Waterfall at Evolution Creek
A quiet, small unnamed creek. Good water.
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| Sun rising on Evolution Creek |
Monday, July 9th
Yesterday,
I remembered the title of a book I read a long time ago my Henry Miller. Henry Miller was one of those American
expatriates living in Paris during the 1930’s and 40’s. Some of his novels were banned for a period
from America because of their sexually explicit nature, hence my intrigue in
this writer as a teen-ager. Anyways, the
book I was thinking of was titled the Air-conditioned Nightmare which
was never banned. I remember enjoying
this book, though I couldn’t tell you much about it except that it had
something to do with Miller returning to visit America. I don’t think he had much good to say
actually.
Anyways, I never understood the
title of the book, yet yesterday a meaning of it occurred to me, though it may
have not been what the author intended.
So Mr. Miller, I apologize - it goes like this. You see, our everyday lives have actually
become these pseudo realities of air-conditioning, climate control, convenience,
and comfort, where everything is super ready, and already sliced and diced for
us. And since everything is so easy, we go looking for problems to make ourselves
miserable – the air-conditioned nightmare.
Everyone one of our needs can literally be satiated by the flip of a
switch, the turn of a lever or the push of a button. Need to go somewhere? You don’t have to walk all day, just get in
your car and turn the key (I just push a button in my car.) Need water?
You don’t need to carry water up from a creek, just turn that tap and
there is your fresh clean water and whatever you don’t use even gets neatly
swished away in the sink. You don’t need
to dig a hole for your other waste products either do you? Want something to eat? Look at that nice stove and all that food in
the fridge - too lazy to use the stove -
microwave – still too much trouble, that’s what the autodial on your
cell phone siting in your lap for Dominoes is for and they already know what
your order is, don’t they? And what’s
that you say after the pizza guy has left?
It took too long, the pizza is cold, where are the bread sticks we
ordered, and why did we even tip that guy?
I’ve thought of this before and it seems to me that the better people
got it, the more they complain or look for problems. When people have it tough they all get along
and work together. Remember how united
we were after 911? Domestic violence
even went down across the nation by over 50%.
When everything is easy, that’s
when the bickering and fighting amongst each other starts. Think about all the times in your life when
you should have had it good. Didn’t
people start whining about the smallest things?
When you are working a good place, that’s when the politics start. Whenever, times are bad people pull together. It’s almost like we need to have it bad to
have it good.
This all fits in with a previous
theory I developed that I call the “muck level” (substitute in another four
letter word that starts with “s” if you prefer.) You see, people can only tolerate a certain
level of muck (s***, again if you prefer).
Let’s say we can tolerate muck up to our necks. Anything higher than that and things start to
get intolerable and eventually if the muck keeps rising we suffocate and die. So when this happens, we all start to pull
together so we can rise above it and survive.
However, if the muck level begins to fall too much, we also feel uncomfortable.
We seem to be use to a certain level of muck and actually desire it. If the muck level falls too low, we start
looking for problems so that muck level will come back up to that very
comfortable state of being in muck up to our necks. My theory says we will all eventually rise or
settle to our own muck level. Maybe, things
don’t need to stay this way. Maybe one
day we can get use to a lower level of muck and maybe even walk out of it. Oh, I guess that would be heaven where we
will all get along and all love each other – every single one of us, the old
and young, tall and short, fat and thin, black, white, brown and yellow, the
gay, straight and in-between.
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| Evolution Creek |
This all came to mind after hours
and days of tramping in the wilderness where nothing is easy and there is no
time or room for muck. There is no time
out here to look for trouble because everything is work. If you’re hungry, you better hope you carried
enough food, yet you don’t want to carry too much food because that’s a big
load you got already and your back is killing you. You always need to plan on where you are
going to get water, and if you are lucky, you will find a stream or a spring and
then still you are going to have to carry that water. If not, then you are going to have to treat some
water might find sitting in a pool siting somewhere even though it may not look
so good. Getting cold? – bundle up if
you got enough clothes, or build a fire with the wood you are going to have to
keep gathering, or keep moving and shivering like the animals do. If you are hot, you will need more water and start
looking for shade too. Bad weather means
setting up some sort of a shelter and if you got a tent with you it’s only
because you have already been carrying all that extra weight all day. Do you get the picture? Everything out here is work. Yet I find it a glorious work and I thrive in
it. In this work, I get reconnected with
my primal self.
I
always tell myself that I am going to start hiking early, but never do. I enjoy my morning routine and always linger
till the morning sun comes up over the mountains and brings some warmth with
it. This is a good time to take my water
bottle shower. I just fill up plastic
water bottle with water, strip down to my shorts and with some soap start
washing up from head to toe. I’ve been
doing this every morning and it makes a world of difference to start off every
day fresh and clean.
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| Still trying to smile despite the heavy load |
Today I
hiked about ten miles with that super overloaded pack, all of it a rather
gradual uphill climb though Evolution
Valley from 8,000 feet to the 10,966
feet Sapphire Lake. I found a fantastic secluded camp site on the south end of Sapphire Lake although I had to hike about a couple of hundered feet or so below the trail to get there. The wind and rain were threatening a bit to so I set up my shelter though nothing developed. There was lots of
water all the way so I didn’t have to carry any and I would just drink from a
stream whenever I crossed one. Quite a
few hikers don’t even filter the water, but I still do. In reality, this is the cleanest purest water
that you will find anywhere and there is not much reason to treat or filter it. I camped and did some fishing in the evening
at the lake, but didn’t catch anything.
I saw some small fish but maybe they knew I was too tired. I was glad to have a big helping of chili for
dinner that I just picked up from my resupply in MTR. It was homemade chili
that I dehydrated myself a couple of months ago, and it was perfect
tonight. During my hike today I also ate had a bunch of
apple chips (dehydrated apples) with hummus and some cous cous with figs. My
goal right now is to eat as much as I possibly can to lighten my load a
bit. Two and a half pounds a day, right?
– or maybe I can make it three and a half. I took a lots of breaks today and I got a lot of good pictures out of it.
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| My shelter above Sapphire Lake |
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| Water flowing into Evolution Valley |
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| Evolution Creek |
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| Colby Meadow |
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| North side of Sapphire Lake |
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| Peter Peak and Mt. McGee |
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| Evolution Valley |
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| Sapphire Lake |
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| Sapphire lake |
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| Sapphire Lake |
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| Sunset on Sapphire |
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| Enormous drama in every lanscape |
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| Inlet to Sapphire Lake |
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| Sunrise on Sapphire |
