The Wilderness
A thousand islands, the name promised... More than thirty years ago, I first heard this name from my friend Ara who would lead us into the Ansel Adams Wilderness for the first time. I remember being overwhelmed by the magnificence of the Eastern Sierra, the solitude broken only by birdsong, peals of thunder in the afternoon, and the pattering of hail on our tent. I remember a string of alpine lakes each worthy of decades of worship and adoration... Over the years, as I explored more and more of the Sierra, I found myself yearning to return to the site of my baptism, as time had blurred all but the memory of the lake and its islands.
Most alpine lakes are temporary jewels set in the crown of the ever-changing landscape. Tectonic forces uplift mountain ranges, and glaciers advancing and retreating with the cycle of ice ages carve bowls of convenience for meltwater to occupy. None of the lakes I’ve visited will change in my lifetime, but each is balanced at the edge of a precipice on which Nature wields its chisel.
The stillness of the lake in the absence of wind and rain is an illusion broken first at its downstream end, where the water, languid a moment ago, is now rushing to escape, with gravity and momentum its only allies. It is no accident that the John Muir and Pacific Crest trails join at this very spot. A handful of islands are visible, but more beckon from afar. The thousand islands are a thousand characters in an elaborate play, a micronesia of unique worlds shaped by the waters they perch upon. Some are but chains of granite boulders strung in twos and threes, punctuation in the grand poetry of the lake. Rising among these are island universes, with shrubs and gnarled junipers that have injected themselves into ice-hewn cracks. Their bows, like seafaring ships, are streamlined by water and wind, and the ages have stained them with distinctive tattoos of dark lichen. As the sun disappears behind the Sierra, it lazily waves one last golden brush of warmth across the islands, setting them aglow, then aslumber as the light withdraws for the day.
Though one may think that the words I wrote refer only to Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, this scene is repeated in every corner of the wild landscape that includes the John Muir Wilderness, the Ansel Adams Wilderness, and the Hoover Wilderness, stretching northward from Mt. Whitney to Mono Lake and beyond.
Read MoreMost alpine lakes are temporary jewels set in the crown of the ever-changing landscape. Tectonic forces uplift mountain ranges, and glaciers advancing and retreating with the cycle of ice ages carve bowls of convenience for meltwater to occupy. None of the lakes I’ve visited will change in my lifetime, but each is balanced at the edge of a precipice on which Nature wields its chisel.
The stillness of the lake in the absence of wind and rain is an illusion broken first at its downstream end, where the water, languid a moment ago, is now rushing to escape, with gravity and momentum its only allies. It is no accident that the John Muir and Pacific Crest trails join at this very spot. A handful of islands are visible, but more beckon from afar. The thousand islands are a thousand characters in an elaborate play, a micronesia of unique worlds shaped by the waters they perch upon. Some are but chains of granite boulders strung in twos and threes, punctuation in the grand poetry of the lake. Rising among these are island universes, with shrubs and gnarled junipers that have injected themselves into ice-hewn cracks. Their bows, like seafaring ships, are streamlined by water and wind, and the ages have stained them with distinctive tattoos of dark lichen. As the sun disappears behind the Sierra, it lazily waves one last golden brush of warmth across the islands, setting them aglow, then aslumber as the light withdraws for the day.
Though one may think that the words I wrote refer only to Thousand Island Lake in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, this scene is repeated in every corner of the wild landscape that includes the John Muir Wilderness, the Ansel Adams Wilderness, and the Hoover Wilderness, stretching northward from Mt. Whitney to Mono Lake and beyond.
