since auld lang syne

Cloud's Rest, Half Dome on the right. And I'm in there, too!
Photo poached from Jacob SB (Jacob IMDB?)

After the snow cave I decided:

1) I definitely want to spend New Year's outside.
2) I definitely do not want to spend New Year's outside.

So I booked a platform tent, with heat. We ran it all night, John Muir, forgive me.

*****
Among my clinical observations from a rather reflective year was this: My body has ceased to manufacture ambition beyond that for friends in/and high places. I feel fine, though.

By Jacob SB and the attending GorillaPod.

*****
Much of the trail is ice. It's slow going but ooh-aah beautiful; I could look at it (and poke it) for hours. As I walk I root around for words and can't find anything even close. Nabakov? Minnesotans? Muir again? Who has the vocabulary to freeze the frozen?

I took this one myself, which is why it's not EPIC. Whatever!

*****
We're watching the sun come up on the new year, looking down the long valley as the shadows fade. The sky is pinned with the pink-tinged trails of ascending airplanes, rising steeply and slowly into the dawn. They seem to stream banners in their wake, to sound a fanfare—it's quiet and dim, I know, but still I'm sure of trumpets and the flash of brass.

*****
I have gone just slightly too far up for my own abilities and shoes and the fact that no one knows where I am. It's fine, really, but I know that the interview with the paramedics would be unflattering. "I just wanted to get close enough to touch it!" I'd be saying as they splinted the ankle or wrist or whatever. "I just wanted to touch the wall!"

*****
I'm crossing the sparse wood behind the Ahwahnee, which looks like a Lincoln Log window display and reeks of cinnamon rolls. A woman walks hand-in-hand with a ponytailed child alternately jumping and kicking up dry pine needles. They're singing a call-and-response I can't quite make out: When you something-something mountain? When you something-something river? But the answer from the little girl is a thrilling, gleeful shout—

You find a way! YOU FIND A WAY!