A favorite seasonal road trip has been the last snowfall for any given year in the Sierra Nevada.
In May of 2015 I headed up Hwy 99 toward the west entrance of Yosemite and, once inside the park I took the Glacier point turnoff and headed east to its terminus. I was lucky that it hadn’t snowed recently, and the road was still open. I spent that afternoon, night and the next morning with the place to myself. It didn’t snow on me, but across the valley it dumped all night giving me a surreal experience. Unbeknownst to me, three and a half miles to the west, along the same cliff face, Yosemite bad boys Dean Potter and Graham Hunt launched themselves into cosmic oblivion during their last wingsuit flights from Taft Point. Little did I know as I goofed around feigning a fall for the camera, the sheer drop and high vantage physically pulling at you, seemingly sucking you over, the news.
The Sierra Nevada range has a spirit all its own and hearing the next day, a poem filled my head. It was so obvious at the time. Every leaf and bud oozing spirit and refusing to be denied.
“Of Winged Men and Angels”
“What is this place, that irrigates so deep within
Plunging and bleeding all manner of men
Stripped naked, merely mortals
Every critter, leaf and bud
Shifting shadows, emblazoned beacons
Women of granite, men of mud
This place is not real it’s merely a portal
For fallen folk, found simply immortal”
