Lifestyle

Often when I'm home in Southern California my gaze is on the High Sierras, particularly in and around its national parks: Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia. Last week I was in Yosemite and my heart was in Southern California, where fires wiped out routes I used to ride and homes owned by friends of mine.

I was in Yosemite because when one wants to stay at the Ahwahnee Hotel one makes reservations exactly one year in advance. The only fires raging there were those in the Ahwahnee's three spacious, walk-in fireplaces. I was AWOL in SoCal when the going got tough. But that is that.

If I was limited to one thing I would be allowed to write to Slowtwitch readers — a message to the exclusion of all others — it wouldn't be about racing, or training, or technology, or politics. My message would not deal with issues most important to most of you, because it wouldn't touch on belief or family. The most important thing in my life, the best thing to happen to me, is my love affair with the earth, and my good luck in being able to drink it in. Even more than my family this is what I think about. It's the theme of my life. This is the story that is reserved for me to tell.

And so my message is this: The single best gift that I'm given as a multisport athlete is the ability to see this great earth farther up and farther in, while employing a variety of means of human powered locomotion, than those haven't the same good fortune. Furthermore, the gift of fitness is egalitarian. Degree of difficulty is not an issue. We don't need to bench press our body weights. Cost is not an overcoming issue. Neither is multisport distance-limiting. You and I may not be able to podium in our age-groups, but as Ironman racing demonstrates, the ability to go long is attainable for the MOPer and BOPer. Tim DeBoom's two-hour run is available to you and me, it'll just take us an extra half-hour.

This is a photo essay. Whereas I'm usually too lazy to publish clickable larger views here on Slowtwitch, I'm making an exception in this case, starting with my photo of one of those magnificent Ahwanee fireplaces. This was taken at 5:30AM and includes the man who, for the past 15 years, has had the job of starting it up each Fall and Winter morning.

I do not stay in hotels except under the most extreme of protests. Unless I'm constrained to fly to my destination, I'll cinch my Northstar camper onto the back of the truck and that will be my home away from home. The sole exception to this is if I can stay in a historic grand lodge, such as exists in one of America's national parks. Yosemite's Ahwahnee is the grandest of them.


AHWAHNEE HOTEL	DINING ROOM	BREAKFAST NOOK	READING ROOM

There is one specific sensation that Yosemite gives me once I'm deep in the valley itself, and that is of verticality. Yes, your senses eventually adjust. But if you're staying at the Ahwahnee, or the campgrounds, or at Curry Village or any place near the "end of the road," it hits you again every morning when you awaken. As you come slowly alive, rub your eyes, regain consciousness, and take your first look around, you see walls of granite — everywhere, on all sides. And then you instinctively look up, to get a sense of the scope of this novel visual dimension. And you keep looking up, and up. There's nothing like it in the world, not that I've ever seen.

The photos below were taken while roaming around Yosemite in between runs. The two climbers below left, on El Capitan, were taken with a 10-times zoom. Click the thumbnail, and realize that the section of the rock you'll see is perhaps a twentieth of the entire 3200-foot ascent, which takes several days and requires sleeping in a triangle-shaped hammock bolted to that rock each night. Bridalveil Falls occurs as a rainbow, but only in the Fall, and only certain times of the afternoon. When looking at the entire valley (this is the view on the way in) you'll see El Cap in the foreground on the left and Half Dome in the far distance on the right. My daily one-hour run went past Half Dome.


CLIMBERS ON EL CAPITAN	BRIDALVEIL FALLS RAINBOW	YOSEMITE VALLEY	WILE-E-COYOTE

All the trails that leave from any of the destinations near the end of the Yosemite loop road converge into just two trails as you run further "in." One skirts the north side of the valley and one on the south side. These two trails eventually converge to make a loop, and running that entire loop will take a decent runner only about an hour to complete. Near the end of that loop you might choose to split off on a trail that leaves Yosemite Valley and ascends a set of switchbacks. This trail will take you to points further in, to Tuolumne Meadows, the back country, and the peaks of the High Sierras. But all of the photos below were taken while on the loop trail.


MIXED FOREST	BIGLEAF MAPLES	DOGWOODS	MERCED RIVER HEADWATERS

There are more plant species in the Rockies than are in the Sierras, but you wouldn't get that feeling while running in Yosemite. The loop trail written of above, on which I spent my mornings and evenings while in the park, is not more than 7 or 8 miles around but contained a wide variety of trees. Sometimes I was running in a pure conifer forest such as might be found in much of the Rockies. Yet only 100 yards down the trail I'd find myself in a hardwood forest more closely associated with the eastern part of the continent. When among almost pure stands of dogwood, maples and oaks it appeared more like the Appalachian Trail.


GRANITE STAIRS	HARDWOODS	SANDY BOTTOM	BLACK OAKS

But these were western versions of eastern-style hardwoods — bigleaf maples, pacific dogwoods, California black oaks — and these particular species are not found in the East. During late October and early November, the leaves turn, and while the Oaks and Maples become yellow the Dogwoods turn red. This is a treat for those of us on the Pacific Coast. Green, yellow and brown are our three Fall colors.

I was there from Sunday afternoon through Wednesday, and as far as I could tell there was no Tuesday Run, no Wednesday Ride, no track workout, no gathering at the LBS for a group hammer session. My multisport experience in Yosemite was not USAT-certified. I needed to show no membership card, I did not have to sign a waiver, and there was no pre-race meeting. There was no race last week in Yosemite. But I won my age-group. I won all the age-groups.

I saw one runner the entire time. There are more people visiting Yosemite now than ever before. Yet there are fewer walking the trails than ever before. These visitors come to see, not to do, for the most part. The exceptions were groups of children, from early to late teens. They were on the trails. Maybe doing in Yosemite has skipped a generation and is on its way back.

It is now the first week of November, not too hot and for most of North America not too cold for a run or a ride in God's Country. Fortuitously, God has placed some part of his Country within driving distance of just about all of us.