Boundaries

(photo of the top of Yosemite Falls in winter)

I do not make the transition between seasons easily. I get comfortable with the season I’m in, having rediscovered its unique beauty, and I don’t want to let it go. All winter, without leaves on the trees behind my house, I’ve been able to see across the valley to the hill on the other side. This week, with a little rain and warmer weather, the leaves have begun to emerge and close off my view. I miss the beauty of the snow and being able to see the contours of the land that soon will be hidden by the forest.

Making any transition has never been easy. I remember one fall when I was hiking in Yosemite in late October anticipating a week of dry days and cool, but sunny weather. One night a snow storm moved in. The next day I went on my hike, as planned.

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On the Yosemite Falls Trail going up the canyon wall, a scattering of snow begins to appear at the 6000-foot level. It gets deeper the higher I go, making the upward hike slippery and a little dangerous. I go around a bend and hit a cold wind funneling down, and think of the French voyageurs battling harsh weather as they canoed across Lake Superior. Then I think of Sigurd Olson canoeing there after them, in the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada, listening to the voices of nature around him.

I have come to Yosemite to cross over the boundary from my city world and saunter in the world of the animals, but the snow is encouraging them to hide in protected places and I’m not seeing them, not even the paw prints of the local mountain lion.

Higher up, the trail is slick with ice and I dig my feet into the snow on the sides and waddle the last hundred yards. On top, the snow is deep and unbroken. At 8,000 feet whatever sounds arise are quickly hushed by the foot of snow.

My original plan was to head west for the top of El Capitan, but I think that the trail going east to North Dome may have less snow. Neither trail is anywhere to be seen, and if there is ice and deep snow here, then it’s likely that the same conditions exist over the length of both trails. I head off anyway, because I do things like this, figuring that if I can see part of the trail now and then, I will be okay. But after twenty minutes of tromping around through snow that is getting deeper and is now above my knees, I find no evidence of any trail.

I stop moving to consider my options. Both trails run along the edge of the valley wall and a slip could be fatal. I could also fall into a snow-filled crevasse, break an ankle, and be buried. Yet I still stand in the snow trying to calculate how much I can push my luck. There are boundaries that I know I should not play with. This may be one of them.

Resigned that this is as far as I can go, I carefully make my way over to the lip of Yosemite Falls and watch its thin winter stream flow over the edge like water being poured from a pitcher. The heavy surge of water and the thunderous roar of the falls of spring and summer have been left behind. Looking into the distance, I see the stark, slate-gray mountains of the Sierra Nevada, and I’m in awe of the raw landscape. Spread out before me, over hundreds of miles, is the place where the sacred lives.

Quietly it begins to snow.