JANUARY 1, 2010
Outside from page 8A my flask and grab a swig of bourbon. Perhaps the wind would gather strength and drive the clouds from the mountaintop. At the 1,700-foot level of Meridian Ridge, the first patches of snow began spattering the trail’s shoulder. The Moon was still with me, drifting in and out of tendrils of vapor that rose and dissolved like steam from a kettle. Only when I made the turn east toward Prospector’s Gap did I begin to lose the Moon behind the wall of Bald Ridge. Vega burned hot white high overhead, nearly bright enough, I fantasized, to navigate by. Northeast, the horizon skirting Olympia Summit betrayed the subtlest paling of blue. I checked my watch. Less than an hour till sunrise. I came to the final assault of the gap and found snow I could sink my feet into. The trail’s rocky outcrops normally make its long and steep track slow going. But 2 inches of tacky snow smoothed over the bumps, allowed me to sail up through the bottom of the cloudbank to the saddle between Diablo’s twin peaks, 900 feet below the Summit. The wind had gathered strength but was not driving the clouds from the mountaintop as I’d hoped. The mountaintop had seized the wind and was twirling it around its head like a rodeo artist his lariat. I cut right and let North Peak Trail’s narrow course hoist me across the warp of the Summit’s east face. The snow had deepened and the drop-off to my left into the impenetrable white was sharp. I
LOOKING BACK
reined back my pace. At the trail’s first switchback I caught a faceful of ice dust ricocheting off rock and tree. The foliage was straight out of sci-fi. It had rained up here before the mercury had plunged. With nowhere to run and hide, the windwhipped moisture had been frozen, like the victims of Pompeii, in mid stride. Spreading sideways from a thousand stems of chamise glinted blades of ice like barbers’ razors. Farther up, bracketed by the Summit Trail’s sheltering chaparral, I spotted coyote track laced with blood and wondered who was doing the bleeding – the predator or some prey spirited away in the lethal sanctuary of jaws. The prints peeled off into the manzanita just below the summit of the Summit. I turned north toward the home stretch and in two minutes planted my walking stick, flaglike, in 4 inches of snow at 3,849 feet above sea level. No more up to go. I stood in a world suffused with limitation: No tourists would be motoring to the Summit today. The only track up here would be made by predators and prey, the tire tread of park rangers and cleat pattern of hikers. No sweeping panoramas would be gained – no sight of the Sierra or Farallons or Lassen. No sight of anything 40 yards away. I had caught a glimpse of our secret winter, but what secrets it had revealed to me – beyond its severe indifference to my comings and goings – I cannot say. I pulled my stick from the snow and began my descent toward the world I knew.
At Eskaton Lodge, we offer • Eight apartment floor plans • Three nutritious meals daily and snacks • Quality care and assistance • Variety of stimulating activities • Transportation to Shopping, Physician’s Appointments & Outings
Our home can be your home in 2010! Call Lindsay or Tracy for a tour.
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For more information call: (925) 516-8006 LIC #0756001300 www.eskaton.org
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