DRY CRIK Journal

We can’t see the Sierras from Dry Creek, but we look to the mountains as a gauge of our winters and future summers from our higher ground. The last storm brought nearly an inch of rainfall in Greasy at 2,000-3,000 feet and left in a little snow on the Kaweahs and the Great Western Divide.

The base of the elephant on Alta Peak is skirted by the Panther Gap Trail beginning at Wolverton, running above and parallel with the High Sierra Trail that begins at Crescent Meadow in Giant Forest, both headed across Buck Creek Canyon towards Bearpaw Meadow and Kaweah Gap (10,700').

Alta Peak 11,204') (elephant, barely visible in this photo) far left to right, Triple Divide Peak (12,634'), Lion Rock, Mt. Stewart (12,025'), Black Spur (North of Kaweah Gap), Lawson Peak, Eagle Scout Peak (12,000'), Kaweah Queen (13,282'), Black Kaweah (13,583'), Red Kaweah (13,720'), Lippincott Mountain, and Mt.Kaweah (13,802'). Sawtooth Peak (12,343') lies farther to the south, east of Mineral King.

Sawtooth through Remy Gap

Coincidently, I just received "The Sunny Top of California" by Norman Shaefer, my high school roommate my freshman year at boarding school. This is a wonderful collection of hands-on, Sierra Nevada Poems in the Snyderesque tradition:

Wind and melting snow,
crumbling spurs.
Boulders scattered like rubbish,
Charybdis: dark, alone.
Plants and animals biding their time,
follow the retreating ice.
Pines march up morraines
warmed by the sun.
Pearl white cumuli
boil overhead.
I climb toward cloudland
everything a/tilt.
Bouldering and mountaineering,
my body groes stronger.
Sleeping by streams,
my mind opens and clears.
Those years of higher learning
at boarding school and college:
better to have spent them here
reading the mountains like a book.

                - © 2010 Norman Schaefer

La Alameda Press
9636 Guadalupe Trail NW
Albuquerque, NM 87114
http://www.laalamedapress.com
$14 plus S&H. 108 pp.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Check-out Matthew J. Wrangle's transect through the foothills to the Great Western Divide: http://www.crowscry.com/matthew

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

February 18, 2008

An interesting aspect of the Great Western Divide looking through Remy Gap that separates the Kaweah River from the Greasy Creek watershed. On the left is Sawtooth Peak (12,343 ft.), Mineral Peak (11,404 ft.) middle and (I defer to Matt Rangel) Rainbow Mountain? (12,034 ft.).

Sawtooth is the backdrop for Mineral King Valley at 7,500 feet, once the short-lived mining town of Beulah. The area was also projected as a ski resort to be developed by Walt Disney in the late 1950s and 60s, but it is now a Wilderness Area as part of Sequoia National Park.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reconnaissance, From the Foothills to the Sierra © Matthew Rangle

We’re setting aside a separate category to include expression from the Kaweah River watershed. Matthew Rangel, San Joaquin Valley native and graduate student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, has begun preparations for a transect walk from his home in Dinuba to the Kaweah Peaks in conjunction with a grant from the Kings & Sequoia National Parks. For the artist’s statement and examples of his unique artwork: [copy & paste link]
http://www.summitpost.org/album/197330/matthew-rangel-s-art-work.html

John Spivey’s new book, “The Great Western Divide, A History with Crow, Coyote, Chaos and God” offers original and insightful perspectives on his journey through family generations to the source of the watershed. Concurrently, John is also working with experts towards reclamation of the Tulare Lake Basin, bottom of the watershed, as a template for health and spiritual healing.

The Exeter Book Garden and Bear State Books will begin readings this spring from John to complement this small town’s enlightened direction. Likewise, the intent of this category is to include local landmarks with art, story and poetry to enhance and enrich living within the Kaweah River watershed.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

© Matthew Rangel

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will one of you go
pretty please with
sugar on top
in my absence
a total stranger will do
salute the water tower
in my full name

Call out boldly
challenge that proud crow
who claims the grass
beneath it as his own
and I will be forever in
your gracious debt

Do rant and rave and
shake your fists at demon trucks
which shatter the quiet
of the Pancake House
As a further favor to me
let the iris blue of Sycamore Street
turn your head
as it turned mine years ago

Above all things just anyone
walk the rose fence foursquare
around Tulare District Cemetery
if the sky is clear east
of St. John’s Church
yell my best regards to the Sierra

                         - Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel
                         from "A Prince Albert Wind"

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

                          - for John Spivey

I think of you often
when I see our mountains
in crisp morning air
in golden afternoons’
last light, turning cold
when the sun goes

down behind your range
I wish

you were here to be
nurtured by the sight
as I am, could be here
to receive their praise,
bear witness to the love
in your heart. I think

of our other dear John
who lives up in their
crevices, marking his time
with words. I think of
dear Bill, who fishes
their granite pools, and Mike
who has hiked their spine
many times. I think

of the heart of my heart
who drew my eyes to knobs
and clefts, gave them names
and stories to match. I think

of all the love they’ve made
amongst our citizens, this county’s
generations of adventurers, pikes,
cowmen, fighters, ramblers, thieves
converted
in their honor, bound
to their magnitude
and magnificence. But John

there’s something I need you
to know: there’s no
snow up there, John, not
one flake and here
it is December already and
any that’s fallen has
melted away, already sunk deep
in Terminus. You can see

every edge clear from here
at Mt. Whitney Mini-Storage, the tops
of trees sharp as teeth
on a handsaw’s blade, blues and grays
distinct, no mistaking
ground for sky. So John

tell all your friends who drink
the Sacramento to go
easy this year

we might have to share.

                          December 2, 2007

LIGHT SHOW

Homer’s Nose is glistening
in this December light
no powder to deflect
the early morning rays
glancing off its shiny tip
granite polished by years
of hanging out
in snow

and wind

which is quiet right now
leaving the sun’s heat
where it hits

the street trees’ leaves
concrete not in shadow
south-facing roofs of houses
the curtained windows
of Lindsay Gardens

where inside there are noses
on snowy heads
in need of the sun
and wind

fresh air
and a kiss.

                        -Trudy Wischemann

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

                        for Happy Jack & Fran

I visit the people-side
of Lake Kaweah
as summer evening shimmers
on blinding ribbons
to pink Sierra teeth
& find Happy Jack among
50 cheap shoreline seats
beside a planted pole,
his line bobbing
in ski boat wakes.

“Have a beer,”
& off we run to topics
calloused hands
will never change
as V-8 power
foams in play
ignored before us.

“You know,”
he pauses without focus,
“I could sit here for hours –
but without this fishing pole
people’d think
I was crazy.”

                        - John C. Dofflemyer
                        from "Cattails & other poems"

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)