The Last Season

Discuss your favorite wilderness related books. Share your favorite poetry, quotes and folktales. Here's your chance to showcase your creative side!
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Tom_H
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Re: The Last Season

Post by Tom_H »

maverick wrote:Not an addiction, but an escape into a world uncluttered by humanities rigid thinking (at least some of it still is), like a religious expereince, that has not been tainted by man, still pure, which unfortunately not many people get to expereince.
Very well said.
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Tom_H
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Re: The Last Season

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Oh, these vast calm measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest. Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Never more, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever. John Muir, June 23, 1869, My First Summer in the Sierra
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oldranger
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Re: The Last Season

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For me the Sierra is not a religious experience or anything that matches Muir's prose--which I have to get past to enjoy his experiences and travels. For me the Sierra which is among my earliest memories is just where I feel most comfortable. There is also a feeling of competence that I don't feel in my everyday world where things seem to whirl around me completely out of my control. Not that I can control mother nature but the sources of danger seem much more limited than in what we call civilization. I guess no matter how nasty it can get the Sierra is just my personal comfort zone.
Mike

Who can't do everything he used to and what he can do takes a hell of a lot longer!
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Jimr
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Re: The Last Season

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For me, when someone says it's like a religious experience, I replace the word religious with spiritual. I'm a spiritual person, but I'm not religious, so I get that. It feeds the soul and that is an individual experience. Heck, I read OR's post and hear the same thing just removed from the association with religion. The sublimity of the land, the simplicity of living for a short time with just the necessities you can carry, the freedom from daily concerns about our interactions with people, institutions, stock prices, politics, etc. It allows me to be just in the now and that's where my spirit lies.

I just got back camping on Cow Creek just up from where it flows into Dinky Creek. I spent much of the day today drinking coffee and chatting with the girl I love and enjoying the bees and butterflies and trees and hawks with no worries. It feeds my soul. Yesterday, we crossed Cow Creek twice. It was quite swift and a crotch ford each way. When Lisa got through the second ford, she said it was deep and swift, but totally manageable as long as you concentrated on what you were doing. I told her it was a good exercise in being in the now. She knows my spiritual side, so she knows exactly what I meant when I said that. Life is lived in the now. My spirit, who I really am, resides in the now and being in the Sierra makes it easy.

I'm starting to ramble, but even though I have no idea what a religious experience is beyond listening to a sermon, I get it.
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
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Hobbes
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Re: The Last Season

Post by Hobbes »

You would like my brother, except he doesn't have a beard; still, the parallels are striking.

I've always been visual & physical. Whether it's the ocean or mountains, I get off on endorphin induced mental highs resulting from exercise in beautiful areas. It's why I really enjoy the alpine zone above tree line (or, the moonscape as my wife calls it) with the incredible wide open vistas.

But when I'm done, I'm done. I don't hang at the beach - I go out, get wet, and go home. Same is true with the mountains - I jam up there, run around, then jump back in my car and drive home.

In other words, I'm the antithesis of RM. As I read the book, I realized *I* was the hiker/climber he was trying to convince to slow down. But it doesn't work that way - the high is dependent on the pace, the High Sierra setting just ramps the visual to max levels.

So, maybe addiction is the right word, at least in my case.
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sambieni
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Re: The Last Season

Post by sambieni »

Amazon algorithm sent me down this path. I did not know of Morgensen or the book. Just finished it last night after reading past few days.
It was well detailed interesting and troubling read. Made me really think about the serenity and beauty and fear that the Sierras impart upon me each time I return to backpack.

In my younger college days, I knew all sorts of trees/vines/shrubs by genus and species and more. Book inspired me to revisit that part of my brain to make more educational for me, but namely my kids when I take 'em backpacking. And speaking of kids, my little was very very jealous when I told him Morgensen grew up in Yosemite Valley - school and all. I think he would have packed the house up right then and moved us, if he could.
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