Enlightening Experiences

[LMBSGV]

The main reason I seek wilderness experiences is for those spiritual, transcendent moments. That is when I comprehend the essence of both myself and life itself. In order to understand those moments of perception and insight in their larger context, many years ago, I took a couple of long solo trips and wrote a book. These are the final paragraphs of the Epilogue when I descend from Forester Pass to Road’s End:

I turn and descend, traversing the ecological zones of the Sierra in a matter of hours. From the jagged ridges and spacious sky of 13,200 feet, I make my way down past opal lakes amid gray rock and sand, wide-open meadows in transition from green to brown, bubbling creeks, scrubby scattered whitebarks. As I follow Bubbs Creek through the high walls of the canyon, whitebarks mix with lodgepoles; the all-encompassing expansiveness becomes forest. The trail turns from rock gray to dirt brown as the forest becomes denser; lodgepole pines extend towards the blue sky. Bubbs Creek plunges between granite walls to Kings Canyon far below; I feel as if I’m moving with the creek’s falling water. The foliage thickens; tall ferns swish as I walk through the greenery; aspens rustle in the afternoon breeze. With each step I move through the immense diversity and infinite beauty of life on Earth.

I reach the forested five-thousand-foot floor of Kings Canyon as the radiance of sunset filters through the tall pines and tints the canyon’s walls. A solitary being in the surrounding vastness, my individual identity merges into the wilderness, becoming a tiny piece in something grander than I can ever imagine. There is only me and the wilderness. Nothing separates us. Who I am, what I am, even why I am, become not so much comprehended as empathized in the essence of my being. My body, mind, and spirit feel as separated as they ever have, yet as united as they ever will be. The why of life seems irrelevant. There is only is. The past and future dissolve in the here and now. In this moment between billions of past and future moments, I exist in the eternal.

The shadows and light, the shades of color, the glimmer of the last glow on the flowers, waters, rocks, and sky — all the elements of life come together, shining in their singular and collective glory. None seek individual greatness at the expense of the greater whole. Each is distinct and each a piece of something beyond, each simply and beautifully an infinitesimal part of the infinite cycle of life.

Tomorrow the morning star will rise again.

[maverick]

Thank you for those of you who have chimed in with their experiences. Have met
many folks who feel similarly but would be intimidated to share theirs experiences
because of judgement or ridicule, but the person doing such should be the one
looking within their inner soul and examining the root cause of their self destructive
feelings. All the negative feelings we have at one moment or worse hold on too, like
for example when some one cuts you off on the freeway causing you to jam on the
breaks impacts you not only by the immediate adrenalin rush but the subsequent
anger that can lead to very dire consequences, on top of all this can have a long
term medical impact on us to.
When one goes to the "fountain of inner prosperity ", one of the names I have for
the Sierra, it allows me to dip it to this imaginary fountain allowing me to draw
from its healing qualities during the rest of the year. In the above example on can
immediately recall a special moment that had a feeling of tranquility and peace
which will counter the negative effects of such incidents and more importantly
protects our well being, physically and emotionally. Surely everyone here has had an
incident/incidents where things are rough going and you have drawn on a particular
time and place in the Sierra that calmed you down and allowed you to have
some inner peace, which in turn helped you get through what ever you were going
through.

[sparky]

"A wave is the whole ocean is doing in the same way that YOU are what the whole universe is doing"
Alan Watts

That feeling of connecting, and the depth of it.....I feel LMBSGV described it quite well....of how traveling through the mountains while alone lets us experience who we really should be, in integral part of nature,as we are nature itself.

I like this video

[giantbrookie]

Reading Giantbrookie's post also reminded me (and maybe the case with him) that it was those early years rambling around in the Sierra that stoked my interest in geology, and that for sure has been a life-changing experience. That I've been able to make a living doing something that I love, and that it also (as it has with GB) involved doing field work in the Sierra has been extremely gratifying. I reagrd this as a spiritual dimension of sorts.
Specifically, I remember as a youngster, maybe 12 years old, out hiking with my Dad near our cabin in Hermit Valley (Ebbetts Pass area). As we were walking up the trail in an area of bedrock exposure, I noticed that we had crossed over into a very different looking type of 'granite.' We walked back down the trail and found the place where the two types of granite were in direct contact with each other. We both kind of marveled at that, and didn't really know what to make of it. But it sparked an interest in noticing these kinds of things and you can see where that went....

OK, of course there is a geologic connection, too, although my first memorable geologic experience was in 1967 at the age of 8 on a Sierra Club hike to Pacheco Peak in the Diablo Range, rather than the High Sierra. Somewhere on the trip, I sat down, exhausted as usual, at a rest stop. You know how these things go for the slow ones. The group is getting up and starting to hike at about the time you catch up. Anyhow something in the pile of rocks I was sitting on caught my eye. It turned out to be this beautiful surface studded with inch long, terminated quartz crystals. It was probably a vein in the Franciscan sandstone that had cracked in half. Folks on the trip were mightily impressed with my specimen. Little did I know that a young (would have been 36 then) professor at UCLA, Gary Ernst, was doing some serious research on the metamorphic minerals in those sandstones at that time. This research was part of one of the most famous geologic breakthroughs--the connection between the process of subduction and metamorphic minerals that form at high pressure but low temperature--that Ernst published in 1970. I had no idea that years down the road, I'd become a geology major, and, as I moved on to grad school, that Ernst would become one of my greatest heroes, and that the signature of my own research would be the Franciscan and subduction processes. That specimen still occupies an honored place in my rock collection. I told this story to Gary and others at his 80th birthday celebration back in December 2011. He's still busy as ever, and he's co-convening a session with me at this upcoming meeting (Geological Society of America Cordilleran Section) I'm chairing in Fresno in May. In one of the events associated with that meeting, he will also be going on a two-day Franciscan field trip that I will be lead that begins with a stop to look at rocks in the Diablo Range.

[offpump]

I'm relatively new to HST and have been shy to post, being that I'm still a greenhorn when it comes to hiking and camping experiences.
In January, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the Sierras by someone who's passion for the outdoors is unlike anyone I have ever encountered. Not only is his enthusiasm infectious, it's inspiring.
He took me to Yosemite for the day and introduced me to all of his favorite spots. Yosemite blanketed in snow is truly magical...it was like stepping into Narnia. We hiked around for the better part of the day.
Sitting in a snow covered meadow, facing Horse Tail Falls, eating hot dogs fresh from his tiny, portable Grill and drinking beer that we iced in the snow was simply, the best meal I've ever shared with someone.
I realized the sheer simplicity of that moment and the intimacy of sharing a place so beloved are luxuries that continuously escape me in my every day life. Time for some changes...

[maverick]

Hi Offpump,

Welcome to HST! Thank you for sharing you experience with us! Hope you will
share many more of them with this great Sierra loving community in the future.

[xNateX]

There's a lot of beauty in the Sierra, the kind that takes your breath away.

Perhaps the purpose of life is to be where Life is most beautiful, and to share it.