
        Last night, at one of the evening campfires, Todd and Jeff, two rock climbing friends in their 20s, talked about their daring adventures, how they hooked the edge of a ledge with their heel and pulled themselves up, and a straight crack they climbed by inserting their hands and making fists. I mentioned the short hikes I’ve done this week, and how lethargy still clung after my wife’s death. Todd encouraged me to take more risks, put my butt on the ledge between life and death, and see what that stirred up, so I said I’d go on a hike that I’ve never attempted because it would push me to my limits.
        Evelyn died unexpectedly 18 months ago in her 40s, and I’ve been coming to Yosemite as often as I can to let nature help me deal with grief, and for the most part I’ve worked through the flood of emotions, although anger and despair occasionally flare up. Apathy is my concern now. Every dream I had has included Ev, and without her I have no goals, and I drift through the days not caring about much, even my own safety.
        Even after paying close attention to grief over the last year, much of it is still a mystery to me, like the galaxies of stars and constellations above that hold wonder as well as impenetrable darkness. It feels like I have explored only a small part.
        The Park Rangers say it’s not wise to hike alone in the wilderness with all of the dangers, yet I still do. I value the solitude, and it’s hard to find someone who wants to hike all day. One year, twenty people died in Yosemite by treating nature too casually or overestimating their abilities. They slip on Half Dome and fall to their deaths, or try to wade across peaceful-looking streams, only to be swept off their feet by the power of the ice-cold water and drown from hypothermia.
        I try to monitor the level of risks I take, but stuff still happens. I could become distracted by the view, forget to watch the trail and almost fall over a cliff, neglect to take enough water on a long hike, suffer sun stroke, become somewhat delirious and begin talking to a concerned coyote (did that), break a leg and be stranded (no), or ignore weather warnings. A snow storm could sweep in and make the trails icy (it did, and that was one long, nerve-wracking hike across the mountain and back to camp).
        I trust the bears, mountain lions, and coyotes to behave like themselves. If I respect them, they will leave me alone, for the most part, but even animals have bad days. At least they don’t carry grudges like humans.
        When light begins glowing behind the eastern horizon, I follow a faint path across the meadow, moving more by feel than sight, and head into the dark woods for Happy Isles. This was Evelyn’s favorite place in the valley. The Merced River comes down the canyon here still wild and unkempt from the highlands, tumbling in whitewater cascades before it settles into a powerful flow. Ev loved to sit here, listen to its songs, and watch its water dance.
         For most of Ev’s life, Happy Isles was a thickly wooded area. This changed when part of the granite wall broke off below Glacier Point, 3000 feet overhead, and fell. One estimate put the size of the granite block to be as long as a football field, and when it hit the ground, it generated the impact of a 2.1 earthquake and a wind speed of 160 miles an hour that blew down 1000 trees. What had been a serene, wooded glen became open to the sky. It is now sparse and sunlit with an alpine beauty. The place that we loved is gone, yet I feel her presence here, and I linger.
        Heading up the John Muir Trail, I cross the bridge where Ev and I once saw a bobcat, walk up the stone steps through the drifting spray of the emerald-green Mist Trail, and on to the top of Vernal Fall. On a good day, Ev could hike this far before her knees gave out.
        I continue on to the top of Nevada Fall. At dawn several months ago, I sat at the top of the fall and watched the river leap into space in a 600-foot white plume. Sunlight sparkled on its surface that day, and I thought of Francesco and Molly, wishing they could be here to see this beauty and forget for a few hours their deepening worry about Molly’s brain tumor. I wanted them to enjoy the fullness of each other again without thinking about how their life together was spiraling down and might soon end. Ev and I helped them celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary under the oak trees near Camp Four two years ago this month. They have done much to keep me going since Ev’s death.
        Molly says Coyote is my spirit guide. I want to believe this is because she thinks I’m witty like a coyote, but it’s probably that I’ve become too serious, and she wants me to lighten up and play again. So whenever I see a coyote, I pay attention and listen for instructions.
        Leaving Nevada Fall, I loop around Half Dome, which looks like the back of someone’s bald head from this side, and walk into Little Yosemite Valley. Bears like to hang out here, too. Backpackers often camp in Little Yosemite on the first night of their wilderness trip, and they don’t always secure their food properly. I turn onto the steeply rising trail that goes up to the top of Half Dome, follow that until a trail branches off for Clouds Rest. The thick forest canopy begins to thin and gives way to open ground and the sunlight of the subalpine, with golden autumn grass, western white pine, and bushes of pinemat manzanita and chinquapin.
        This trail may be a path begun by the Ahwahnechees who followed the ancient songlines of the Sierra. By hiking, I move back in time, get a sense of their long history, and a feel for the shared memory of the land.
        This is where my hiking map reaches the edge of the paper and ends. Apparently, the hike I’m attempting isn’t really considered a day hike. Soon the Sunrise Trail branches off, leaving a dirt path as my only option. If I lose it, I could be wandering around for a while. This is also the upper limit for western rattlesnakes, although I rarely see any.
        In this time between seasons, the weather pauses, and animals roam about freely, having reclaimed their land from noisy humans who go away after Labor Day. In the dirt I notice paw prints that are large enough to have been made by a mountain lion, so I may not be alone. If the lion is nearby, then it’s aware of me. I scan the terrain. In the shadows under the trees, on a rise to the right in the distance, I see a tan shape move. That might be the lion. They are reclusive creatures by nature, but if it comes into the open and lets me see it, then I need to back slowly away, appear as large as I can to seem formidable, and stifle my impulse to turn and run.
        On the other hand, what I saw could also have been a deer, a coyote, or a tan rock that the sun was hitting just right. Should I turn around? Whatever it is, it’s not in the direction I’m traveling, so we’re not a direct threat to each other. But I also haven’t seen any humans today, so if something happens, I will be on my own. I decide to take the risk but keep an eye on that spot.
         The day is cloudless with a cobalt blue sky. I listen to the land as the warm rays of the sun offset the cool air of the highlands and let my body take the lead, settle into a steady, uphill pace for the next two and half hours, and slow my thoughts to the rhythm of walking. Clouds Rest is becoming real, instead of being a curiosity in the far distance. I am on it, seeing what it sees, and becoming aware of the mountain’s way of life. I take off my jacket, and a short time later my insulated vest comes off. A broad-brimmed hat keeps the sun off my face, and I hold a plastic bottle in my hand to remind me to keep drinking water. I learned that lesson on a hike up the backside to the top of El Capitan that went on for longer than I anticipated. A few blue-bellied lizards dart among the rocks.
        The higher I go up the mountain’s flank, the more I see of the view south over the Sierra range and mountain peaks like Clark, Vogelsang, and Lyell, which has a small, residual glacier on its shadow side that John Muir explored. The crest still has snow from last year.
         On a water break, I turn around and face downhill to catch my breath and let my legs relax. Half Dome is now hundreds of feet lower and looks surprisingly small. Its famous face is only a small part of the rock complex and looks more like a scoop has been taken out of the front third rather than a dome that was neatly sliced in half. Below the face is an enormous pile of boulders that come halfway up, rock that was broken off by the glaciers and exfoliation. I finish one bottle of water and close it. On a long hike like this, my backpack will weigh twenty pounds because of the water.

Photo by Mark Liebenow

        On the last 800 feet of the path, as I’m nearing the 10,000-foot mark, the rise becomes even steeper. I’m stepping up slabs of rough-hewn, weathered rock, and forced to consider a number of health-related issues. I’m breathing hard, my heartbeat is around 180, and it barely slows down even though I’m resting as much as I’m hiking. I walk for a minute and rest, walk a minute more and rest. Then it’s ten feet and a longer rest. Each leg feels like it has a ten-pound weight attached to it. It would probably be prudent to sit on a boulder until my pulse returns to normal. Am I going to have a heart attack like Evelyn? No doctor ever told her to be cautious about her heart. I went to work in the morning. She had the attack and died before I could reach her side.
         When I reach the top of Clouds Rest, I finally sit and manage a tired smile. The peak is a thin ridge and not very wide, only about five feet, and a fall off either side would be fatal. To the northeast I see the bright yellow forest of aspens in the eastern Sierra and the blue water of Tenaya Lake. The other trailhead to get here begins there. It’s only 14 miles round trip and doesn’t involve such a huge gain in elevation.
        Walking to the edge, I look down and the view is breathtaking—a 5000-foot slope that slides all the way down to Tenaya Creek and the forest at the bottom. A series of glaciers came through that shattered and sheared off this side of Clouds Rest along faultlines but left the peak untouched. The continued movement of the glaciers polished the granite slope into a sheet of concave and convex surfaces that gleam like steel in the noon sun. I would love to rub my hands over its surface and feel how smooth it really is, but I don’t see a safe way of climbing down there.
        The view down doesn’t seem scary, more like one heck of a fast toboggan ride over the undulating slope than anything dangerous, although the stop at the bottom would be abrupt. When I realize that my feet are inches from the edge and that a gust of wind could push me over, I back away. Being on a cliff is different than being on a dome. You can roll off a dome but have time to stop your slide. On a cliff, you just fall.

        Elevations:
        Clouds Rest 9926′
         Half Dome 8842′
         Olmstead Point 8420’
         Sentinel Dome 8122′
         Eagle Peak 7779′
         El Capitan 7569′
         North Dome 7542′
         Glacier Point 7214′

         Clouds Rest is solid granite (granodiorite), and the top of its ridge stood like a small island above the glaciers that rumbled through and buried the land under an ocean of ice. From hiking, I know that the tops of North, Sentinel, and Half Dome are all wide open, and the top of El Capitan is much larger than what can be seen from the valley floor. Clouds Rest is more like Eagle Peak with its roughshod appearance. It was named by Lafayette Bunnell in 1851 when he noticed that clouds were gathering on the peak before a snowstorm moved in.
         For over 20 years I’ve been coming to Yosemite. I’ve hiked every trail in and around the valley. There are favorite places along every river, in the woods, and on the sides of the canyon walls where I like to sit and watch nature go about its daily life. This is the last place left for me to hike.
        I feel some of the awe and relief that my climbing friends must feel when they reach the top of a mountain and there is nothing higher left to climb. Aside from the adrenaline rush of the physical accomplishment, this feels like an important step in my long search. I am facing my fears about grief, the emptiness of life without the person I loved, and the eventuality of my own death. Will what I find here be enough?
        In every direction I see the curvature of the horizon, “the ends of the earth” in the old language. The highlands glow with an ethereal light as sunlight reflects off particles in the air and the white granite mountains as if they were made of the same radiant matter.
        Down in the valley, it’s predicted to be 78 degrees today, but this rarefied air is so thin that it doesn’t hold the heat and I slip my jacket back on. As I eat lunch, I stretch my legs to keep them from stiffening. Today’s hike so far has been like walking up stairs for five hours. I look around to see if any storms are moving in. If one is near, then I need to head down. Granite peaks can draw lightning to them from miles away.
        In Dogen’s way of thinking (he was a 13th century Japanese Buddhist philosopher), the Sierra Nevada Mountains are walking westward, so slowly that this is imperceptible as I sit on rock that is carrying me along. The mountains are being worn away by the weather and the rivers, yet they are being built up as the earth beneath them rises. The tectonics of losing Evelyn has broken me apart, and I feel weathered like this mountain. Grief has been my glacier.
        Stroking the rock with my hand, I’m moved to be touching something that is 40 million years old, something that had the strength to endure the seismic changes and has witnessed the wild, chaotic beauty of thousands of seasons of destruction and rebirth. The ancient peak of Clouds Rest is simply being what it is. It’s nothing fancy to look at, yet it is a valuable part of the watershed for the valley, gathering water from the storms and sending it down to the rivers that cascade and leap over waterfalls and flow into the valley where they nourish life.
        Sitting with the mountain, I feel the stillness of time. Nothing is moving. There are no sounds or wind. When I let myself be still like this, when my rushing in one direction stops, it feels like there is no past or future, only this moment.
        Lying back on the rock, I see nothing above or to the sides of me. The earth is holding me 10,000 feet up in the sky, and I am absorbing the light. There is nothing I need to do, just be. My body is the mountain. My heart flows with the water. My soul is the breath of the air. Relaxing into the warmth, I drift off.
        Hearing a breeze brush over the peak, I wake. Nan Shepherd, a hiker of the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland in the 1930s and 40s, wrote that hiking “is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the mountain’s life, I penetrate also into my own … To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain.”
        Change is constant in nature, even in mountains made of granite. Creation was not a one-time event. It’s going on now as much as it ever was. Every catastrophe, every scene of destruction, opens the way for something new to begin. It’s the cosmic dance between death and life that has been going on since the beginning of time. A rockslide buries the habitat of hundreds of animals and birds, and a different habitat forms. A fire burns away a forest I loved to hike through, and the shoots of young trees begin to rise from the blackened soil and create a new beauty. A wife dies unexpectedly, but I don’t yet know what will come next.
         I can continue to hike over the surface of grief for a long time, but until I work with its soil, my landscape will remain burned away and no new life will grow.
        Before the Sierra Nevada Mountains were here, there were ancestral mountain ranges of metamorphic rock created by the folding of the earth that wore down and returned to the stillness of ancient times. Clouds Rest is rooted in each of them. Meanwhile, the Sierra Nevada cooled underground with its granite whorls, domes, and peaks in a massive block. Then the Sierras lifted, tilted on its eastern side, and rivers that once casually flowed east now flowed west, picked up speed, began to cut through the rock, and created the narrow canyon that the glaciers would widen into Yosemite Valley. One side of Clouds Rest is gone because of the destruction of the glaciers and earthquakes. Does it feel sorrow? It is leaner and has been pared back, yet its strength has endured.
        I think about stacking rocks in a small cairn so that something of Evelyn’s spirit could see this view and remain here to watch over me as I hike. But Clouds Rest is not a cairn for Evelyn, nor is it an altar or a pyre, because the sacrifice has been made, the body burned and buried. This peak is also not the home of the gods as ancient people believed, although it feels sacred. For me it’s not a place of annihilation or enlightenment, as much as I wish that one of these were true. It is a place of clarity where I remember our life together, the happy times of dancing in the living room and the struggles that threatened to pull us apart.
        I feel drawn to this peak more than I am to the domes. There is presence here, a sense of place, and I wish I could stay longer. I can’t, of course, and there is nowhere for me to go but down, yet down is where the water flows, where the soil nurtures new growth, and where communities of people live that support one another. I have spent enough time alone over the past 18 months trying to make sense of death, trying to honor Ev and the journey of grief, and trying to find the reason for why she died young, but with only partial success. My life has changed, and I need to accept this.
        A celebration of cawing erupts behind me. A large flock of birds is soaring over the trees, either ravens or crows, and circling around and around as they chat with each other in an aerial kaffeeklatsch. Such exuberance! They look like they’re having fun, and I feel a nudge of excitement.
        Thanking the peak for sharing its view with me, I pat it goodbye. As I’m making my way down through the slabs, I notice a golden-bellied marmot. When it sees me looking, it slips over the far edge. I walk slowly to where it was and watch it pause on the next level as it monitors my movements. It goes down another level and pauses again, waiting for me to catch up, as if we were playing tag.
        Now it’s five hours of walking downhill. One of Turlough O’Carolan’s tunes begins playing in my head. He was a blind 18th century Celtic harpist who wandered around Ireland. It’s a song of gratitude, but also of sorrow, in the Celtic way of acknowledging that both were woven together in life’s journey. At the junction with the Half Dome Trail, the sounds of the forest return. When I reach the Merced River, the water adds its rhythm to the tune, then the falls bring in their excitement. Later the cascading waters of Happy Isles add their voices, and in the meadows the melodies of red-wing blackbirds (conk-la-ree) and wrens (puri puri puri) join in.
        Grateful to be on flat ground again as hiking up and down a mountain has worn me out, I’m also relieved that it took only 10 ½ hours, leaving enough daylight to do something else. The plastic water bottle that I closed on the top of Clouds Rest has been compressed in half by the increase in air pressure. No wonder my lungs feel heavy.
        Sauntering the two miles back to camp, I spot a bright blue and orange kingfisher on a branch over the river staring intently at fish moving in the water. In Sentinel Meadow a doe and two fawns are eating acorns under the oak trees. I walk until I find a place along the river where I can see Clouds Rest, and I marvel that I had been on top of it only hours ago. From here it looks like a shining, white peak in the distance, but having been on its warm, tan rock and feeling its presence, its mystery has grown. On the other side of Leidig Meadow, a coyote is watching me. What does it want me to know? I listen to it and to the land.
         I had been looking for one transcendent encounter in Yosemite to unlock my lethargy, or one image that kept appearing, and I thought it would be the river. My life has stalled, but the river is always going somewhere and changing as tributaries add water and the river shares it with the meadows.
        But instead, it was everything. It was the joy of the rivers and the rocky peak of Clouds Rest. It was the pungent scent of pine forests, the dry warm days of hiking, autumn’s slant light, the fresh mountain air, the solitude in the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, the mile-high valley walls, the rough bark of ponderosa trees, and the meadows filled with the magentas, yellows, and browns of autumn. It was the gray dipper who came near and sang every time I sat by the river, the coyotes, of course, the rock climbers and hikers I met, and even the mountain lions and bears.
        It was everything, and I think it will be enough. My path does not end here.

View from Cloud’s Rest, photo by Mark Liebenow